The Carthusian Martyrs of London were the monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in the City of London who were put to death by the English state in a period lasting from the 4 May 1535 until the 20 September 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then quartering. Others were imprisoned and left to starve to death. The group also includes two monks who were brought to that house from the Charterhouses of Beauvale and Axholme and similarly dealt with. The total was 18 men, all of whom have been formally recognized by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
At the outset of the "King's Great Matter," (the euphemism given to King Henry VIII's decision to divorce Catherine of Aragon, marry Anne Boleyn and break legal ties with the Pope) the government was anxious to secure the public acquiescence of the Carthusian monks, since they enjoyed great prestige for the austerity and sincerity of their way of life. When this attempt failed, the only alternative was to annihilate the resistance, since their refusal put the prestige of the monks in opposition to the king's will. This took the form of a long process of attrition.
The First Group
Despite their strict enclosure, the monks of the London Charterhouse were held in high esteem and had considerable influence among the people, as many used to consult the Carthusians for spiritual advice.
On 4 May 1535 the authorities sent to their death at Tyburn, Middlesex three leading English Carthusians, Doms John Houghton, prior of the London house, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster, respectively priors of Beauvale and Axholme, along with a Bridgettine monk, Richard Reynolds of Syon Abbey and a secular priest John Haile.
The Second Group
Little more than a month later, it was the turn of three leading monks of the London house: Doms Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate. They were bound upright in chains for 13 days before being taken to die at Tyburn, Middlesex on 19 June. Newdigate was a personal friend of Henry VIII, who twice visited him in the prison to persuade him to give in, in vain.
The Third Group
The next move was to seize four more monks of the community, two being taken to the Carthusian house at Beauvale in Nottinghamshire, while Dom John Rochester and Dom James Walworth were taken to the Charterhouse of St. Michael in Hull in Yorkshire. They were made an "example" of on 11 May 1537, when, condemned for refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy, they were hanged in chains from the York city battlements until dead.
The Fourth Group
On 18 May 1537 the 20 hermits and 18 lay brothers remaining in the London Charterhouse were required to take the Oath of Supremacy. Of these, the hermits Doms Thomas Johnson, Richard Bere, Thomas Green (priests), and John Davy (a deacon), refused. Richard Bere was the nephew, and namesake of, Richard Bere the Abbot of Glastonbury (1493–1525). The younger Bere abandoned his studies in the law, and became a Carthusian in February 1523. Thomas Green may be the Thomas Greenwood who obtained a bachelor's degree at Oxford, and later a Master's degree at Cambridge in 1511, who became Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge in 1515 and the Doctorate in Divinity in 1532. This would associate him with St. John Fisher.
Likewise, of the brothers, Robert Salt, William Greenwood, Thomas Redyng, Thomas Scryven, Walter Pierson, and William Horne refused. As to the rest of the community, the charterhouse voted to be "surrendered" though they stayed in their homes through the rest of the year.
Those refusing the oath were all sent on 29 May to Newgate Prison, and treated as had been their fellow Carthusians in June 1535. They were chained standing and with their hands tied behind them to posts in the prison. Plague and typhus running through the prisoners in the summer weather killed five of the prisoners, two more coming close to death.