Blessed Hugh Green and the Arundells of Lanherne

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Blessed Hugh Green endured incredible agonies during his hanging, drawing, and quartering on August 19, 1642 at the hands of an inept executioner:

His parents, who were Protestants, sent him to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1605, but was afterwards converted and entered Douai College in 1610. He left again in 1612 to try his vocation among the Capuchins. From want of health or some other cause, he was unable to continue, and became a chaplain at Chideock Castle, Dorsetshire, the home of Lady Arundell of Lanherne. On 8 March, 1641, Charles I, to placate the Puritan Parliament, issued a proclamation banishing all priests from England, and Green resolved to obey this order. Unfortunately the news had been late in reaching him, and when he embarked the month of grace given for departure was just over. He was therefore arrested, tried, and condemned to death in August. In prison his constancy so affected his fellow-captives that two or three women sentenced to die with him sent him word that they would ask his absolution before death. They did so after confessing their sins to the people, and were absolved by the martyr. A providential reward for his zeal immediately followed. A Jesuit Father, despite the danger, rode up in disguise on horseback, and at a given sign absolved the martyr, who made a noble confession of faith before death. As the executioner was quite unskilled, he could not find the martyr's heart, and the butchery with appalling cruelty was prolonged for nearly half an hour. After this the Puritans played football with his head, a barbarity happily not repeated in the history of the English martyrs.

The Lady Arundell of Lanherne at that time would have been Elizabeth, the wife of Sir John Arundell, according to this blog:

Arundell, Sir John (c.1605-42), kt. Eldest son of John Arundell (c.1564-1633) and his wife Ann, daughter of Henry Jerningham alias Jernigan of Costessey Hall (Norfolk), born about 1605. The date of his knighthood has not been traced. He married Elizabeth (d. 1656), daughter of William Brock and had issue:
(1) Sir John Arundell (c.1623-1701), kt. (q.v.).
He inherited the Lanherne estate from his father in 1633.
He was buried in 1642. His widow was buried at St Columb Major, 8 April 1656.

The Arundells of Lanherne were faithful Catholics and had suffered for their faith: another of their chaplains, Father John Cornelius, SJ (born John Conor O'Mahony, the son of Irish parents living in Cornwall) also suffered martyrdom during the reign of Elizabeth I and there were repercussions:

Another Sir John Arundell, who died in 1589 — or, according to the Isleworth Register (Oliver's Collections), in 1591 — at Isleworth, was converted to Catholicism, as Dodd tells us in his 'Church History,' by Father Cornelius (a native of the neighbouring town of Bodmin). In defence of Cornelius Sir John Arundell lost his own liberty, and was confined for nine years in Ely Palace, Holborn (cf. Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 1875; Simpson's Edmund Campion, 1867; and Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, 1803). 

According to the Landed Families blog cited above, that Sir John Arundell (born around 1530) had a connection with another martyr--the protomartyr of missionary priests, St. Cuthbert Mayne:

Cuthbert Mayne, the first seminary priest to be executed, praised Sir John from the scaffold at Launceston on 30 November 1577, the government could no longer tolerate his refusal to accept the Elizabethan settlement, and thereafter he came under constant pressure. Vulnerable as a recusant to accusations of disloyalty, Sir John suffered repeated imprisonment, fines, and enforced residence in London for the remainder of his life, despite his public declaration both of his loyalty to the queen and of his willingness to defend her and the realm against the pope. He married, about 1560, Lady Anne (d. 1602), daughter of Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby, and widow of Charles Stourton (c.1520-57), 8th Baron Stourton, and had issue.

Three of his daughters joined convents on the Continent!

Father Hugh Green was beatified in a large troup  by Pope Pius XI in 1929. He is honored among the Chideock Martyrs and with the Douai Martyrs.

Blessed Hugh Green, pray for us!

Image credit: Arms of Lord Arundell of Wardour: Sable six martlets Argent