Education
They chose to pay heavy fines rather than give up the Catholic faith. He studied at the English College in Douai, now in northern France, (and then moved to Hertfordshire, Street Edmunds College) and was ordained priest before he returned to England.
Career
He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Father John Southworth came from a Lancashire family who lived at Samlesbury Hall. Imprisoned and sentenced to death for professing the Catholic faith, he was later deported to France.
Once more he returned to England and lived in Clerkenwell, London, during a plague epidemic.
He assisted and converted the sick in Westminster and was arrested again. He was again arrested under the Interregnum and was tried at the Old Bailey under Elizabethan anti-priest legislation.
He pleaded guilty to exercising the priesthood and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. At his execution at Tyburn, London, he suffered the full pains of his sentence and was hanged, drawn and quartered.
The Spanish ambassador returned his corpse to Douai for burial.
His corpse was sewn together and parboiled, to preserve lieutenant Following the French Revolution, his body was buried in an unmarked grave for its protection. The grave was discovered in 1927 and his remains were returned to England.
He was beatified in 1929.
In 1970, he was canonized by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is 27 June but this is only celebrated in the Westminster diocese.
In 2014, The Guild of Saint John Southworth was established in Westminster Cathedral. Its members are volunteers who will meet visitors, answer their questions and guide them around the cathedral if they wish.
This service is free.