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‘Here Comes a Chopper to Chop off His Head’: The Execution of Three Priests at Newcastle and Gateshead, 1592–1594

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Donald Woodward
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Extract

The process of depriving Catholic martyrs of their lives inevitably involved the lay authorities in some expense. This is borne out graphically by the Newcastle Chamberlains’ Accounts of the early 1590s, which relate to the sufferings of Joseph Lambton and Edward Waterson, who were executed at Newcastle, and John Ingram, who died across the river in Gateshead. The details of their torments are well established. Lambton—who was born in May 1568 and was probably the youngest of all the martyrs—and Waterson were captured at Newcastle at about the same time and condemned to death at the assizes held on 20 July 1592. The execution, which was set for Saturday 22 July, was postponed until the Monday ‘in order to avoid a crowd of people’. In the event Lambton suffered alone and his execution ‘was one of the most horrible on record’. The task of hanging and dismembering Lambton's body was given to a man condemned for felony at the same assizes: he was offered a reprieve in exchange for performing the gruesome duty. The job was badly botched and a French surgeon was called in and paid twenty shillings to complete it. Waterson was given a temporary reprieve. It is recorded that the sheriff took one of the quarters of Lambton's body to Waterson ‘hoping to frighten him into submission but Waterson only kissed it’. Indeed, Waterson was made of stern stuff. His date of birth is not known but he was born in London and brought up a protestant. After travelling in Turkey he was ordained at Rheims in March 1592 and sent to England two months later. After his reprieve in July 1592 Waterson escaped but was soon recaptured. He refused to be cowed and languish quietly in his cell: the Newcastle chamberlains had to lay out money to repair ‘the door that the priest burnt in prison’. He was executed on 8 January 1593 by John Litherington, a fellow prisoner, although the grisly task of quartering the body fell to the serjeant, William Fever.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , May 1994 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1994

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References

Notes

1 Anstruther, G., The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales, I, Elizabethan, 1558–1603 (Durham, 1968), [hereafter Anstruther], pp. 182–4, 204–5, 371–2;Google Scholar Gillow, J., A Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics (1885), pp. 108–11, 543–8.Google Scholar Gillow, who does not refer to Waterson, reproduces some of the references relating to Ingram and Lambton.

2 Ibidem, p. 109.

3 Anstruther, p. 205.

4 Ibidem.

5 Ibidem, p. 371.

6 Ibidem, pp. 182–4.

7 Ibidem, p. 381.

8 Ibidem, p. 315.

9 The details are taken from Tyne and Wear Archives Service, 543/18. For an earlier set of accounts see Fraser, C. M. (ed.), The Accounts of the Chamberlains of Newcastle upon Tyne 1508–1511, The Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1987).Google Scholar

10 This and some of the following entries may relate to Edward Waterson rather than to Joseph Lambton.

11 The Lord President of the Council in the North.

12 Alexander Cheesman was a mason frequently employed by the Newcastle council in the later sixteenth century.

13 There are other general references in the accounts to the maintenance of the prison fabric, the manufacture of chains etc. for the prisoner.

14 The reading of this word is ‘stro’ which may mean ‘straw’ (see also the following entry). I am grateful to my colleague Prof. D. M. Palliser for helping me with a few such difficult readings.

15 The meaning of this entry is not entirely clear.

16 The execution of Waterson seems to have stimulated the Newcastle authorities to be more vigilant in searching for seminaries.