MIRACULOUS MIRACLES™

Saint — John Southworth

All Saints
St. John Southworth
1592 AD, Samlesbury, Lancashire, Kingdom of England — June 28, 1654 AD, Tyburn, London — hanged, drawn, and quartered under Cromwell's Puritan Commonwealth
English recusant priest; martyred at 62 for the treason of Catholic priesthood
Westminster Cathedral, London, England — tomb; Catholic pilgrim destination, United Kingdom
Feast
June 28 (martyrdom); October 25 (Forty Martyrs of England and Wales)
Canonized
Canonized October 25, 1970 by Pope St. Paul VI (one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales)
✠ MartyrHanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn under Cromwell's Commonwealth, 1654 → The Martyrs
Life

John Southworth was born in 1592 at Samlesbury in Lancashire to the noble Southworth recusant Catholic family. Educated at the continental English College at Douai, John was ordained Catholic priest in 1618.

John returned to England as a secular Catholic recusant priest — serving in Lancashire and London for the 36 years (1618–1654).

During the Puritan Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell (1653–1659), John undertook the systematic ministry to the plague victims of London during the plague of 1654.

Arrested in 1654 on the old Catholic-priesthood-treason charges, John was condemned to death.

On June 28, 1654, John was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn — at the age of 62.

His body was purchased by the Spanish Ambassador and translated to the English College at Douai. In 1930, following the rediscovery of his body during the excavation of the former Douai College (by Bishop Michael Hughes-Games), John's body was translated to Westminster Cathedral in London — where it rests in the Chapel of St. George and the English Martyrs.

Canonized on October 25, 1970 by Pope St. Paul VI.

Miracles & Phenomena

  • The Westminster Cathedral shrine

    St. John Southworth's body — rediscovered at Douai in 1927 and translated to Westminster Cathedral in 1930 — rests at the Chapel of St. George and the English Martyrs at Westminster Cathedral in London, the principal Catholic pilgrim destination for the English recusant-martyr tradition.

Relics
  • Body
    Body of St. John Southworth
    Westminster Cathedral, London, England — Chapel of St. George and the English Martyrs

    His body rests at the Chapel of St. George and the English Martyrs at Westminster Cathedral — one of the few complete bodies of an English martyr publicly venerated in England.

Iconography
  • John Southworth at the Tyburn Tree

    The late-16th and mid-17th-century English Catholic priest being hanged, drawn, and quartered at the Tyburn Tree on June 28, 1654 under Cromwell's Puritan Commonwealth — the iconography of English Catholic recusant-martyr tradition.

Patronages
Diocese of Westminster (Catholic)Catholic English recusant martyr traditionCatholic London Catholic community
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