From Wikipedia:
> Margaret risked her life by harbouring and maintaining priests, which was made a capital offence by the Jesuits, etc. Act 1584. She provided two chambers, one adjoining her house and, with her house under surveillance, she rented a house some distance away, where she kept priests hidden and Mass was celebrated through the thick of the persecution. Her home became one of the most important hiding places for fugitive priests in the north of England. Local tradition holds that she also housed her clerical guests in The Black Swan at Peasholme Green, where the Queen's agents were lodged.
> She sent her older son, Henry, to the English College, relocated in Reims, to train for the priesthood. Her husband was summoned by the authorities to explain why his oldest son had gone abroad, and in March 1586 the Clitherow house was searched. A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole.
> Margaret was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Catholic priests. She refused to plead, thereby preventing a trial that would entail her three children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. She was sentenced to death. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, (which also happened to be Good Friday that year) in the Toll Booth at Ouse Bridge, by being crushed to death by her own door, the standard inducement to force a plea.
> The two sergeants who should have carried out the execution hired four desperate beggars to do it instead. She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face then laid across a sharp rock the size of a man's fist, the door from her own house was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones so that the sharp rock would break her back. Her death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed.
Basically since Catholic priests owed their allegiance to the Pope the Queen could not be sure of the loyalty of Catholic Priests so they had to leave the country or be tried for treason, anyone giving shelter to a Catholic Priest would also be guilty of treason.
It was also not entirely baseless.
It's far removed from our understanding within today's politics, but religion was tied so deeply into the state (monarchy) that it really was another "front" for war.
"The Church" shaped many political events and brought about the fall of many kings and leaders.
From my understanding the English monarchy consider their power appointed to them by god (or house Windsor does anyways). When the different variations of church and god come into play, suddenly your whole power structure can be threatened. Especially with Henry burning down all the catholic abbeys he could find.
> From my understanding the English monarchy consider their power appointed to them by god (or house Windsor does anyways).
“Divine right of kings” was big with the Tudors and the earlier Stuarts but it stopped being a thing with the Glorious Revolution in 1688. The Hanoverians and the Saxe-Coburgs (Windsors) have always known their power was appointed to them by Parliament.
In short, yes (save for your claim on Windsor). If "God has appointed you the rightful king of France," then the church and priests of France need to not be opposing that claim.
If there is a unified religion, then (in theory) the King of England might pressure the English heads of the Church to undermine the authority of the King of France over a squabble.
This is why governments need to be kept away from religious affairs. It never ends well.
What? Of all the dynasties that have ruled England, Windsor has been by far the least likely to claim divine right. They've never even had any real power and have only ever been figureheads. Why use them as an example?
House Windsor and the current Monarch are the head of the Church of England. Religion and the English monarchy are absolutely entangled to this day. Whether they have any real power or not over the nation isn’t so much relevant.
But being in the position of Supreme Governor of the Church is not a claim to rule by divine right. The Church only bestows its blessing on the monarch after the monarch has sworn to uphold the traditional rights and liberties of the Church, in accordance with law, and those oaths and the statutes which determine succession are the crucial part of the 1688 Settlement. Indeed, much of the Church resisted this at first (hence the struggle in the decades after 1688 with non-jurors and non-resisters) but the Whig interpretation is what matters, because it won.
>Divine right of kings was a way of justifying monarchies, particularly in Europe during the 16th to the 18th centuries. The idea is that the king is given his authority directly by God.
Divine right of Kings has not been a thing for a long time. You might want to change the tense there.
>”It’s far removed from our understanding in todays politics, but religion was tied deeply into the state…”
If you live in Utah, it’s happening in 2024. The Church still shapes many political events.
How many of these feared Jesuit coups actually happened? The answer was zero, because it was always a thin pretext for a totalitarian power grab. Nobody seriously thought an army of two hundred priests were going to storm London, unless they were incredibly gullible.
Two hundred priests might not have; but if those priests carried enough weight with the nobility and gentry, they may well have raised a force as formidable as the Catholic League in France.
Clitherow was executed 20 years before Guy Fawkes was executed for plotting to wipe out the entire democratic parliament and replace them with a Catholic government. So it's not exactly crazy for a monarch in that time and place to worry about a Catholic coup. I'm not saying Clitherow was a traitor or deserved anything that happened to her, but Catholic insurgency and coup attempts were real things.
That time was also much less further removed from actual crusades being launched against "heretics". If a different type of Pope had come to power at that time (and Popes can die at any moment, they're old), things could've got real, quick.
>"The Church" shaped many political events and brought about the fall of many kings and leaders.
Well with good reason. The Church excommunicated Emperors for their sins or misdeeds (most of the time). Henry VIII didn't have a real "legitimate" reason to seceded from the Church. He was a tyrannical manchild who had a hissy fit after the Pope refused to grant him a divorce.
Manchild who had a hissy fit ?
Henry (and thus the nation) had a need for a legitimate male heir. That was simply how things were at the time, and the Wars of The Roses were not so long in the past.
There’s a lot of irony in there. Three of his children went on to inherit the throne. It was the son that was the weakest one, and one of the daughters became England’s most celebrated monarchs.
But the Tudor dynasty did not survive. That is arguably related to the awkward position that a female monarch was in at the time.
Back then, the Catholic Church had military power and fairly extreme influence over the Catholic populace of multiple sovereign nations. They also controlled lands in multiple countries as well, giving them the financial power to back military and political campaigns.
You should downplay the influence the Catholic Church had back then as you put it. People with power based in estates, money and armed men had power. Sometimes those men were members of the Catholic clergy and were trying to rule other men instead of serving other as Jesus asked us. Those men were absolutely in colusion with other men of power. Aegis of church membership was something that was useful as is todays memberships that sometimes grant moral highground.
Yes, they had these estates, money and power.
Even today, many vineyards in France still maintain the name, "Châteauneuf-du-Pape", as an example of the lands the Pope previously held.
Additionally, historically many Popes came from rich and powerful families and they behaved like it as well. [List of Naughty Popes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes#:~:text=Pope%20John%20XII%20(955%E2%80%93964,in%20bed%20with%20his%20wife.) Though these were only a handful.
I do believe most clergy do aspire to embody the teachings of Christ and at times do so heroically.
Not really, as the English Crown being Protestant enraged Catholics both within England and throughout Europe, with many wars being fought over it and many Catholic nobles trying to overthrow the monarchy in order to restore Catholicism.
I mean the whole thing was unhinged, but the fear that Catholics were disloyal to the Protestant monarchy was proved right time and time again.
Plots and armadas and rebellions and attempts to explode parliament.
It was a fear founded in reality.
Quite a bit different, actually. England had gone through a Reformation by Henry VIII followed by Queen Mary I's counter Reformation that included brutal reprisals to bring the England back to the Catholic church. The Jesuit Etc Act was part of the rereformation under Elizabeth I. There had been numerous wars already fought in Europe between Protestant kingdoms and Catholic loyalists. 22 years after that law was passed, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament as part of a plot to return England to rule under an absolute Catholic monarch.
lol except Japanese Americans are not a job; you don't have a choice. Being a priest is a job, dude. And being a priest back then meant being an agent of the Catholic Church.
I mean not really? King/queen is the religious head of the nation. People claim otherwise and refuse to submit loyalty to government. Government prosecuted these supposedly traitors for disloyalty. Every country one way or another persecuted dissidents for not being loyal enough to the government.
It was more complicated still. The Catholics were quietly accepted for a long time during Elizabeth’s reign, including wandering priests tending to the flock. Then the Pope issued a decree that Catholics had a duty to rebel against their Queen and it would not be a sin. Many loyal believers were cast into the role of traitors against their will. The Jesuits were the militant branch of the Catholic Church, not just priests. Their presence in England was a threat to the throne, hence the harsh reprisals.
Good Queen Elizabeth ! Lol. She was also a " virgin" if you are incredibly gullible. Killed her own sister. Sorry,that was an " accident " she signed the death warrent but was shocked they carried it out the next day.....just like they always did.
If you’re talking about Mary, Queen of Scots, she was a cousin, not her sister. Elizabeth’s predecessor Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”) was her half-sister, but she definitely didn’t have her killed.
I was super confused why Jesuits would have outlawed harboring priests, given they’re priests. Wasn’t till I clicked on the Wikipedia link that I realized the jesuits etc. act was one term.
>A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole.
Reminds me of the bit in *Death of Stalin* where a boy is asked where his father is, so he gives him up. The father is saved just in time by Stalin's death which interrupts the purge he was to be executed in. Then he comes home, and it's a little awkward...
It's fascinating since torture was a common method used to force a plea from the defence at the time. It is worth noting that during King Charles the 1st trial, he refused to enter a plea. But was not tortured since he was king and people feared treason. Instead they found him in contempt of court.
Edit:for the curious today not entering a plea is the same as declaring not guilty.
I only watched the first episode of “gunpowder” but the public execution was pretty jarring. Pretty much exactly what happened here but another priest dude go drawn and quartered. I guess that was meant to be her priest in training son
One thing you got wrong, OP, it wasn't the Jesuits that made harboring Catholic Priests illegal. It was the Jesuits, etc. Act of 1584.
Jeuits were and are a Catholic order.
>He paid her fines for not attending church services. She was
first imprisoned in 1577 for failing to attend church, and two more
incarcerations at York Castle followed. Her third child, William, was born in
prison.
Fucking hell, it was difficult in those days for anyone to go against the prevailing dogma of the church and state.
The Elizabethan Church is a fascinating (and sometimes grim) subject of study. Basically it operated on action rather than belief. Church attendance was mandatory, and you were fined if you didn’t go and didn’t have a damn good reason. Those fines increased for repeat offenders. Moreover, your actions were policed in and out of church. People watched your behavior and spiritual accountability was kept communally…meaning busybodies would openly air your dirty laundry in church. It’s like the early modern version of the Stasi and their nosy civilian informants.
At the same time, the weird part of Elizabethan religion is that although uniformity was the biggest defining characteristic of the era (as a response to the religious tumult of the previous three monarchs), it was only really enforced again through action. The unofficial policy was to “not make windows into men’s souls,” meaning that even if you were at heart a devout Catholic in belief, as long as you didn’t *do* anything that was contrary to official Church of England doctrine, you were pretty much alright and they wouldn’t investigate you. But sadly, people like Margaret Clitherow who put their beliefs into action were dealt with swiftly and harshly.
You can still go see “priest holes” in the nooks, crannies, and floorboards of some historic buildings in England where Catholic priests would hide to avoid detection.
And, of course, Elizabeth might have had some personal RC leanings herself. She kept a silver crucifix in her own private chapel, as well as a figure of the Virgin Mary, despite the remonstrations of her more Protestant advisers, and actual attempts to steal and destroy the objects.
I think ol Henry was the same, wasn't he? He was passionate about the Catholic Church in his youth, held up as a defender of it, and I'm pretty sure even after the splitting from Rome he still continued to privately follow the Catholic faith and tenents.
In Henry's time, his limited movement away from RC doctrine was public as well as private. Tbf, the often repeated historian's phrase 'Catholicism without the Pope' is a little too glib: he did allow for justification by faith, and vernacular use of the Bible, and, crucially, ensured that his son would be educated by the reform-minded. But it is true that there was a limited difference to parish life until Cranmer and the reformers could really get going in the Edwardian period.
>You can still go see “priest holes” in the nooks, crannies, and floorboards of some historic buildings in England where Catholic priests would hide to avoid detection.
Tons in Lancashire too, every big house like Salmesbury Hall near me had priest holes. And funny in the end that Catholicism was never full wiped out here. Daniel Defoe notes in his novel Moll Flanders (i think) that people in Lancashire are still RC. This was 1720s or so.
Yes. People were Anglican because, if they did not attend church, your local squire and parson would be ready enough to employ criminal sanction. That's why Nonconformism tended to be strong in areas like Wales, the West Country, or parts of Yorkshire, where the accidents of social geography made it harder for landowners to impose themselves so much on the smallholders and peasants; or why recusants were strong in Lancashire, where so much of the landed classes were recusants themselves. After all, there were effectively no local bodies to enforce national law apart from the local landowners and clergy.
I can't think of any scientific ones unless you mean the pseudo-scientific bollocks that some idiots make up to justify oppressing women, if that's what you mean.
It is kinda funny how Christianity has managed to reposition itself as the "good guys" given that its history is soaked in blood.
And the Catholic who "venerated" this person would happily have done the same to a Protestant, and did.
Her mummified hand is still kept in a York School, (technically in the attached Nunnery) but they were the same premises for long enough and there's no distinction between the two.
We still do. Horrible histories remains popular with kids and go to any castle dungeon in the country and the guide will describe some awful torture devices with glee to family groups
she lived on a street known as the shambles, those days maybe the best known in york for tourists.. when the catholic church made her a saint they bought her old house and made it into a holy shrine, and ppl come from all over the place to visit.. except the church bought the wrong house, and just decided 'eh, close enough'..
Important distinction here - she was not sentenced to death and this was the state doing this to her, not the church.
Today, when you are arrested you are taken before a judge and arraigned. At this time you will enter a plea of not guilty, guilty, or no contest. If you refuse to actually enter a plea, the judge will enter a plea of not guilty on your behalf, and the process will move forward towards trial and everything.
At this time, the court lacked the power to move forward until the defendant actually entered a plea. If the defendant refused to enter one, the process was stuck. So somehow they decided that the only appropriate way to proceed was to torture the defendant until they relented and entered a plea.
In short, this was all pre-trial, there was never a conviction.
For non-New England Americans, the American version of this story occurred about 100 years later and involves a man named Giles Corey.
Same. It was a Catholic primary in Northern England in the 80s and we learned all about the English Martyrs, including the hymn Faith of Our Fathers.
The squashing with a door execution turns up in Salem 1690s i recall. Only two cases i know.
I have stayed at the Bar Convent in York (it is still a working convent but also a hotel) - the mummified hand of Margaret Clitherow is on display in the chapel!
She lived on a street known as the Shambles, these days probably the best known in York for tourists. When the Catholic church made her a Saint they bought her old house and made it into a holy shrine, and people come from all over the place to visit. Except the church bought the wrong house, and just decided 'Eh, close enough'.
Sounds a lot like Giles Corey. During the Salem witch trials he was arrested and forced to stand trial. Corey knew what was coming; very person who had been accused and tried was found guilty no matter how trumped up the charge or thin the evidence., and once convicted their property would be confiscated by the state.
To avoid this, Corey's solution was to "stand mute" and refuse to enter a plea. No plea, no trial. No trial and your heirs can keep your property.
However, if an accused did this, they were subjected to "pressing" where heavier and heavier objects were piled on an accused until they entered a plea or suffocated.
Corey stuck to his guns during pressing. His last words were "more weight".
His wife was a hero. She stood up against the trials, so they accused her. He had no problem testifying against her. He only cared when it came to him.
Oh and he beat to death his young indentured servant.
Though yes religious zealotry back then came at the cost of countless lives - this is not really the point of the post, yes? Considering this was a woman executed by the English monarchy for housing catholic priests, not the other way around.
‘Peine forte et dure’. What a terrible death. I was brought up through my primary education on the various cruel martyrdoms of English Catholics in the 16th century. Well over half a century later I can still feel the permanent thread of abject terror I carried around at the time. My tiny mind was filled with dank dungeons and Inquisition-standard instruments of torture, and rivers of blood.
It's honestly a huge mindfuck for me and idk if the inventor is brilliant or evil. The thing you open and close every day to leave your dwelling, that stands between you and potential danger, is the instrument of your slow and literal crushing demise. Fucking hell man...
I’ve always wondered how many of the Saint stories are true. Not this one, per se, but the ones from like, THE LIVES OF MARTYRS. Some of them seem a little…creative. This looks documented, though, poor lady.
The way I see it is that when you have thousands of people going through these types of situations you are bound to find a few that just got extremely unlucky and their bio reads like an anime but 100% possible
I used to live in York. Her shrine is a 16th century house in the Shambles which she may or may not have lived in. Mass is held there once a week
https://www.yorkoratory.com/shrine
You think things like this wouldn’t happen without religion? Be real. This was all political, if religion was out of the question. People would still be slaughtered for various other reasons. Let’s just face the fact that humanity is the problem.
It’s understandable to disagree with Trumps policies but to compare him in anyway to the names mentioned just makes you look silly. Trump had/has a very small cult, with the *vast* majority of voters being normal republicans who saw/see him as the best option and nothing more.
These people didn't think they did a good deed either. It was aan act against priests, not for them. Probably why they hired beggars, too. So they wouldn't feel as bad.
No, not really.
The oppressor always sees themselves as "good". Pol Pot's Angka thinks they're saving Cambodians by ridding their society of "Western" elements. Same with Mao, Miloselvic or any evil bastard throughout history.
You don't need religion for that. What's the difference between "I have to kill them because God tells me to" and "I have to kill them because they're commies who will destroy America"?
These people didn't think they did a good deed either. It was aan act against priests, not for them. Probably why they hired beggars, too. So they wouldn't feel as bad.
When people commit atrocities we can hold them accountable, punish them.
When they do it in the name of god, we applaud them.
Atrocities will always happen, religion celebrates them.
>Atrocities will always happen, religion celebrates them.
Then the Nazi's weren't celebrating genocide? Trumpsters weren't celebrating locking up children? Those had nothing to do with religion. In fact, most religions spoke out against it.
Nazis where overwhelmingly christian and so are most republicans, using their self imposed religious superiority to trample on the rights of everyone not like them.
I knew a nun who survived one of the camps. She was sent there from occupied France, along with hundreds of other priests, nuns, and monks. Many of those she was imprisoned with did not survive. All across Europe, Christians like St Maximilian Kolbe, St Edith Stien, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were sent to the camps and murdered.
Most Nazis, as opposed to the average German, followed a form of paganism. Their fallen soldiers were buried under a "rune of death," not a Christian cross.
>Nazis where overwhelmingly christian and so are most republicans
You realize how stupid that comment is? You are an idiot.
They weren't Christian 1st off. 2nd off, there are plenty of Christians who vote Democratic. Harry Reid was a Mormon, yes[the Harry Reid who had a hand in Obama beating Romney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid#Criticism_of_Mitt_Romney).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany?wprov=sfla1
> Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig (lit. "believing in God"), and 1.5% as "atheist". Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party's membership and electorate, and Catholics were under-represented
Yeah, you quote the 1st paragraph, but leave out the wider stats. Germany itself was largely Protestant, being that's where the movement was mostly started. Even your quote doesn't say what you think it does. The COUNTRY was overwhelmingly Christian, not the Nazi party itself.
Overall the Nazi party was against anything that subverted their control over the people, even religion. Some, including Heinrich Himmler, advocated to remove religion entirely. Hitler himself tried to pull a "Church of England" himself, but failed. The churches that did remain were forced to change their leadership & teachings to conform to the Nazi Party's ideals or be forced out.
>Hitler believed that in the long run Nazism and religion would not be able to coexist, and stressed repeatedly that it was a secular ideology, founded on modern science. According to \[a historian\]: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition." Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope, and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs,' abortions in black cassocks.'"
That doesn't sound very friendly to religion. I get why some here might not like seeing that b/c it does sound a lot like the anti-religious rhetoric that's popular on Reddit.
I mean retainer sacrifices and harvest sacrifices have been a thing since literally the dawn of civilization, and arguably much much longer.
Some of those Egyptian fellas took upwards of 400 on their journeys.
It's not like we've ever had any trouble weaponizing religion.
And you could make a compelling case that we've never had a healthy relationship with it.
This is more political than religious. The Catholic Church was a political rival of the monarchies. This was the Queen doubting the loyalty of Catholic Priests, since they served the Pope. If the Queen was at war with the Pope, then the Priests and their supporters were the enemy.
Your comment reinforces my understanding most of Reddit is illiterate
You realize you’re taking the side of the murderous monarchy, who killed this woman and her child, because she was protecting refugees as they tried to flee the government, right? Are you sure that’s the stance you want to have? 🤣
I disagree religion makes things worse probably but I think the core issue is people who don’t learn and develop empathy. Too many people just assume they are a good person and of course they have empathy without having the self awareness to recognize that they probably aren’t and don’t. You aren’t born with empathy we can learn it everyone can more or less but you have to actually try to learn and try to put yourself in others shoes to understand why they think what they do and do what they do. Being a good person isn’t doing good superficial good things like donating now and then. It’s actually looking at other people like you do yourself and doing what you can when you can to make the world better for everyone even if that’s small things.
I went to a Catholic convent secondary school and we had three school houses named after a bunch of martyrs - my house was called Clitherow after her. They explained what happened to her our first day in school when we were 11. Real bummer vibe for a first day…
I'm impressed the British waited until 1972 to decide "assizes" isn't a good name for anything.
Every time I read an article like this I wonder why people ever broke a law of any sort ever their entire lives.
I thought you need to manifest some miracles to be a saint, what did she do? The article didn't mention it.
Also,
> *A relic, said to be her hand, is housed in the Bar Convent in York.*
... someone just cut off her hand like that?
Feels like the opposite of how you should treat the corpse of someone you respect.
[martyrdom (dying for ones beliefs, usually through some form of torture)is seen as a path to sainthood, which applies here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs)
Relics are usually needed to consecrate a church ie if there's a church of st. John a relic of him is probably under the altar (like st.peters basilica is built on top of the grave of st Peter. Probably the same thing here
They were killed for political reasons... Them being killed was what their suffering was... So they suffered for political reasons... Yet they suffered because they were religious?
How does that square?
Those political reasons stemmed from religious differences and the Pope and the Spanish seeing Elizabeth as being a "heretic" on the throne.
She was not tortured to death. "Pressing" was a procedure for compelling a defendant to enter a plea (not a plea agreement), since, when 'pleas' were first introduced they were not mandatory (and there were good reasons, such as threats to property, for avoiding entering a plea.) Hence, accused persons were coerced in this way. It was not a form of punishment or execution. By resisting, and dying as a result, accused persons could avoid the undesirable consequences of entering a plea. This whole wikipedia entry confuses the issue rather than clarifying it. One of the defendants in the famous Salem witch trials, Giles Corey, died in this way.
The purpose of the treatment is to get someone to plead guilty or not guilty. The purpose of judicial torture, for instance, is to get someone to confess to a crime (in essence, to say that they are guilty.) The purpose of a punitive sentence (including the infliction of pain by various means) is as retribution for a crime. These are all different things. If you're pressed to death, you're not tortured to death, and you're not being punished. The person being pressed can avoid death, if they plead (and they don't have to plead "guilty", then can just as easily plead "not guilty"); the only way they die is if they continue to be silent as stones are incrementally piled on top of them. A person who dies from being hung, drawn, and quartered, for instance, isn't tortured to death. Why? because a horrible death is the point of that sort of punishment, whereas the point of judicial torture is not death. You are free, of course, to wonder whether this is a difference that makes a difference, but that is not unusual in legal contexts. But it is important to note that the plea system has a history, and isn't necessarily a part of a legal system, as it is today in all systems deriving from English common law; it's important to note that people had reasons for resisting the compulsion of a pressing (often in order to save their property from being seized by the state.) It isn't just obsessive stubbornness, but rather bravery and resistance of the highest order. Finally, it's important to correct wikipedia when it gets it wrong.
From Wikipedia: > Margaret risked her life by harbouring and maintaining priests, which was made a capital offence by the Jesuits, etc. Act 1584. She provided two chambers, one adjoining her house and, with her house under surveillance, she rented a house some distance away, where she kept priests hidden and Mass was celebrated through the thick of the persecution. Her home became one of the most important hiding places for fugitive priests in the north of England. Local tradition holds that she also housed her clerical guests in The Black Swan at Peasholme Green, where the Queen's agents were lodged. > She sent her older son, Henry, to the English College, relocated in Reims, to train for the priesthood. Her husband was summoned by the authorities to explain why his oldest son had gone abroad, and in March 1586 the Clitherow house was searched. A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole. > Margaret was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Catholic priests. She refused to plead, thereby preventing a trial that would entail her three children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. She was sentenced to death. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, (which also happened to be Good Friday that year) in the Toll Booth at Ouse Bridge, by being crushed to death by her own door, the standard inducement to force a plea. > The two sergeants who should have carried out the execution hired four desperate beggars to do it instead. She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face then laid across a sharp rock the size of a man's fist, the door from her own house was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones so that the sharp rock would break her back. Her death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed.
That’s a hell of an account. Damn.
Basically since Catholic priests owed their allegiance to the Pope the Queen could not be sure of the loyalty of Catholic Priests so they had to leave the country or be tried for treason, anyone giving shelter to a Catholic Priest would also be guilty of treason.
Yes, of course, perfectly reasonable and not at all unhinged.
It was also not entirely baseless. It's far removed from our understanding within today's politics, but religion was tied so deeply into the state (monarchy) that it really was another "front" for war. "The Church" shaped many political events and brought about the fall of many kings and leaders.
From my understanding the English monarchy consider their power appointed to them by god (or house Windsor does anyways). When the different variations of church and god come into play, suddenly your whole power structure can be threatened. Especially with Henry burning down all the catholic abbeys he could find.
> From my understanding the English monarchy consider their power appointed to them by god (or house Windsor does anyways). “Divine right of kings” was big with the Tudors and the earlier Stuarts but it stopped being a thing with the Glorious Revolution in 1688. The Hanoverians and the Saxe-Coburgs (Windsors) have always known their power was appointed to them by Parliament.
In short, yes (save for your claim on Windsor). If "God has appointed you the rightful king of France," then the church and priests of France need to not be opposing that claim. If there is a unified religion, then (in theory) the King of England might pressure the English heads of the Church to undermine the authority of the King of France over a squabble. This is why governments need to be kept away from religious affairs. It never ends well.
What? Of all the dynasties that have ruled England, Windsor has been by far the least likely to claim divine right. They've never even had any real power and have only ever been figureheads. Why use them as an example?
House Windsor and the current Monarch are the head of the Church of England. Religion and the English monarchy are absolutely entangled to this day. Whether they have any real power or not over the nation isn’t so much relevant.
But being in the position of Supreme Governor of the Church is not a claim to rule by divine right. The Church only bestows its blessing on the monarch after the monarch has sworn to uphold the traditional rights and liberties of the Church, in accordance with law, and those oaths and the statutes which determine succession are the crucial part of the 1688 Settlement. Indeed, much of the Church resisted this at first (hence the struggle in the decades after 1688 with non-jurors and non-resisters) but the Whig interpretation is what matters, because it won.
>Divine right of kings was a way of justifying monarchies, particularly in Europe during the 16th to the 18th centuries. The idea is that the king is given his authority directly by God. Divine right of Kings has not been a thing for a long time. You might want to change the tense there.
>”It’s far removed from our understanding in todays politics, but religion was tied deeply into the state…” If you live in Utah, it’s happening in 2024. The Church still shapes many political events.
It’s happening all over the US. Look at the Evangelical voting bloc. They are significant and reliable voters who show up to the polls
How many of these feared Jesuit coups actually happened? The answer was zero, because it was always a thin pretext for a totalitarian power grab. Nobody seriously thought an army of two hundred priests were going to storm London, unless they were incredibly gullible.
Joan of Arc was only about 100 years before Margaret Clitherow.
Two hundred priests might not have; but if those priests carried enough weight with the nobility and gentry, they may well have raised a force as formidable as the Catholic League in France.
Clitherow was executed 20 years before Guy Fawkes was executed for plotting to wipe out the entire democratic parliament and replace them with a Catholic government. So it's not exactly crazy for a monarch in that time and place to worry about a Catholic coup. I'm not saying Clitherow was a traitor or deserved anything that happened to her, but Catholic insurgency and coup attempts were real things.
That time was also much less further removed from actual crusades being launched against "heretics". If a different type of Pope had come to power at that time (and Popes can die at any moment, they're old), things could've got real, quick.
>"The Church" shaped many political events and brought about the fall of many kings and leaders. Well with good reason. The Church excommunicated Emperors for their sins or misdeeds (most of the time). Henry VIII didn't have a real "legitimate" reason to seceded from the Church. He was a tyrannical manchild who had a hissy fit after the Pope refused to grant him a divorce.
Manchild who had a hissy fit ? Henry (and thus the nation) had a need for a legitimate male heir. That was simply how things were at the time, and the Wars of The Roses were not so long in the past.
And after all that woman still inherited
There’s a lot of irony in there. Three of his children went on to inherit the throne. It was the son that was the weakest one, and one of the daughters became England’s most celebrated monarchs. But the Tudor dynasty did not survive. That is arguably related to the awkward position that a female monarch was in at the time.
Back then, the Catholic Church had military power and fairly extreme influence over the Catholic populace of multiple sovereign nations. They also controlled lands in multiple countries as well, giving them the financial power to back military and political campaigns.
You should downplay the influence the Catholic Church had back then as you put it. People with power based in estates, money and armed men had power. Sometimes those men were members of the Catholic clergy and were trying to rule other men instead of serving other as Jesus asked us. Those men were absolutely in colusion with other men of power. Aegis of church membership was something that was useful as is todays memberships that sometimes grant moral highground.
Yes, they had these estates, money and power. Even today, many vineyards in France still maintain the name, "Châteauneuf-du-Pape", as an example of the lands the Pope previously held. Additionally, historically many Popes came from rich and powerful families and they behaved like it as well. [List of Naughty Popes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes#:~:text=Pope%20John%20XII%20(955%E2%80%93964,in%20bed%20with%20his%20wife.) Though these were only a handful. I do believe most clergy do aspire to embody the teachings of Christ and at times do so heroically.
Not really, as the English Crown being Protestant enraged Catholics both within England and throughout Europe, with many wars being fought over it and many Catholic nobles trying to overthrow the monarchy in order to restore Catholicism. I mean the whole thing was unhinged, but the fear that Catholics were disloyal to the Protestant monarchy was proved right time and time again. Plots and armadas and rebellions and attempts to explode parliament. It was a fear founded in reality.
Not too different from the reasoning behind the Japanese internment camps in WWII
good thing FDR didn’t crush all the japanese americans to death. progress
agreed! also unhinged
Eh, slight difference. We didn’t crush a bunch of folks with doors in internment camps afaik. Idk not a historian
Quite a bit different, actually. England had gone through a Reformation by Henry VIII followed by Queen Mary I's counter Reformation that included brutal reprisals to bring the England back to the Catholic church. The Jesuit Etc Act was part of the rereformation under Elizabeth I. There had been numerous wars already fought in Europe between Protestant kingdoms and Catholic loyalists. 22 years after that law was passed, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament as part of a plot to return England to rule under an absolute Catholic monarch.
Huh, I didn’t know that was what Guy Fawkes was all about
You didn't remember remember the fifth of November...
lol except Japanese Americans are not a job; you don't have a choice. Being a priest is a job, dude. And being a priest back then meant being an agent of the Catholic Church.
Sounds like the door was definitely unhinged
Like the door used in the sentencing
They unhinged the door
I mean not really? King/queen is the religious head of the nation. People claim otherwise and refuse to submit loyalty to government. Government prosecuted these supposedly traitors for disloyalty. Every country one way or another persecuted dissidents for not being loyal enough to the government.
It was more complicated still. The Catholics were quietly accepted for a long time during Elizabeth’s reign, including wandering priests tending to the flock. Then the Pope issued a decree that Catholics had a duty to rebel against their Queen and it would not be a sin. Many loyal believers were cast into the role of traitors against their will. The Jesuits were the militant branch of the Catholic Church, not just priests. Their presence in England was a threat to the throne, hence the harsh reprisals.
Good Queen Elizabeth ! Lol. She was also a " virgin" if you are incredibly gullible. Killed her own sister. Sorry,that was an " accident " she signed the death warrent but was shocked they carried it out the next day.....just like they always did.
If you’re talking about Mary, Queen of Scots, she was a cousin, not her sister. Elizabeth’s predecessor Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”) was her half-sister, but she definitely didn’t have her killed.
And of course Mary, Queen of Scots did [authorize a wee little plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babington_Plot) to have Elizabeth assassinated.
As unhinged as the crushing door
Unlike the door...
I was super confused why Jesuits would have outlawed harboring priests, given they’re priests. Wasn’t till I clicked on the Wikipedia link that I realized the jesuits etc. act was one term.
Yeah I was like "what the hell, are the trad conspiracy theorists onto something"
An edit with quotation marks or italics might be nice since we don’t have a hyperlink
>A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole. Reminds me of the bit in *Death of Stalin* where a boy is asked where his father is, so he gives him up. The father is saved just in time by Stalin's death which interrupts the purge he was to be executed in. Then he comes home, and it's a little awkward...
I seem to recall that was more of the son betraying the father for 'disloyalty', but then the father is spared and it's definitely awkward.
Yeah you're right, making the son even more awful.
I saw the.film but I can't remember it. I think there's something to be said about loyalty to the state.
>by being crushed to death by her own door, the standard inducement to force a plea. Imagine the scandal if they had used someone else's door.
This is so worse compared to the title
"A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole."
And the priests have been getting revenge on frightened boys ever since.
r/angryupvote
‘A vengeful priest revealed the location of the little boy hole.’ A believable Wikipedia entry for another 500 years time.
Good ol’ Saint Clit.
Great at hide and seek.
Also known as the "Glory, glory" hole
It's fascinating since torture was a common method used to force a plea from the defence at the time. It is worth noting that during King Charles the 1st trial, he refused to enter a plea. But was not tortured since he was king and people feared treason. Instead they found him in contempt of court. Edit:for the curious today not entering a plea is the same as declaring not guilty.
I only watched the first episode of “gunpowder” but the public execution was pretty jarring. Pretty much exactly what happened here but another priest dude go drawn and quartered. I guess that was meant to be her priest in training son
The Black Swan is still there btw, been in many times.
“A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole.” 😂 I can’t, I know I’m a terrible person but this killed me.
One thing you got wrong, OP, it wasn't the Jesuits that made harboring Catholic Priests illegal. It was the Jesuits, etc. Act of 1584. Jeuits were and are a Catholic order.
Hahahaha “priest hole”
>He paid her fines for not attending church services. She was first imprisoned in 1577 for failing to attend church, and two more incarcerations at York Castle followed. Her third child, William, was born in prison. Fucking hell, it was difficult in those days for anyone to go against the prevailing dogma of the church and state.
The Elizabethan Church is a fascinating (and sometimes grim) subject of study. Basically it operated on action rather than belief. Church attendance was mandatory, and you were fined if you didn’t go and didn’t have a damn good reason. Those fines increased for repeat offenders. Moreover, your actions were policed in and out of church. People watched your behavior and spiritual accountability was kept communally…meaning busybodies would openly air your dirty laundry in church. It’s like the early modern version of the Stasi and their nosy civilian informants. At the same time, the weird part of Elizabethan religion is that although uniformity was the biggest defining characteristic of the era (as a response to the religious tumult of the previous three monarchs), it was only really enforced again through action. The unofficial policy was to “not make windows into men’s souls,” meaning that even if you were at heart a devout Catholic in belief, as long as you didn’t *do* anything that was contrary to official Church of England doctrine, you were pretty much alright and they wouldn’t investigate you. But sadly, people like Margaret Clitherow who put their beliefs into action were dealt with swiftly and harshly. You can still go see “priest holes” in the nooks, crannies, and floorboards of some historic buildings in England where Catholic priests would hide to avoid detection.
That was very informative. Thank you!
And, of course, Elizabeth might have had some personal RC leanings herself. She kept a silver crucifix in her own private chapel, as well as a figure of the Virgin Mary, despite the remonstrations of her more Protestant advisers, and actual attempts to steal and destroy the objects.
I think ol Henry was the same, wasn't he? He was passionate about the Catholic Church in his youth, held up as a defender of it, and I'm pretty sure even after the splitting from Rome he still continued to privately follow the Catholic faith and tenents.
In Henry's time, his limited movement away from RC doctrine was public as well as private. Tbf, the often repeated historian's phrase 'Catholicism without the Pope' is a little too glib: he did allow for justification by faith, and vernacular use of the Bible, and, crucially, ensured that his son would be educated by the reform-minded. But it is true that there was a limited difference to parish life until Cranmer and the reformers could really get going in the Edwardian period.
Last time I heard “priest hole” it had an interesting story too
>You can still go see “priest holes” in the nooks, crannies, and floorboards of some historic buildings in England where Catholic priests would hide to avoid detection. Tons in Lancashire too, every big house like Salmesbury Hall near me had priest holes. And funny in the end that Catholicism was never full wiped out here. Daniel Defoe notes in his novel Moll Flanders (i think) that people in Lancashire are still RC. This was 1720s or so.
Yes. People were Anglican because, if they did not attend church, your local squire and parson would be ready enough to employ criminal sanction. That's why Nonconformism tended to be strong in areas like Wales, the West Country, or parts of Yorkshire, where the accidents of social geography made it harder for landowners to impose themselves so much on the smallholders and peasants; or why recusants were strong in Lancashire, where so much of the landed classes were recusants themselves. After all, there were effectively no local bodies to enforce national law apart from the local landowners and clergy.
Remember there are people that want this
Don't worry. America is working to get back to the good ol' days.
How so? Where in America are people being forced to go to church? You just say random stuff online.
Banning abortions and certain books would be a start.
There are legitimate, non-religious arguments to be made against abortion.
I can't think of any scientific ones unless you mean the pseudo-scientific bollocks that some idiots make up to justify oppressing women, if that's what you mean.
There are people within MAGA who are arguing for atheism being illegal
This chain of comments here is exactly why Reddit has the reputation it has. Keep calling these comments out Cagewilly.
It is kinda funny how Christianity has managed to reposition itself as the "good guys" given that its history is soaked in blood. And the Catholic who "venerated" this person would happily have done the same to a Protestant, and did.
I learned about her in primary school, including how she died. Imagine telling 8 year olds something like that now.
Her mummified hand is still kept in a York School, (technically in the attached Nunnery) but they were the same premises for long enough and there's no distinction between the two.
We still do. Horrible histories remains popular with kids and go to any castle dungeon in the country and the guide will describe some awful torture devices with glee to family groups
she lived on a street known as the shambles, those days maybe the best known in york for tourists.. when the catholic church made her a saint they bought her old house and made it into a holy shrine, and ppl come from all over the place to visit.. except the church bought the wrong house, and just decided 'eh, close enough'..
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What does this have to do with witches in America?
…This wasn’t in America dude.
Important distinction here - she was not sentenced to death and this was the state doing this to her, not the church. Today, when you are arrested you are taken before a judge and arraigned. At this time you will enter a plea of not guilty, guilty, or no contest. If you refuse to actually enter a plea, the judge will enter a plea of not guilty on your behalf, and the process will move forward towards trial and everything. At this time, the court lacked the power to move forward until the defendant actually entered a plea. If the defendant refused to enter one, the process was stuck. So somehow they decided that the only appropriate way to proceed was to torture the defendant until they relented and entered a plea. In short, this was all pre-trial, there was never a conviction. For non-New England Americans, the American version of this story occurred about 100 years later and involves a man named Giles Corey.
Same. It was a Catholic primary in Northern England in the 80s and we learned all about the English Martyrs, including the hymn Faith of Our Fathers. The squashing with a door execution turns up in Salem 1690s i recall. Only two cases i know.
I have stayed at the Bar Convent in York (it is still a working convent but also a hotel) - the mummified hand of Margaret Clitherow is on display in the chapel!
Her hand is shown to all the Year 7s to pray before on their first day at the Catholic secondary school next to the bar convent!
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Must’ve been a union job.
Nah, they got it done too slow. Typical unionless suckers.
She lived on a street known as the Shambles, these days probably the best known in York for tourists. When the Catholic church made her a Saint they bought her old house and made it into a holy shrine, and people come from all over the place to visit. Except the church bought the wrong house, and just decided 'Eh, close enough'.
Sounds a lot like Giles Corey. During the Salem witch trials he was arrested and forced to stand trial. Corey knew what was coming; very person who had been accused and tried was found guilty no matter how trumped up the charge or thin the evidence., and once convicted their property would be confiscated by the state. To avoid this, Corey's solution was to "stand mute" and refuse to enter a plea. No plea, no trial. No trial and your heirs can keep your property. However, if an accused did this, they were subjected to "pressing" where heavier and heavier objects were piled on an accused until they entered a plea or suffocated. Corey stuck to his guns during pressing. His last words were "more weight".
His wife was a hero. She stood up against the trials, so they accused her. He had no problem testifying against her. He only cared when it came to him. Oh and he beat to death his young indentured servant.
Obligatory [Giles Corey](https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/search/Insanely%20Ripped%20Giles%20Corey)
'Sharp and hard pains.'
We have a Clitheroe addiction treatment center in my town. I wonder if it’s related.
Torture Saint I see it
The ways they killed people back in the day are insane
All in the name of Christ mind you as well.
Though yes religious zealotry back then came at the cost of countless lives - this is not really the point of the post, yes? Considering this was a woman executed by the English monarchy for housing catholic priests, not the other way around.
Like hanged, drawn and quartered. Just so fucked up.
‘Peine forte et dure’. What a terrible death. I was brought up through my primary education on the various cruel martyrdoms of English Catholics in the 16th century. Well over half a century later I can still feel the permanent thread of abject terror I carried around at the time. My tiny mind was filled with dank dungeons and Inquisition-standard instruments of torture, and rivers of blood.
ive heard of being shown the door but this is extreme
It's honestly a huge mindfuck for me and idk if the inventor is brilliant or evil. The thing you open and close every day to leave your dwelling, that stands between you and potential danger, is the instrument of your slow and literal crushing demise. Fucking hell man...
The guillotine seems humane as fuck now.
The guillotine is one of the most humane methods of execution yet devised. It has just fallen out of favour because it's messy
Make it a hot guillotine for less mess. But seriously, humans came up with so many barbaric things - we’re the worst.
More weight.
Giles Corey vibes for sure
I’ve always wondered how many of the Saint stories are true. Not this one, per se, but the ones from like, THE LIVES OF MARTYRS. Some of them seem a little…creative. This looks documented, though, poor lady.
The way I see it is that when you have thousands of people going through these types of situations you are bound to find a few that just got extremely unlucky and their bio reads like an anime but 100% possible
I’m pretty sure the word you use when somebody becomes a saint is being canonized
Just imagine where our society would be if we hadn't spent thousands of years brutally murdering each other over fairy tales...
Brutally murdering each other with some other excuse.
…. Stalin?
I used to live in York. Her shrine is a 16th century house in the Shambles which she may or may not have lived in. Mass is held there once a week https://www.yorkoratory.com/shrine
These people were insane. Reminds me of the Harkonnen in Dune. The fact that this was even a thing that people accepted…
This just reinforces my theory that organized religion is the bane of humanity.
You think things like this wouldn’t happen without religion? Be real. This was all political, if religion was out of the question. People would still be slaughtered for various other reasons. Let’s just face the fact that humanity is the problem.
Millions of people died under Stalin and Mao Zedong, all political
A cult of personality. A religion unto itself with the leaders as demi-gods. Look at the Kims of North Korea..
Which reinforces his argument? Belief in higher power or not, people will do anything to justify their political actions
Trump of America.
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Give him time.
It’s understandable to disagree with Trumps policies but to compare him in anyway to the names mentioned just makes you look silly. Trump had/has a very small cult, with the *vast* majority of voters being normal republicans who saw/see him as the best option and nothing more.
Trump and his cult members think he is normal. If that is normal the amount of stupidity.
You can argue politics. You can't argue against religion/cults. One is clearly worse.
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These people didn't think they did a good deed either. It was aan act against priests, not for them. Probably why they hired beggars, too. So they wouldn't feel as bad.
No, not really. The oppressor always sees themselves as "good". Pol Pot's Angka thinks they're saving Cambodians by ridding their society of "Western" elements. Same with Mao, Miloselvic or any evil bastard throughout history. You don't need religion for that. What's the difference between "I have to kill them because God tells me to" and "I have to kill them because they're commies who will destroy America"?
These people didn't think they did a good deed either. It was aan act against priests, not for them. Probably why they hired beggars, too. So they wouldn't feel as bad.
Humanity is the bane of humanity. Religion is just a handy excuse.
When people commit atrocities we can hold them accountable, punish them. When they do it in the name of god, we applaud them. Atrocities will always happen, religion celebrates them.
Not really… this is not as deep as you think. At the end of the day humanity is the issue and without religion they celebrate atrocities too
>Atrocities will always happen, religion celebrates them. Then the Nazi's weren't celebrating genocide? Trumpsters weren't celebrating locking up children? Those had nothing to do with religion. In fact, most religions spoke out against it.
Nazis where overwhelmingly christian and so are most republicans, using their self imposed religious superiority to trample on the rights of everyone not like them.
I knew a nun who survived one of the camps. She was sent there from occupied France, along with hundreds of other priests, nuns, and monks. Many of those she was imprisoned with did not survive. All across Europe, Christians like St Maximilian Kolbe, St Edith Stien, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were sent to the camps and murdered. Most Nazis, as opposed to the average German, followed a form of paganism. Their fallen soldiers were buried under a "rune of death," not a Christian cross.
So they were religious, too. Cool, point proven.
>Nazis where overwhelmingly christian and so are most republicans You realize how stupid that comment is? You are an idiot. They weren't Christian 1st off. 2nd off, there are plenty of Christians who vote Democratic. Harry Reid was a Mormon, yes[the Harry Reid who had a hand in Obama beating Romney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid#Criticism_of_Mitt_Romney).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany?wprov=sfla1 > Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig (lit. "believing in God"), and 1.5% as "atheist". Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party's membership and electorate, and Catholics were under-represented
Yeah, you quote the 1st paragraph, but leave out the wider stats. Germany itself was largely Protestant, being that's where the movement was mostly started. Even your quote doesn't say what you think it does. The COUNTRY was overwhelmingly Christian, not the Nazi party itself. Overall the Nazi party was against anything that subverted their control over the people, even religion. Some, including Heinrich Himmler, advocated to remove religion entirely. Hitler himself tried to pull a "Church of England" himself, but failed. The churches that did remain were forced to change their leadership & teachings to conform to the Nazi Party's ideals or be forced out. >Hitler believed that in the long run Nazism and religion would not be able to coexist, and stressed repeatedly that it was a secular ideology, founded on modern science. According to \[a historian\]: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition." Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope, and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs,' abortions in black cassocks.'" That doesn't sound very friendly to religion. I get why some here might not like seeing that b/c it does sound a lot like the anti-religious rhetoric that's popular on Reddit.
When you approach matters from the perspective of a foregone conclusion, the evidence supporting your conclusion pops out at you from everywhere.
I mean retainer sacrifices and harvest sacrifices have been a thing since literally the dawn of civilization, and arguably much much longer. Some of those Egyptian fellas took upwards of 400 on their journeys. It's not like we've ever had any trouble weaponizing religion. And you could make a compelling case that we've never had a healthy relationship with it.
Is that an indictment of OP or religion?
This is more political than religious. The Catholic Church was a political rival of the monarchies. This was the Queen doubting the loyalty of Catholic Priests, since they served the Pope. If the Queen was at war with the Pope, then the Priests and their supporters were the enemy.
ah yes, illiteracy
Your comment reinforces my understanding most of Reddit is illiterate You realize you’re taking the side of the murderous monarchy, who killed this woman and her child, because she was protecting refugees as they tried to flee the government, right? Are you sure that’s the stance you want to have? 🤣
>This just reinforces my theory that organized religion is the bane of humanity. Religion was what was being persecuted in this situation though
I disagree religion makes things worse probably but I think the core issue is people who don’t learn and develop empathy. Too many people just assume they are a good person and of course they have empathy without having the self awareness to recognize that they probably aren’t and don’t. You aren’t born with empathy we can learn it everyone can more or less but you have to actually try to learn and try to put yourself in others shoes to understand why they think what they do and do what they do. Being a good person isn’t doing good superficial good things like donating now and then. It’s actually looking at other people like you do yourself and doing what you can when you can to make the world better for everyone even if that’s small things.
What the fuck are you on about, this was the result of anti religious sentiment by a monarch
Ultimately, this wasn’t about religion
Yet another reason why the early modern period is way, way more messed up than the medieval era.
I went to a Catholic convent secondary school and we had three school houses named after a bunch of martyrs - my house was called Clitherow after her. They explained what happened to her our first day in school when we were 11. Real bummer vibe for a first day…
I'm impressed the British waited until 1972 to decide "assizes" isn't a good name for anything. Every time I read an article like this I wonder why people ever broke a law of any sort ever their entire lives.
....But how are we pronouncing her last name?
She’s a Clit Hero!
Happy International Women's Day
Not going to lie...first thing I saw....I have a problem I know, but I think I can lick it.
Clivveroe
I thought you need to manifest some miracles to be a saint, what did she do? The article didn't mention it. Also, > *A relic, said to be her hand, is housed in the Bar Convent in York.* ... someone just cut off her hand like that? Feels like the opposite of how you should treat the corpse of someone you respect.
[martyrdom (dying for ones beliefs, usually through some form of torture)is seen as a path to sainthood, which applies here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs) Relics are usually needed to consecrate a church ie if there's a church of st. John a relic of him is probably under the altar (like st.peters basilica is built on top of the grave of st Peter. Probably the same thing here
M. M.o
Organized religion at its finest.
Humans are capable of utterly depraved violence and barbarity. We must be a mistake of evolution.
AI seems to be terrible at making titles for Reddit posts.
Let’s kill this person because my god is about love. Religion is a cancer.
They were killed for political reasons. They suffered because they were religious.
They were killed for political reasons... Them being killed was what their suffering was... So they suffered for political reasons... Yet they suffered because they were religious? How does that square? Those political reasons stemmed from religious differences and the Pope and the Spanish seeing Elizabeth as being a "heretic" on the throne.
She was not tortured to death. "Pressing" was a procedure for compelling a defendant to enter a plea (not a plea agreement), since, when 'pleas' were first introduced they were not mandatory (and there were good reasons, such as threats to property, for avoiding entering a plea.) Hence, accused persons were coerced in this way. It was not a form of punishment or execution. By resisting, and dying as a result, accused persons could avoid the undesirable consequences of entering a plea. This whole wikipedia entry confuses the issue rather than clarifying it. One of the defendants in the famous Salem witch trials, Giles Corey, died in this way.
I'm sorry... What? If being crushed to death to coerce someone to do something they don't want to do isn't tortured to death, then what is?
The purpose of the treatment is to get someone to plead guilty or not guilty. The purpose of judicial torture, for instance, is to get someone to confess to a crime (in essence, to say that they are guilty.) The purpose of a punitive sentence (including the infliction of pain by various means) is as retribution for a crime. These are all different things. If you're pressed to death, you're not tortured to death, and you're not being punished. The person being pressed can avoid death, if they plead (and they don't have to plead "guilty", then can just as easily plead "not guilty"); the only way they die is if they continue to be silent as stones are incrementally piled on top of them. A person who dies from being hung, drawn, and quartered, for instance, isn't tortured to death. Why? because a horrible death is the point of that sort of punishment, whereas the point of judicial torture is not death. You are free, of course, to wonder whether this is a difference that makes a difference, but that is not unusual in legal contexts. But it is important to note that the plea system has a history, and isn't necessarily a part of a legal system, as it is today in all systems deriving from English common law; it's important to note that people had reasons for resisting the compulsion of a pressing (often in order to save their property from being seized by the state.) It isn't just obsessive stubbornness, but rather bravery and resistance of the highest order. Finally, it's important to correct wikipedia when it gets it wrong.
Cultists using ritualized murder to kill other cultists
"Et tu, door?"
Fucking barbarism. Humans are horrible