Anne Line, Margaret Clitherow and Margaret Ward – Three Catholic Martyrs

Today, on the anniversary of Anne Line’s execution, on 27th February 1601, I’m honouring her and two other remarkable women, Margaret Clitherow and Margaret Ward, who gave their lives for harbouring Catholic priests in Elizabethan England.

Their crime? Offering sanctuary to men whose very existence had been outlawed. Their fate? Torture, brutal executions, and posthumous sainthood.
But why was it so dangerous to harbour a priest in the reign of Elizabeth I?

In Tudor England, religion wasn’t just a matter of personal belief—it was a matter of life and death.

Following Henry VIII’s break with Rome, England became a Protestant nation. But when his daughter Mary I took the throne, she restored Catholicism and a couple of hundred Protestants burned at the stake. Then, in 1558, Elizabeth I became queen, and England swung back to Protestantism.
Catholics who had hoped for tolerance soon realised that Elizabeth’s government viewed them as a threat. When the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570, it escalated the conflict. Catholics were now seen as potential traitors—loyal to the Pope, not the queen.

The response was brutal.

It became high treason for a Catholic priest to be in England. Any priest caught was sentenced to hanging, drawing, and quartering.
Anyone found guilty of harbouring a priest faced execution.

Catholic Mass was outlawed, and attending one could result in imprisonment and fines.

Despite these dangers, many brave men and women risked their lives to protect Catholic priests. Among them were three extraordinary women:
Our first woman is Margaret Clitherow, “The Pearl of York”. Margaret was a Yorkshire businesswoman, the wife of a successful butcher, and a mother of three. But beneath the surface, she was one of England’s most devoted Catholic activists.

She converted to Catholicism in the 1570s and used her home as a safe house for priests, building secret hiding places to shield them from government spies.

Her courage did not go unnoticed. She was arrested multiple times and refused to attend Protestant services, resulting in imprisonment. But she never backed down.

In 1586, her luck ran out. Authorities raided her home and found evidence of priest holes. Margaret refused to plead guilty—not because she denied it, but because she didn’t want her children or servants forced to testify against her. Under English law, this meant an automatic sentence of pressing to death.

She was taken to the tollbooth on Ouse Bridge in York, stripped naked, and crushed beneath a door loaded with heavy stones. Her family claimed that she was pregnant at the time. Her final words? “Jesu! Jesu ! Jesu ! have mercy upon me!”
Margaret was canonised in 1970 and is now Saint Margaret Clitherow.

Our second courageous lady is Margaret Ward, a Cheshire woman working in service in the household of a lady in London. But she wasn’t just a servant—she was a lifeline for persecuted Catholics.

When she learned that a Catholic priest, Richard Watson, was suffering in Bridewell Prison, she set out to help him escape. She managed to smuggle a rope into his cell and arranged a boatman to take him to safety.
But the plan went wrong.

• Watson injured himself climbing out and left the rope dangling - a clear sign of escape.
• The original boatman backed out, forcing Margaret to find another rescuer at the last moment.
• Watson made it to freedom, but Margaret was caught.

She was arrested, kept in irons for eight days, hung up by her hands and whipped, and interrogated. But she never revealed Watson’s location.
At her trial, she proudly admitted to helping the priest, stating that she was saving an innocent lamb from wolves. She was offered a pardon—but only if she attended a Protestant service. She refused.

On 30 August 1588, she was hanged at Tyburn, alongside the boatman John Roche, who had helped Watson escape.
Margaret Ward was canonised in 1970 and is now Saint Margaret Ward.

Our third and final brave lady is Anne Line, whose story is one of quiet strength and unshakable faith.

Born into a Protestant family, Anne converted to Catholicism as a young woman. She married Roger Line, but she was left a widow after her husband die abroad in exile. Instead of retreating into safety, she risked everything by running a secret safe house for priests.

On 2nd February 1601, her house was raided just as Father Francis Page was about to say Mass. He escaped, but Anne was arrested.

Anne, who was said to suffer from regular headaches and dropsy, was so frail that she had to be carried to her trial at the Old Bailey in a chair. She was sentenced to death for harbouring a priest—even though no priest had been found in her home.

On 27th February 1601, at Tyburn, as she stood before the executioner, Anne made a powerful final declaration:
"I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest; and so far am I from repenting for having so done, that I wish, with all my soul, that where I have entertained one, I could have entertained a thousand."

She was hanged before two priests, her friend and confessor, Jesuit Roger Filc*ck and Benedictine monk, Mark Barkworth, who were executed soon after.
Anne was canonised in 1970 and is now Saint Anne Line.

These three women—Margaret Clitherow, Margaret Ward, and Anne Line—gave their lives to protect others. They could have saved themselves. They could have renounced their faith. But instead, they stood firm, choosing death over betrayal.