John Forest (1471 – 22 May 1538) was an English Franciscan friar and martyr. Confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, Forest was burned to death at Smithfield for heresy, in that he refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church.

Life

Born in the Oxford area in 1471, John Forest became a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

Minor of the Regular Observance in 1491 in Greenwich. He went on to study

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, later becoming provincial of all the Observant Friars in England, and confessor to Queen

Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...

, first wife to King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

. (The Greenwich friary was attached to the Royal Palace at Greenwich.) The King was eager to gain the sanction of learned men and of those esteemed highly to his plans in regard to the Church. Wealth and honours were offered to those who complied. Those who resisted were threatened.Camm O.S. B., Dom Bede. "Blessed John Forest". ''Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII'', Vol. I, p. 274, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1914
/ref> From 1531 the Friars Minor had gained the enmity of the King by opposing his divorce and his movements toward

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

.Thaddeus, Fr. "Blessed John Forest." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 11 Mar. 2013
/ref> In November, 1532, as Guardian of the Greenwich friary, Forest spoke to the friars of the plans the King had to suppress the Order in England and denounced from the pulpit at

St. Paul's Cross St Paul's Cross (alternative spellings – "Powles Crosse") was a preaching cross and open-air pulpit in the grounds of Old St Paul's Cathedral, City of London. It was the most important public pulpit in Tudor and early Stuart England, and many ...

Henry's plans for a divorce. In 1533 he was imprisoned in

Newgate prison Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, t ...

and condemned to death. In 1534 Henry suppressed the Observant friars and ordered them dispersed to other friaries. John was released from prison but by 1538 was in confinement in a Conventual Franciscan friary at Smithfield, his death sentence having been neither commuted nor carried out."Blessed John Forest 1471 – 1538", Saints and Blesseds of the OFM Province in Britain
/ref> Forest was sent to a convent in the north. Despite initially recanting, Forest was detained at

Newgate Prison Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, t ...

, on the basis of denial of the king's supremacy, together with several other Friars, who persuaded him to stand fast in his Roman Catholic beliefs. His confinement, therefore, was not strict, and he was allowed to celebrate

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

and hear confessions. From this confinement he could correspond with the Queen and he also wrote a tract against Henry entitled ''De auctoritate Ecclesiae et Pontificis maximi'' ("On the Authority of the Church and the Supreme Pontiff"), defending the papal primacy in the Church. He was denounced to the King for this tract and also for refusing to swear the oath of loyalty demanded by

Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry' ...

and

Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer ( – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the s ...

acted as a team on Cromwell's behalf in the proceedings which led to the friar's destruction. Forest was condemned for treason and heresy, the latter to emphasize the spiritual supremacy claimed by the crown. In accordance with the custom of the time, Bishop Latimer was selected to preach a final sermon at the place of execution urging recantation. In the end, Forest was burnt to death at

Smithfield, London Smithfield, properly known as West Smithfield, is a district located in Central London, part of Farringdon Without, the most westerly ward of the City of London, England. Smithfield is home to a number of City institutions, such as St Barth ...

on 22 May 1538, where he was suspended over the fire in chains. John Forest was the only Catholic martyr to be burned at the stake during the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

. Extra fuel for the pyre is said to have been provided by an enormous statue of St. Derfel from the pilgrimage site of Llandderfel in north

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, and of which it was prophesied, would "one day set a forest on fire."

Veneration

Forest, together with 53 other English martyrs, was

beatified Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...

by Pope

Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...

, on 9 December 1886. There is a statue of Forest in the nave of St. Ethelreda's Church in Ely Place, London. There is a mosaic of Forest in the Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Oxford Road,

Chorlton-on-Medlock Chorlton-on-Medlock or Chorlton-upon-Medlock is an inner city area of Manchester, England. Historically in Lancashire, Chorlton-on-Medlock is bordered to the north by the River Medlock, which runs immediately south of Manchester city centre. It ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. There are stained glass windows of the martyr in the following churches: *

Our Lady and the English Martyrs The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, also known as the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs (OLEM), is an English Roman Catholic parish church located at the junction of Hills Road and Lensfield Road in southeast ...

, Hills Road,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Shrewsbury Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Our Lady Help of Christians and Saint Peter of Alcantara, commonly known as Shrewsbury Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Shrewsbury, England. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury and mother ...

, he is the first figure on the fifth window, next to Edmund Campion.

References

External links

Camm O.S. B., Dom Bede. "Blessed John Forest". ''Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII'', Vol. I, p. 274, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1914

Attribution

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forest, John 1471 births 1538 deaths English Friars Minor Executed British people People executed under Henry VIII 16th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 16th-century English Roman Catholic priests English beatified people 15th-century English people 16th-century English people People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning Executed people from Oxfordshire Forty-one Martyrs of England and Wales