On the morning of 4th May 1535, five men were dragged on wooden hurdles from the Tower of London to Tyburn. Three were Carthusian priors. One was a Bridgettine monk. One was a parish priest.
Their crime: refusing to take the oath required by the Act of Supremacy, acknowledging Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England.
From his cell in the Tower, Thomas More watched them go. He called to his daughter Margaret through the window: “Lo, dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerful going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriages?” He knew he was watching his own future play out in front of him.
The Horror
At Tyburn, they were hanged with great ropes — and while they were still alive, the hangman cut out their hearts and bowels and burned them. John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse, was the first to die. As the executioner disembowelled him and reached for his heart, Houghton cried out: “Jesu, Jesu, what wilt thou do with my heart?”
After he was beheaded and quartered, one of his arms was nailed to the gateway of the London Charterhouse — the monastery he had led — while other parts of his body were displayed around the city. Every monk who entered to pray passed under his arm.
Between 1535 and 1540, at least eighteen Carthusian monks and lay brothers connected with the English Charterhouses were put to death for resisting the royal supremacy. Some were hanged, drawn and quartered. Some were hanged in chains from the city walls. Nine were imprisoned in Newgate and left to starve in their cells, smothered in their own filth. All eighteen have since been recognised by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
Thomas More was executed seven weeks after Houghton, on 6th July 1535. He had watched the first act from his window.
The Modern Relic
The London Charterhouse still stands in Smithfield — one of the oldest surviving medieval complexes in London. The gateway where Houghton’s arm was displayed still exists, now opening onto a quiet courtyard instead of a cloister of monks. Today the Charterhouse is a museum and residential almshouse. You can walk through the same entrance.
Nearby on the Dark Atlas
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