Margaret Clitherow, née Middleton, had married a…
March 1586 CE
Margaret Clitherow, née Middleton, had married a widower, John Clitherow, a butcher twice her age, in 1571.
Brought up in a Protestant England, she had converted in 1574 to Roman Catholicism.
She refused to attend the Anglican Church and was repeatedly fined for refusing.
Thus, on June 6, 1576, she was designated a recusant (i.e., one who fails to attend Anglican services).
Because she was pregnant, she was excused from having to report to a council the following November, but she was later imprisoned for nearly a year.
Clitherow had allowed secret masses to be celebrated in her home, where she also hid Roman Catholic missionary priests.
After further imprisonments and releases, she is seized on March 10, 1586, during a raid on her home.
Her fate is sealed, for a law of 1583 had made aiding Jesuits and seminary priests punishable by death.
She refuses to plead guilty or innocent, stating that only God can judge her, and on March 25 is executed by being slowly crushed to death with an eight hundred-pound weight.
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