Richard Langhorne (c. 1624 – 14 July 1679) was an English

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

and Catholic

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

, who was executed on a false charge of treason as part of the fabricated

Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate C ...

. He fell under suspicion because he was a Roman Catholic and because he had acted as legal adviser to the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

at a time of acute anti-Catholic hysteria.

Background and early life

He was the third son of William Langhorne, a

, and his wife Lettice Needham, of

Little Wymondley Little Wymondley is a village and former civil parish situated between Hitchin and Stevenage, now in the parish of Wymondley, in the North Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Paradoxically, it has a larger population ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. He was admitted to the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in May 1647 and called to the bar in November 1654. He was a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, and provided legal and financial advice for the

. During the wave of anti-Catholic hysteria which followed the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

of 1666, he was briefly arrested but quickly released. His wife, Dorothy Legatt, was a Protestant from Havering in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. His sons Charles and Francis were both priests. When, in October 1677, Titus Oates was expelled from the English College at St Omer "for serious moral lapses", Charles Langhorne entrusted Oates with a letter to his father. Oates returned to St Omer with a letter from Richard thanking the Jesuits for all they had done for his sons.

Arrest

When Oates and

Israel Tonge Israel Tonge (11 November 1621 – 1680), aka Ezerel or Ezreel Tongue, was an English divine. He was an informer in and probably one of the inventors of the "Popish" plot. Career Tonge was born at Tickhill, near Doncaster, the son of Henry Tong ...

unleashed their entirely fictitious Popish Plot, a non-existent Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II, in September 1678, three Jesuits and a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

were arrested. Following a detailed search of their papers (which failed to uncover any evidence of treason), Langhorne's role as legal adviser to the Jesuits was discovered almost at once: he was arrested a week after the four priests, although there was no evidence in the priests' papers that he had committed any crime. He was imprisoned at

Newgate Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...

and charged with

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

. Oates claimed, and was corroborated by the notorious

informer An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

and confidence trickster

William Bedloe William Bedloe (20 April 165020 August 1680) was an English fraudster and Popish Plot informer. Life He was born at Chepstow in Monmouthshire. He was probably the son of Isaac Bedloe, himself the son of an Irish Army officer, and a cousin of Wi ...

, that Langhorne's earlier correspondence dealt with the conspiracy to kill the King.

Trial and execution

He was tried on 14 June 1679. He was forced to defend himself, as a person charged with treason had no right then to defence counsel (this rule was not changed until the passage of the

Treason Act 1695 The Treason Act 1695 (7 & 8 Will 3 c 3) is an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of England which laid down rules of evidence and procedure in high treason trials. It was passed by the English Parliament but was extended to cover Scotland ...

). His main defence consisted of an attack on the character of the Crown's principal witnesses, Oates and Bedloe, but since the judges were well aware of the deplorable past lives of both men, this seems to have made little impression. He also called a number of students from St Omer to prove that Oates had been at the college on the crucial dates when he claimed to be in London, but the public mood was so hostile to Catholics that the witnesses were barely able to make themselves heard over the roar of the crowd, and some of them were assaulted as they left the Court. Ironically, some of the same witnesses appeared for the prosecution at Oates' own trial for perjury in 1685, where the crowd treated them courteously, and the jury was told to weigh their evidence with the greatest seriousness. William Scroggs, the Lord Chief Justice, although violently prejudiced against

Catholic priests The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

, was relatively tolerant of Catholic laymen; his summing up was reasonably fair by the standards of the time, and he did warn the jury that on no account should an innocent man's life be taken away.Kenyon p.188 Nonetheles, Langhorne was found guilty of High Treason. As the result of a petition by his wife, a ‘true Protestant’, he received a month's reprieve to tidy the affairs of his clients. Kenyon suggests that the Crown was still hoping that he would confess, and it seems that he was offered a

royal pardon In the English and British tradition, the royal prerogative of mercy is one of the historic royal prerogatives of the British monarch, by which they can grant pardons (informally known as a royal pardon) to convicted persons. The royal preroga ...

if he did so. Langhorne was prepared, presumably with the consent of the Jesuit fathers, to give the Crown a list of all the Jesuit properties in England, (which turned out to be much less extensive than the Crown, misled by Oates's wild exaggeration of the Jesuits' wealth, had expected) but he steadily maintained his innocence.Kenyon p.191 He also wrote a lengthy religious meditation in verse, which was later published. He was executed at

Tyburn Tyburn was a manor (estate) in the county of Middlesex, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. The parish, probably therefore also the manor, was bounded by Roman roads to the west (modern Edgware Road) and south (modern Ox ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, on 14 July 1679. Public opinion was slowly turning against the Plot, and Langhorne's courageous death made a favourable impression on the watching crowd.

Legacy

On 15 December 1929, he was beatified by

Pope Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City fro ...

. His feast day is 14 July, the day of his death. There is a stained glass window of Langhorne in Our Lady of Lourdes in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langhorne, Richard 1624 births 1679 deaths English barristers Victims of the Popish Plot Members of the Inner Temple English beatified people One Hundred and Seven Martyrs of England and Wales