Saint John Houghton

John Houghton, OCart (c. 1486 – 4 May 1535) was a Catholic priest of the Carthusian order and the first martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first of the Carthusians to die as a martyr. As one of the Carthusian Martyrs of London he is among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Born around 1487, Houghton was (according to one of his fellow Carthusians) educated at Cambridge, but cannot be identified among surviving records. Similarly, no certain records can be found of his ordination. It is said that he escaped an arranged marriage as soon as he completed his education and took refuge with a devout priest. He entered the London Charterhouse in 1516, was appointed sacristan in 1523, and in 1528 procurator, the monastery's business manager. In 1531, he became prior of the Charterhouse of Beavale in Nottinghamshire. However, in November of that same year, he was elected prior of the London house, to which he returned. In addition, the following spring he was named Provincial Visitor, at the head of the English Carthusians. In April 1534, two royal agents visited the Charterhouse. Houghton advised them that "it pertained not to his vocation and calling nor to that of his subjects to meddle in or discuss the king's business, neither could they or ought they to do so, and that it did not concern him who the king wished to divorce or marry, so long as he was not asked for any opinion." He asked that he and his community be exempted from the oath required under the new Act of Succession, which resulted in both him and his procurator, Humphrey Middlemore, being arrested and taken to the Tower of London. However, by the end of May, they had been persuaded that the oath was consistent with the Catholic faith if they added the clause "as far as the law of Christ allows" and they returned to the Charterhouse, where (in the presence of a large armed force) the whole community took the required oath.