Blessed Thomas Percy

Blessed Thomas Percy was an English nobleman, Earl of Northumberland, a husband and father. In 1572 he was beheaded at York because he would not save his life at the price of abandoning the Catholic faith. The Church commemorates him on August 22.

He was born in 1528, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Percy. He was still a child when, in 1537, his father was executed in London for taking part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in the north of England against Henry VIII. The family then lost its title and lands. In 1549 Thomas was restored in blood, and under the Catholic Queen Mary I he recovered the inheritance of his forebears: in 1557 he received the title of Earl of Northumberland and was entrusted with guarding the border with Scotland.

He married Anne Somerset, daughter of the Earl of Worcester. They had several children; one of their daughters, Mary, later became a Benedictine nun in Brussels. Under Elizabeth I, when her first Parliament was passing laws aimed at Catholics, the earl remained faithful to the Church and made no secret of it. The queen still showed him favor and in 1563 admitted him to the Order of the Garter, but his attachment to the old faith aroused the distrust of her advisers.

When Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, took refuge in England in 1568, the Catholic gentry of the north began to plan her release. In November 1569 Thomas Percy, together with the Earl of Westmorland, led a rising later called the Rising of the North. Its aims were to free Mary Stuart and to restore freedom of Catholic worship, but it was at the same time an armed revolt against the queen, with political aims as well. After a few weeks the rising collapsed, and the earl fled to Scotland.

In Scotland he was captured and held prisoner for more than two years. In August 1572 the Scottish authorities handed him over to the English for two thousand pounds, and he was taken to York. A decree of the Holy See from 1895 states that he was offered his life and honors if he would forsake the faith, and that he courageously preferred martyrdom to them. He was beheaded at York on August 22, 1572. The Roman Martyrology records that he won the palm of martyrdom by keeping faith with the Roman Church.

The Church honors him as a martyr precisely because he refused to be saved at the price of apostasy. On May 13, 1895, Pope Leo XIII confirmed his cult and numbered him among the blessed, together with three Benedictine abbots, four Benedictine monks, and the knight Adrian Fortescue.