August Martyrs: Blessed Roger Cadwallador

Gracewing has published another book about a martyr from the recusant era in England:

Roger Cadwallador was born at Stretton Sugwas near Hereford in 1568 and martyred in Leominster (Llanllieni) on 27 August 1610. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987. Cadwallador's story is an intensely dramatic one. A gentleman farmer's son, born into a family of devoted Catholics who 'kept their consciences in secret', he grew up in the Marches which he left to study abroad. First, he went to Rheims (where the English College from Douai was temporarily based) and then to the English College at Valladolid, where in 1593 he was ordained priest. In October of that year he returned to minister to his countrymen in England and Wales. For sixteen years Cadwallador worked as a bilingual Catholic priest, mainly in his native Herefordshire but also in the neighbouring counties of Monmouthshire and Worcestershire. He was known as a pious, prudent and zealous missioner, noted especially for his work among the poor. His education had developed his gifts for philosophy, theology and languages: a Greek scholar, he translated into English, from the original Greek, the fifth-century Historia Ecclesiastica of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus. This was published posthumously on the Continent in 1612. In Theodoret's account he found the beliefs and practices of the early church to be 'that, which we Catholikes hold' as against the claims of Church of England apologists. On Easter Sunday 1610, while saying Mass in the home of a Catholic widow, he was arrested on the orders of the Protestant bishop of Hereford. Condemned for being a priest, Cadwallador was drawn on a hurdle through the streets of Leominster, then stripped, hung, drawn and quartered. His head was displayed in the town centre and his quarters on the four main roads-one at the Bargates where St Ethelbert's Church now stands. Fully aware of the dangers which awaited young Catholic priests who returned to England to reclaim 'the souls of his dearest countrymen', Blessed Roger Cadwallador was spared none of the 'miseries' predicted for him, yet his attractive and cheerful character shines through it all. This is an inspirational and heroic story of a young man who gave his life for the priesthood. Lynne Surtees was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, and though educated at the Convent school, began life as an Anglican. Married to a Church of England clergyman, she has four children (and four grandchildren). Now retired from nursing, she lives in Hereford, and, received into 'all the riches of the Catholic faith', is a parishioner of St Francis Xavier and an Oblate of Belmont Abbey.

Today is the 405th anniversary of his martyrdom, which Bishop Challoner described vividly:

The knot of the noose ended up under his chin--and the undersheriff started to get impatient with the time it was taking to execute Father Cadwallador because of the hangman's incompetence. The crowds at these executions knew how they were to be carried out and some even tried to "help" the priest die on the gibbet. They did not cheer when one of the sheriff's men raised the severed head of the martyr because they had witnessed the cruel incompetence of the execution and the Catholic priest's fortitude. Before he died he asked any Catholics in the crowd to pray the Pater Noster with him, secretly for their safety if they must.

Compromise Failed: An "Appellant" Martyr

Blessed Robert Drury was born in Buckinghamshire in about 1567. He studied at the English College, Rheims, France in 1588, and the English College, Valladolid, Spain in 1590. Ordained at Valladolid in 1593. Returned to England in 1593 to minister to covert Catholics around London, England. He was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth, but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. When James I came to the throne, the king required them to sign a new oath which acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused, and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England. He is one of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1987.

Blessed Robert Drury attempted to appease Queen Elizabeth and her government as one of the Appellants. Two of the 13 who signed the Protestation of Allegiance would be executed during the reign of James I of England: today's martyr and Blessed Roger Cadwallador (in 1610 on August 27). The Appellants opposed the Jesuit methods of leading the Catholic mission to England and attempted to compromise, pleading a divided but honest loyalty--secular loyalty to Elizabeth's authority as the Queen of England; religious loyalty to Papal authority as the successor to St. Peter. The Appellants also opposed the authority and methods of the Archpriest George Blackwell, whom they thought favored the Jesuit approach. The Jesuit approach, articulated by Father Robert Parsons, was uncompromising: total loyalty to the Roman Pontiff and absolute refusal to adopt public acceptance of the Church of England while remaining privately opposed. The Jesuits would not tolerate Church Papists who attended Anglican services to avoid the fines and imprisonments, for example. The Elizabethan regime took advantage of these disagreements to encourage division among Catholics in England.

Even if Elizabeth I had accepted their appeal for relief to her Catholic subjects, the succession of James VI of Scotland ended this attempt--because he would not compromise, either. He demanded that the Appellants accept his authority over both religious and secular matters with the Oath of Allegiance. Members of the Appellant party were divided over whether they could take James I's new oath. Drury and Cadwallador were arrested and refused to take the oath.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Blessed (then Venerable) Robert Drury:

The results of the address were disappointing; Elizabeth died within three months of its signature, and James I soon proved that he would not be satisfied with any purely civil allegiance. He thirsted for spiritual authority, and, with the assistance of an apostate Jesuit, a new oath of allegiance was drawn up, which in its subtlety was designed to trouble the conscience of Catholics and divide them on the lawfulness of taking it. It was imposed 5 July, 1606, and about this time Drury was arrested. He was condemned for his priesthood, but was offered his life if he would take the new oath. A letter from Father Persons, S.J., against its lawfulness was found on him. The oath declared that the "damnable doctrine" of the deposing power was "impious and heretical", and it was condemned by Pope Paul V, 22 September, 1606, "as containing many things contrary to the Faith and Salvation". This brief, however, was suppressed by the archpriest, and Drury probably did not know of it. But he felt that his conscience would not permit him to take the oath, and he died a martyr at Tyburn, 26 February, 1606-7. A curious contemporary account of his martyrdom, entitled "A true Report of the Arraignment . . . of a Popish Priest named Robert Drewrie" (London, 1607), which has been reprinted in the "Harleian Miscellany", calls him a Benedictine, and says he wore his monastic habitat the execution. But this "habit" as described proves to be the cassock and cap work by the secular clergy. The writer adds, "There were certain papers shown at Tyburn which had been found about him, of a very dangerous and traitorous nature, and among them also was his Benedictine faculty under seal, expressing what power and authority he had from the pope to make men, women, and children here of his order; what indulgence and pardons he could grant them", etc. He may have been a confrater or oblate of the order.

The University of North Carolina Press offers Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England by Arnold Pritchard, pictured above in a print-on-demand paperback edition. Pritchard covers the Archpriest Controversy and the divisions between Catholics at the end of Elizabeth I's reign--and the beginning of James I's. (The original hardcover edition from 1979 is still pretty easily available.)

Blessed Roger Cadwallador

English martyr, b. at Stretton Sugwas, near Hereford, in 1568; executed at Leominster (pronounced Lemster), 27 Aug., 1610. He was ordained subdeacon at Reims, 21 Sept., 1591, and deacon the following February, and in Aug., 1592, was sent to the English College at Valladolid, where he was ordained priest. Returning to England in 1594, he laboured in Herefordshire with good success especially among the poor for about sixteen years. Search was made for him in June, 1605, but it was not till Easter, 1610, that he was arrested at the house of Mrs. Winefride Scroope, widow, within eight miles of Hereford. He was then brought before the Bishop, Dr. Robert Bennet, who committed him to Hereford gaol where he was loaded with irons night and day.

Challoner notes that Dr. Bennet tripped himself up: after asking Father Cadwallador if he was a Catholic priest (and Cadwallador admitted that he was) the bishop proclaimed that Jesus Christ was the only priest of the New Testament (because Cadwallador had stated Dr. Bennet was not a true bishop)--so the martyr said, well then, I cannot be held guilty of being a priest then, can I, since there are no priests!?

On being transferred to Leominster gaol he was obliged to walk all the way in shackles, though a boy was permitted to go by his side and bear up by a string the weight of some iron links which were wired to the shackles. On his arrival, he was treated with the greatest inhumanity by his gaoler--kept in chains and even constrained in his movements. He was taken again to the bishop for some religious arguments, but he was very ill, suffering with a fever. He was condemned, merely for being a priest, some months before he suffered. A very full account of his sufferings in prison and of his martyrdom is given by Challoner. He hung very long, suffering great pain, owing to the unskilfulness of the hangman, and was eventually cut down and butchered alive.

Bishop Challoner's description of his execution is gruesome. The knot of the noose ended up under his chin--and the undersheriff started to get impatient with the time it was taking to execute Father Cadwallador because of the hangman's incompetence. The crowds at these executions knew how they were to be carried out and some even tried to "help" the priest die on the gibbet. They did not cheer when one of the sheriff's men raised the severed head of the martyr because they had witnessed the cruel incompetence of the execution and the Catholic priest's fortitude. Before he died he asked any Catholics in the crowd to pray the Pater Noster with him, secretly for their safety if they must.

Pits praises his great knowledge of Greek, from which he translated Theodoret's "Philotheus, or the lives of the Father of the Syrian deserts"; but it does not appear when or where this translation was published.

He was beatified by Pope John Paul II, on the 22nd of November 1987. In 2010, the Herefordshire Catholic community celebrated the 400th anniversary of his martyrdom.