Thomas Abel (or Abell) (ca. 1497 – 30 July 1540) was an

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priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

who was

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ed during the reign of

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 place and date of his birth are unknown. He was educated at

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, where in 1516 he took the degree of Master of Arts, and subsequently acquired a doctorate in theology. He entered the service of Queen Catherine as her

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

some time before 1528 and appears to have taught the queen modern languages and music. Catherine sent him to

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in 1528 to the emperor

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on a mission relating to the proposed divorce. On his return she presented him with the parochial

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of Bradwell, in

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, and he remained to the last a staunch supporter of the unfortunate queen in the case of the validity of her marriage with

. In 1532, he published his ''Invicta veritas. An answere, That by no manner of law, it may be lawfull for the most noble King of England, King Henry the eight to be divorced from the queens grace, his lawfull and very wife. B.L.''. Abel's treatise was printed by Merten de Keyser in

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with the fictitious pressmark of Luneberge, to avoid suspicion. The work contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting Henry's ecclesiastical claims. The king bought up copies of the book in order to destroy them. For this he was thrown into the Beauchamp Tower in the

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, and after a year's liberation again imprisoned, in December, 1533, on the charges of disseminating the prophecies of the Maid of Kent, encouraging the queen "obstinately to persist in her wilful opinion against the same divorce and separation", and maintaining her right to the title of queen. He was kept in close confinement until his execution at Smithfield, two days after the execution of

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charge ...

. There is still to be seen on the wall of his prison in the Tower of London a

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consisting of the symbol of a bell with an A upon it and the name Thomas above, which he carved during his confinement. There is extant a very pious Latin letter written by him to a fellow-martyr, and another to Cromwell, begging for some slight mitigation of his "close prison"; "license to go to church and say

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here within the Tower and for to lie in some house upon the Green". It is signed "by your daily bedeman, Thomas Abell, priest". His

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states that he and three others "have most traitorously adhered themselves unto the

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, being a common enemy unto your Majesty and this your Realm, refusing your Highness to be our and their Supreme Head of this your Realm of England". Abel was sentenced to "be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, there to be hanged, cut down alive, your members to be cut off and cast in the fire, your bowels burnt before your eyes, your head smitten off, your body to be quartered at the King's will, and God have mercy on your soul."John Lander, ''The Queen's Champion: A Forgotten Hero at the Court of Henry VII'', Up Front Publishing Ltd (2008)

Veneration

He 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 ...

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 ...

as one of a group of fifty-four English Martyrs on 29 December 1886.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abell, Thomas 1490s births 1540 deaths Alumni of the University of Oxford English beatified people 16th-century English Roman Catholic priests Executed English people People executed under the Tudors for treason against England 16th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 16th-century venerated Christians People executed by the Kingdom of England by hanging People executed under Henry VIII Forty-one Martyrs of England and Wales