St Edmund Arrowsmith

Edmund was the son of Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman farmer, and Margery Gerard, a member of an important Lancashire Catholic family. Among his mother’s relations was Fr John Gerard, who wrote The Diary of an Elizabethan Priest, as well as another martyr, the Blessed Miles Gerard. Edmund was born at Haydock, Lancashire, England in 1585, the eldest child. He was baptized Brian, but always used his Confirmation name of Edmund. The family was constantly harassed for its adherence to Catholicism, and in 1605 Edmund left England and went to Douai to study for the priesthood. He was soon forced to return to England due to ill health, but recovered and returned to Douai in 1607.

Edmund was ordained in Arras on 9th December 1612, and sent on the English mission a year later. He ministered to the Catholics of Lancashire without incident until around 1622, when he was arrested and questioned by the Anglican Bishop of Chester. Edmund was released when King James I ordered all arrested priests be freed, joined the Jesuits in 1624. In 1628, he was arrested when betrayed by a young man, the son of the landlord of the Blue Anchor Inn in south Lancashire, whom he had censured for an incestuous marriage. He was convicted of being a Catholic priest. He was sentenced to death, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster on 28th August 1628. His final confession was heard by St John Southworth, who was imprisoned along with Edmund.

Before mounting the scaffold, Edmund made a prayer to the Almighty:

I die for love of thee;?for our Holy Faith;?for the support of the authority of thy vicar on earth,?the successor of St Peter, true head of the Catholic Church?which thou hast founded and established.

His last words were, “Bone Jesu (Good Jesus)”.

Edmund’s hand was preserved and kept by the Arrowsmith family as a relic until he was beatified and it now rests in the Catholic Church of St Oswald and St Edmund Arrowsmith, Ashton-in-Makerfield, England. His beatification occurred in 1929. He was canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970. His feast day is 28th August.

Sources: Wikipedia and the website of Arrowsmith House