John Houghton

Who was John Houghton?

Saint John Houghton, O.Cart., was a Carthusian hermit and Catholic priest and the first English Catholic martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first member of his Order to die as a martyr.

Born around 1486, he was educated at Cambridge, but cannot be identified among surviving records. Similarly, no certain records can be found of his ordination.

He joined the London Charterhouse in 1515, progressed to be sacristan in 1523, and procurator in 1526. In 1531, he became Prior of the Charterhouse of Beauvale in Nottinghamshire. However, in November of that year, he was elected Prior of the London house, to which he returned.

In 1534, he asked that he and his community be exempted from the oaths required under the new Act of Succession, which resulted in both him and his procurator 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 their Catholicism, with the clause "as far as the law of Christ allows" and they returned to the Charterhouse, where the whole community made the required professions.