Saint Margaret Clitherow was a Catholic martyr born in York and cruelly executed for failing to observe Protestant worship in 1586.
Margaret Clitherow was born Margaret Middleton on Coney Street and married a butcher, John Clitherow. She converted to Catholicism in the early 1570s (as a young Guy Fawkes was growing up just a few streets away) and was imprisoned several times for failing to attend her local church.

The Shambles, one of York's medieval streets and once home to Saint Margaret Clitherow
The barbaric nature of the execution, and the fact Margaret was a woman, made her death unusual, even at a time when sectarian execution was common. She was canonised in 1970.
Like most butchers in York at the time, the Clitherows lived on the Shambles, and Saint Margaret’s house can still be visited today.
