The group of martyrs we are discussing on the Son Rise Morning Show every Monday this summer are called the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales and on Monday, July 20 I'll describe the martyrdom of Saint Richard Gwyn from Wales, a layman as the first of the six Welsh martyrs among the 40. His story of loyalty to the Catholic faith and perseverance in suffering is extraordinary. His wife Catherine supported him throughout his final incarceration and trial, in spite of the suffering she and their children certainly endured--loss of income, loss of companionship, etc. Gwyn is also known as Richard White since Gwyn in English is translated as "white" or "blessed"
Of course, there are many sources of information about his life, since the promoters of the Cause of the 40 Martyrs researched and documented his education, travels, and the persecution against him--a religious persecution conducted by Church of England ministers to force him to conform to the official State religion--quite completely. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry for him, Saint Richard Gwyn was
born at Llanilloes, Montgomeryshire, about 1537; executed at Wrexham, Denbighshire, 15 October, 1584. After a brief stay at Oxford he studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, till about 1562, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Overton in Flintshire, then at Wrexham and other places, acquiring considerable reputation as a Welsh scholar. He had six children by his wife Catherine, three of whom survived him. For a time he conformed in religion, but was reconciled to the Catholic Church at the first coming of the seminary priests to Wales. Owing to his recusancy he was arrested more than once, and in 1579 he was a prisoner in Ruthin gaol, where he was offered liberty if he would conform. In 1580 he was transferred to Wrexham, where he suffered much persecution, being forcibly carried to the Protestant service, and being frequently brought to the bar at different assizes to undergo opprobrious treatment, but never obtaining his liberty. In May, 1583, he was removed to the Council of the Marches, and later in the year suffered torture at Bewdley and Bridgenorth before being sent back to Wrexham. There he lay a prisoner till the Autumn Assizes, when he was brought to trial on 9 October, and found guilty of treason and sentenced on the following day. Again his life was offered him on condition that he acknowledge the queen as supreme head of the Church. His wife consoled and encouraged him to the last. Five carols and a funeral ode composed by the martyr in Welsh have recently been discovered and published.
I'm glad, however, to have found a source that was published soon after his canonization. There was an article in the January 1971 issue of The Eagle, "a magazine supported by members of St. John's College Cambridge" highlighting Gwyn and St. Philip Howard as alumni of St. John's who had just been canonized. It notes, however, that Gwyn had not taken his degree at St. John's but lost his benefactor there, Dr. George Bullock, who was forced to leave because he was a Catholic. So Gwyn had to return to Wales and open a school in Overton:
. . . At first, he attended Protestant services in Overton Church. In a poem written during his later imprisonment, Gwyn described a typical Protestant service.
In place of an altar, a miserable trestle,
In place of Christ, there's bread,
In place of a priest, a withered cobbler,
Crooking his lips to eat it.
Gwyn soon stopped attending these services. Under pressure from the bishop of Chester, he returned on one occasion, but, falling dangerously ill soon after, he resolved never to attend another Protestant service. His persistent 'recusancy' was an offence against the existing laws. In June 1580, the Privy Council issued letters to all bishops, directing them to take renewed action against all 'recusants', particularly against schoolmasters. They were believed to be responsible for the progress of Catholicism, since they were engaged in teaching children. In July, Gwyn was captured and put into the Wrexham gaol, beginning a long incarceration which ended after four years in his execution.
There are some famous episodes of harassment and torture during those four years: he was taken in chains to a Church of England service but made so much noise rattling his chains that no one could hear the sermon preached by the "withered cobbler"; he was placed in the stocks and harangued by a group of ministers:
One of these ministers, who had a very red nose, began to argue with Gwyn, claiming that he has received the keys as much as St Peter had. Gwyn replied, "There is this difference, sir, that whereas Peter received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the keys you have received are obviously those of the local pub!" He was indicted for 'having insolently and impiously interrupted a minister,' and returned to prison.
Gwyn and two other laymen, John Hughes and Robert Morris, were indicted and tried for high treason for denying that Elizabeth I was Supreme Governor of the Church, for being Catholic, confessing that the Pope was the Vicar of Christ, and for trying to convert others to Catholicism. Hughes and Gwyn were found guilty, but Hughes was pardoned at sentencing (perhaps he recanted). Gwyn was sentenced to death:
"Richard Gwyn shall be hanged half dead, and so be cut down alive, his members cast into the fire, his body ripped unto the breast, his bowels likewise thrown into the fire, his head cut off, his body parted into four quarters. Finally, head and quarters to be set up where it shall please the Queen. And so the Lord have mercy on him." To which Gwyn, undaunted, replied, "What is all this? Is it more than one death?"
His wife Catherine, according to John Hungerford Pollen, was brought to Court and refused to listen to the judge encouraging her to renounce the Catholic faith in view of her husband's sentence. Catherine seems to have been pretty feisty as she challenged the judge to condemn her too, if he could bribe witnesses like her husband's accusers! She was arrested and later released on bail.
Gwyn was executed in Beast Market in Wrexham on October 15, 1584, handing Catherine some shillings and his Rosary beads as he left the jail. On the scaffold he made some of the same comments as the priests of this era: that he acknowledged Elizabeth as Queen and ruler of England in all secular matters, but that he was a Catholic and wanted only a priest to pray with him, not a minister. Just before Gwyn was hanged he turned to the crowd and said, "I have been a jesting fellow, and if I have offended any that way, or by my songs, I beseech them for God's sake to forgive me." He forgave the executioner who pulled on his leg irons as he hanged him, hoping to spare him the agony of the rest of the sentence, but Gwyn revived just as the executioner started to disembowel him. His last words, in Welsh, were reportedly "Iesu, trugarha wrthyf" ("Jesus, have mercy on me"). His head and quarters were displayed in different towns in Wales as a warning to other Catholics.
I wonder what happened to Catherine and the surviving children. According to Pollen, one witness later confessed to perjury against Gwyn.
Saint Richard Gwyn, pray for us!
Image Credit: Published under a Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license: Detail of a painting of Richard Gwyn in Wrexham Cathedral
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