house in the shambles at York, and provided him with all that was necessary for fulfilling his sacred office.

In 1585 the cruel and sanguinary law was passed by which it was made high treason for any Englishman, made priest by the authority of Rome since the first year of Elizabeth, to return into the kingdom or remain there; and felony for any person to harbor or relieve any such priest. By these statutes it was only necessary to prove that a man was a Catholic priest, in order to condemn him to the most cruel and shameful death, and many were the victims who were sacrificed under these unjust laws. When these laws came into force, a priest (perhaps Mr. Ingleby himself) who had frequently said Holy Mass in Mrs. Clitherowe's house, came to warn her of the risk she was running in relieving priests. But she, being filled with the desire for martyrdom, was greatly rejoiced at the news, and said, "By God's grace all priests shall be more welcome to me than ever they were, and I will do what I can to set forward God's Catholic service."

ures.

On March 10th, 1586, in the beginning of Lent, the sheriffs of York came to search her house. They whipped a little boy until he showed them the priest's chamber, and the hiding place where she concealed the church vestments, Catholic books and other treasThese they carried off, but they could not find Mr. Ingleby. Margaret Clitherowe was committed to prison, and on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, 1586 (which was also Good Friday), she suffered a most cruel and barbarous martyrdom, being pressed to death in the Tollbooth, on Ousebridge, at York, for having harbored Mr. Francis Ingleby and another priest, Mr. John Mush.

They stripped her and laid her on the ground, tying her hands (outstretched in the form of a cross) to two stakes. They then put upon her a door, and on that heaped stones to the weight of five or six hundredweight. She was a quarter of an hour in dying, and in the very pangs of death she cried: "Jesu, Jesu, help me. Blessed Jesu, I suffer this for Thy sake," and so in terrible agony she yielded up her blessed soul to God. One of her hands is kept as a relic at St. Mary's Convent, York, to this day.

Francis Ingleby, for whom this heroic woman had gladly given her life, did not, however, escape long, if indeed he had not already been taken before her martyrdom on March 25th. The manner of his apprehension is related by two contemporary writers.

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On a certain day he left York on foot in the dress of a poor man, without a cloak, and was courteously accompanied Beyond the

gates by a certain Catholic of that city named Mr. Lassie (Lacy). The gentleman, though intending to return at once, stayed for a few moments' conversation with the priest on an open spot, called Bishopsfields, which, unknown to the priest, was overlooked by the window of the Archbishop's palace of Bishopsthorpe. It happened that two chaplains of the Archbishop, idly talking there, espied them and noticed that the Catholic, as he was taking leave, frequently uncovered to Ingleby, and showed him while saying good-bye, greater marks of respect than were fitting towards a common person meanly dressed."

The other account says that Mr. Lacy knelt down on parting and craved the holy priest's blessing. In any case the two clergymen were struck by the marks of respect paid to the unknown, and suspected that he was a priest. They ran, therefore, and made inquiries, and finding that he was indeed a priest, they apprehended him and had him brought before the Council of the North, then sitting at the Old Palace, York, under the presidence of the Earl of Huntingdon, for the suppression of the Catholic religion.

The Council said to the martyr that "they marveled that he, being a gentleman of so great calling, would abase himself to be a priest. He answered that he made more account of his priesthood than of all other titles whatsoever."

He was therefore committed a prisoner to the Castle, where he had a pair of fetters laid upon his legs at the prison door. The Catholic prisoners, who were confined there in large numbers for their religion, craved his blessing. With a smiling countenance he said: "I fear me I shall be overproud of my new boots," meaning his fetters. At the time of his imprisonment a minister as usual came to him to dispute about religion.

After Whitsuntide next following (1586) at the gaol delivery, Sir Thomas Fairfax, vice-president, Henry Cheeke, Esquire, Ralph Huddlestone, Esquire, and the rest of the Council, arraigned Mr. Ingleby and condemned him as a traitor because he was a priest of Rheims. With him they used much guileful dealing that they might entangle him with an oath to disclose in what Catholic men's houses he had been harbored, but they could not deceive him. When he was about to speak anything, they stopped him with railings and blasphemies, overthwarting him in every word, and interrupting him by one frivolous question after another, so that before he had answered two words to one matter, they came upon him with another,

inasmuch that many noted how they could not suffer him to make a perfect end of any one sentence, and this they did to make him contemptible in the eyes of the people. When he refused to take the oath of supremacy, which acknowledged the Queen to be the supreme governor of the Church, he said: "I will give unto the Queen subjection in so far forth that she has protection." And when he was condemned to death he spoke these words: "Credo videre bona Domini in terra viventium" ("I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.")

Mr. Henry Cheeke, a member of the Council, openly derided and scoffed at the martyr because, when standing at the bar, he made the sign of the cross. It was noted at the time that within a few hours this man fell down stairs and broke his neck. Huddlestone had also a sudden and terrible death, falling down dead while waiting in the ante-chamber of the Archbishop, for leave to put some poor Catholics to the torture.

When the martyr was led from the place of judgment (no doubt the ancient Guildhall) back again into the Castle, the Catholic prisoners, looking forth of their windows, craved his blessing. Privilly he gave it them, saying: "O sweet judgment!" After his condemnation he showed such tokens of inward joy that the keeper (named Mr. Meverell) said that he took no small pleasure to observe his sweet and joyous conversation, and though he was a very earnest Puritan, he could not abstain from tears. He suffered on June 3d, 1586, at the Tyburn at Knavesmire, which was situated about a mile and a half beyond Micklegate Bar, on the London road, near the present race-course. The place is still well known to the York Catholics, and an annual pilgrimage is made to it on Whitsun Tuesday in honor of the martyrs. Hither Margaret Clitherowe had been used to come in pilgrimage at midnight, walking barefoot from her house in the Shambles, and praying to the priests who had suffered there that she, too, might gain the martyrs' crown.

The sentence ran that he was to be drawn to the place of execution, where he was to be hanged, and then the halter was to be cut immediately, and while still fully alive, the sufferer was to be disembowelled and dismembered, and his heart torn out before his eyes. The body was then to be quartered, after being parboiled in a cauldron, and set up on the various gates of the city. All this was carried out in the case of the holy martyr, Francis Ingleby.

But the persecutors could not touch his blessed soul, which was

received into the joy of its Lord, and obtained the unfading crown of those who persevere to the end, and who give the supreme pledge of love by surrendering even life itself for conscience sake.

"Great was the loss to York," writes his friend, Father Warford, "for he was most highly esteemed by all Catholics on account of his great zeal for souls, and especially for his remarkable prudence. He bore himself most constantly and bravely, and left all Catholics sore afflicted at his loss. They have preserved the memory of many of his sayings and doings, which are indeed worthy of note, though I cannot now recall them in detail.

"He was a short man, but well made, and seemed thirty-five years of age or thereabouts. He was of light complexion, wore a chestnut beard and had a slight cast in his eyes. In mind he was quick and piercing, ready and facile in speech, of aspect grave and austere, and earnest and assiduous in action."

It may be noted that his eldest brother William's wife, then Mrs. Ingleby, was a most devout and fervent Catholic, who suffered much for her religion. On March 25th, 1592, she was with Lady Bab