There’s a fascinating article in the current issue (Issue 22) of Tudor Places magazine. Actually, there are several, but this one is about Margaret Clitheroe (Clitherow), a Yorkshire woman who was accused and convicted of recusancy (the refusal of individuals to attend Church of England services after the Reformation). Now, we know all about the Reformation, yes? Initiated by Martin Luthor in around 1517, but taken to new levels by Henry VIII because the Pope didn’t allow him to marry an unlimited number of women. Anyway, that’s the Reformation. Back to Margaret Clitheroe.
She was imprisoned October 1580 to April 1581, and Spring 1583 to Winter 1584. Her husband, a Protestant, was fined several times for her refusal to attend church because women were mere chattels and were not permitted to even own property (which was particularly tough for a woman who became widowed, because she then lost title and use of the family home). Margaret was imprisoned in the York Castle Complex where “only those Catholics considered the most dangerous and influential” were imprisoned. While she was in the Castle, Margaret taught herself to read English (presumably she could read Latin which was the primary language of scholars at that time. When she was released, she became even more evangelical about her faith.
She fasted 4 days a week; an act her husband did not approve of but didn’t interfere with, and she created spaces in her house for priests to hide. During the 1580s she was known to sneak out of the house to pray for priests executed by the state. It is said she often walked to the site of the gallows barefoot, as if it were a place of pilgrimage. There, she would kneel, praying in the blood and entrails of those executed. She knew some of the priests personally and two of them had visited her house.
Margaret is believed to have been pregnant at the time of her peine forte et dure sentence. Relatives and advisors told her to reveal her condition to the authorities; she refused (perhaps wisely, given the brutality of the state against Catholics at that time). Margaret was killed in one of York’s busiest thoroughfares as a stark warning to other recusants. Her body was recovered 6 weeks later by her confessor, and buried with Catholic rituals; he later published an account of her life.
Margaret’s children followed in her footsteps: daughter Anne became a nun in Louvain. Her son, Henry, studied at the English Colleges in Rheims and Rome. One stepson was imprisoned for recusancy and died in Hull prison in 1604; the other became a seminary priest in 1608. Margaret’s story ends in 1970 when she was canonised by Pope Paul VI.
Anyway, if you’re interested in Tudor history, I do recommend Tudor Places magazine.