John Felton (fl. before 1566 - died 8 August 1570) was an English Catholic martyr, executed during the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

. Felton was arrested for fixing a copy of Pope Pius V's bull '' Regnans in Excelsis'' excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace near St. Paul's.

Life

Almost all of what is known about Felton's background comes from the narrative of his daughter, Frances Salisbury. The manuscript that holds her story has a blank where his age should be, but it does say that he was a wealthy man of

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

ancestry, who lived at Bermondsey Abbey near

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

. Bermondsey was a mansion built the generation before on the site of and out of the materials of a great Cluniac monastery.''A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 2'', Malden, H.E. (ed.), 1967.
British History Online. Retrieved 14 May 2008. He "was a man of stature little and of complexion black". His wife had been a playmate of

, a maid-of-honour to Queen Mary and the widow of one of Mary's auditors (a legal official of the papal court).Wainewright, John. "Blessed John Felton." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 28 May 2013
/ref> John Felton was a well-known Catholic, and the father of Thomas Felton (born 1566). Felton was arrested for fixing a copy of Pope Pius V's bull '' Regnans in Excelsis'' ("reigning on high"), excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, to the gates of the

Bishop of London The bishop of London is the Ordinary (church officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723. The diocese covers of 17 boroughs o ...

's palace near St. Paul's. Elizabeth and her ministers were by no means indifferent to the potential political effects of the papal bull. In the Europe of the sixteenth century there were still Catholic powers who might be ready to execute the sentence of deposition that was in those days the corollary of excommunication.Camm O.S.B., Dom Bede. "Blessed John Forest". ''Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII'', Vol. I, p. 2, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1914
/ref> Posting the copy of the bull was a significant act of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

as the document, which released Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance, needed to be promulgated in England before it could take legal effect. The deed brought about the end of the previous policy of tolerance towards those Catholics who were content occasionally to attend their parish church while keeping their true beliefs to themselves. The reaction seemed soon to be justified: it was the publication in England of Pius's exhortation that gave the impetus to the Ridolfi plot, in which the

Duke of Norfolk Duke of Norfolk is a title in the peerage of England. The premier non-royal peer, the Duke of Norfolk is additionally the premier duke and earl in the English peerage. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the t ...

was to kidnap or murder Queen Elizabeth, install

Mary, Queen of Scots Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was List of Scottish monarchs, Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. The only surviving legit ...

, on the throne and then become king by marrying her. The law records say that the act was committed around eleven at night on 24 May 1570, but Salisbury claims it happened between two and three in the morning of the following day, the Feast of Corpus Christi. Felton had received the bulls in Calais and given one to a friend, William Mellowes of

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

. A general search of known Catholic houses in and near London was undertaken and the copy was soon discovered. After being racked, Mellowes implicated Felton, who was arrested on 26 May. Felton immediately confessed and glorified in his deed, "treasonably declar ngthat the queen … ought not to be the queen of England", but he was still racked as the authorities were seeking, through his testimony, to implicate Guerau de Spes, the Ambassador of Spain, in the action. Felton was condemned on 4 August and executed by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

four days later in St. Paul's Churchyard,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. He was cut down alive for quartering, and his daughter says that he uttered the holy name of Jesus once or twice when the hangman had his heart in his hand. He was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. Records of the trial from Elizabeth's state papers, and the deliberations of the Privy Council regarding the effect on relations with Spain, are retained in the

Public Record Office The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...

References

Citations

Sources

* . ** {{DEFAULTSORT:Felton, John 1570 deaths English beatified people Executed English people People executed under Elizabeth I 16th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 16th-century venerated Christians 16th-century English people Forty-one Martyrs of England and Wales Year of birth uncertain Felton family