Thomas Pickering

Thomas Pickering (c. 1621 – 9 May 1679) was a Benedictine lay brother who served in England during the time of recusancy in the late seventeenth century. He was martyred as a result of the fraudulent claims of Titus Oates that he was part of a plot to murder King Charles II.

Life Pickering was born in 1621 in Skelsmergh, near Kendal, Cumbria. His father died fighting for Charles I of England during the Civil War He entered the Benedictine Priory of St. Gregory the Great at Douai and made his vows as in 1660.

In 1665, he was sent to London to be steward for the Benedictine monks who served the chapel of Catherine of Braganza, the Catholic wife of King Charles II, first at St James's Palace, and from 1671 at Somerset House on the Strand.

Pickering's innocence was so obvious that the Queen publicly announced her belief in him. Nonetheless, the jury, under heavy pressure from William Scroggs, the Lord Chief Justice, who was a convinced believer in the Popish Plot, found him guilty, and with William Ireland and John Grove he was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Roman Martyrology "In London, in 1679, Blessed Thomas Pickering, Benedictine monk and martyr. A man of true simplicity and innocence of life, he was falsely accused of plotting against King Charles II, and with a quiet heart went to the gallows at Tyburn."