4 May (together with the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, in England) 30 August (together with Anne Line and Margaret Ward) Margaret Clitherow (née Middleton, c. 1556 – 25 March 1586) was an English recusant,[2] and a saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church,[3] known as The Pearl of York.

[6] Although her husband, John Clitherow, belonged to the Established Church, he was supportive as his brother William was a Roman Catholic priest.

Local tradition holds that she also housed her clerical guests in The Black Swan at Peasholme Green, where the Queen's agents were lodged.

Although pregnant with her fourth child,[5] she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, (which also happened to be Good Friday that year) in the Toll Booth at Ouse Bridge, York, by being crushed to death (peine forte et dure), the standard inducement to force a plea.

[2] Cliherow's life was recorded in John Mush's Trewe Reporte of the Lyfe and Marterdome of Mrs Margarete Clitherowe, which he wrote within three months of her death.

[6][12][13] The English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem honouring "God's daughter Margaret Clitheroe.

[19] Several schools in England are named after her, including those in Bracknell, Brixham, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Thamesmead SE28, Brent, London NW10 and Tonbridge.

[21] In the United States, St Margaret of York Church and School in Loveland, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, is also named after her.

[23][24] The former parishes of Sacred Heart and Holy Family in Rochdale in the Diocese of Salford have also been united under the patronage of St Margaret.

In 2008, a commemorative plaque was installed at the Micklegate end of York's Ouse Bridge to mark the site of her martyrdom.

[26] The author cited St. Margaret Clitherow as a major influence (along with the 2010 film adaptation of Never Let Me Go, the 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the Young Adult fiction series The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins).

At one point the novel was even marked by a US publisher as “a retelling of Saint Margaert Clitherow’s story.” However, although the eponymous heroine Margaret lives in an age of religious persecution, with some elements such as ‘pursuivants’ drawing recognizably on the Elizabethan penal times, the author has stated that it is not a strict retelling and was not intended to be.