A memorial to a martyr (in the wrong place)
Gruesome deaths, heads on spikes, tortured traitors – this old city was built on blood and gore, as any visitor to the York Dungeon knows. But even by these standards, the execution of Margaret Clitherow was particularly unpleasant.
Born Margaret Middleton in 1556, she married butcher John Clitherow and they had three children. Margaret converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 21 – a brave thing to do at a time when intense paranoia and persecution was levelled at Catholics in England. More risky still, she regularly held Masses at her home in Shambles. Priests were hidden in a secret room and a hole was cut through from the attic to the neighbouring house to allow them to escape if the authorities raided her home.
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Address 35 Shambles, York YO1 7LZ, +44 (0)1904 621756 | Public Transport 4-minute walk from Shambles or Piccadilly car park. Closest bus stops: on Stonebow | Hours Open daily| Tip Today’s Ouse Bridge, which replaced the one on which Margaret Clitherow was martyred, bears a plaque marking her death.
When a raid did take place, no priest was found – but the secret room was discovered. Margaret was arrested and accused of harbouring Catholic priests. Appearing before the York Assizes at the Guildhall, she refused to plead in order to save her children being forced to testify, possibly under pain of torture. The penalty was being crushed to death.
On Good Friday 1586, she was taken to Ouse Bridge and laid out on a sharp rock. The door from her own house was put on top of her and slowly loaded with heavy rocks and stones. Although she died within 15 minutes, the weights were left in place for about six hours. A relic, said to be her right hand, is preserved at the Bar Convent in York; the last resting place of her body is unknown.
Margaret, also known as “the Pearl of York,” was made a saint in 1970. Thousands of people a year visit her shrine in Shambles – although most experts agree that her real home was at No. 10, on the opposite side of the road. Despite this, the shrine gives a real sense of what her life would have been like in those dark days.
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