I Admire . . .

Margaret (Mercy) Clements (née Giggs)

(A woman who lived the Beatitudes)

Why do I admire Mercy Clements?

I admire her:

For her unstinting charity.

For her work with the poor and needy

For her heroic care of the 'hidden' Carthusian martyrs, left to starve to death in Newgate Prison. 

For her refusal to bow to the self-appointed Head of the Church and her subsequent exile for the faith, in Belgium*.

For her open door policy to any priest on his way to England, to share some of her hospitality while waiting for a ship.

Perhaps one day Mercy Clements will be proclaimed a saint. . .

Here are two quotes about Margaret 'Mercy' Clements:

"Nine of these glorious (Carthusian) brethren, priests and lay-brothers alike, were thrown into the horrible and foetid dungeons of Newgate.  There they were deliberately left to perish from hunger, chained to the walls and pillars of their dungeon.  For a time these holy Carthusians were kept alive by the charity of Margaret Clements, St Thomas More's adopted daughter, who came to the prison disguised as a milkmaid, bringing food in her pail, with which she fed them.  When, from the king learning that his victims were still alive, Margaret could no longer enter the prison, she contrived by taking some tiles off the roof to let down a basket of food to them  But they being able to feed themselves very little, and the gaoler fearing that it should be perceived, refusing to let her come any more, the nine languished and died, one after another."

"As Margaret Clements lay dying at Mechlin, an exile for the faith, she called her husband and told him that the time for her departure was come, and she might stay no longer, for that there were standing about her bed the blessed martyrs of the London Charterhouse whom she had relieved in prison in England and that were calling on her to come away with them  Thus she was escorted by that blessed company to the joys of the heavenly banquet. 

*actually I have read that she went into exile twice: one during the reigns of Henry and Edward, and then a second time during the reign of Elizabeth I