Pilgrim Ways

VIII as head of the Church of England, and had rejected the spiritual authority of the Pope, their lives would have been spared. Willingness to die for belief is perhaps best summed up in the words of St.Margaret Ward who, at her trial, offered no apologies for helping a priest to avoid capture but rejoiced "in having delivered an innocent lamb from the hands of those bloody wolves." John Roche was hanged with her. Before leaving St.Etheldreda's, the west window should catch the visitor's eye. A detail in the window depicts the Tyburn Tree, a wooden triangle from which ten people could be hanged together. As they made their last pilgrimage on this earth, dragged on wooden pallets, this terrible procession would take them past St.Etheldreda's and on towards Tyburn.

Holborn To Soho Walking along Holborn and High Holborn we come to St.Giles (the great patron saint of people with leprosy and disabilities in the Middle Ages) and to the Church of St.Anselm and St.Cecilia, in Kingsway. This was built in 1909 to replace the old church of St.Cecilia which had served as the chapel of the Sardinian Embassy and during the reign of Charles II it was the first chapel to be opened in London after the Reformation. The first patron of the church is St. Anselm, who was a highly learned man, and as Archbishop of Canterbury, despite his gentle spirit, stood firm against King William Rufus and Henry I. The other patron, St.Cecilia, patron saint of music, was one of the most famous Roman martyrs. Perhaps this is an appropriate place to consider how we reconcile our duties to church and state, and how faith and culture- learning, literature, music, and media - inform one another. Crossing Tottenham Court Road and entering Oxford Street, we pass the old churchyard of St.Giles, the ancient parish church of Tyburn, where several martyrs were buried. A short detour takes the walker into Soho Square, where the Church of St.Patrick is situated. Following the passage of the Catholic Relief Act, this was built in 1792 on the site of the first Catholic church publicly opened in London. Given its location in Soho this is a good place to consider the children who suffer today through exploitation in the sex industry. In countries such as the Philippines men such as Fr.Shay Cullen, an Irish Columban priest, and women like Sister Laurence Pautinet - Sister Love, in Thailand, have devoted the whole of their lives to countering the way in which waves of foreigners, who often book their "holidays" via firms in London's Soho, abuse children as young as seven and eight years of age.

Oxford Circus To Tyburn Crossing Oxford Circus, the remaining walk along Oxford Street, takes us to our destination of Marble Arch. The pilgrim might make a detour before ending this walk. Many of those who were martyred at Tyburn came from Newgate prison (now known only from a plaque in the wall) and they were drawn from Newgate Street by St.Paul's, through High Holborn and Oxford Street to Marble Arch. This is the site of Tyburn field, which stood two miles outside of the city. For six hundred years it was a place of execution. The first took place in 1196 and the last in 1683. Of the religious martyrs who died here almost all were Catholics. This is because they were sentenced to die as traitors, to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Protestant martyrs died as heretics, at the stake, very few at this traditional place of execution of felons.

The site of the gallows is shown today by a circular slab of Portland stone which lies on the traffic island at the entrance of Edgeware road. Inscribed on the stone is a cross surrounded by the legend: "The site of Tyburn Tree." Between 1535 and 1681 more than one hundred Catholics died here and, not surprisingly, it became a secret place of pilgrimage. For instance, Queen Henrietta Maria, the Catholic wife of Charles I, came to pray and sent her French chaplain to observe events and to gather relics by which the memory of the dead might be