Queen asked to pardon martyred Abbot of Glastonbury

The Queen is to be asked to grant a royal pardon to a Catholic abbot martyred during the Reformation.

Residents in Glastonbury, Somerset, aim to petition Queen Elizabeth II to exonerate Blessed Richard Whiting from treason almost 500 years after he was hanged, drawn and quartered on Glastonbury Tor.

So far the petition has been signed by some 400 local people, including Michael Eavis, the Glastonbury Festival founder, and also by such figures as Alison Weir, the historian.

They assert that Blessed Richard was “brutally murdered” following a “grave miscarriage of justice” during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII.