John Ingram

John Ingram (1565 – 26 July 1594) was an English Jesuit and martyr from Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, who was executed in Gateshead on 26 July 1594, during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Life Ingram was probably the son of Anthony Ingram of Wolford, Warwickshire, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Hungerford. Ingram is often confused with another John Ingram from Thame in Oxfordshire who attended New College Oxford. For this reason Ingram of Wolford is sometimes listed as one of the “Oxford Martyrs”. This conflation of the identities of the two men seems to have started in Carles Dodd's "Church History" of 1739, copied into Bishop Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests in 1741, and repeated without challenge in subsequent publications.

John Ingram left England aged around 17 years and traveled to Douai. After introductory training he, with three other young men, was sent to the Rheims to study under William Allen. This venture was not without incident. They were waylaid and held to ransom by a troop of Calvinist mercenaries in the pay of Francis, Duke of Anjou. The first mention of Ingram is in a letter from William Allen, Principal at Rheims, to the rector of the English College in Rome:Even at the very moment of my writing to you bad tidings come of four young students. On their way to this college from Douai, they were robbed, and are still held captive, by the soldiery of my lord, the brother of his Majesty, and a large sum of money is demanded of us for their ransom. Meanwhile the soldiers are dragging their unhappy victims from town to town, and from province to province, in the direction of their camp in Belgium. God knows how much we shall have to pay to redeem them, for letters from the Mayor and Corporation of Rheims in their favour have been entirely without effect”. He was said to have converted many people to the faith.

He lived under a number of aliases. However, the reputation and activities of his host, Sir Walter Lindsay, were to be his undoing. There were religious conflicts in Scotland between Catholics and Calvinists, and whilst James VI strove to support some degree of religious tolerance, the conflicts between his subjects threatened his authority and the peace. Sir Walter Lindsay himself had been arrested for subversion in 1589 and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. He was conditionally released pending his trial, but when summoned to court Lindsay failed to appear. Denounced as a rebel, in January 1593 he was charged, on pain of rebellion, to appear before and answer to the king and council. He again failed to appear, so the next time the King set off on a Royal Progress he did Sir Walter the courtesy of stopping by with his troops and demolishing his castle. Sir Walter fled to Spain. This triggered rumours that Catholic aristocrats had been conspiring with Spain to invade Scotland, so the Protestant population took up arms against their Catholic neighbours. John Ingram fled south and to evade pursuit, slipped across the English border on 25 November 1593. He rested for some hours at Wark-on-Tweed where he took refreshment at an inn. He then traveled downriver seeking a means to cross back into Scotland but, arousing suspicion, he was apprehended by the English border guards near Norham Castle. Discovered to be in possession of reliquaries, his identity as a priest was suspected and he was taken into custody at Berwick under the authority of the town's governor, John Carew. Strenuous efforts were made by Scottish supporters to secure his release, one laird claiming Ingram as his own son, and others offering the substantial ransom of a thousand crowns for his release. However this only confirmed the English belief that they had captured someone of significant importance, and whilst John Carew may have considered accepting the ransom, Sir William Cecil, who had succeeded Francis Walsingham as Elizabeth's ‘spymaster’, insisted that John Ingram be taken to London for interrogation in the Tower.

He was first imprisoned at Berwick, then moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, then York, and finally to the Tower of London. During this time he wrote Latin epigrams, 20 of which survive.

Ingram arrived at the Tower of London on Holy Saturday, 17 April 1593, and later wrote: Rocks are quarried, the entrails of the earth, That Dives may have living rock for his tomb. No tomb seek I; and yet shall there be a living tomb For my lifeless body — the carrion-crow.

He was taken from London on 13 July to return to York prison with another Catholic priest, John Boste. The two prisoners' feet were tied under their horse's belly, for fear of them trying to escape. Care was also taken that the horses were kept far enough apart to prevent the prisoners from having any communication with each other throughout the journey. When they arrived in York, Ingram was in solitary confinement in a stinking vault of a locked jakehouse for four days, without either a bed to lie on or a stool to sit on. From York, he was transported to Newcastle and imprisoned in the Newgate prison there for four nights, probably from 19 to 22 July. A woman visitor to the prison was struck by the serenity and joy of the priest, who said that he had good cause to be merry because his wedding day being at hand, the bridegroom must be glad, for within ten days he hoped to enjoy his Spouse. She remarked that it was true his hope was good, but his banquet was deadly; but he answered that the reward was sweet. The serenity and courage of John Ingram is reflected in two letters he wrote from prison to his friends or fellow prisoners in the same prison: "I look for my trial on Thursday and consequently for my death in God's honour ( ...) in my pained body; my spirit is not pained, nor in any disaster, distress or durance."

Death At Durham Assizes he was tried with John Boste and George Swallowell, a converted Protestant minister. There on 23 July 1594 Ingram and Boste were convicted under the Jesuits, etc. Act 1584 which made the mere presence in England of a priest ordained abroad high treason, even though there was no evidence that Ingram had ever exercised any priestly function in England.

The costs of the execution were as follows in Newcastle City Accounts Book: "Paide for charges att the execution of the semynarie priete in Gateside John Ingram – 2 shillings and 6 pence. Paide for hinginge his quarters of the gibbettes: 18 pence and for panyer which brought his quarters to towne 4 pence – 22 pence. Paide for a locke for towlboothe dore in Gateside – 3 shillings 4 pence."

In Rome, at the English College, when the news of his martyrdom reached there, the staff and students sang the Te Deum in the college chapel and wrote against his name "Martyro insigni coronatus".

Veneration He was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and his anniversary is 24 July.

Blessed John Ingram Commemorative Walk In the 1920s, Father Joseph Starr, who had had a particular devotion to the Gateshead martyr, would retrace Ingrams's route from the location of the prison where he was held to the site of his execution. A few years after the Canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970, members of the St Vincent de Paul Society Conference at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in the Bensham area of Gateshead revived this custom to recall John Ingram and promote the cause for his canonization. The walk commences from St Andrew's Anglican Church in Newcastle, (the former site of Newgate Prison) crosses the Tyne by way of the Swing Bridge (on the site of the Old Tyne Bridge); the route taken by the execution party proceeds to the Anglican church of St Edmund (Holy Trinity Church) on the High Street. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, this church was referred to as "the papist chapel", and the authorities chose to execute John Ingram in front of this chapel, dedicated to St Edmund of Canterbury, as a warning to any Catholics in Tyneside.

Paul J. Zielinski, of St. Augustine's, Felling, Tyne and Wear has written a book, John Ingram Priest and Martyr 1565-1594, which discusses the effect of the Protestant Reformation on Tyneside.