English Speaking Saints And Martyrs

 Roman Calendar : October 25 Carthusian Calendar : May 4 Saint John Houghton Protomartyr of the English Reformation Born in Essex, England, in 1487; died at Tyburn on May 4, 1535; beatified in 1886; canonized by Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Saint John served as a parish priest for four years after his graduation from Cambridge. Then he joined the Carthusians, where he was named prior of Beauvale Charterhouse in Northampton and, just a few months later, prior of London Charterhouse. In 1534, he and his procurator, Blessed Humphrey Middlemore, were arrested for refusing to accept the Act of Succession, which proclaimed the legitimacy of Anne Boleyn's children by Henry VIII. They were soon released when the accepted the act with the proviso "as far as the law of God allows." The following year Father Houghton was again arrested when he, Saint Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster went to Thomas Cromwell to seek an exemption from ta...

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Martyrs_of_England_and_Wales The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales [ or Cuthbert Mayne and Thirty-Nine Companion Martyrs are a group of Catholic, lay and religious, men and women, executed between 1535 and 1679 for treason and related offences under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation. The individuals listed range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged Popish Plot against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials, or with no trial at all. The first wave of executions came with the reign of King Henry VIII and involved persons who did not support the 1534 Act of Supremacy and dissolution of the monasteries. Carthusian John Houghton and Bridgettine Richard Reynolds died at this time. In 1570 Pope Pius V, in support of various rebellions in England and Ireland, excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, absol...