Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
File:Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.jpg
Died	1535–1679,England and Wales
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI
Feast	25 October

The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales are a group of men and women who were executed for treason and related offences in the Kingdom of England between 1535 and 1679. Many were convicted under show trials or even no trials. All were subjected to the religiously oppressive regimes of the Tudor and Stuart periods as part of the Protestant purge that lasted for several hundred years. They are considered by the Catholic Church to be Christian martyrs and were canonized on 25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

The Forty Martyrs, individually named

Saint John Almond Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Saint Ambrose Barlow Saint John Boste Saint Alexander Briant Saint Edmund Campion Saint Margaret Clitherow Saint Philip Evans Saint Thomas Garnet Saint Edmund Gennings Saint Richard Gwyn Saint John Houghton Saint Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel Saint John Jones

Saint John Kemble Saint Luke Kirby Saint Robert Lawrence Saint David Lewis Saint Anne Line Saint John Lloyd Saint Cuthbert Mayne Saint Henry Morse Saint Nicholas Owen Saint John Payne Saint Polydore Plasden Saint John Plessington Saint Richard Reynolds Saint John Rigby

Saint John Roberts Saint Alban Roe Saint Ralph Sherwin Saint John Southworth Saint Robert Southwell Saint John Stone Saint John Wall Saint Henry Walpole Saint Margaret Ward Saint Augustine Webster Saint Swithun Wells Saint Eustace White

Liturgical Feast Day

In England, these martyrs were formerly commemorated by a feast day on 25 October, but they are now celebrated together with Beatified martyrs of England and Wales on 4 May.

In Wales, 25 October is kept as the feast of the 'Six Welsh Martyrs and their companions'. The Welsh Martyrs are the priests Philip Evans and John Lloyd, John Jones, David Lewis, John Roberts, and the teacher Richard Gwyn. The 'companions' are the 34 English Martyrs listed above. Wales continues to keep 4 May as a separate feast for the Beatified martyrs of England and Wales.

See also

• List of Catholic martyrs of England
• English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era, a Church of England commemoration-day for Roman Catholic and Church of England martyrs of the English Reformation
• Catholic Church in England and Wales
• Eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales, a list of eighty-five beatified by the pope to represent those executed during the English Reformation

External links

• Catholic Forum: Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
• Sermon of Paul VI on the occasion of the canonisation of forty martyrs from England and Wales, 25 October 1970 (largely in Italian)
• Description of each of the Forty Martyrs