On this day in Tudor history, 19th April 1601, in the reign of Elizabeth I, bookseller James Duckett was hanged at Tyburn after being found guilty of felony for dealing in Catholic books. He was executed alongside the man who had informed on him, bookbinder Peter Bullock.

Duckett came from Westmorland and although he was named after his godfather James Leybourn, who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster in 1588 for denying Queen Elizabeth I’s supremacy, Duckette was brought up as a Protestant. However, he converted to Catholicism during his apprenticeship in London, when a man named Peter Mason gave him a copy of “The Foundation of the Catholic Religion”. His newfound zeal for Catholicism led to him being questioned and imprisoned for not attending Protestant services.