Margaret Ward, called the "pearl of Tyburn", was an English saint and martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I for assisting a priest to escape from prison. She was canonised in 1970, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales or Cuthbert Mayne and Thirty-Nine Companion Martyrs are a group of Catholic, lay and religious, men and women, executed between 1535 and 1679 for treason and related offences under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation. The individuals listed range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged Popish Plot against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials, or with no trial at all.