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

Abstract

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…