Background
Born at Hartley Mauditt, Hampshire, in 1567, Thomas was a younger son of Nicholas Tichborne and Mary Myll.
Born at Hartley Mauditt, Hampshire, in 1567, Thomas was a younger son of Nicholas Tichborne and Mary Myll.
He was educated at Reims (1584-1587) and Rome, where he was ordained on Ascension Day, 17 May 1592.
He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987. Nicolas and Peter were grandsons of John Tichborne of Tichborne and Margaret Martin from whom the Tichborne baronets are also descended. Returning to England on 10 March 1594, he worked in Hampshire.
There he escaped apprehension by the authorities until the early part of 1597.
Betrayed by Atkinson, an apostate priest, he was re-arrested and on 17 April 1602, was brought to trial with Robert Watkinson (a young Yorkshire man who had been educated at Rome and ordained priest at Douai a month before) and James Duckett, a London bookseller. On 20 April he was executed at Tyburn with Watkinson and Francis Page, Society of Jesus (Jesuit) The last named was a convert, of a Middlesex family though born in Antwerp.
Tichborne was in the last stages of consumption when he was executed.