On the 19th June 1535, three Carthusian monks of the London Charterhouse were executed at Tyburn. Sebastian Newdigate, William Exmew and Humphrey Middlemore were hanged, drawn and quartered for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church.
They were not the only Carthusian monks to be put to death for denying Henry VIII’s supremacy. Eighteen Carthusian monks were put to death between May 1535 and September 1537. Some were hanged, drawn and quartered, some were hanged in chains, and others were starved to death.
You can read more about them in my article from last year – 19 June 1535 – 3 Carthusian Monks Hanged, Drawn and Quartered
I am very surprised to read that Henry visited a condemned prisoner. He usually kept well out the way at this stage. This monk must have meant a lot to him, not that friendship made any difference to Henry once a person disagreed with him.
Henry seems to have been an “equal opportunity persecuter” …. support the Pope like the Carthusian monks, get tortured to death; don’t support the Pope, like Anne Askew, get tortured to death.
I agree, but the “Act of Supremacy” passed by Parliament in 1534, left no room for picking and choosing as even Sir Thomas More was executed in 1536 with Queen Anne’s agreement, and he was a very good friend of Henry, and this bothered Henry a great deal. Cromwell began the dissolution of the monasteries and nunneries in 1534, but nothing beat the smell of human flesh and buring when Queen Mary I was on the throne, and showed absolutely no mercy to any one. She is even the first of three in the TouTube, “The Most Evil Women in History.”
Henry had learned by this point that he could do anything he wanted, and with help with the “Great Divorce,” to make Queen Anne solidified was done. Queen Anne was also a victim of this in that she was blamed for this, and it was not her fault at all. Henry also learned he could do anything by having her beheaded when she was innocent of all charges! Bless her heart! Thank you, WilesWales
What a shame this really angers me that a person could be so heartless for human life,that just to get his ,selfish ways and take helpless monks, Anne ,Sir Thomas More one of his best friends. I in my opion don.’t think this King really had any true friends,the ones he did have are all dead, at his hand ,a very heartless King Spitfull now a day I think he would be a Clinicle Soseopath he sure did show all the behaviore of one. Baroness