Margaret Clitherow’s life – and death – were shaped by the religious upheavals of the Protestant Reformation in Elizabethan (16th century) England. A devoted Catholic in a time and place where Catholicism was illegal, she played a powerful role in a kind of “spy” network secretly harboring Catholic priests in the city of York. When a young boy living in her household exposed her secrets, she was imprisoned and then executed by the gruesome method of being pressed to death. She is now Saint Margaret Clitherow, one of only 3 female martyrs of the English Reformation–the other 197 are male.

Katie interviews renowned Reformation Historian Peter Marshall, Professor of History at the University of Warwick in England, and co-editor of Oxford’s English Historical Review. He is one of the world’s preeminent scholars in Reformation history and winner of the Harold J. Grimm Prize for Reformation History. His books include 1517: Martin Luther and the Invention of the Reformation (2017), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation (2015), Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (2017), The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (2009), and Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story (2007).

Music featured in this episode provided by the Weber State University Choirs and Orchestra.

Want to help us “make history”? Become a Patron or Donate here!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices