Saints celebrated on the 2nd of July
BLESSED MONFORD SCOTT, PRIEST AND MARTYR
Monford Scott (Montford Scot) was born of a gentleman's family, in the Diocese of Norwich, and was far advanced in his studies before he left England, which was in the year 1574. At which time he was admitted - by Dr Allen - into the college lately instituted at Douay, and there applied himself to the study of divinity. He was one of the eldest sons of that fruitful mother, and stands the nineteenth in the list of her priests, according to the order of their ordination, and the thirty-first in the list of the missioners sent from thence into England. He was made priest in 1575, and sent upon the mission in 1577, before the removal of the college to Rheims. Dr Champney gives him this character:
He was, says he, a man of wonderful meekness, and of so great abstinence and devotion, that his diet, on common days, was bread and water, and he would take but little more on Sundays, and holidays; and so addicted was he to prayer, that he spent whole days and nights almost in this exercise, insomuch, that his knees were grown hard by the assiduity of his prayers, as it is related of St James; which, when one of the standers by perceived, whilst his body was quartered, he said aloud; I should be glad to see any one of our ministers, with their knees as much hardened by constant prayer, as we see this man's knees are.
And so great and so general was the veneration that this holy priest had acquired, that Topcliff, that noted persecutor, loudly boasted, that the queen and kingdom were highly obliged to him, for having apprehended aud brought to the gallows a priest so devout and so mortified.
He was prosecuted and condemned, barely upon account of his character, and was hanged, bowelled, and quartered, on the 2nd of July, 1591, in Fleet Street. He suffered with wonderful constancy, and no less modesty and spiritual joy, to the great edification of the spectators, and the admiration even of the greatest enemies of his faith and character.
George Beesley, priest, suffered at the same time and place, and with the like constancy and alacrity, and edification of the faithful. He was born at a place called the Mount, in Goosenor parish, in Lancashire, and was an alumnus and priest of Douay college, during its residence at Rheims; he was ordained priest, in 1587, and sent upon the English mission in 1588. He was a man of singular courage, young, strong, and robust, before he fell into the hands of the persecutors; but whilst he was in their hands, he was so frequently and cruelly tortured by the unhappy Topcliff, in order to oblige him to confess what catholics he had conversed with, and by whom he had been harboured or relieved, that he was reduced to a mere skeleton; insomuch, that they, who were before acquainted with him, could scarce know him to be the same man, when they saw him drawn to execution. Yet all these torments he endured with invincible courage and patience, and would not be induced to name any one, or bring any one into danger on his account.
From the Douay Diary and Catalogues, from father Ribadaneira, chap. 7., and from Dr Champney's manuscript history.
Source: Bishop Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Volume 1
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