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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > P > Ven. Thomas Pickering


VEN. THOMAS PICKERING

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Lay brother and martyr, a member of an old Westmoreland family, b. c. 1621;
executed at Tyburn, 9 May, 1679. He was sent to the Benedictine monastery of St.
Gregory at Douai, where he took vows as a lay brother in 1660. In 1665 he was
sent to London, where, as steward or procurator to the little community of
Benedictines who served the queen's chapel royal, he became known personally to
the queen and Charles II; and when in 1675, urged by the parliament, Charles
issued a proclamation ordering the Benedictines to leave England within a fixed
time, Pickering was allowed to remain, probably on the ground that he was not a
priest. In 1678 came the pretended revelations of Titus Oates, and Pickering was
accused of conspiring to murder the king. No evidence except Oates's word was
produced and Pickering's innocence was so obvious that the queen publicly
announced her belief in him, but the jury found him guilty, and with two others
he was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. The king was divided
between the wish to save the innocent men and fear of the popular clamour, which
loudly demanded the death of Oates's victims, and twice within a month the three
prisoners were ordered for execution and then reprieved. At length Charles
remitted the execution of the other two, hoping that this would satisfy the
people and save Pickering from his fate. The contrary took place, however, and
26 April, 1679, the House of Commons petitioned for Pickering's execution.
Charles yielded and the long-deferred sentence was carried out on the ninth of
May. A small piece of cloth stained with his blood is preserved among the relics
at Downside Abbey.


SOURCES

     The Tryals of William Ireland, Thomas Pickering and John Grove for
conspiring to murder the king … (London, 1678); An exact abridgment of all the
Trials … relating to the popish and pretended protestant plots in the reigns of
Charles II and James II (London, 1690), 464; DODD, Church History of England,
III (Brussels, 1742), 318; CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, II (London,
1742), 376; OLIVER, Collections illustrating the History of the Catholic
Religion in Cornwall, Devon, etc. (London, 1847), 500; CORKER, Remonstrance of
piety and innocence (London, 1683), 178; WELDON, Chronological Notes on the
English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict, ed. DOLAN (Worcester, 1881),
219; Downside Review, II (London, 1883), 52-60.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Huddleston, G. (1911). Ven. Thomas Pickering. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12075b.htm

MLA citation. Huddleston, Gilbert. "Ven. Thomas Pickering." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12075b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With
thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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