.jpg)
The Dorset Martyrs memorial on Gallows
Hill, Dorchester. The statue is by Elisabeth Frink. This memorial was erected
in 1986 to commemorate all Dorset men and women who were martyred for their
faith, particularly during the religious troubles of the 16th and 17th
centuries.
Bienheureux Thomas Pilchard, prêtre et martyr
Homme doux et savant, il fut condamné à mort en raison de son sacerdoce, sous la reine Élisabeth Ière, et livré aux supplices du gibet, à Dorchester, en Angleterre l’an 1501. Avec lui on commémore aussi le bienheureux martyr Guillaume Pike, charpentier, qui fut pendu et éventré la même année, mais à un jour inconnu, pour s’être réconcilié avec l’Église romaine.
Bienheureux Thomas Pilchard et Guillaume Pike
Martyrs en Angleterre (+ 1591)
Guillaume Pike, charpentier, aurait été converti à la
religion catholique par Thomas Pilchard, prêtre.
Ils ont été béatifiés en 1987
À Dorchester en Angleterre, l’an 1501, le bienheureux Thomas Pilchard, prêtre et martyr. Homme doux et savant, il fut condamné à mort en raison de son sacerdoce, sous la reine Élisabeth Ière, et livré aux supplices du gibet. Avec lui on commémore aussi le bienheureux martyr Guillaume Pike, charpentier, qui fut pendu et éventré la même année, mais à un jour inconnu, pour s’être réconcilié avec l’Église romaine.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/10221/Bienheureux-Thomas-Pilchard-et-Guillaume-Pike.html
THOMAS PILCHARD
Prêtre, Martyr, Bienheureux
1557-1587
Thomas Pilchard naquit à Batlle, dans le Sussex, en
Angleterre, en 1557.
En 1576 il entra au Collège d’Oxford pour y faire ses
études et y obtint une maîtrise en 1579. L’année suivante il renonça à sa
bourse et quitta Oxford et rejoint le continent. Il arriva à
Reims — où se trouvait alors un important Collège Anglais — le
20 novembre 1581 et y poursuivit ses études ecclésiastiques. En mars 1583, il
fut ordonné prêtre à Laon et renvoyé en mission en Angleterre, alors en prise à
une des plus sanglantes persécutions anticatholiques de son histoire.
Peu après son arrivée il fut arrêté et, ce qui
arrivait rarement, il fut banni de sa patrie, échappant ainsi à la peine
capitale qui était alors en vigueur pour ce genre de “crime”. Mais son courage
et son amour pour Dieu et pour son ministère, le firent revenir en Angleterre
peu de temps après. Arrêté une nouvelle fois — en 1586 ou
1587 — il fut de nouveau emprisonné dans la maison d’arrêt de
Dorchester, dans laquelle, en l’espace de quinze jours — entre sa
condamnation et l’exécution de la peine — il convertit une trentaine
de personnes.
Dans cette prison il fut victime des pires brimades et
vexations de la part des bourreaux, que le jour de l’exécution il avait du mal
à se tenir debout, s’évanouissant fréquemment.
Lorsque la corde fut coupée — il était
encore vivant — il resta debout sous l'échafaud, éventré.
En effet, le bourreau ayant mal fait son travail, il
fallut que ce soit le martyr lui-même qui s’en débarrasse, selon les dires d’un
témoin : « Le prêtre a soulevé lui-même et jeté devant lui ses
propres entrailles, en criant le “Miserere mei” ».
Le Père Warford ajouta cet éloge sur le
martyr : « Il n’y avait pas dans l’ouest de l’Angleterre un
prêtre qui l’égale dans la vertu ».
Son exécution eut lieu le 21 mars 1586 ou
1587 — l’année exacte reste incertaine. Il avait alors 29 ou 30 ans.
Venerable Thomas Pilchard
(Or PILCHER).
Martyr, born at Battle, Sussex, 1557; died at Dorchester, 21 March 1586-7. He became a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, in 1576, and took the degree of M.A., in 1579, resigning his fellowship the following year. He arrived at Reims 20 November, 1581, and was ordained priest at Laon, March, 1583, and was sent on the mission. He was arrested soon after, and banished; but returned almost immediately. He was again arrested early in March, 1586-7, and imprisoned in Dorchester Gaol, and in the fortnight between committal to prison and condemnation converted thirty persons. He was so cruelly drawn upon the hurdle that he was fainting when he came to the place of execution. When the rope was cut, being still alive he stood erect under the scaffold. The executioner, a cook, carried out the sentence so clumsily that the victim, turning to the sheriff, exclaimed "Is this then your justice, Mr. Sheriff?" According to another account "the priest raised himself and putting out his hands cast forward his own bowels, crying 'Miserere mei'". Father Warford says: "There was not a priest in the whole West of England, who, to my knowledge, was his equal in virtue."
Wainewright, John. "Venerable Thomas Pilchard." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 21 Mar. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12084a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Lawrence Progel.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. 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.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12084a.htm
Also known as
Thomas Pilchard
29 October as
one of the Martyrs
of Douai
22
November as one of the Martyrs
of England, Scotland and Wales
1 December as
one of the Martyrs
of Oxford University
Profile
Studied at
Balliol College, Oxford, England. Converted to Catholicism. Studied at
Douai College, Rheims, France. Ordained a priest at
Laon, France in 1583.
He then returned to England to
minister to covert Catholics in
Hampshire and Dorset. Arrested and
condemned to death for
the crime of being a priest.
Born
c.1557 in
Battle, East Sussex, England
hanged,
drawn and quartered on 21 March 1587 in
Dochester, Dorset, England
no official executioner could be found; a local butcher was
hired to do the disemboweling, but stopped halfway when Thomas asked him, “Is
this your justice?”
10
November 1986 by Pope John
Paul II (decree of martyrdom)
22
November 1987 by Pope John
Paul II
Additional Information
Mementoes
of the English Martyrs and Confessors, by Father Henry
Sebastian Bowden
books
A
Calendar of the English Martyrs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Book of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
other sites in english
sitios en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
fonti in italiano
MLA Citation
“Blessed Thomas Pilcher“. CatholicSaints.Info. 3
February 2020. Web. 6 April 2021. <https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-thomas-pilcher/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-thomas-pilcher/
Mementoes of the English Martyrs and
Confessors – Venerable Thomas Pilchard, Priest, 1587
Article
A fellow of Balliol, he was made priest at Rheims and
returned to England in 1583. He was of most gentle, courteous manners and an
indefatigable missioner. His work lay in the western counties, and when
apprehended he was cast into Dorchester jail. There he converted many of his
fellow-prisoners, and from all parts his counsel was sought. At length he was
tried and sentenced to death. Sentences of this sort were, however, rare in
Dorchester, and an executioner could hardly be found until at length a cook, or
rather a butcher, was hired at a great cost. But after the rope was cut and the
priest, being still alive, stood on his feet under the scaffold, the fellow
held back struck with fear. At length, compelled by the officials to finish his
work, he drove his knife, hardly knowing what he did, into the body of the
priest, and leaving it there he again hung back horror-stricken amidst the
groans of the spectators. This lasted so long that Mr. Pilchard, coming
completely to himself, naked and horribly wounded, inclining his head to the
sheriff, said: “Is this, then, your justice, Mr. sheriff?” At last he was
brutally despatched. He suffered at Dorchester, 21 March 1587.
MLA Citation
Father Henry Sebastian Bowden. “Venerable Thomas
Pilchard, Priest, 1587”. Mementoes of the English
Martyrs and Confessors, 1910. CatholicSaints.Info.
24 April 2019. Web. 6 April 2021. <https://catholicsaints.info/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs-and-confessors-venerable-thomas-pilchard-priest-1587/>
Also known as
William Pikes
22 November as
one of the Martyrs
of England, Scotland, and Wales
Profile
Layman in
the apostolic vicariate of England during
a period of persecutions of Catholics. Martyr.
Born
in Dorset, England
hanged on 22 December 1591 in
Dorchester, Dorset, England
body dismembered and the pieces distributed as a
warning to others
10 November 1986 by Pope John
Paul II (decree of martyrdom)
22 November 1987 by Pope John
Paul II
Additional Information
Mementoes
of the English Martyrs and Confessors, by Father Henry
Sebastian Bowden
books
Book of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
other sites in english
sitios en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
fonti in italiano
Martirologio Romano, 2005 edition
MLA Citation
“Blessed William Pike“. CatholicSaints.Info. 24
April 2019. Web. 6 April 2021. <https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-william-pike/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-william-pike/
Mementoes of the English Martyrs and
Confessors – Venerable William Pikes, Layman, 1591
Article
He was born at Parley, near Christchurch, Hampshire,
and became a joiner by trade in the town of Dorchester. He was put on his trial
for having spoken in prison too freely in favour of the Catholic religion. The
“bloody” question about the Pope’s supremacy was put to him, and he frankly
confessed that he maintained the authority of the Roman See, and he was
condemned to die a traitor’s death. When they asked him, as is their wont,
whether to save his life and family he would recant, he boldly replied that it
did not become a son of Mr. Pilchard to do so. “Did that traitor, then, pervert
you?” asked the judge. “That holy priest of God and true martyr of Christ,” he
replied, “taught me the truth of the Catholic Faith.” Asked when he first met
him, “It was on a journey,” said he, “returning from this city.” He was hanged
at Dorchester in 1591, and cut down alive. Being a very able, strong man, when
the executioners came to throw him on the block to quarter him, he stood upon
his feet, on which the sheriff’s men overmastering him threw him down and
pinned his hands fast to the ground with their halberts, and so the butchery
was performed.
MLA Citation
Father Henry Sebastian Bowden. “Venerable William
Pikes, Layman, 1591”. Mementoes of the English
Martyrs and Confessors, 1910. CatholicSaints.Info.
24 April 2019. Web. 6 April 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs-and-confessors-venerable-william-pikes-layman-1591/>
Beati Tommaso Pilchard e Guglielmo Pike Martiri
>>>
Visualizza la Scheda del Gruppo cui appartiene
† Dorchester, Inghilterra, 21 marzo 1586
Martirologio Romano: A Dorchester in Inghilterra,
beato Tommaso Pilchard, sacerdote e martire: uomo colto e mansueto, durante il
regno di Elisabetta I fu consegnato al supplizio del patibolo a motivo del suo
sacerdozio. Insieme a lui si commemora anche il beato Guglielmo Pike, martire,
che, falegname, in una data sconosciuta, nello stesso luogo e sotto la stessa
regina fu crudelmente fatto a brandelli per essersi riconciliato con la Chiesa
Romana.
