October Martyrs: Blessed John Robinson

According to this blog, Blessed John Robinson was an older man: 

BORN at Fernsby, Yorkshire, he lived for some time in the world in the married state, but on becoming a widower he went over to Rheims, was ordained, and sent on the Mission. He was a man of great simplicity and sincerity, and he used to say that " if he could not dispute for the faith as well as some of the others, he could die for it as well as the best." He was apprehended in the very port where he landed, and cast into the Clink prison. His fellow-prisoners, in respect to his age and probity, called him "Father," and he in return styled them his "bairns," and when they were sent off to be executed in different parts of the Kingdom, the good old man lamented for days exceedingly, until at last the warrant for his own execution arrived. To the bearer of the warrant he gave all his money, and on his knees gave God thanks. He was sent to suffer at Ipswich, a long journey taken on foot, but he refused to put on boots, as he said, " These feet of mine have never worn them, and they can well travel now without them, for they will be well repaid."

So like the priests executed at Canterbury and Oxford, Father Robinson had no opportunity to fulfill his mission of serving the Catholics of England--except perhaps in prison and on his way to execution (82 miles from the Clink in Southwark, London!), through his example and his patient endurance.

English Martyrs of October 1, 1588, pray for us.

A Martyr by Any Other Name (Blessed William Way and his Aliases)

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: Today's martyr, Blessed William Way (Alias MAY, alias FLOWER), was born in Exeter Diocese (Challoner says in Cornwall, but earlier authorities say in Devonshire); hanged, bowelled, and quartered at Kingston-on-Thames, 23 September, 1588. He is frequently confused with the martyred layman Richard Flower, alias Lloyd, who suffered at Tyburn, 30 September, 1588 (as to whom see RICHARD LEIGH), with the priest William Wiggs, alias Way, M.A., a notable prisoner at Wisbech, and with William Wyggs, M.A., of New College, Oxford. Our martyr William Way received the first tonsure in the Cathedral of Reims from the Cardinal of Guise on 31 March, 1584, and was ordained subdeacon, 22 March, deacon 5 April, and priest 18 September, 1586, at Laon, probably by Bishop Valentine Douglas, O.S.B. He set out for England 9 December, 1586, and in June 1587, had been committed to the Clink. He was indicted at Newgate in September, 1588, merely for being a priest. He declined to be tried by a secular judge, whereupon the Bishop of London was sent for; but the martyr, refusing to acknowledge him as a bishop or the queen as head of the Church, was immediately condemned. He was much given to abstinence and austerity. When he was not among the first of those to be tried at the Sessions in August, he wept and, fearing he had offended God, went at once to confession, "but when he himself was sent for, he had so much joy that he seemed past himself".