Clitherow, St Margaret (1556-86). Catholic martyr. Daughter of a sheriff of York and a butcher's wife, she became a catholic (1574). She was tried at York for harbouring Jesuits and priests and hearing mass in her house. She refused to plead, was condemned and pressed to death. A fine example of recusant courage and the brutality of the age, she was canonized in 1970.
A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.