Saint John Roberts
Saint
John Roberts (1575-6 - 10 December, 1610) was a
Benedictine monk and
priest, and was the first
Prior of St. Gregory's,
Douai (now
Downside Abbey). Returning to England as a
missionary priest during the period of
recusancy, he was
martyred at
Tyburn.
He was the son of John and Anna Roberts of
Trawsfynydd,
Merionethshire,
Wales. He matriculated at
St. John's College, Oxford, in February, 1595-6, but left after two years without taking a
degree and entered as a
law student at one of the
Inns of Court. In 1598 he travelled on the continent and in
Paris. Through the influence of a
Catholic fellow- countryman he was
converted. By the advice of
John Cecil, an English
priest who afterwards became a Government
spy, he decided to enter the
English College at
Valladolid, where he was admitted 18 October, 1598.
The following year, however, he left the college for the
Abbey of St. Benedict, Valladolid; whence, after some months, he was sent to make his novitiate in the great
Abbey of St. Martin at
Compostella where he made his profession towards the end of 1600. His studies completed he was ordained, and set out for
England 26 December, 1602. Although observed by a Government spy, Roberts and his companions succeeded in entering the country in April, 1603; but, his arrival being known, he was arrested and banished on 13 May following. He reached Douai on 24 May and soon managed to return to England where he laboured zealously among the
plague-stricken people in
London. In 1604, while embarking for Spain with four
postulants, including William Scott (who would later become Blessed
Maurus Scott) he was again arrested. Not being recognized as a priest, he was soon released and banished, but he returned to England at once. On 5 November, 1605, while Justice Grange was searching the house of Mrs. Percy, first wife of
Thomas Percy, who was involved in the
Gunpowder Plot, he found Roberts there and arrested him. Though acquitted of any complicity in the plot itself, Roberts was imprisoned in the Gatehouse at
Westminster for seven months and then
exiled anew in July, 1606.
This time he was absent for some fourteen months, nearly all of which he spent at
Douai where he founded and became the first
prior of a house for the English Benedictine monks who had entered various Spanish
monasteries. This was the beginning of the monastery of St. Gregory at Douai. The community of St. Gregory's still exists at
Downside Abbey, near
Bath,
England, having settled in England in the 19th century.
In October, 1607, Roberts returned to England, was again arrested in December and placed in the Gatehouse, from which he contrived to escape after some months. He now lived for about a year in London and was again taken some time before May, 1609, in which month he was taken to
Newgate and would have been executed but for the intercession of de la Broderie, the French ambassador, whose petition reduced the sentence to banishment. Roberts again visited Spain and Douai, but returned to England within a year, knowing that his death was certain if he were again captured. This event took place on 2 December, 1610; the pursuivants arriving just as he was concluding Mass, took him to Newgate in his vestments. On 5 December he was tried and found guilty under the Act forbidding priests to minister in England, and on 10 December was
hanged, drawn, and quartered at
Tyburn.
The body of Roberts was recovered and taken to St. Gregory's, Douai, but disappeared during the
French Revolution. Two fingers are still preserved as
relics at Downside and
Erdington Abbeys respectively and a few minor relics exist.
The introduction of the cause of
beatification was approved by
Leo XIII in his Decree of 4 December, 1886. On the 25 October, 1970, he was
canonised by
Pope Paul VI as one of the representative
Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
*
Catholic Encyclopedia: St. John Roberts*
Saint John Roberts at Catholic.org
