Our Lady & All Saints Catholic Church, Otley

Blessed Mathew Flathers
Martyred at York, 21st March 1608
Mathew was born at Weston near Otley in 1560, the youngest of eight children. Little is known about his early life. He was educated at University College, Oxford and eventually entered the English College at Douai in 1604 at the age of 44. He was ordained a priest on 25th March 1606 at Arras. Shortly after he returned to England, he was captured and condemned to death for receiving Catholic orders overseas. The sentence was changed to perpetual banishment, but again he returned to England and made his way to Yorkshire

. In 1607 he was arrested and imprisoned in York castle. He was tried the following year for high treason. Father Flathers could have saved himself by taking an Oath of Allegiance but he refused and was executed. He died in great agony, hanged, but cut down from the scaffold while still alive, he was then struck on the head, disembowelled and quartered. Mathew Flathers was martyred outside Micklegate Bar, York on Easter Monday, 21st March 1608.