Mother and Martyr

Born as Margaret Middleton around 1556 in York, England, Margaret Clitherow is also known as the “Pearl of York.” She is one of the Forty Martyrs of the persecution in England and Wales.

Margaret was born to Thomas and Jane Middleton and raised in the Church of England. She made candles and became the Sheriff of York for two years. Margaret married John Clitherow, a wealthy butcher and chamberlain of the city of York, on July 8, 1571. She converted to Catholicism around 1574. Margaret was imprisoned several times during the persecution — sometimes for two years at a time — for her Catholic faith and for sheltering priests (including her husband’s brother, though her husband was not Catholic). She also permitted Masses to be celebrated on her property. Some of the priests Margaret harboured became martyrs, and she hoped for martyrdom herself, as a witness to her love for God and the Faith.

Margaret was arrested again on March 10, 1586 and was tried in Tyburn four days later. On trial, she refused to answer any of the charges for fear of incriminating her servants and her little children. (Both of her sons, Henry and William, later became priests and her daughter, Anne, a nun.)

Margaret was sentenced to death by peine forte et dure — being pressed to death. Her response to her mode of execution was, “God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this.” Although she thought she was with child, her sentence was carried out on Good Friday, March 25, 1586.

The night before her death, Margaret endured an agony of fear much like Christ in the Garden of Eden, but she trusted in the Lord and appeared on the day of her death peaceful and smiling, apparently filled with joy. Urged at the last minute to confess her crimes, she replied, “I die for the love of my Lord Jesu.”

Margaret died very courageously. She was laid on the ground with a sharp stone beneath her back and her hands stretched out in the form of a cross, bound to two posts. The executioners placed a door upon her, which was weighted down until she was crushed to death after fifteen minutes of agony. Her last words were “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy on me!”

Though her burial place is unknown, her right hand is preserved at St. Mary’s Convent in York. She was beatified in 1929 and canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

Other Saints We Remember Today

St. Mary Salome (1st Century), mother of Apostles James and John, daughter of St. Mary of Cleophas