SAINT HENRY WALPOLE

St. Henry Walpole
Henry Walpole,
Feast day: April 7
Born in Docking, Norfolk, England, in 1558;
Death:  April 7, 1595;


Beatified in 1929;
canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

Saint Henry studied at Norwich, Cambridge (Peterhouse), and law at Gray's Inn. He was reconciled to the Church when he witnessed the execution of Saint Edmund Campion. He immediately quit studying law in order to study theology at Rheims. Henry entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, 1584, and was ordained there four years later after completing his studies at the English College.

He was sent on the missions to Lorraine, and in 1589, while acting as chaplain to the Spanish troops in the Netherlands, he was imprisoned by the Calvinists at Flushing for a year. When released he taught at Seville and Valladolid, Spain. Thereafter, Henry engaged in missionary activities in Flanders and, in 1593, was sent to the English mission.

Arrested almost on landing, he was imprisoned for a year in York and then in the Tower of London, subjected to numerous tortures, and then convicted of treason for his priesthood at York, where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered with Blessed Alexander Rawlins