St. John Houghton

When St. John Houghton was awarded his Bachelor of Laws degree from Cambridge University in 1506, he found that his parents, who were minor gentry, had arranged a very good marriage for him. It was hard to persuade them that his interests lay elsewhere, and he finally had to go into hiding to pursue his vocation. He lodged with a devout priest who prepared him for the reception of Holy Orders. He was ordained and fulfilled the duties of a secular priest for four years, and then at the age of about twenty-eight he entered the Charterhouse of London.

This was a monastery of the Carthusians, an austere order of semi-hermits. They came together for the Divine Office and other liturgical celebrations but spent the rest of their time in solitude, in penances and mortifications, and in contemplative prayer. The Carthusians had been founded three and a half centuries before by St. Bruno, and in Houghton's day the monks were more numerous than ever before or since. It is the boast of the Carthusians that they have never had reason to reform their order.

Houghton became known for his holiness, austerity, zeal for the Divine Office, love of books, and enlightened handling of subordinates. He therefore often filled positions of authority, eventually as prior of the London Charterhouse and as co-visitator of the English Province. Once in the latter capacity, while his traveling garments were hanging on a line to dry at a Carthusian house in York, birds came and pecked his clothes to pieces but left his companion's untouched. Some took this for an omen that he would become food for birds (Gen. 40:19).

In the spring of 1534 Henry VIII and Parliament required men to take an oath in support of his marriage to Anne Boleyn, which Rome had declared adulterous. St. John Houghton and his procurator, Blessed Humphrey Middlemore, refused the oath on behalf of all the monks. They were imprisoned, but after a month they were allowed to take a special form of the oath which contained the words "so far as it is lawful" (a phrase which Margaret Roper had often urged upon her father, St. Thomas More).

Such loopholes would not be available for long, because the king, through Thomas Cromwell, was instituting a real reign of terror, one effected by an elaborate and efficient system of spies. And while the king and his agents protested that nothing essential of the ancient faith was being changed, nevertheless everyone, friend and foe alike, recognized that a new church separate from the old one was being established. And what kind of resistance did Henry and Cromwell meet? Little, very little. The universities succumbed, Oxford on May 2, Cambridge on June 6; a handful of bishops protested, but ineffectually; monks, friars, and nuns gave in by the thousands (the Carthusians and the Franciscan Observants being notable exceptions). Everywhere surrender was almost total, some of it accompanied by discreet grumblings but most of it not. The harsh but undisputed judgment of history is stated by Pierre Janelle:

Indeed, they sometimes came near to blasphemy, as in the case of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, London, who described Henry as "the one to whom alone, after Jesus Christ our Saviour, we owe everything."

In February of the next year, 1535, when Henry declared himself to be the Supreme Head of the Church in England, the Carthusian priors of Axholme and of Beauvale journeyed to London to consult with St. John Houghton. They wanted to devise plans to protect their monks when they themselves were struck down, because they knew that many of them would be quite unable to cope in the world on their own. Whatever their plans were, they failed. Within five years eighteen Carthusians were executed and every monastery dissolved. Even many of the strongest were broken: Philip Hughes speaks of the contemporary "Carthusian historian Dom Maurice Chauncy, describing the ultimate surrender, after a siege of years, of himself and some others of his brethren, signing with remorse of conscience and even with tears, inwardly protesting to God that they yielded only to violence, and praying God 'mercifully to pardon Thy servants for the sin which, though heart and conscience resist, we are about to commit with our lips.'" Like Chauncy, let it be said, many later repented their weakness.

Thomas Cromwell summoned the three priors to take the Oath of Supremacy; they refused flatly; he imprisoned them in London Tower. They were tried, and jury found them guilty only after two days of severe intimidation by Cromwell. They were condemned to the death of traitors.

On May 4, 1535, St. Thomas More could look down from a window in the Tower and watch the prisoners being prepared for execution. Meg was visiting that day—as she had done regularly for more than a year—and was distressed at the sight of what would probably happen to her father. More pointed out to her that the holy fathers were going as cheerfully to their executions as if they were bridegrooms going to their wedding.

The three Carthusians—Saint John Houghton, Saint Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster—were to be executed with two other men: Saint Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk, "the most learned monk in the realm," who had also refused the oaths; and Blessed John Haile, a secular priest, the aged vicar of Isleworth who had voiced criticism of Henry for his licentiousness and for imprisoning the good men, Fisher and More. Contrary to custom, they were to be executed without being stripped of their clerical garb.

In accordance with a custom which persisted until the last century, the victims were bound to hurdles. These are rectangular frames used as sections of fence or as gates. Laid flat and dragged behind horses, they have the advantage of degrading the condemned men by pulling them through the dust or mud, as the season offers, and sometimes objects in the road inflict injuries on them. The five priests were thus taken to Tyburn several miles away. They were executed one at a time, beginning with Father Houghton, so that those remaining would have a chance to recant.

A contemporary said of Houghton, "He was slight of stature, elegant in appearance, shy in look, modest in manner, sweet in speech, chaste in body, humble of heart, amiable, and beloved by all." At the scaffold he spoke simply:

Then he was hanged. Tyburn's notorious 'triple tree' consisted of three upright posts joined in a triangle by three beams, an arrangement that permitted the hanging of fifteen or twenty victims at one time. The modern method of hanging allows for the body to drop for a distance so that death is inflicted instantaneously. At Tyburn the victim was stood in a cart, the rope fastened about his neck and the slack removed, and the cart rolled out from under him. He might dangle for a considerable time, especially if the knot were placed incorrectly; then he would die of asphyxia.

But traitors were not entitled to die by hanging, and so St. John Houghton was taken down and allowed to recover his senses. Then he was eviscerated. This, too, can be done so as not to cause immediate death. The executioner experienced some difficulty in locating the heart, and when he did so the saint looked at it pulsating in the man's hand and said, "Sweet Jesus, what will you do with my heart?" The viscera were burned in a fire kept for the purpose.

Next the body was decapitated and quartered. St. John Houghton's head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge and his other parts at other populous places; one quarter, with an arm, was hung over the gate at the Charterhouse to impress the monks. And he became the food of birds. The four other holy fathers suffered similarly.

When the news of these events spread abroad, all of Europe felt indignation and revulsion.

What are we to make of these disgraceful and inspiring events? Of the many lessons to be learned, here are a few:

2. The flock of Christ is a flock of sheep. This is as it should be; but when the pastors turn into sheep—or wolves—then the devastation is catastrophic, and then the sheep must learn to be crafty as serpents (Mt. 10:16).

3. The misfortunes of true Catholics are causes of fear to the timid but sources of strength to those who understand them properly. Listen to the inspiring exhortation of Blessed Peter Wright, who was himself executed at Tyburn under the Puritan Parliament over a hundred years later:

Oh what a comfort it will be to those souls that in that dreadful day shall be able to say, "At one time, for being a Catholic, the sheriff came and drove away all my cattle, another time seized upon all my goods, a third time pursuivants and Parliamentaries searching my house and a good man, a servant of your [i.e. a priest], being found therein, I was brought within the compass of a praemunire, by force of which all my lands were confiscated and I condemned to perpetual imprisonment; yea, for assisting men and persuading them to embrace your saving faith, I was hanged till I was half dead, I had my belly ripped open, my bowels and heart torn out and cast into the fire, my head with an ax struck from my body, and being divided into four quarters, every quarter was pricked upon a several pole, and being not permitted Christian burial were ignominiously exposed upon the four gates of a city." Oh what a comfort, what a joy will it be to those souls that in that day can produce for themselves any of these heroic acts.