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An Elizabethan Martyrologist and his Martyr: John Mush and Margaret Clitherow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Claire Cross
Claire Cross*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

On 25 March 1586 for refusing to plead on a charge of harbouring Catholic priests Margaret Clitherow was pressed to death in York.

She was in dying one quarter of an hour, a sharp stone as much as a man’s fist put under her back; upon her was laid to the quantity of seven or eight hundreth weight, at the least, which, breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth of the skin. Thus most victoriously this gracious martyr overcame all her enemies, passing [from] this mortal life with marvellous triumph into the peaceable city of God, there to receive a worthy crown of endless immortality and joy.

This quotation forms the climax of A True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs Margaret Clitherow, written by the seminary priest John Mush within three months of her death. Mush produced his work with a quite explicit didactic purpose.

It hath been a laudable custom in all ages from the beginning of Christ his church [he wrote on the first page] to publish and truly set forth the singular virtues of such her children as either in their lives by rare godliness did shine above the rest, or by their patient deaths most stoutly overcame all barbarous cruelty, and both by their lives and deaths glorified God, encouraged to like victory their faithful brethren, and with invincible fortitude confounded the persecuting tyrants…

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 30: Martyrs and Martyrologies , 1993 , pp. 271 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 John Mush, ‘A True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs. Margaret Clidierow’, late sixteenth-century manuscript in York Minster Library, T. D. 1 [hereafter YML, T.D. 1], fol. 671.; printed in Morris, J., ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers related by themselves, ser. 3 (London, 1877), p. 432 Google Scholar. Apart from book-titles, spelling has been modernized throughout.

2 YML T.D. I, fol. Ir, damaged, missing part supplied from York Bar Convent, V 69, p. 1; Morris, Troubles, p. 360.

3 York City Archives Housebook, 26 fols, 68v, 97v-98v; Quarter Sessions Minute Book, F 3, fols 667r, 739r; E 22, fol. 192r; Borthwick Institute, York, PRY/MCS I, fol. 57r; H C AB, 9 fols, 94v, 160r, 165r, 183r, 212v; H C AB 10, fols 51v, 101r; H C bonds 101; M. Claridge [K. Longley], Margaret Clitherow (London, 1966), p. 188; K. Longley, Si Margaret Clitherow (Wheathampstead, 1986), pp. 1–2.

4 YML T.D. 1, fols 5r, 8r-v, 11v, 16r, 20r, 24r, 25v, 27r, 30v, 31V, 34v, 36v, 40r, 41v, 45r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 358, 368–9, 395.

5 YMLT.D. I, fols 46r, 49v, 64v, 48v, 50r, 52v, 53r—v; Morris, Troubles, pp. 411, 413, 416, 417.

6 YMLT.D. 1, fols 58v, 65v, 68r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 422, 430, 433.

7 YML Add. MS 151; Mush, John, An Abstracte of the Life and Martirdome of Mistres Margaret Clitherowe… (Mackline, 1696 Google Scholar, repr. Scolar Press, 1979); for scholarly discussion of the manuscript versions of The True Report see Claridge, Margaret Clitherow, pp. 182–3 anc Longley; Saint Margaret Clitherow, p. 192; YML T.D. I, fol. 29v; Morris, Troubles, pp. 392–3.

8 Aveling, H., The Catholic Recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire 1558–1790 — Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 10, pt 6 (1963), p. 218 Google Scholar; Rex, R., ‘Thomas Vavasour, M.D.’, Recusant History, 20 (1991), pp. 436–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wadham, J, ‘Saint Margaret Clitherow her “Trial” on trial’, Ampleforth Journal, 76 (1971), p. 21 Google Scholar; Claridge, , Margaret Clitherow, pp. 54—5 Google Scholar.

9 Meyer, A. O., England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth (London, 1915), p. 97.Google Scholar

10 Meyer, , England and the Catholic Church, pp. 109–10 Google Scholar.

11 Quoted in McGrath, P., Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (London, 1967), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

12 Quoted in Meyer, England and the Catholic Church, p. 244.

13 YML T.D. I, fols 2r, 3r; Morris, Troubles, p. 362.

14 YML T.D. I, fols 16r, 16v-17r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 378, 379.

15 YML T.D. 1, fols 19v, 27r, 30r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 382, 390, 393; Stacpoole, A., ‘York Martyrs’, in Stacpoole, A., ed., The Noble City of York (York, 1972), p. 694 Google Scholar.

16 YMLT.D. 1, fol. 35r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 397–8.

17 Stacpoole, The Noble City, p. 715; YMLT.D. I.fols 31v-32r; Morris, Troubles, p. 395.

18 Longley, K. M., ‘The “Trial” of Margaret Clitherow’, Amplefort Journal, 75 (1960), pp. 335–64 Google Scholar; YML T.D. 1, fol. 49r Morris, Troubles, p. 412.

19 YML T.D. I, fols 56v, 58r; Morris, Troubles, pp. 420, 422.

20 YML T.D. I, fol. 75r-v; Morris, Troubles, p. 436.

21 YML T.D. I, fol. 87v, damaged, missing part supplied from York Bar Convent, V 69, pp. 137–8; Morris, Troubles, p. 440.

22 Quoted in Morris, Troubles, p. 359.