The Oxford Catholic Martyrs of 1589

Today marks the 425th anniversary of the execution in Oxford of four Catholic Martyrs. They were two priests, George Nichols and Richard Yaxley, their courier Thomas Belson, a layman from a local gentry family and Humphrey Pritchard, the barman of the Catherine Wheel Inn where the others were arrested earlier in the year. It was at this that Humphrey Pritchard admitted to being a Catholic and was also detained. They were beatified in 1987.

The Catherine Wheel stood on the corner of Magdalen Street and Boad Street on a site now occupied by eighteenth century buildings of Balliol College. Inns appear to have been useful places for recusants to meet up - the Mitre in the High Street appears to have had a long-standing tradition of hosting secret Masses, and Catholic landlords, whilst John Gerard's account of meeting a Catholic in an inn in Norwich in 1588 also suggests the utility of an open house wherer you could come and go without suspicion.

The two priests were hung drawn and quartered, the two laymen were hanged. In recent years a memerial to them has been erected and dedicated near to the site of the gallows at Holywell.

Christine Kelly's book Blessed Thomas Belson: His Life and Times 1563-1589, written to mark his beatification, sets the story and in particular the part played by Thomas Belson as aly courier and agent in the context of recusant life at the time.


A previous posts about them can be viewed at Oxford Martyrs of 1589, and I give the account of their lives, capture and deaths at  Challoner's account of the Oxford martyrs, both from 2011, and also something about their modern commemoration in Oxford Martyrs memorial from 2010 and in Oxford LMS Pilgrimage from 2013.

Oxford Martyrs memorial

Following on from my post yesterday I have now found a photograph of the memorial erected in 2008 to the four martyrs. It is at the eastern end of Holywell Street, near the junction with Lomgwall Street.


There is a piece about the plan to erect the plaque and an account of the four men in this report from the Catholic Herald

Oxford Martyrs of 1589

Today is the feast of the Oxford Martyrs of 1589 - Bl. George Nichols and Bl. Richard Yaxley, two mission priests, Bl. Thomas Belson and Bl.Humphrey Pritchard, laymen. They were apprehended just before midnight on May 18th that year at the Catherine Wheel, an inn which stood at the junction of Broad Street and Magdalen Street on a site which is now part of Balliol. It rather looks as if the Catherine Wheel and the Mitre in the High Street were 'safe houses' for Catholics, and presumably good 'cover' as places for recusants to meet up: there is something similar in John Gerard's Autobiography about his arrival in Norwich the previous autumn. The landlady of the Catherine Wheel was certainly seen as implicated, being subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.

Frs Nichols and Yaxley were caught together with Thomas Belson, a young layman from a local gentrey family on the borders of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, who had acted as their courier and agent. A young man of determination he had dissuaded his family from being "Church papists" - that is outward conformers to the established church. Humphrey Pritchard, born in Wales, was the barman at the inn, who when the others were arrested declared that he too was a Catholic.

The priests were hung, drawn and quartered, and the two laymen hanged at the gallows at the end of Holywell Street in Oxford. All four were beatified in 1987. A memorial tablet was unveiled and dedicated two years ago, and the place of their martyrdom an established place of pilgrimage for the LMS Oxford Pilgrimage.

There is a biography of Bl. Thomas Belson, published a few years ago, and the bar of the social centre at the Oxford Oratory is named in honour of Bl. Humphrey.

Here is a link to part of Tony Hadland's excellent Thames Valley Papists, which gives more details about the four martyrs, including their words from the scaffold.