Edward Jones (martyr)

Contents

Edward Jones (died 6 May 1590) was a Welsh priest and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been beatified in 1926 with the other Douai Martyrs.

Life

He was born in Llanelidan in Dyffryn Clwyd.[1] He was baptised an Anglican in the Diocese of St Asaph. He travelled around Europe, and during his travels he became a Catholic.

In 1587, in Reims, he was received into the Catholic Church. He studied to be a priest at Douai College. On 11 June 1588, he was ordained a priest in Loon. In December 1588, he returned to England and stayed for some time in a grocer's shop in Fleet Street.[1]

In 1590, he was arrested in that shop by Richard Topcliffe, "who pretended to be a Catholic."[1][2] He was taken to the Tower of London and tortured there. At the Old Bailey "he made a skillful and learned defense, pleading that a confession elicited under torture was not legally sufficient to ensure a conviction. The court complimented him on his courageous bearing".[2] Nevertheless, he was convicted of high treason. Together with Anthony Middleton, he was hanged, drawn and quartered on 6 May 1590, opposite the grocer's shop where he had been captured; "over the gallows there was placed an inscription: 'For treason and favouring of foreign invasion'. When he [Jones] protested he was thrown off the scaffold ... and the butchery began".[3]

Beatification

He was beatified on 15 December 1929; his feast day is 6 May.[4]

References

  1. 1.[1.2][1.3]School information Archived 2018-11-01 at the Wayback Machine from BlessedEdwardJones.eschools.co.uk, retrieved 31 October 2018
  2. 2.[2.2]"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Ven. Edward Jones".
  3. 3.Wittich, John (1988). Catholic London. Herefordshire: Fowler Wright Books. p. 122.
  4. 4.Catholic.org, retrieved 31 October 1590