John Larke

For Canada's first trade commissioner, see John Short Larke.

Blessed John Larke (died 7 March 1544) was an English priest and martyr, who was executed during the reign of Henry VIII. He was a personal friend of Thomas More.

Life

Larke has been styled a doctor, but where he received his degree is unknown. He served as rector of St. Ethelburga's Bishopsgate, London,[1] for twenty-six years until Thomas More made him rector of the old riverside church in Chelsea.[2]

He appears to have taken the Oath of Supremacy in 1534, but, as Cresaere More puts it. " the example of St. Thomas More's death so wrought on his mind that afterwards he followed his own sheep and suffered a famous martyrdom."[3]

He was indicted on 15 February 1544, with John Ireland (a priest), German Gardiner, and Thomas Haywood. All were condemned, but Haywood recanted on the hurdle and lived to give testimony against Cranmer.

The other three, along with Robert Singleton, a priest whose cause of arrest is unknown, were executed on 7 March 1544. Larke was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.

References

  1. ↑ Wainewright, John. "Bl. John Larke." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 28 May 2013
  2. ↑ The One Hundred and Five Martyrs of Tyburn, Burns & Oates, Ltd., London, 1917
  3. ↑ "Chelsea will keep Feast of Bl. John Larke", Catholic Herald, p. 7, 25 February 1955


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