Preview: Saints Roberts and Almond

On Monday, September 28, Matt Swaim and I will profile the next two of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales in our Son Rise Morning Show series: another of the six martyrs from Wales, Saint John Roberts, OSB, and Saint John Almond. Saint John Roberts was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 10, 1610; Saint John Almond on December 5, 1612, both during the reign of King James I and both at Tyburn Tree.

Saint John Roberts was born in 1577 and raised in a Protestant family in Trawsfynydd, Snowdonia, Wales; he attended St. John's College in Oxford and then studied law at Furnivall's Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery in London. Then he went to Europe and, after visiting the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and meeting English Catholics in exile, became a Catholic and as John Hungerford Pollen reports in his 1891 Acts of the English Martyrs, Roberts studied for the priesthood at the English College at Valladolid and 

thence joined the Spanish congregation of the Venerable Order of St. Benedict, was professed in the Abbey of St. Martin of Compostella, and after his ordination in 1600, was sent to England. There the ancient Order still lived on at least in the person of Dom Sigebert Buckley, and there, too, others, such as the Venerable [Blessed] Mark Barkworth, had obtained admission to its privileges; but Father Roberts is said to have been the first, who left a Benedictine monastery, to labour on that dangerous mission. In England he displayed a devotion and constancy worthy of his Order. With the examples of the great Benedictine missionaries who first converted this nation ever before his eyes, he strove heroically to emulate their virtues. Four times was he arrested, imprisoned, and banished, and he returned as often to post of danger ; nor was he more chary of exposing his life to danger when a severe out break of the "plague" devastated London. His success was commensurate with his labours and sufferings, which were becomingly closed by his apprehension in the act of celebrating Mass, when a trial on the charge of priesthood and a death bravely faced, were turned, as only a skilful missioner could turn them, into a notable occasion of bearing witness to the Faith.

As the Catholic Encyclopedia describes his time in England, however, he endured capture, imprisonment, release, and exile more than once, twice, or thrice after returning to England as a missionary, including an arrest and examination in connection with the Gunpowder Plot:

Although observed by a Government spy, Roberts and his companions succeeded in entering the country in April, 1603; but, his arrival being known, he was arrested and banished on 13 May following. He reached Douai on 24 May and soon managed to return to England where he laboured zealously among the plague-stricken people in London. In 1604, while embarking for Spain with four postulants, he was again arrested, but not being recognized as a priest was soon released and banished, but returned again at once. On 5 November, 1605, while Justice Grange was searching the house of Mrs. Percy, first wife of Thomas Percy, who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot, he found Roberts there and arrested him. Though acquitted of any complicity in the plot itself, Roberts was imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Westminster for seven months and then exiled anew in July, 1606.

He stayed on Continent more than a year:

This time he was absent for some fourteen months, nearly all of which he spent at Douai where he founded a house for the English Benedictine monks who had entered various Spanish monasteries. This was the beginning of the monastery of St. Gregory at Douai which still exists as Downside Abbey, near Bath, England. In October, 1607, Roberts returned to England, was again arrested in December and placed in the Gatehouse, from which he contrived to escape after some months. He now lived for about a year in London and was again taken some time before May, 1609, in which month he was taken to Newgate and would have been executed but for the intercession of de la Broderie, the French ambassador, whose petition reduced the sentence to banishment. Roberts again visited Spain and Douai, but returned to England within a year, knowing that his death was certain if he were again captured.

Roberts was indeed captured again, on December 2, 1610; he was tried and convicted on December 5, sentenced on December 8, and executed at Tyburn with Blessed Thomas Somers.

Saint John Almond was born circa 1577 and raised a Catholic and lived in Ireland before he left England to study for the priesthood. As the Catholic Encyclopedia briefly describes his life:

He passed his childhood at Allerton near Liverpool, where he was born, and at Much-Woolton. His boyhood and early manhood were spent in Ireland, until he went to the English College, Rome, at the age of twenty. He concluded his term there brilliantly by giving the "Grand Act" — a public defence of theses which cover the whole course of philosophy and theology — and was warmly congratulated by Cardinals Baronius and Tarugi, who presided. The account of his death describes him as "a reprover of sin, a good example to follow, of an ingenious and acute understanding, sharp and apprehensive in his conceits and answers, yet complete with modesty, full of courage and ready to suffer for Christ, that suffered for him." He was arrested in the year 1608, and again in 1612. In November of this year seven priests escaped from prison, and this may have sharpened the zeal of the persecutors, Dr. King, Protestant Bishop of London, being especially irritated against Almond. He displayed to the last great acuteness in argument, and died with the Holy Name upon his lips.

Pollen adds the detail that Saint John Almond said "Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi, Jesus" before he suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering.

Saint John Roberts, pray for us!

Saint John Almond, pray for us!