samedi 7 février 2015

Bienheureux THOMAS SHERWOOD, martyr

« The Tyburn Tree » (L'arbre de Tyburn, gravure, 1680), appelé ainsi car le triple gibet en bois s'y dressa jusqu'en 1759. En 1571 fut érigé le premier gibet permanent, de forme triangulaire, sur lequel vingt-quatre personnes pouvaient être pendues à la fois


Bienheureux Thomas Sherwood, martyr

Marchand drapier londonien, il se destina au sacerdoce au séminaire de Douai. Rentré à Londres pour assister son vieux père, il fut arrêté en pleine rue et pendu à Tyburn, en 1579.

SOURCE : http://www.paroisse-saint-aygulf.fr/index.php/prieres-et-liturgie/saints-par-mois/icalrepeat.detail/2015/02/07/4605/-/bienheureux-thomas-sherwood-martyr

Bienheureux Thomas Sherwood

Martyr en Angleterre ( 1578)

Né vers 1552, Thomas Sherwood fut arrêté, emprisonné et torturé pour avoir refusé de reconnaître la suprématie royale d'Élisabeth Iére.

À Londres, en 1578, le bienheureux Thomas Sherwood, martyr. Marchand drapier, il se destinait au sacerdoce lorsqu’il revint à Londres pour assister son père malade et âgé. Il fut dénoncé, arrêté dans la rue et condamné pour haute trahison, parce qu’il regardait le reine Élisabeth Ière comme excommuniée, et fut pendu à Tyburn.

Martyrologe romain

Blessed Thomas Sherwood


Memorial

Profile

A draper’s assistant and a physically small man. Both parents had been arrested for clinging to their faith during a time when Catholicism was outlawed in England. Thomas aspired to the priesthood, and planned to go to DouaiFrance to study. Condemned to the Tower of London for his faith, he was tortured to obtain the location where he had attended Mass; while in prison, he ministered to other prisoners. Thomas stated that he considered Queen Elizabeth to be excommunicated from the Church, and that he denied her supremacy over the Church; this caused his conviction for treason. Martyr.

Born

Died

Beatified

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-thomas-sherwood/

The One Hundred and Five Martyrs of Tyburn – 7 February 1578


Blessed Thomas Sherwood, layman

He was born in London, and was one of a large family. He had returned from Douai in order to arrange with his father about remaining at the seminary, and was one day talking in Chancery Lane when the cry was raised, “Stop the traitor!” It was the unworthy son of a Catholic lady with whom he was staying who thus betrayed him. Having replied to the question put to him that he believed the Holy Father to be the Head of the Church, the young seminarist was sent to prison on a charge of high treason. In the vain attempt to force him to reveal where and by whom he had heard Mass said, he was taken to the Tower to be cruelly racked. The only words which escaped him were: “Lord Jesus, I am not worthy that I should suffer these things for Thee, much less am I worthy of those rewards which Thou hast promised to give to such as confess Thee.” He was then thrown into a dungeon under the banks of the Thames, among the rats, where he endured hunger and cold for three winter months.

On the Eve of Candlemas, Sherwood was tried and found guilty of denying the royal supremacy, and the barbarous sentence was passed. He is described as small, and he looked much younger than his twenty-seven years; “being of his nature very meek and gentle.”

– from The One Hundred and Five Martyrs of Tyburn, by The Nuns of the Convent of Tyburn, 1917

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/the-one-hundred-and-five-martyrs-of-tyburn-7-february-1578/

Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors – Blessed Thomas Sherwood, Layman, 1578


Article

His parents both suffered much for the faith. His mother was a sister of Mr. Francis Tregian, in whose house Blessed Cuthbert Mayne was taken. Their son Thomas, one of fourteen children, followed his father’s trade of draper, intending however to cross to Douay and become a priest. One day when walking in the streets of London he was seized on the cry of “Stop the traitor!” raised by a youth Martin Tregony, a virulent papist-hunter. His mother, Lady Tregony, was a pious Catholic, and Sherwood frequently visited her, and Martin suspected him of assisting in having Mass said in her house. At his condemnation Sherwood declared that the Pope and not the Queen was the head of the Church in England, and was then most cruelly racked to discover where he had heard Mass. He could not be induced, however, to betray or bring any man into danger. After this he was cast into a filthy, dark dungeon, swarming with loathsome and ferocious rats, and only left it twice during three months to be again tortured on the rack. He had lost the use of his limbs, was starving, and searched with pain, but no compromising words passed his lips. He was executed at Tyburn, 7 February 1578, aged twenty-seven.

MLA Citation

  • Father Henry Sebastian Bowden. “Blessed Thomas Sherwood, Layman, 1578”. Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors1910CatholicSaints.Info. 21 April 2019. Web. 26 November 2020. <https://catholicsaints.info/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs-and-confessors-blessed-thomas-sherwood-layman-1578/>

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs-and-confessors-blessed-thomas-sherwood-layman-1578/

Bl. Thomas Sherwood
Martyr, born in London, 1551; died at Tyburn, London, 7 February, 1578. His parents also suffered for their conscience, both enduring imprisonment for the Faith. After leaving school in 1566, Thomas assisted his father, a London woollen draper, for about ten years; then, feeling that his vocation was to the priesthood, he made arrangements to go to Douay College and was in London settling his affairs, and obtaining the means for his support and education. While so engaged he was recognized in Chancery Lane and betrayed by George Marten, son of Lady Tregonwell. Being examined before the Recorder as to his opinion of the bull of Pius V and as to whether an excommunicated queen held lawful sovereignty, he denied all knowledge of both Bull and excommunication, but expressed his opinion that if the queen were indeed excommunicated her rule could not be lawful. He was detained at Westminster, where the attorney-general visited him and found him constant in that opinion. On 17 November, 1577, he was committed to the Tower by the Privy Council to be retained close prisoner, from conference with any person, and if he did not willingly confess such things as were demanded of him, he was to be committed to the dungeon amongst the rats. He was repeatedly examined, and twice racked in order to elicit where he had heard Mass and who had been present thereat, but his constancy was unshaken. After being racked, he was cast into a dark and fetid dungeon, where he was kept absolutely without clothes, without food, and with nothing but the bare earth to lie upon. His friends were not allowed to supply his needs, and the utmost concession that William Romper could obtain was permission to supply him with straw to lie upon. He was brought to trial on 3 February, and pronounced guilty of high treason for denying the queen's supremacy; four days later he was executed. He was a man of good wit and judgment and, being well instructed in religious matters, was very helpful to many poor Catholics. Small in stature, he was of healthy constitution and of a cheerful disposition, which he maintained even amidst his torture.
Sources

Vatican Archives; PERSONS, Memoirs in Cath. Rec. Soc., II (London, 1906), documents in the Public Record Office; Tower Bills in Cath. Rec. Soc., III; POLLEN, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891); CHALLONER, Memoirs of the Missionary Priests.

Whitfield, Joseph Louis. "Bl. Thomas Sherwood." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 26 Nov. 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14697b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett. Dedicated to those souls who are suffering for their Faith.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Blessed Thomas Sherwood M (AC)
Born in London in 1551; died at Tyburn in 1578; beatified in 1886. Thomas was preparing to go to Douai to study for the priesthood when he was denounced as a Catholic, arrested in London, and imprisoned in the Tower. He was racked in an effort to force him to disclose the place where he had heard Mass. He was finally hanged, drawn, and quartered on the charge of denying the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy (Attwater2, Benedictines).

1579: Thomas Sherwood, Catholic martyr

February 7th, 2012 Headsman

On this date in 1579, young Catholic layman Thomas Sherwood was hanged at Tyburn, cut down while still alive, disemboweled, and quartered.

This casualty of the Elizabethan era’s dangerous struggle for the soul of Britain had popped across to the continent to begin his studies under the church’s auspices.

He had not yet completed them when, on a return trip, a Protestant recognized him and got him locked up in the Tower, where Sherwood was tortured for information about the whereabouts of the underground Catholic Mass — but “he was brave beyond his years, no racking, no cross-examination could make him name any one.”

Sherwood had the distinction during his confinement of being one of the last earthly creatures to receive the (attempted) aid of octogenarian fellow-Catholic William RoperSir Thomas More‘s son-in-law and first biographer. (Roper’s attempts to send money to the imprisoned Sherwood were intercepted, however.)

Sherwood’s brother recalled of the martyr,

He was of small learning, scarcely understanding the Latin tongue, but had much read books of controversies and devotion, and had used much to converse among Catholic priests, and by reason thereof, having a good wit and judgment, and withal being very devout and religious, he was able to give good counsel, as he did to many of the more ignorant sort, being much esteemed for his virtuous life and humble and modest behaviour: besides God did give a special grace in his [conversation] , whereby together with his good example of life, he much moved and edified others. He was a man of little stature of body, yet of a healthful and good constitution, and very temperate in his diet.

After his first racking in the Tower (which was said to be rigorous), being visited by a Catholic gentlewoman, he showed himself of that joyful and comfortable spirit as she was astonished thereat. As also his keeper with compassion giving him warning that he was to be racked again, he was so little moved therewith, as merrily and with a cheerful countenance he said these words: ‘ I am very little, and you are very tall; you may hide me in your great hose and so they shall not find me; ‘ which the keeper did afterwards report to divers, much marvelling at his great fortitude and courage. He was about the age of twenty-seven years when he was martyred.

SOURCE : http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/02/07/1579-thomas-sherwood-catholic-martyr/

Beato Tommaso Sherwood Martire in Inghilterra

7 febbraio

>>> Visualizza la Scheda del Gruppo cui appartiene

m. Londra, 7 febbraio 1578

Etimologia: Tommaso = gemello, dall'ebraico

Emblema: Palma

Martirologio Romano: A Londra in Inghilterra, beato Tommaso Sherwood, martire, che, mercante di abiti, si era già avviato verso il sacerdozio a Douai, quando, recatosi a Londra per assistere il padre vecchio e malato, arrestato mentre passeggiava per strada, fu condotto al martirio sotto la regina Elisabetta I.

Salita al trono d’Inghilterra nel 1558, succedendo alla sorellastra Maria la Cattolica, la regina Elisabetta I reintrodusse nel regno la religione scismatica dell’anglicanesimo, instaurato da suo padre Enrico VIII; scomunicata dal papa Pio V nel 1570, rispose con persecuzioni ai cattolici, facendo mettere a morte quanti non aderivano al suo ordine, vittima più illustre fu Maria Stuart regina di Scozia, cattolica.

Fra i tanti fedeli a Roma che morirono in quel periodo vi è anche il beato Thomas Sherwood, nato a Londra intorno al 1550, fu messo quindicenne ad aiutare il padre nel suo commercio di stoffe, finché ottenne dai genitori, ferventi cattolici, il permesso di recarsi nel collegio inglese di Douai in Francia, per studiare e divenire sacerdote.

Ma ancora a Londra in attesa di trovare i mezzi economici per andare in Continente, incontrò per strada il giovane Giorgio Martin, figlio della cattolica Lady Tregonwell, il quale all’opposto della madre era fanaticamente contrario al cattolicesimo, questi riconosciutalo si mise a gridare “al traditore! Fermate il traditore!”. Subito arrestato, fu condotto davanti al giudice Fteetwood, accanito anticattolico, che lo sottopose a lungo interrogatorio circa la sua religione.

Tommaso argomentò che essendo Elisabetta stata scomunicata dal papa non era più da considerarsi regina; tanto bastò per essere rinchiuso prima nelle prigioni di Gatehouse a Westminster e poi trasferito nelle terribili prigioni della Torre, ove fu spesso torturato per estorcergli i nomi di altri cattolici.

Processato a Westminster fu condannato alla pena capitale per aver negato la supremazia spirituale della regina. La sentenza fu eseguita nel famigerato Tyburn di Londra il 7 febbraio 1578.

Anche la madre, dopo la sua esecuzione, fu imprigionata per 14 anni morendovi di stenti.
Beatificato da papa Leone XIII nel 1886.

Autore: Antonio Borrelli

SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/Detailed/39950.html