John Forest

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16th-century English Franciscan friar and martyr

title: "John Forest" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1471-births", "1538-deaths", "english-friars-minor", "executed-english-people", "people-executed-under-henry-viii", "16th-century-roman-catholic-martyrs", "16th-century-english-roman-catholic-priests", "english-beatified-people", "15th-century-english-people", "people-executed-by-the-kingdom-of-england-by-burning", "executed-people-from-oxfordshire", "forty-one-martyrs-of-england-and-wales"] description: "16th-century English Franciscan friar and martyr" topic_path: "people/1470s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forest" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary 16th-century English Franciscan friar and martyr ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox saint"]

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Blessed
name	John Forest
image	File:St Etheldreda, Ely Place, London EC1 - Nave statue - geograph.org.uk - 1613379.jpg
caption	Bl. John Forest, nave statue – St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, London
titles	Martyr
birth_date	c. 1471
birth_place	Oxford
death_date	22 May 1538 (aged 66–67)
death_place	Smithfield, London
honored_in	Roman Catholic Church
beatified_by	Pope Leo XIII
attributes	Franciscan habit, crucifix, martyr's palm, chains, being burnt above a burning statue
honorific_suffix	O.F.M.
::

John Forest (1471 – 22 May 1538) was an English Franciscan friar and martyr. Confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, Forest was burned to death at Smithfield for "heresy", in that he refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church.

Life

Born in the Oxford area in 1471, John Forest became a Franciscan friar Minor of the Regular Observance in 1491 in Greenwich. He went on to study theology at the University of Oxford, later becoming provincial of all the Observant Friars in England, and confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, first wife to King Henry VIII. (The Greenwich friary was attached to the Royal Palace at Greenwich.)

The King was eager to gain the sanction of learned men and of those esteemed highly to his plans in regard to the Church. Wealth and honours were offered to those who complied. Those who resisted were threatened. From 1531 the Friars Minor had gained the enmity of the King by opposing his divorce and his movements toward Protestantism.

In November, 1532, as Guardian of the Greenwich friary, Forest spoke to the friars of the plans the King had to suppress the Order in England and denounced from the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross Henry's plans for a divorce. In 1533 he was imprisoned in Newgate prison and condemned to death. In 1534 Henry suppressed the Observant friars and ordered them dispersed to other friaries. John was released from prison but by 1538 was in confinement in a Conventual Franciscan friary at Smithfield, his death sentence having been neither commuted nor carried out. Forest was sent to a convent in the north.

Despite initially recanting, Forest was detained at Newgate Prison, on the basis of denial of the king's supremacy, together with several other Friars, who persuaded him to stand fast in his Roman Catholic beliefs. His confinement, therefore, was not strict, and he was allowed to celebrate mass and hear confessions. From this confinement he could correspond with the Queen and he also wrote a tract entitled De auctoritate Ecclesiae et Pontificis maximi ("On the Authority of the Church and the Supreme Pontiff"), defending both the papal primacy and the independence of the Church from control by the State. He was denounced to the King for this tract and also for refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy demanded by Cromwell.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Hugh Latimer acted as a team on Cromwell's behalf in the proceedings which led to the friar's destruction. Forest was condemned for high treason and heresy, the latter for opposing the King's policy of Caesaropapism.

In accordance with the custom of the time, Bishop Latimer was selected to preach a final sermon at the place of execution urging recantation. In the end, Forest was burnt to death at Smithfield, London on 22 May 1538, where he was suspended over the fire in chains. John Forest was the only Catholic martyr to be burned at the stake during the English Reformation.

Veneration

Forest, together with 53 other English martyrs, was beatified by Pope Leo XIII, on 9 December 1886.

There is a statue of Forest in the nave of St. Ethelreda's Church in Ely Place, London.

There is a mosaic of Forest in the Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.

There are stained glass windows of the martyr in the following churches:

Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Hills Road, Cambridge
Shrewsbury Cathedral, he is the first figure on the fifth window, next to Edmund Campion.

References

Sources

References

Gasquet, Francis Aidan. (1906). "Henry VIII and the English Monasteries". G. Bell.
[https://archive.org/stream/livesoftheenglis01unknuoft#page/n343/mode/2up Camm O.S. B., Dom Bede. "Blessed John Forest". ''Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII'', Vol. I, p. 274, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1914]
[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08463a.htm Thaddeus, Fr. "Blessed John Forest." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 11 Mar. 2013]
""Blessed John Forest 1471 – 1538", Saints and Blesseds of the OFM Province in Britain".
Demaus, Robert. (1904) ''Hugh Latimer: a biography.'' Religious Tract Society, London, United Kingdom. Page 293
[[Eamon Duffy. Duffy, Eamon]]. (2005) ''[[The Stripping of the Altars]].'' Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. 2nd. Edition. {{ISBN. 0-300-10828-1, page 404
"Three Saints, Two Wells & a Welsh Parish by Tristan Gray Hulse".
Budby. (2014-05-14). "[23148] Holy Name (RC), Manchester : Blessed John Forest".
Knott, Simon. (2016-06-02). "Blessed John Forest and Blessed Augustine Webster".
Thomson, Aidan McRae. (2012-06-30). "English Martyrs, Shrewsbury Cathedral".

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