Thomas
Abell
Born about in England
Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died
at about age 43
in Smithfield, London, England
Profile last modified
| Created 18 Jan 2015
This page has been accessed 784 times.
Biography
Catholic priest and martyr, he was confessor for a time to Catherine of Aragon.
Thomas received his Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University in England. He was Chaplain to Queen Catherine of Aragon, wife of King Henry VIII. He delivered the letter of Emperor Charles V that sought the permission and blessing of Pope Julius II for the marriage of Henry and Catherine. He confided to the emperor that Catherine had been coerced into writing the letter; Charles refused to pass on the request to the pope, and Thomas returned empty-handed to England.
When Henry sought to divorce Catherine, Thomas published Invicta Veritas, which argued against Oxford University‘s support of the divorce; for this he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1532. Released soon after, he was arrested again in 1533, accused of involvement in the Holy Maid of Kent incident in which a woman named Elizabeth Barton went into trances at the sight of the image of Mary and gave teachings in favour of the Mass and Catholicism. While in prison, Thomas established a correspondence with Blessed John Forest who was doing time in Newgate prison. The warden of the Tower released Thomas in 1539, but he was soon re-arrested, and the warden was imprisoned for releasing him. Thomas was convicted of high treason on the basis of denying the king‘s supremacy over the Church.
There is in Beauchamp Tower, a part of the Tower of London, a rebus probably executed by Thomas himself; the figure of a bell carved on the wall, the letter A in front and the word “Thomas” above.
He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on 30 July 1540 at Smithfield, England. Beatified 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.
His surname is sometimes spelled Abel or Able, but he signed letters using the spelling Abell.
Sources
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Dr Slade’s History of Nayland (unpublished);
The Essex Review No 244 Vol LXI (1952)
edited by Michael McLellan II
Camm, Bede. Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895, Vol. 1, Burns and Oates, 1904
Shahan, Thomas. "Bl. Thomas Abel." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 28 May 2013
M.E. Kronenberg, Verboden boeken en opstandige drukkers in de Hervormingstijd, Amsterdam, 1948, p. 107.
John Lander, The Queen's Champion: A Forgotten Hero at the Court of Henry VII, Up Front Publishing Ltd (2008)
POLLEN, Lives of the English Martyrs, I (London, 1904), 462-83.