Saints of the Day: The English Martyrs

The English Martyrs

Commemorated on May 4.

These forty saints died for their faith between 1535 and 1679 in England. They were selected from 200 already beatified by earlier popes. They were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. In 2001 their feast was moved to this day. Following the break with the Catholic Church, the English rulers persecuted Catholics and Protestants who differed from the Established or Anglican Church. Among those martyred early on was St. Thomas More, who had been chancellor to Henry VIII and Bishop St. John Fisher, the only Catholic prelate to remain faithful to the worldwide Church.

Thirteen were seminary priests, ten were Jesuits, three Benedictines, three Carthusian monks, one Brigettine, two Franciscans, and one Augustinian friar. The rest were lay people: four men and three women.

They are: Saint John Almond; Edmund Arrowsmith; Ambrose Barlow; John Boste; Alexander Briant; Edmund Campion; Margaret Clitherow; Philip Evans; Thomas Garnet; Edmund Gennings; Richard Gwyn; John Houghton; Phillip Howard; John Jones; John Kemble; Luke Kirby; Robert Lawrence; David Lewis; Anne Line; John Lloyd; Cuthbert Mayne; Henry Morse; Nicholas Owen; John Paine; Polydore Plasden; John Plessington; Richard Reynolds; John Rigby; John Roberts; Alban Roe; Ralph Sherwin; Robert Southwell; John Stone; John Wall; Henry Walpole; Margaret Ward; Augustine Webster; Swithun Wells; Eustace White.