Background
He was born at Winterborne Street Martin in Dorset at an unknown date (ca 1543?) and became a Protestant minister.
He was born at Winterborne Street Martin in Dorset at an unknown date (ca 1543?) and became a Protestant minister.
He was ordained a priest at Soissons on 17 December 1580. He set out for the mission in England on 29 March 1581. He is known to have worked in Hampshire but details of his later, as of his earlier life, are patchy.
lieutenant may be that he was taken prisoner at Rye only a short time after landing in England and that he escaped.
In 1583 he was described as a man of "about forty years of age, of average height, with a dark beard, a sprightly look and black eyes. He was a very good controversialist, straightforward, very pious, and pre-eminently a man of hard work.
He laboured very strenuously at Winchester and in Hampshire, where he helped many, especially of the poorer classes."
Captured at Winchester, he was brought to London and arrived at the Marshalsea prison on 7 March 1584. His sentence this time was banishment and he was expelled with some seventy-two other priests.
He arrived at Rheims in France on 14 November 1585, but then immediately set out for England again.
He was yet again captured, this time being taken to the Clink in London on the 19 December 1585. This time, as was to be expected, he was not treated so lightly, especially since that year an Acting had been passed which made it a capital offence to be a Catholic priest in England. The sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was carried out at Tyburn, London on 8 October 1586.
This latter fact is not certain and the forename is not in any case known.
All three priests were beatified (the last stage prior to canonization) by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.