Tuesday 5 July 2022

Celebrating the feast of our local martyrs.

“The executions took place at Oxford in July 1589. The two priests were each dragged through the streets on a horse-drawn hurdle. The first to die was Fr George Nichols. Having been refused permission to address the crowd, he made his profession of faith. He made it clear that he was being executed merely because he was a priest. Climbing the ladder to the gallows, he made the sign of the cross on each rung and kissed it. Then he was thrown off to his death.

“Fr Richard Yaxley was the next to die. He embraced the body of his dead colleague, then climbed the ladder and started to make his own profession of faith. But, before he could finish, he too was pushed off.

“It was now Thomas Belson’s turn to die. He hugged the bodies of the two priests and prayed that he would share their courage. He climbed the ladder, started his profession of faith and, like Fr Yaxley, was executed before he could finish. He was twenty-six years old.

“Finally, it was the turn of Humphrey Prichard, the servant from the Catherine Wheel. At the top of the ladder, he told the crowd that he died for ‘being a Catholic and faithful Christian of Holy Church’. A Puritan minister mocked him for being ignorant. Prichard replied that ‘what I cannot explain by mouth, I am ready and prepared to explain and testify to you at the cost of my blood.’ Whereupon he was thrown from the ladder.

“The priests were decapitated and quartered, their heads and quarters being parboiled in a cauldron. Their remains were then fixed to the wall of Oxford Castle, where they were mutilated by Puritan extremists. A couple of days later, the remains were fixed to the town gates. The right arm of Fr Nichols is reported to have swivelled round of its own accord. Some said it pointed accusingly at the city.” (From ‘Thames Valley Papists’ by Tony Hadland)

#oxfordoratory

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