On April 26, 1535, Thomas Cromwell[1] and his advisors came to the Tower of London in order to urge Saint John Houghton and his companions to submit themselves to the authority of the king
Catholic author, Leo Knowles, in his The Prey of the Priest Catchers,[2] offered this typical dialogue between the accusers and their victims, as well as a description of the trials and executions of Catholic martyrs, under the yoke of the despotic king, Henry VIII.
“Kings are by divine right, superior to priests, bishops and the Pope himself,” he [Thomas Cromwell] declared, quoting the Old Testament cases of David, Solomon, Ezekias and Cyrus in support of his claim.
“But the Roman Church has always taught to the contrary” declared the prisoners. They would stand firm in the Catholic faith, which could not be contrary to divine law, and they would accept the king’s supremacy only so far as divine law allowed.
“I will have no conditions,” roared Cromwell, “I care nothing what the Church believed or taught.”
“The supremacy of the Pope is necessary for salvation,” insisted John Houghton, “instituted by Christ for the conservation of the Church.”
“What care I for the Church?” Cromwell stormed. “Will you consent or will you not?
“Disobey the Church? Renounce the Church? Never!” was John’s reply.
The record of this interrogation, still preserved in London’s Public Record Office, shows that the other two Carthusians showed no less spirit:
“Robert Lawrence says there is one Catholic Church of which the Bishop of Rome is the head, therefore he cannot believe that the king is supreme head of the Church… Augustine Webster says that he cannot take the king to be supreme head of the Church, but him that is by the doctors of the Church taken as head of the Church, that is, the Bishop of Rome.”
On April 29 the four Religious were tried in Westminster Hall and accused of “treacherously machinating to deprive the king of his title of supreme head of the Church of England.” This was nonsense, for they had plotted against no one; they had only asked to be left in peace.
The Carthusians were the first martyrs to die under the reign of Henry VIII. Two more were killed on June 19 of that year and by August 4, 1540, all 18 had been tortured and killed for refusing to place their allegiance to the king before their allegiance to the Pope.
Knowles goes on to tell of the final degradation and glorious martyrdom of the group:
Three hurdles were dragged over the rough London cobblestones on that Thursday morning nearly 450 years ago. On the first, two priests were tied together, on the second two more. The fifth priest was tied alone on the remaining hurdle.
As the crowd got its first glimpse of them a gasp ran along its ranks. By the king’s special order, the four religious had been tied to the hurdles wearing their religious habits, a thing never before seen in England.
Three of the victims—John Houghton,[3] Augustine Webster, and Robert Lawrence—were Carthusians, each the prior of a different Charterhouse. Richard Reynolds was a member of the Bridgettine Order and John Halle was a secular priest aged almost 80.
Feet up behind the horses’ tails, heads only an inch from the ground, the five priests bumped and scraped their way towards Tyburn. Through mud, puddles, rotting garbage and horse dung the horses dragged them until the white Carthusian habits were, like the victims’ faces, covered in filth.
Halfway along the route the procession stopped and the condemned men were offered a bowl of ale. As the hurdles were raised and the drink held to their lips, a woman stepped forward from the crowd and wiped the bespattered faces. She asked and received a blessing and the procession moved on.
We do no know the order the five were dragged to Tyburn, but it is probable that John Houghton, prior of the London Charterhouse, was one of the pairs on the first hurdle, for we know that he was the first to die. Besides, King Henry and his chief secretary, Thomas Cromwell, must have wanted the crowds to take a good look at this renowned confessor and spiritual director, head of one of the greatest London monasteries, as his penalty for his loyalty to Rome.
The prior of the London Carthusian monastery, cried out, ‘O most holy Jesus, have mercy upon me in this hour.”
This was the punishment for treason in sixteenth-century England. Their crime? Refusal to recognize ‘the king, our sovereign, to be the supreme head of the Church of England afore the Apostles of Christ’s Church.’
Catholic historian, Dennis Martin, who teaches Medieval and Reformation History at Loyola University in Chicago, offered this perception:
No one had ever questioned the piety, learning, and spiritual vitality of the Carthusians and the Bridgettines. Their monastic houses were frequented by devout lay people for prayer and spiritual growth. In fact, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer,[4] who knew two of the victims personally, opposed the executions, but only because he hoped the monks could eventually be convinced to recognize the king as head of the church. And that gives us a clue as to what many recent historians think is the real nature of the English Reformation.” [5]
On May 4, 1535, in London, three Carthusian monks and one Bridgettine monk and one secular priest were executed.
The exact number of Henry’s victims varies widely. Some suggest that as many as 72,000 people were executed during his reign, yet other estimates are much lower. It was a violent age and, compared to other monarchs, he was not considered particularly bloodthirsty. It was his daughter, Mary, who would earn the epithet, ‘Bloody’.[6]
The second half of Henry’s reign was stained with the executions of wives, relatives, close friends and confidantes. Henry must have feared for his soul as only nine days before his death, his last victim, Henry Howard,[7] Earl of Surrey, was beheaded on Tower Hill on January 19, 1547, at the age of 29.[8] It was not until the morning of January 31st that Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley[9] announced to parliament that Henry VIII was dead. On that same day young Edward VI (1537-1553) was brought to the Tower and proclaimed King. The heralds cried ‘The King is dead! Long live the King!’
On February 14th, Henry VIII’s body began its final journey from Whitehall to Windsor. It took sixteen very strong Yeomen of the Guard to carry the coffin into the church and lower it into the vault in the choir of St. George’s Chapel.[10] The great Henry now lies under a simple, 19th century black marble floor slab that reads, “In a vault beneath this marble slab are deposited the remains of Jane Seymour, Queen of King Henry VIII, 1537, and King Henry VIII, 1547.
These 18 Carthusian monks were put to death in England under King Henry VIII between 1535-1540 for maintaining their allegiance to the Pope.
The Carthusians, founded by St. Bruno in 1054, are the strictest and most austere monastic order in the western Church. They live an austere hermitic life, their ‘monastery’ actually being a number of hermitages built next to each other.
When Henry VIII issued his “Act of Supremacy” declaring that all who refused to take an oath recognizing him as head of the Church of England committed an act of high treason, these 18 Carthusians refused and were sentenced to death.
The Carthusians were the first martyrs to die under the reign of Henry VIII.
The first to die were the Carthusian prior of London, John Houghton, and two of his brothers, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster, who were hanged, drawn and quartered, on May 4, 1535. The prior is said to have declared his fidelity to the Catholic Church and forgiven his executioners before dying.
The fact that so many Christian martyrs were willing to be tortured, humiliated, and brutally murdered instead of renouncing their friendship with Christ shows how deeply their lives had been changed and enriched by that friendship.
Carthusian Martyrs of London were beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. Three of them were drawn, hanged and quartered at Tyburn on May 4, 1535: John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse, Robert Lawrence, Prior of Beauvale in Nottinghamshire, and Augustine Webster, Prior of Axholme in Lincolnshire. They were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
On June 18, three more were executed: William E. Exmere, Humphrey Middlemore, and Sebastian Newdigate. They were beatified Dec. 29, 1886.
At York, eleven others of the brethren were put to death: John Rochester, James Walworth, John (Richard) Bere, Thomas Johnson, Thomas Greenway, all priests; John Davis, deacon, William Greenwood, Thomas Scriven, Robert Salt, Walter Pierson and Thomas Redynge, laybrothers. Blessed William Horne shared the captivity of the rest, but was executed at a later period, 4 Aug. 1540.
All 18 had been tortured and killed for refusing to place their allegiance to the king before their allegiance to the Pope.
[1] Thomas Cromwell (1485 – 1540), 1st Earl of Essex, KG, PC was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540, when he was decapitated on orders of the king. Cromwell was one of the strongest and most powerful advocates of the English Reformation.
[2] Leo Knowles, The Prey of the Priest Catchers, (St. Paul: Carillon Books), 1980, pp. 16-17; 55-56.
[3] Saint John Houghton, O.Cart., (c. 1486 – 4 May 1535) was a Carthusian hermit and Catholic priest and the first English Catholic martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first member of his Order to die a martyr’s death.
[4] Thomas Cranmer, (born July 2, 1489, Aslacton, Nottinghamshire, England—died March 21, 1556, Oxford), the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury (1533–56), adviser to the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. As archbishop, he put the English Bible in parish churches, drew up the Book of Common Prayer, and composed a litany that remains in use today. Denounced by the Catholic queen Mary I for promoting Protestantism, he was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake.
[5] Dennis Martin, Christian History, Issue 48, Volume XIV, Number 4.
[6] The name “Bloody Mary” is associated with Queen Mary I of England, who was nicknamed as such in Foxe’s anti-Catholic Book of Martyrs for attempting to re-establish the Catholic Church in England. Mary had had 287 Protestants executed during her five-year reign as compared to her father, King Henry VIII, the king, whose motto was “true heart” who had two of his wives beheaded, a number of close friends executed without mercy, and was responsible for 57,000 deaths (conservative estimate). After Mary’s death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, at the beginning of the 45-year Elizabethan Era.
[7] Henry Howard (1517-1547), Earl of Surrey, KG, an English nobleman, was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He was a first cousin of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine Howard, second and fifth wives of King Henry VIII. Surrey was beheaded on 19 January 1547 on a charge of treasonably quartering the royal arms.
[8] Jessie Childs, Henry VIII’s Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007, p. 311.
[9] Thomas Wriothesley (1505-1550),1st Earl of Southampton, was an English peer, secretary of state, Lord Chancellor and Lord High Admiral.
[10] At his death, Henry had a 52” waist and weighed almost 400 pounds. Additionally, his body was encased in a lead coffin. The king had left money for daily “masses” to be said for his soul until the end of the world. But the Protestant rulers of Edward VI’s government stopped the masses after a year.