http://catholictradition.org/Saints/clitherow.htmWhen Margaret Clitherow was executed she was the same age as Christ, 33 and like our Savior she was stripped of her clothing. Her nakedness was actually a part of her sentence, one of the harshest of the 40 English Martyrs, of which but three were woman: she was put to death by being crushed under a large door loaded with heavy weights, most painful, most exceedingly painful. She was born on the Feast of the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived in the Immaculate womb of Our Lady. In England at the time The Feast of the Annunciation was called Lady Day.
English law prescribed this form of execution because she would not plead; she did this for the sake of her four children [she had three born and one in her womb, it is thought] and her servants from being pressured to give evidence against her and thus save the jury from participating in sentencing her to death. In that case, if she had plead, it is thought she may not have received this form of execution.
St. Margaret was canonized in 1970 as one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales.
I have provided but a small portion of the history of this great Saint of England, which is really the history of Catholics under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and in a much less severe, unbloody manner, our history as well: While Margaret Clitherow and her fellow Martyrs suffered under their own government, we endure a dry martyrdom, less at the hands of our American government [but that is coming, too], but by our fellow Catholics in the various chanceries and even on the parish level. Just try telling a modern Catholic about your love for the Roman Mass, and they move away as if you were a dread disease or an English "recusant
Topic: Catholic English Martyrs (Read 159 times)