With the title "The Continuity Theory" and the verse from Ephesians 2:19-20 ("You are fellow citizens with the saints . . . built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone"), Father Bowden sketches out Father Sugar's career before he became a Catholic missionary priest: he was born and raised in a Staffordshire County family, attended Merton College at the University of Oxford and left without taking a degree because he would not swear the Oath of Supremacy during Queen Elizabeth I's reign. Nevertheless, he served as a Church of England minister in his native Midland county, preaching against the Catholic Church and the Papacy.
But something changed his mind and he left England to study for the Catholic priesthood at Douai, returning to the Midlands of England in 1601 as a missionary priest.
He and Blessed Robert Grissold, a layman, were arrested on July 8, 1603 in Warwick. Father Sugar was accused merely of being a Catholic priest present in England under the "Jesuits, etc. Act 1584", (27 Eliz. 1. c. 2) and he was found guilty after being held in prison for a year on July 14, 1604.
Father Bowden includes a couple of details from the day of Blessed John Sugar's martyrdom: he practiced some Catholic apologetics before being hanged, drawn, and quartered, asking the Church of England minister who had brought the Christian Faith to England. When the minister would not reply, he credited the successor of St. Peter, Pope Eleutherius, who sent missionaries Damianus and Fugatius to King Lucian, and said the religion practiced in England in their time "had crept in" during the reign of Henry VIII! Pope Saint Eleutherius reigned from around 174 to 189 A.D. and was one of the Greek Popes. The Venerable Bede mentions this story of an early mission to England.
Before he suffered--and he was conscious when he was disemboweled and beheaded--Blessed Father Sugar proclaimed "My true birth in this world began with the sign of the cross, and with that sign I leave it again."
On the day of their execution, Grissold was warned not to follow behind Father Sugar who was being dragged on a sledge through the mud. He replied "I have not thus far followed him to leave him for a little mire." Although he was usually afraid of seeing blood, he "gazed unmoved at the quartering of Ven. Sugar's body" and even dipped the noose of the rope with which he would be hanged in the priest's blood. He gave thanks that he was to die with him.
Father Bowden titled his entry "Zeal for Martyrdom" and cited Acts 21:13 as the verse to accompany his mementoes: "For I am ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus."
Their martyrdoms must have been a remarkable scene in Warwick on July 16, 1604: a priest and a layman witnessing to the Faith so bravely and boldly. They were beatified in 1987 by Pope St. John Paul II.
Blessed John Sugar, pray for us!
Blessed Robert Grissold, pray for us!
Blessed John Sugar Image Source: shared under permission under a Creative Commons Attribution.
Blessed Robert Grissold Image Source (Public Domain).
There is a painting of Grissold standing behind Sugar on the sledge in the mud on this website. The artist is Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen (1830?-1923) aka Rebecca Dering, one of The Quartet at Baddlesley Clinton in Warwickshire. Baddlesley Clinton had been known as recusant household in the 1590's and the nineteenth century Quartet (Rebecca, her husband Marmion Edward Ferrers, Lady Georgiana Chatterton and her husband Sir William) were converts to Catholicism.
Icons of Blesseds John Sugar and Robert Grissold are also included in the frieze behind the main altar in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Baddlesley Clinton.
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