August 27 -- Feast of Blessed Roger Cadwallador

I know I have covered too many of the Martyrs of England, Scotland, and Wales. This is especially true since I don't have a copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs (hint, hint) which would let me even the score by proclaiming feast days for some of the left-footed folks who died for their faith.

And in truth, I didn't lack options for August 27. It is the feast of the Transverberation of the Heart of Saint Teresa of Avila. I had to look transverberation up. It didn't help much, but then I found an explanation of the holy day. Good stuff for another day.

It is also the feast of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine. More on that tomorrow.

So, we have Roger Cadwallador, another of these priests who wouldn't get out of Dodge (woldshireford-on-Tyne) and fell into the blood-stained clutches of King James I. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered, the customary punishment for the crime of being a Catholic priest in Tudor-Stuart England.

So far, unremarkable, right? As I said, I have mentioned this stuff before. Here's the part that struck me as worthy of a remark or two. He was arrested on Easter Sunday. Now put yourself in the place of the soldiers. You've been to church, probably on Friday. You heard all about the arrest, torment, and execution of Jesus. Now your boss tells you that you can't go to Easter service because you have to go arrest a priest who will most likely die a slow, painful, and public death. Really? It can't wait a day? I mean, I am sure that God loves irony, but is He really going to be down with this one?

A few random notes about Roger:
1. He was supposed to be killed in Hereford but there was a plague in the city at the time. I guess you can't kill people during a plague, so they shackled him up and made him walk to Leominster. It's a fourteen mile hike, which is a long way to go in leg irons.

2. The crowd usually cheered at executions, but this time they booed because the executioners botched the job so badly. I guess the standard procedure was a quick, neck-breaking drop in the hanging, following by a post-mortem drawing and quartering. At one time, of course, the whole thing was meant to be a protracted, torturous execution (as was depicted in Braveheart), but people get squeamish. They don't mind a bit of knackering at the end, but if the guy's still groaning and spouting, it's all a little hard to take. When the crowd's patience had broken, the executioners cut him down and chopped him up still alive (well, briefly, anyway), but it was too late. Their clumsiness had just ruined the whole thing.

3. The gentleman above is Father Frank Slater, standing in front of a stained glass window in St. Ethelbert's Church. The window behind him commemorates Blessed Roger's refusal to take the Oath of Loyalty that stipulated that the King was also the head of the Church.