A native of Yorkshire, Thompson arrived at the college at Reims 19 September 1580, and in May of the next year, by virtue of a dispensation, was admitted at Soissons, with one Nicholas Fox, to all Sacred orders within twelve days, although at the time he was so ill that he could hardly stand.

When he was taken before the Council of the North, he openly confessed to his being a priest.

[4] He was shackled and imprisoned—first in a private jail, until his money ran out, and then in York Castle.

[5] He protested the entire time that he had never plotted against the queen, and that he died in and for Catholic faith.

In spite of his sentence, he was neither disemboweled nor quartered, but was buried under the gallows.