St Robert Southwell-Feb. 21-St Robert was the last Catholic to be executed in this way at Tyburn
He studied at Douai and Paris and wanted to be a priest from his earliest youth. In 1578, when he was barely 17, he was admitted to the Jesuit novitiate in Rome. After his ordination in 1584 he was appointed prefect of studies at the English College. Two years later he was sent to the English mission with fellow Jesuit Henry Garnett. They arrived a year after it had become high treason for a priest trained abroad to be in the country. Harbouring them was also a felony. Robert must have been well aware of the risk he was taking. The Jesuit priest Edmund Campion had been martyred three years earlier.
On his arrival he attended a meeting at Hurleyford House in the Thames valley, which mapped out a new strategy for the survival of the Catholic Church in England. It was attended by the court composer William Byrd and several leading Catholics of the day. A solemn sung Mass was celebrated.
That day Robert met Anne Dacre, countess of Arundel and Surrey. Her husband was a prisoner in the Tower and Robert visited him there. For the next six years he lived in a small room at Arundel House in the Strand, known only to a few trusted friends and servants. He spent the days in prayer and writing. At night he came out to minister to Catholics in London and the country. It was a dangerous way to live and several times he narrowly escaped being caught by priest-hunters.
In response to the Proclamation of 1591, claiming that Catholics were proscribed for treachery only, not for religion, he composed his Humble Supplication to Her Majesty - a devastating attack on the government.
Despite the secrecy of his existence, he became an influential figure in literary society. Robert's writings were extremely popular with his contemporaries such as Ben Johnson who declared that he wished he had written some of Robert's poems. The best known of his poems are The Burning Babe and Saint Peter's Complaint (1595), in which he made experiments with verse that critics believe were further developed by other poets, including Shakespeare.
In 1592 he was arrested by Richard Topcliffe, a professional priest-hunter who had already tortured, raped and killed a number of recusants. For several weeks he was tortured at Topcliffe's house in Westminster. He was then locked away in the Tower for three years. Finally in 1595 he was put on trial where even the judge expressed shock at the ordeal he had been subjected to by Topcliffe. The sentence however, was inevitable. Robert was hung drawn and quartered at Tyburn together with a notorious highwayman, in front of a huge crowd. After praying for the country and the Queen he said: "whether we live or die we belong to the Lord... All you angels and saints assist me."
St Robert was the last Catholic to be executed in this way at Tyburn. His reputation went far beyond Catholic circles and his writing and his death helped to work a profound change in the moral climate of England.
He was beatified in 1929 and canonised as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970.
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