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Margaret Clitherow

English saint and martyr (1556–1586)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Margaret Clitherow was an English Catholic recusant known as The Pearl of York. She was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea to the charge of harbouring Catholic priests. She was canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

Editorial summary

“Margaret Clitherow” enters the record as english saint and martyr (1556–1586). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Margaret, Clitherow and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1970—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Margaret, Clitherow and English.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Margaret Clitherow” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Margaret, Clitherow and English provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1970.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Margaret Clitherow”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Margaret Clitherow primary sources, Margaret Clitherow archive and Margaret research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Margaret Clitherow”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Margaret Clitherow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.