May 5th.

Martyrs of the London Charterhouse.

These were the first martyrs of the Reformation, on May 4, 1535 [May 4 is now assigned to the Beatified Martyrs – those declared blessed but not yet canonised – so the celebration is kept on May 5].  St. John Houghton was prior of the Carthusian monastery or ‘Charterhouse’ at Gray’s Inn and had come from the house at Beauvale, Notts., where St. Robert Lawrence had succeeded him as prior.   St. Augustine Webster was a monk of the Charterhouse at Sheen, near Richmond, and had previously been prior at Axholme, Lincs.  When the Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared Henry VIII to be supreme head of the Church in England, Lawrence and Webster came to London to confer with Prior Houghton.  They approached Thomas Cromwell in an attempt to obtain an oath of supremacy which would be acceptable in conscience to their communities, but were thrown in the Tower.  Later, St. Thomas More, also a prisoner in the Tower, saw them being taken to Tyburn, and said to his daughter, then visiting him: “Lo, dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms ot marriage?”  With them died St. Richard Reynolds, a monk of the Bridgettine Order at Sion Abbey, Isleworth, a scholarly man and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.  It had been felt that if such a distinguished person took the Oath of Supremacy, many other hesitant individuals would follow.