English Speaking Saints And Martyrs

Bl. Thomas Reynolds Feastday: January 21 1642 English martyr. Born Thomas Green at Oxford, he left England and studied at Reims, France, and at Valladolid and Seville in Spain. Ordained in 1592, he went to England but was exiled in 1606. Thomas returned and labored for the faith until his arrest in 1628. He spent fourteen years in prison until he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, with Blessed Alban Bartholomew Roe. Thomas was eighty at the time St. Alban Bartholomew Roe Feastday: January 21 1642 Missionary and martyr, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Alban is believed to have been born in Bury St. Edmund's, England, about 1580. He converted to Catholicism and went to the English College at Douai, where he was dismissed for an infraction of discipline. In 1612 he became an ordained Benedictine at Dieulouard, France. From there he was sent to England. In 1615 he was arrested and banished. In 1618 he returned to England and was imprisoned again. This imprisonme...

Ven. Edward Waterson Born at London; martyred at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 7 January 1594 (1593 old style). A romantic episode marks this martyr's early career, for as a young man he travelled to Turkey with some English merchants, and attracted the attention of a wealthy Turk, who offered him his daughter in marriage if he would embrace Moslemism. Rejecting the offer with horror, Edward Waterson returned westward through Italy and, coming to Rome, was there reconciled to the Catholic Church by Richard Smith, afterwards Bishop of Chalcedon. The Pilgrim-book of the English College records his stay there, 29 November-11 December, 1588. He then went to Reims to study for the priesthood, arriving there 24 January, 1589. He received the tonsure and minor orders on 18 August, 1590, subdiaconate on 21 September, 1591, diaconate on 24 February, 1592, and the priesthood 11 March following. On 24 June he returned to England, with such zeal for the missions that he declared to his companions that if...

Bl. Thomas Plumtree Feastday: January 4 1570 English martyr. Born in Lincoinshire, he studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was rector of Stubton. A dedicated Catholic, he took part in the uprising launched by northern Catholics, the Rising of the North against Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), but was captured as the revolt failed completely. He was offered his freedom if he abjured the faith and he refused. He was hanged in Durham Castle.