John Larke

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Blessed John Larke was an English priest and martyr, who was executed during the reign of Henry VIII. He was a personal friend of Thomas More.

Larke has been styled a doctor, but no one knows where he received his degree. He served as rector of St. Ethelburga's Bishopsgate, London, from January 30, 1504, until his resignation in 1542; rector of Woodford, Essex, January 18, 1526, until his resignation in the following April; and rector of Chelsea, to which he was appointed by More, from March 19, 1530 until his arrest. He was indicted 15 February, 1544, with John Ireland (a priest), German Gardiner, and John Heywood. All were condemned, but Heywood recanted on the hurdle and lived to give testimony against Cranmer.

The other three, along with Robert Singleton, a priest whose cause of arrest is unknown, were executed on March 7, 1544. Larke was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.

This article incorporates text from the entry Bl. John Larke in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.