Tyburn Convent, London

Tybum field, near the present Marble Arch, was a

place of public execution from 1196 to 1 783. Amongst

the many thousands who died there were 105 people who

have been officially recognised as martyrs for the

Catholic faith. English law made it an act of treason to

refuse to assent to the royal supremacy over the Church

claimed by Henry VIII, or to be ( or to harbour) a

Catholic priest. The standard penalty for all those

convicted of treason at the time was execution by being

hanged, drawn and quartered. The first martyrs at

Tybum were Saint John Houghton and his companions,

executed on May 4, 1535. The last martyr executed at

Tybum was Saint Oliver Plunkett on July 11, 1681.

Religious persecution was not uniquely practised against

Catholics, of course: at other times Protestant believers

faced similar fates.

In 1571, under Queen Elizabeth I, a novel form of gallows was erected at Tybum, the "Tybum

Tree". This "Tree" was formed from a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs. It was

introduced better to permit the execution of several people at once.

The Catholic martyrs brought a new spirit

into the barbarities and butchery of Tybum: a

spirit of spiritual joy, spontaneous humour and,

in imitation of Christ, a wholehearted

forgiveness of those who had brought them to

their pface of execution.

This spirit flowed over into the crowds

around the Tybum Gallows. When Blessed

Thomas Maxfield was dragged to Tybum in

1616, the Gallows had been adorned with

garlands of fragrant flowers while the ground

around it was strewn with sweet-smelling

herbs and branches of laurel and bay.

Blessed Philip Powel announced from the

Tybum Tree: "This is the happiest day and

the greatest joy that ever befell me, for I am brought hither for no other cause or reason than that I

am a Roman Catholic priest and a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict" (1646).

.jaipt Edmund Campion, Jesuit priest, prayed on the scaffold for those responsible for his death:

'I recommend your case and mine to Almighty God, the Searcher of hearts, to the end that we may

at last befriends in heaven, when all injuries shall beforgotten" (1581).

Edward Morgan, priest, was reproved by a minister on the scaffold for being so cheerful. The

martyr replied: "Why should anyone be offended at my going to heaven cheerfully? For God loves

a cheerful giver" (1642).

Thus the holy martyrs transformed Tyburn's Deadly Nevergreen Tree into the Tree of Life and

the Gate of Heaven, which it remains to this very day.

In the early 19th century all the place names associated with Tybum field were changed to

Oxford Street, Park Lane etc: the little stream Ty was built over and Tybum, with its unsavoury

reputation, was forgotten except by a small number of Catholics who kept alive the memory of the

martyrs and hoped that one day a fitting shrine would be erected to commemorate their sacrifices.

In 1901 the law on associations was passed in France ordering the dissolution of every religious

community not authorised by the government. One such order was the Benedictine Adorers of the

Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, and its members left France to make a new home in England.

In 1903 they made that home in Tyburn

Convent, Hyde Park Place, where they have

remained for over 100 years.

The ancient gallows, where so many saints

and sinners died is now commemorated in a

modem replica of the "Tree" which stands in

the Shrine of the Sacred Heart and Tyburn

Martyrs. There, night and day, before Christ in

the Blessed Sacrament placed in the

Monstrance, the Tybum Nuns pray in adoration,

interceding for the Holy Father, the Church and

for all the needs of the whole human family and

especially for the people of England and Wales:

ever mindful of the Catholic Martyrs who

suffered and died on the scaffold ofTybum

Tree.