SAINT Margaret Clitherow had committed a capital offence by hiding Catholic priests in her home in York in 1586.
She lived during the English Reformation when Queen Elizabeth I had evicted Catholic priests from the country; any priests who remained in the country had committed treason.
Queen Elizabeth had also imprisoned and executed devout Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.
Margaret, a faithful Catholic, refused to partake in the emerging protestant church.
In fact, she had been fined multiple times for not attending the church.
On March 10, 1586, Margaret was arrested for harbouring a priest in her house.
She refused to enter a plea and said, “I know of no offense whereof I should confess myself guilty. Having made no offense, I need no trial.”
Judge George Clinch found her to have “harboured and maintained Jesuits and seminary priests, traitors to the Queen’s majesty and her laws”.
He condemned her to execution by being stripped naked, laid upon sharp rocks and pressed into them with weights.
She replied to Judge Clinch, “God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this.”
When he asked her to recant again, she said, “No, no, Mr Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesu.”
Margaret was 29 years old and pregnant with her fourth child when she was condemned to death.
In the days leading up to her execution, she sewed her own funeral shroud.
Other accounts suggest she sewed something to wear for her execution because the idea of being naked through the ordeal was the only thing that really worried her.
Judge Clinch denied this small dignity.
Her execution took place 15 days after her trial on March 25.
As Judge Clinch had promised, she was blindfolded, stripped, bound and laid on sharp rocks.
A door, likely the door of her house, was laid on top of her and heavy weights were added to press her down into the sharp rocks.
It took 15 minutes for her to die.
She cried “Jesu! Have mercy on me!” three times and died.
Her body was left in the press all day.
St Margaret’s hand is kept at St Mary’s Convent in York.
