FORTY MARTYRS OF ENGLAND AND WALES

group of Roman Catholic martyrs executed by English authorities during the Reformation, most during the reign of Elizabeth I. An act of Parliament in 1571 made it high treason to question the queen's title as head of the Church of Englandthus making the practice of Roman Catholicism an essentially treasonable actand authorized the confiscation of the property of Roman Catholics, many of whom fled to the European continent. In the ensuing persecution, 183 English Catholics were put to death between 1577 and 1603; altogether, some 600 Catholics died in the persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. Some were executed for offenses as trivial as obtaining a papal license to marry. Forty of these victims were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as representatives of all the martyrs. Many were priests or members of religious orders, but 59including seven of those canonizedwere lay Catholics. Their designated feast day, October 25, commemorates the date of their canonization.