Preview: A Welsh Martyr and His Companions in Prison

On Monday, July 24 on the Son Rise Morning Show we'll discuss the mementoes of Blessed William Davies, one of the Welsh martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987. I'll be on the air at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here!

With the title "The Three Children in the Furnace" and the verse from the Book of Daniel describing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abegnego as "they walked in the midst of the flame, praising God and blessing the Lord" (3:34), Father Henry Sebastian Bowden describes the way that Father Davies and his flock in prison prepared for his martyrdom with prayer and praise.

They were imprisoned in Beaumaris Castle, in Beaumaris, Angelesey, Wales, for about six months before his execution on July 27, 1593. Father Bowden explains that Blessed Williams Davies and the young men arrested and imprisoned with him were allowed great freedom in prison. Although they'd been arrested because of their Catholic faith, they were allowed practice it! Here is the daily Rule they followed:

• 4:00 a.m.: Meditation
• 5:00 a.m.: Mass, following by chanting O Sacrum Convivium/O Sacred Banquet:

O sacred banquet!

in which Christ is received,

the memory of his Passion is renewed,

the mind is filled with grace,

and a pledge of future glory to us is given.

Alleluia.

• Time for reading, study, prayer; with the Imitation of Christ read aloud after meals; Instructions from Father Davies; praying the Rosary, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Litany of the Saints everyday.

• Confession twice a week and receiving Holy Communion at Sunday and Holy Day Masses.

Since the four young men were destined for seminary formation, he was preparing them, even though they'd been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Blessed William Davies had been ordained at Reims in April of 1585 and had returned to Wales as a missionary priest. Nearly seven years later, in March 1592, he was arrested with those four students he was sending to the English College in Valladolid, Spain and confessed that he was a priest. Catholics visited him in prison and Protestant ministers came to dispute with him. Once he was taken to a church for a debate, but the ministers began to celebrate an Anglican service and Father Davies recited Vespers in Latin!

One of things he is most famous for before his arrest and imprisonment is his book Y Drych Christianogawl (The Christian Mirror), the first book printed in Wales. According to The National Library of Wales:

"Y Drych Cristianogawl" is a work of importance as an example of an early Welsh Catholic book and also for the fact that it is the first book to have been printed on Welsh soil. Welsh books of the pre-1586/87 years came off London presses, the one exception being Morys Clynnog's Milan volume. Four copies only are extant, three of which are imperfect. It has all the appearances of a book printed in Britain rather than in France. The story of its printing is a romantic one and one of bravery in the face of danger. . . . 

When Blessed William Davies was found guilty of the crime of being a Catholic priest and sentenced to death, he chanted the Te Deum Laudamus! According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

At the summer assizes it was decided that the priest must die as a traitor, though he was offered his life if he would go but once to church. In spite of the then open opposition of the people, who honoured him as a saint, the cruel sentence was carried out and he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Beaumaris. As he put the rope round his neck, the martyr said: " Thy yoke, O Lord is sweet and Thy burden is light." His cassock stained with his blood was brought by his companions and preserved as a relic. They, though condemned to imprisonment for life, managed in time to escape, and the youngest found his way at last to Valladolid, where he recounted the whole story to Bishop Yepes, who wrote it in his "Historia particular de la Persecucion en Inglaterra".

Like the printing of his book, his life and death is a story of bravery in the face of danger and the romance of Faith!

Blessed William Davies, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain); Fiery furnace by Toros Roslin, Mashtots, 1266 (MS No. 2027, Fol. 14 V.) (Armenian art)

This Morning: The Last Three Canonized Martyrs Among the 40

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central today to conclude our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Matt Swaim and I will discuss the missions and martyrdoms of Saints John Plessington, John Kemble, and David Lewis, SJ, three priests captured and executed in the wake of the Popish Plot.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

To sum up this series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, I draw your attention to this homily by Father Lawrence Lew, OP, preached on Sunday, October 25, the Feast of Christ the King in the 1962 Missal as established by Pope Pius XI, and the 50th anniversary of the Canonization of these martyrs by Pope Paul VI:

The forty martyrs who we especially remember today exemplify the ultimate self-denial and carrying of the Cross that is demanded of us Christians. This group of English and Welsh Martyrs, just a small representation of the hundreds executed during the so-called Reformation, is composed of 13 diocesan priests (or secular clergy), 3 Benedictines, 3 Carthusians, 1 Brigittine, 2 Franciscans, 1 Augustinian, 10 Jesuits and 7 members of the laity, including 3 mothers. And all of them sacrificed everything for the sake of the Holy Mass and the Sacraments; for the unity of Christ’s Church in communion with the Pope; for the sake of the sacred Priesthood through whom we receive the Sacraments; and for the sake of Christ’s teaching on the sanctity of marriage and family life. 

Please read the rest there.

Even after a summer when we saw statues and churches attacked in the USA, and even as we are rightly concerned about religious freedom issues on local, state, and federal government levels, we know that in the USA we don't face mortal martyrdom. We do face spiritual martyrdom, as we should, and Father Lew reminds us that following Christ the King does not mean that we serve Him in a Court of pleasure, comfort, power, and diversion--His kingdom is not of this world. Father Lew selects two lessons for us to take from these martyrs and from Christ's kingship:

Therefore, in our times and in our country, we honour these holy men and women, and we show ourselves to be their friends, if we love what they love. So, let us love the Mass and the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church; love the Holy Father and pray for him; love your clergy, pray for them and uphold them with care and help; love your husband, your wife, and as a family bear witness to the love and joy of the Gospel. . . . Therefore, enthrone Christ in your homes, in your families, and in your own hearts. . . .

However, it is most noteworthy in the accounts of their lives and their final words that the forty martyrs of England and Wales did all this without rancour or bitterness or anger or hatred. Instead, they spoke with humour, serenity, and humility, always acting with charity. For this is the genuine sign that Christ is their King. Let it be so for each of us too, especially in these difficult and polarised times. . . .  It is a joy that flows from a childlike confidence and trust in God’s love, in the victory of the Risen Lord Jesus; a joy that springs from a firm faith in divine Providence. . . .

Good reminders for us the day before Election Day in the USA.

Preview: Last of the 40: Three Popish Plot Martyrs

On All Souls Day, Monday, November 2, Matt Swaim and I will conclude our Son Rise Morning Show series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales with the stories of Saint John Plessington, Saint John Kemble, and Saint David Lewis, the last Welsh martyr. These three martyrs were arrested in and near Wales. Kemble and Lewis were taken from Wales to London to be questioned about the Popish Plot and when authorities accepted that they'd had nothing to do with the Plot (which had never been a Plot), they were returned to Wales to face trial and execution for a being Catholic priests in England, acts of treason according to an Elizabethan statute. Plessington was merely arrested, charged with that crime, and executed. 

Saint John Plessington was born in Lancashire in 1637 in a Royalist (supporting the monarchy during the English Civil Wars) and Catholic family. He studied with the Jesuits at Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire and then at what is now called the Royal College of Saint Alban at Valladolid, Spain, and then at Saint Omer Seminary in France, being ordained in 1662 on the Feast of the Annunciation. He returned to England in 1663, sometimes using the name John Scarisbrick and according to the Diocese of Shrewsbury, he:

based himself largely at Puddington Hall, near Burton, Wirral, where he laboured without harassment for more than decade as chaplain to the Massey family and tutor to the children.

But in 1678 the pretended revelations of a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and replace him with his Catholic brother James created national hysteria. In December that year they claimed their first victim, Edward Coleman, and until 1st July 1681, with the martyrdom of St Oliver Plunkett, Catholics were executed in locations all over England. According to a local tradition, St John was drawn into the plot at the insistence of a Protestant landowner simply because he had forbidden a match between his son and a Catholic heiress. Three witnesses gave false evidence of seeing St John serving as a priest: he forgave each of them by name from the scaffold.

Saint John Plessington was hanged, drawn, and quartered on July 19, 1679. The Diocese of Shrewsbury has longed hoped to find his relics because the Massey family was able to prevent his quartered body to be displayed after his execution in Boughton, Cheshire:

The authorities had demanded that the quartered remains of St John were to be displayed at the four corners of Puddington Hall, near Burton, where he had served as chaplain to the obstinately Catholic Massey family and tutor to their children. When the soldiers arrived with the body, they were stoned by the locals and fled. The Masseys instead laid out the remains of the priest on an oak table to the hall in preparation for his burial.

Plessington was about 42 years old and had served in Monmouthshire for about 16 years.

Saint John Kemble was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1599 so was about 80 years old when he was executed. Like Father Plessington, he had been able to serve Catholics for many years (54) without much trouble. As this Herefordshire history website describes his life and martyrdom:

[His] family was staunchly Catholic, and already included four priests when John studied for his priesthood and was ordained at Douai College on 23rd February 1625, following which he returned to England and began his work as a missionary in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. His popularity steadily grew, and not just among the Catholics…..he was a very likeable man, and he continued to serve for more than 50 years, living with his brother at Pembridge Castle.

Then, poor John was caught up in the horrific doings of Titus Oates the perjurer who fabricated the Popish Plot, which was the non-existent conspiracy by Catholics to kill King Charles II. Oates was a spectacularly nasty character, with no scruples whatsoever, and his fraud was eventually uncovered but sadly too late to save many an innocent man.

In 1678, Captain John Scudamore of Kentchurch (a lapsed Catholic, although his wife and children were parishioners of John Kemble) arrived at Pembridge Castle to arrest the elderly John Kemble, and although people tried hard to get him to escape he merely said “According to the course of nature I have but a few years to live. It will be an advantage to suffer for my religion and therefore I will not abscond.” He was taken to Hereford, where he spent three months in gaol, before being taken to Newgate Prison in London…….no comfortable trip as he was bundled backwards onto a horse like a sack. For anyone that would have been torture, but for an 80 year old it must have been almost unbearable. When interrogated, John refused to admit to a non existent plot, and eventually was sent back to Hereford…by foot. There, in accordance with Elizabeth I’s Statute 27 he was tried for the treasonable offence of being a Catholic priest and for saying Mass, and was duly declared guilty, being condemned to be hanged drawn and quartered.

Before he was executed on August 22, 1679, he asked to smoke his pipe one last time, drink a cup of wine, and finish his prayers. A "Kemble Cup" and a "Kemble Pipe" became well-known terms in the area. He was buried in the Anglican churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin at Welsh Newton.

The last of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, and the last of the Six Welsh Martyrs, was Saint David Lewis, SJ. As the Jesuits in Singapore website notes, it's a similar story to that of the six Popish Plot martyrs among the 40: he was arrested after serving the Catholic people for years because of the rewards promised during a time of fear and crisis:

David Lewis, a Welshman, was born in Abergevenny, Gwent, the youngest of 9 children to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. He was raised as a Protestant and studied at the Royal Grammar School where his father was the headmaster. He read Law at the Middle Temple and became a Catholic in 1635. He returned to Abergevenny and lived with his parents and came to know his maternal uncle, John Prichard, a Jesuit priest ministering in South Wales. David was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1642 and entered the Jesuit Roman Novitiate in 1645.

After working in Wales for a year, Fr Lewis was recalled to Rome to serve as the Spiritual Director to the seminarians at the English College. He returned to work in Wales on the Hereford-Gwent border and for the next 30 years he worked tirelessly in the apostolate, showing special interest and care for the poor and needy and was twice superior of that district.

Because of the plot fabricated by Titus Oates, alleging that the Jesuits were intent on the murder of Charles II and the re-establishment of the Catholic faith in the land, anti-Catholic hatred ran high. Fr Lewis was arrested, betrayed by an apostate couple, who were eager to earn the 50 pounds for the capture of a Jesuit and the 200 pounds offered by the Welsh magistrate, John Arnold, a rabid Calvinist.

Like Father Kemble, he was taken to London for questioning and then returned for trial, found guilty, and condemned for his priesthood. He was finally executed on August 27, 1679, speaking to the witnesses of his martyrdom:

“I believe you are here not only to see a fellow native die, but also with expectation to hear a dying fellow native speak……. I speak not as a murderer, thief or such-like malefactor, but as a Christian, and therefore am not ashamed. My religion is the Roman Catholic; in it I have lived above this 40 years; in it I now die, and so fixedly die, that if all good things were offered me to renounce, all should not move me one hair’s-breadth, from my Roman Catholic faith. A Roman Catholic priest I am; a Roman Catholic priest of the religious order called the Society of Jesus I am, and I bless God who first called me… Please now to observe I was condemned for reading Mass, hearing Confessions, administering the Sacraments, and dying for this I therefore die for my religion.”

Saint John Plessington, pray for us!

Saint John Kemble, pray for us!

Saint David Lewis, pray for us!

40 Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

This Morning: Saints Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central today to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss the missions and martyrdoms of Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd, captured and executed in the wake of the Popish Plot.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

Next Monday we'll conclude this series with brief profiles of the other three Popish Plot Martyrs: Saint John Plessington, Saint John Kemble, and Saint David Lewis, SJ.

Preview: Two Popish Plot Martyrs: Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd

With the penultimate episode of our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will move on to the Popish Plot Martyrs. We discussed one of these martyrs of 1679 before, Saint John Wall, as one of the two Franciscan martyrs among the canonized, but the last five martyrs we'll profile suffered for their priesthood and fidelity to Jesus at a particularly dangerous time for Catholics in England during the reign of Charles II, the restored Stuart monarch. 

The Popish Plot was a fictitious plot targeting the Jesuits serving in England. Titus Oates, a supposed convert who had sought admission to the Society of Jesus, made up a grand conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and place his brother, James, the Duke of York--who just happened to be a real convert to Catholicism--on the throne. Oates and others accused several Jesuits, laymen serving at Court, the Queen, five Catholic members of the House of Lords, and others (including Samuel Pepys) of being in on this plot. Twenty-two innocent men, including nine Jesuits, were executed until Parliament and the Courts realized that Oates and his conspirators were lying. Charles II never believed Oates, but as J.P. Kenyon asserts in his classic narrative The Popish Plot, he dared not defend these innocent men, not even Saint Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, in part because of the tenuous status of the succession. Like so many before him, Charles had no legitimate male (or female) heir (plenty of illegitimate children) to succeed him so he was protecting his brother James's right to become king upon his death.

While neither of them was accused of being involved in the Popish Plot, Evans and Lloyd were arrested because of heightened efforts in England and Wales to find Catholic priests, even if they had been serving their flocks, like Saint John Lloyd, for many (24) years. Saint Philip Evans, SJ was a more recent recruit to the Catholic mission, having served only four years.

Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd were born and died in Wales, so their martyrdoms are celebrated on October 25 in Wales among the Six Welsh Martyrs and their [English] companions, the anniversary of the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. They are also celebrated on May 4 in England along with all the beatified Martyrs of England Wales. In Wales, they also have a separate feast on July 23 (since July 22 is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles). In England, their optional memorial is also celebrated on July 23 but Saint Bridget of Sweden's Feast as one of the Patrons of Europe probably takes precedence. (In the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, commemoration of a saint or saints on another feast day is permitted, with the Collect of the commemorated saint prayed after the Collect of the superior feast!)

The martyrs were both arrested in late 1678, imprisoned in the Castle Gaol in Cardiff and finally tried in May, 1679. They were executed together on July 22, 1679 in Pwllhalog, near Cardiff at a site known as the "Death Junction".

The Friends of the Ordinariate blog offers these profiles of the two priests:

St. John Lloyd, the older of the two saints by some 15 years, was born at about 1630, and went to the Royal English College at Valladolid, being ordinaed priest on 7th June 1653. The following April he returned to Wales, and spent 24 years ministering among the Catholics of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire operating over a vast area. His brother was also a secular priest: Fr William Lloyd, who was also imprisoned in the Titus Oates plot, but died as a result of his torture before he was executed.

John Lloyd was arrested 20th November, 1678 and placed in solitary confinement, until being united in a cell with the younger Philip Evans.

St Philip Evans was born in Monmouthshire in 1645, studied at St. Omer, in France, and was ordained for the Society of Jesus in 1675. He immediately returned to Wales, and spent the next four years administering the Sacraments around Abergavenny, in his native Monmouthshire, staying in various different houses and continuing largely unmolested. He stayed at Sker House, with the Tuberville Family, where he was eventually arrested, in the wake of the Titus Oates plot. His betrayer was the younger bother of the owner of the house. He was arrested on the 4th December, 1678. He was then taken to Cardiff and imprisoned in the Castle Goal. For the first few weeks of his incarceration he was in solitary confinement, before being put in the same cell as Fr. John Lloyd. They were imprisoned until trial in May of 1679.

Their trial found them guilty of being priests, and they were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered on the 9th May, 1679. It was not, however, until July that the sentence was decreed to be carried out. Philip, a light hearted man, was found playing tennis (they were allowed quite a bit of liberty) on the 21st July when news that the execution was to take place the following day reached him. The jailer told him he should return to prison, to which he responded “what haste is there? First let me play out my game!” which he duly did.

Philip was also a fine harp player, and when his jailers came to collect the two priests on the morning of the execution, they found Philip playing his harp, in spite of his leg shackles. These shackles took an hour to remove, so tight were they, and caused him excruciating pain.

According to this blog honoring the Welsh martyrs, St. Philip Evans was executed first:

When he mounted the scaffold Fr Evans said; “This is the best pulpit a man can have to preach in, therefore, I cannot forbear to tell you again that I die for God and for Religion’s sake.” He addressed the crowd in English and in Welsh, then turning to Fr Lloyd, who stood waiting his own turn, he said, “Adieu, Mr Lloyd! Though only for a little time, for we shall soon meet again.”

St. John Lloyd suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering after him.

St. John Lloyd, pray for us!

St. Philip Evans, pray for us!

This Morning on the Son Rise Morning Show: Saints Roberts and Almond

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Matt Swaim and I will discuss Saint John Roberts, OSB and Saint John Almond.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

If you read my preview post thoroughly, you may have noticed that during one of his longer exiles from England, Saint John Roberts, OSB, founded a Benedictine Monastery at Douai, the home of many English Catholics in exile at the time. Douai, in Flanders, was invaded by the forces of the French Revolution; the monks at the abbey returned to England in 1795, eventually founding the Abbey of Saint Gregory the Great in 1876 and opening a school for boys. The abbey church was designated a minor basilica and the scholarly monks of Downside, including Dom David Knowles and Dom Hubert van Zeller made the abbey a center of Catholic revival and Benedictine learning in England.

Sadly, because of verified accusations of sexual abuse of boys, the monks have stopped managing and teaching at the school and are leaving Downside. They announced their decision in late August this year:

The separation of Downside Abbey and Downside School in September 2019 has enabled the Monastic Community to concentrate on discerning their future. They have now unanimously decided to make a new start and to seek a new place to live. To lead them in the renewal of their monastic vocation and in their search for a new home, they have elected Dom Nicholas Wetz as their Abbot.

The last six years have given the Downside Community time to reflect with sorrow on failures in the care for children entrusted to them and to discern the Community’s future. With smaller numbers and changing circumstances, the current monastery buildings are no longer suitable.

One of the great issues at the trials of both Roberts and Almond was the contested authorities of the king and the pope in religious but also secular matters, particularly whether or not the pope had the authority--not necessarily the power--to depose a monarch if the pope judged the monarch's rule a danger to the practice of the Catholic faith in a country. St. Robert Bellarmine thought the pope had such authority, upholding the pope's indirect power in secular affairs. George Abbott in 1610 and John King in 1612, both the Bishop of London at the time, took the lead in questioning Saints John Roberts and Saint John Almond, respectively, on this issue. Both priests were urged to take King James I's Oath of Allegiance, but refused to do so.

Saint John Roberts, pray for us!

Saint John Almond, pray for us!

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!

An English Civil War Martyr: Blessed Philip Powell, OSB

Blessed Philip Powell (sometimes spelled Philip Powel) (2 February 1594–30 June 1646) was a lawyer who became a Benedictine monk and priest, serving as a missionary in England during the period of recusancy. He was martyred at Tyburn. Powell is usually said to have been born in Tralon, Brecknockshire, Wales. 

From his youth he was a student of law, taught principally by David Baker, (who would later become a Benedictine himself, taking the name Augustine Baker). At the age of sixteen he went to study at one of the Inns of Court, London, and afterwards practiced civil law.

So he must have conformed and taken the Allegiance Oath required by James I after 1606, if he was studying and practicing civil law in London--thus he must have experienced some kind of reversion or conversion, discerned a vocation, left England, and studied for the priesthood. Perhaps like David Baker's family, Powell's parents were Church Papists, avoiding the fines by attending Church of England services, but also attending Catholic Mass whenever they could.

Three or four years later he received the Benedictine habit, becoming part of the community of St. Gregory at Douai (now at Downside Abbey, near Bath). The Benedictine monastery in Douai was named for Pope St. Gregory the Great; founded in 1605, its first prior was St. John Roberts, OSB, martyred at Tyburn on December 10, 1610. 

In 1618 Powell was ordained a priest and in 1622 left Douai to go on mission in England. In around 1624 he became chaplain to the Poyntz family at Leighland, Somerset. According to this British History site, the Poyntz family maintained a close relationship with the Benedictine order:

About 1624 Philip Powell or Morgan, later martyred at Tyburn, became chaplain to the Poyntz family at Leigh Barton. Powell left Leigh c. 1642, and was followed by a succession of priests, usually Benedictines, who regarded Leighland as the centre of a mission in West Somerset. In 1627 Giles Poyntz built a chapel and an annexe for the priest behind his house. Giles was one of a group of 8 recusants reported in 1642, and 12 were presented in 1664. Prudence Poyntz (d. 1691), Giles's second wife, leaving Leigh to her kinsman Robert Rowe, apparently required that Rowe should either maintain a chaplain in the house or pay him for an agreed number of masses. Should the family fail to keep a chaplain they were to pay £300 to the Benedictine province. There were resident chaplains at Leigh until 1767, but thereafter the chapel was used only occasionally. A priest celebrated monthly for five 'reputed papists' in 1776, and a priest from Dunster was evidently visiting Leigh later in the century. A French émigré priest may have used the chapel c. 1808.

When the English Civil War broke out he retired to Yarnscombe and Parkham in Devon. He then served for six months as chaplain to the Catholic soldiers in General Goring's army in Cornwall, and, when that force was disbanded, took ship for South Wales. The vessel was captured on 22 February 1646, and Powell was recognized and denounced as a priest.

On 11 May he was sent to London and confined in St. Catherine's Gaol, Southwark, where his treatment brought on a severe attack of pleurisy. His trial, which had been fixed for 30 May, did not take place till 9 June, at Westminster Hall. He was found guilty of being a priest and was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. It is recorded that that when informed of his death sentence, Powell exclaimed "Oh what am I that God thus honours me and will have me to die for his sake?" and called for a glass of sack (or sherry).  The martyr's crucifix, which had formerly belonged to Feckenham, last Abbot of Westminster, is preserved at Downside, with some of his hair and a cloth stained with his blood.

He was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. He is one of the six Gregorian martyrs: Blessed George Gervase (1608) ; Saint John Roberts (1610); Blessed Maurus Scott (1612); Saint Ambrose Barlow (1641); Blessed Philip Powell (1646), and Blessed Thomas Pickering (1679) honored at Downside Abbey, established after the French Revolution led to the suppression of the monastery at Douai.

St. Richard Gwyn, Welsh Schoolmaster and Martyr

Today, in Wales, The Latin Mass Society is honoring St. Richard Gwyn with a Missa Cantata and veneration of relics.

In 2011, The Catholic Herald featured St. Richard Gwyn as the Saint of the Week on its website. He put up quite a fight against the Elizabethan authorities who tried to force him to worship as the state dictated:

Richard Gwyn (1537-1584) was a victim of Queen Elizabeth I’s persecution of Catholics, conducted with increasing intensity after 1581.

Born in Llanidloes in central Wales, Gwyn matriculated at Oxford before removing swiftly to Cambridge where, at St John’s, he lived by the charity of Dr Bullock, the college’s Catholic Master.

After the death of Queen Mary in 1558, however, Bullock refused to take the oath of supremacy administered by Elizabeth’s government and was ejected from the Mastership.

Gwyn fled to the continent, spending some time at Douai. Around 1562 he returned to Wales and for the next 16 years worked as a schoolmaster, mainly in Wrexham and Overton. He was much loved, not merely for his excellence and dedication as a teacher, but also for “other good partes known to be in him”. . . .

When his persecutors laid him in heavy shackles before the pulpit of a Protestant church in Wrexham Gwyn “so stirred his legs that with the noise of his irons the preacher’s voice could not be heard”.

Placed in the stocks as a punishment, he was taunted by an Anglican priest who claimed to possess the keys of the Church as surely as St Peter did. “There is this difference,” Gwyn riposted, “namely that, whereas Peter received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the keys you received were obviously those of the beer cellar.”

Indicted for high treason, Gwyn was eventually condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered at the Beast Market in Wrexham in October 1584. “I have been a jesting fellow,” he told the crowd from the scaffold, “and if I have offended any that way, or by my songs, I beseech them for God’s sake to forgive me.”

The execution was hideously bungled, so that Gwyn remained conscious throughout his disembowelment. His last words, in Welsh, were: “Iesu, have mercy on me.”

It is clear that he did nothing to oppose the reign of Elizabeth I but practice his Catholic faith. For that he was harassed, mistreated, tortured, and brutally executed. As a beloved teacher, his Catholicism made him liable for accusations of trying to bring pupils or families to the Catholic faith. Wikipedia has these details about his trial:

Richard Gwyn, John Hughes and Robert Morris were indicted for high treason in 1583 and were brought to trial before a panel headed by the Chief Justice of Chester, Sir George Bromley. Witnesses gave evidence that they retained their allegiance to the Catholic Church, including that Gwyn composed "certain rhymes of his own making against married priests and ministers" and "[T]hat he had heard him complain of this world; and secondly, that it would not last long, thirdly, that he hoped to see a better world [this was construed as plotting a revolution]; and, fourthly, that he confessed the Pope's supremacy." The three were also accused of trying to make converts.

Despite their defences and objections to the dubious practices of the court Gwyn and Hughes were found guilty. At the sentencing Hughes was reprieved and Gwyn condemned to death by hanging, drawning and quartering.

His relics are venerated and he is remembered at Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Wrexham, which will celebrate his feast tomorrow with Mass at 3:00 p.m., with two schools in Wales named for him. Mary's Dowry has produced a documentary of his life and death. While he was executed on October 15, his memorial is observed in Wales on October 17, since St. Teresa of Avila's memorial is on October 15.

Another July Martyr--From Wales

Blessed William Davies was beatified with the other 84 Martyrs of England and Wales in 1985 by Pope John Paul II. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was "one of the most illustrious of the priests who suffered under Queen Elizabeth":

b. in North Wales, probably and Croes yn Eris, Denbighshire, date uncertain; d. at Beaumaris, 27 July, 1593. He studied at Reims, where he arrived 6 April 1582 just in time to assist a the first Mass of the venerable martyr Nicholas Garlick. He received tonsure and minor orders 23 Sept., 1583, together with seventy-three other English students. Ordained priest in April, 1585, he laboured with wonderful zeal and success in Wales till March, 1591-2, when he was arrested at Holyhead with four students whom he was sending via Ireland to the English College at Valladolid. He was thrown into a loathsome dungeon in Beaumaris Castle and separated from his companions, having frankly confessed that he was a priest. After a month his sanctity and patience gained him some relaxation of his close confinement and he was able to join the students for and hour in the day, and even to celebrate Mass. By degrees the jailor became so indulgent that they might have escaped had they so willed. The fame of the priest's sanctity and wisdom brought Catholics from all parts to consult him and Protestant ministers came to dispute with him. At the assizes he and his companions were condemned to death, on which the martyr intoned the "Te Deum", which the others took up. The injustice of the sentence was so apparent that to still the people's murmurs the judge reprieved the condemned till the queen's pleasure be known. Sent to Ludlow, to be examined by the Council of the Marches, Father Davies had to submit to fresh assaults by the ministers. Here too he foiled the artifices of his enemies who took him to the church under pretext of a disputation, and then began the Protestant service. He at once began to recite the Latin Vespers in a louder voice than the ministers', and afterwards publicly exposed the trick of which he had been a victim. From Ludlow he was sent to Bewdley, where he had to share a foul dungeon with felons, and from thence to other prisons until at last he was sent back to Beaumaris, where, to their mutual consolation, he rejoined his young companions. For some six moths he lived with them the life of a religious community, dividing the time between prayer and study, "with so much comfort to themselves that they seemed to be rather in heaven than in prison". At the summer assizes it was decided that the priest must die as a traitor, though he was offered his life if he would go but once to church. In spite of the then open opposition of the people, who honoured him as a saint, the cruel sentence was carried out and he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Beaumaris. As he put the rope round his neck, the martyr said: "Thy yoke, O Lord is sweet and Thy burden is light." His cassock stained with his blood was brought by his companions and preserved as a relic. They, though condemned to imprisonment for life, managed in time to escape, and the youngest found his way at last to Valladolid, where he recounted the whole story to Bishop Yepes, who wrote it in his "Historia particular de la Persecucion en Inglaterra". There is now a chapel in Anglesey built as a memorial to the martyr.

More about Beaumaris Castle here.

First in a Series: English Catholic Martyrs at the End of July

We're entering another period with a cluster of martyrs, starting today with two Popish Plot victims, canonized in 1970 among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Father Philip Evans, SJ and Father John Lloyd suffered martyrdom on July 22, 1679 in Cardiff, Wales. Although they were tried for supposed involvement in the Popish Plot, they were found guilty of their priesthood and their presence in Wales. This blog provides some detail about their background and contains this great understatement: "1678 was a bad year to be a Roman Catholic priest on the island of Great Britain. (There were many such years in in the 1600s.) But, in 1678, there was a fictional plot by Roman Catholic to assassinate King Charles II. (This was ironic, given the Roman Catholic sympathies of the House of Stuart.) Anyway, a wave of anti-Roman Catholic hysteria swept the land,where authorities political and religious had planted, watered, and nurtured anti-Roman Catholicism for a long time. And hysterical people did not check facts, to confirm or refute them. So the two priest-martyrs became prisoners. They became casualties of hysteria and religious bigotry. Their crime was to be priests, a charge considered on par with committing treason." That's because, of course, of the Elizabethan statute which declared the mere presence of an English Catholic priest in his own native land to be an act of treason.

As the site summarizes their careers: St. Philip Evans, educated at St. Omer Monastery in France, became a Jesuit in 1665, at age 20. Ten years later, at Liege, he entered the priesthood then embarked for his Welsh mission. For three years Evans ministered there.

St. John Lloyd, educated at Ghent (now in Belgium, but a Hapsburg domain) and at Valladolid, Spain (also a Hapsburg domain at the the time). Ordained at Valladolid in 1653, he began this twenty-four-year long Welsh mission the following year.

Among the priests who suffered during the Popish Plot hysteria, St. John Lloyd's long tenure as a missionary priest is not unusual: St. John Kemble served his flock in Monmouthshire for more than 50--fifty--years! and St. David Lewis, SJ served in Wales for 30 years. Pope Paul VI canonized today's martyrs (and John Kemble and David Lewis) among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970. Since today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, their feast is usually observed--in parishes named for them, for instance, and in the dioceses of Wales, on July 23. They are also honored on October 25, the Feast of the Welsh Martyrs, and May 4, the Feast of ALL the Martyrs of England and Wales.

St. John Lloyd and St. Philip Evans, pray for us!

Saint Richard Gwyn, Troublemaker and Martyr

In 2011, The Catholic Herald featured St. Richard Gwyn as the Saint of the Week on its website. He put up quite a fight against the Elizabethan authorities who tried to force him to worship as the state dictated:

Richard Gwyn (1537-1584) was a victim of Queen Elizabeth I’s persecution of Catholics, conducted with increasing intensity after 1581.

Born in Llanidloes in central Wales, Gwyn matriculated at Oxford before removing swiftly to Cambridge where, at St John’s, he lived by the charity of Dr Bullock, the college’s Catholic Master.

After the death of Queen Mary in 1558, however, Bullock refused to take the oath of supremacy administered by Elizabeth’s government and was ejected from the Mastership.

Gwyn fled to the continent, spending some time at Douai. Around 1562 he returned to Wales and for the next 16 years worked as a schoolmaster, mainly in Wrexham and Overton. He was much loved, not merely for his excellence and dedication as a teacher, but also for “other good partes known to be in him”. . . .

When his persecutors laid him in heavy shackles before the pulpit of a Protestant church in Wrexham Gwyn “so stirred his legs that with the noise of his irons the preacher’s voice could not be heard”.

Placed in the stocks as a punishment, he was taunted by an Anglican priest who claimed to possess the keys of the Church as surely as St Peter did. “There is this difference,” Gwyn riposted, “namely that, whereas Peter received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the keys you received were obviously those of the beer cellar.”

Indicted for high treason, Gwyn was eventually condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered at the Beast Market in Wrexham in October 1584. “I have been a jesting fellow,” he told the crowd from the scaffold, “and if I have offended any that way, or by my songs, I beseech them for God’s sake to forgive me.”

The execution was hideously bungled, so that Gwyn remained conscious throughout his disembowelment. His last words, in Welsh, were: “Iesu, have mercy on me.”

It is clear that he did nothing to oppose the reign of Elizabeth I but practice his Catholic faith. For that he was harassed, mistreated, tortured, and brutally executed. As a beloved teacher, his Catholicism made him liable for accusations of trying to bring pupils or families to the Catholic faith. Wikipedia has these details about his trial:

Richard Gwyn, John Hughes and Robert Morris were indicted for high treason in 1583 and were brought to trial before a panel headed by the Chief Justice of Chester, Sir George Bromley. Witnesses gave evidence that they retained their allegiance to the Catholic Church, including that Gwyn composed "certain rhymes of his own making against married priests and ministers" and "[T]hat he had heard him complain of this world; and secondly, that it would not last long, thirdly, that he hoped to see a better world [this was construed as plotting a revolution]; and, fourthly, that he confessed the Pope's supremacy." The three were also accused of trying to make converts.

Despite their defences and objections to the dubious practices of the court Gwyn and Hughes were found guilty. At the sentencing Hughes was reprieved and Gwyn condemned to death by hanging, drawning and quartering. 

His relics are venerated and he is remembered at Wrexham Cathedral in North Wales, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows and elsewhere, with a high school named for him. Mary's Dowry has produced a documentary of his life and death. While he was executed on October 15, his memorial is observed in Wales today, since St. Teresa of Avila's memorial is on October 15.

From Wales to Tyburn, via the Inns of Court and Douai

Blessed Philip Powell (sometimes spelled Philip Powel) (2 February 1594 – 30 June 1646) was a lawyer who became a Benedictine monk and priest, serving as a missionary in England during the period of recusancy. He was martyred at Tyburn. Powell is usually said to have been born in Tralon, Brecknockshire, Wales. From his youth he was a student of law, taught principally by David Baker, (who would later become a Benedictine himself, taking the name Augustine Baker). At the age of sixteen he went to study at one of the Inns of Court, London, and afterwards practiced civil law.

Three or four years later he received the Benedictine habit, becoming part of the community of St. Gregory at Douai (now at Downside Abbey, near Bath). In 1618 he was ordained priest and in 1622 left Douai to go on mission in England. In around 1624 he became chaplain to the Poyntz family at Leighland, Somerset.

When the English Civil War broke out he retired to Yarnscombe and Parkham in Devon. He then served for six months as chaplain to the Catholic soldiers in General Goring's army in Cornwall, and, when that force was disbanded, took ship for South Wales. The vessel was captured on 22 February 1646, and Powell was recognised and denounced as a priest.

On 11 May he was sent to London and confined in St. Catherine's Gaol, Southwark, where his treatment brought on a severe attack of pleurisy. His trial, which had been fixed for 30 May, did not take place till 9 June, at Westminster Hall. He was found guilty of being a priest and was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. It is recorded that that when informed of his death sentence, Powell exclaimed "Oh what am I that God thus honours me and will have me to die for his sake?" and called for a glass of sack (or sherry). He was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. He is one of the six Gregorian martyrs: Blessed George Gervase (1608) ; Saint John Roberts (1610); Blessed Maurus Scott (1612); Saint Ambrose Barlow (1641); Blessed Philip Powell (1646), and Blessed Thomas Pickering (1679) honored at Downside Abbey.