English Martyrs of 1886

As a group, these 54 martyrs represent a collective testimony of fidelity to the Catholic Church and to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Among the most prominent figures on this 1886 list are: - Saint John Fisher: Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is the only English bishop to openly oppose the King's divorce and the Act of Supremacy. Created a cardinal by Pope Paul III while imprisoned in the Tower of London, he was beheaded on June 22, 1535. - Saint Thomas More: A humanist of European renown, writer (author of Utopia), and former Lord Chancellor of England. Refusing to compromise his conscience by taking an oath that denied the authority of the Pope, he was beheaded on July 6, 1535. - The 18 Carthusian martyrs of London: Led by Saint John Houghton (Prior of the London Charterhouse), Saint Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster, they refused to break their monastic vows and their fidelity to Rome. The first of them were executed at Tyburn on May 4, 1535. - Blessed Margaret Pole: Countess of Salisbury and the last direct descendant of the Plantagenet dynasty. At 67 years old, she was executed by axe at the Tower of London on May 27, 1541, due to her family's opposition to the reforms of Henry VIII. - Saint Cuthbert Mayne: The first seminary priest trained at Douai to be martyred in England, executed on November 29, 1577. - Saint Edmund Campion: A brilliant Oxford academic who became a Jesuit priest. Having returned clandestinely to England, he published a famous manifesto to defend the Catholic faith before being arrested, tortured, and executed at Tyburn on December 1, 1581. - Blessed John Forest: A Franciscan priest and confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, burned alive at Smithfield on May 22, 1538. Their common work is not institutional, but spiritual: through their clandestine preaching, the administration of the sacraments at the peril of their lives, and their final sacrifice, they allowed for the survival of Catholicism in England during the centuries of clandestinity.

After the execution of the martyrs, the community of English recusant Catholics carefully preserved their memory and secretly collected their relics. In 1584, Pope Gregory XIII granted early official recognition to these martyrs. He authorized the painting of frescoes depicting their sufferings on the walls of the church of the English College in Rome (Venerable English College). These depictions were engraved on copper plates the same year under the title Sanctorum Martyrum, qui pro Christo Catholicaeque Fidei veritate asserenda antiquo recentiorique persecutionum tempore mortem in Anglia subierunt, Passiones. This liturgical privilege was equivalent to permission for public worship. In the 19th century, following the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales (1850), interest in the cause of the martyrs was reborn. In 1874, the Archdiocese of Westminster, under the leadership of Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, opened the ordinary process of beatification for a group of 353 alleged martyrs. The Jesuit priest John Morris was appointed postulator of the cause and conducted extensive archival research in England, Belgium, and Rome to document each case.

On December 29, 1886, by the decree of approval of equivalent cult (or equipollent beatification) entitled Anglia Sanctorum Insula (England, Island of Saints), Pope Leo XIII officially confirmed the cult of 54 English martyrs. This decision was based on the "exceptional case" (casus exceptus) provided for by the legislation of Urban VIII, validated by the decrees and engravings authorized by Gregory XIII in 1584. No miracle was required for this beatification, as the historical martyrdom and ancient cult had been formally proven.

Subsequently, several members of this group of 54 were canonized individually: - Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More were canonized on May 19, 1935, by Pope Pius XI. - 11 other martyrs of this group (including Edmund Campion, Cuthbert Mayne, John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, Augustine Webster, Richard Reynolds, John Payne, Luke Kirby, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant) were canonized on October 25, 1970, by Pope Paul VI, as part of the group of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The other members of the 1886 group continue to be venerated under the status of Blessed.

The spirituality of the English martyrs rests upon an absolute fidelity to personal conscience and to the visible unity of the universal Church, symbolized by communion with the Apostolic See of Rome. Faced with royal absolutism that demanded total religious submission, they recalled the fundamental distinction between duties toward the State and duties toward God.

Their legacy is immense for the Church in England and Wales. They are considered the fathers of the Catholic restoration of the 19th century. The Tyburn Convent, located in London very close to the former site of the executions, perpetuates their memory today through perpetual adoration and the preservation of numerous relics.

The collective feast of these martyrs is set for May 4. This date was chosen in memory of May 4, 1535, the day when the first martyrs of the Reformation (the Carthusian fathers and the secular priest John Haile) were executed at Tyburn.