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.

She learnt Latin in prison so she could read and say a Catholic service, and used to visit York’s Tyburn, where Catholic priests were executed. She refused to make even a token gesture to recant her beliefs – if she had she would probably have spent the rest of her life in and out of jail. As it was, she was found guilty in 1585 and under the law of the time was sentenced to death by being pressed by stones.

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.