Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bowes, Marmaduke

474612Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 06 — Bowes, Marmaduke1886Sidney Lee

BOWES, MARMADUKE (d. 1585), catholic martyr, is described as a substantial Yorkshire yeoman, of Angram Grange, near Appleton, in Cleveland. He was much divided on religious questions, but refused to declare himself a catholic, although he sympathised strongly with the catholic cause. According to the recollections of Grace, wife of Sir Ralph Babthorpe of Babthorpe, Yorkshire, Bowes was a married man, and 'kept a schoolmaster to teach his children.' The tutor, himself a catholic, was arrested and apostatised. The fellow thereupon reported to the council at York that Bowes, who, according to catholic testimony, was 'no catholic, but a poor schismatic,' was in the habit of entertaining catholic priests. Bowes was summoned to answer this complaint, and was ordered to appear at the August assizes of 1585. There he was indicted, condemned, and hanged, 'and, as it was reported, in his boots and spurs as he came to the town. He died very willingly and professed his faith [i.e. was openly converted to catholicism], with great repentance that he had lived in schism.' He suffered on 17 Nov. 1585 under the recent statute (27 Eliz.) against harbouring priests. Hugh Taylor, a seminary priest, who had stayed with him some time previously, was hanged about the same time.

[Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, i. 244, iii. passim; Dodd's Church History, ii. 154; Challoner's Missionary Priests, i. 85.]

S. L.