ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 3rd of April
WELCOME!
BLESSED STEPHEN ROUSHAM, PRIEST AND MARTYR
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| The Manner of Execution at Tyburn |
Stephen Rousham [Rouse, Rowsham] was born in Oxfordshire, and brought up in the university of Oxford, where he was, for some time, a minister in the church of St Mary's. Being converted to the catholic faith, he went abroad, and was made priest in the English College then residing at Rheims, and from thence was sent upon the mission, anno 1582.
He was but indifferently learned, says the manuscript history, and of a weak and sickly constitution of body but his soul was robust, vigorous and constant.
He fell into the hands of the persecutors the same year, and was sent a prisoner to the Tower by secretary Walsingham, on the 19th of May; and, not long after, thrust down into that dungeon, which is called Little Ease, and it very well deserves the name. In this wretched hole this servant of God was kept eighteen whole months and thirteen days. His sufferings, during his imprisonment, were great; but God was not wanting in his comforts and heavenly visits to this holy soul that was suffering for his cause.
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| The place of Little Ease, a tiny, most uncomfortable cell |
It is particularly recorded of him in the manuscript annals, that, on the very day and hour when Mr Ford, Mr Shert and Mr Johnson, his familiar acquaintance (whom he had hoped to have accompanied) were glorifying God by suffering at Tyburn for their faith, Mr Rousham being then in his lonesome dungeon, perceived a most sweet and most pleasant light; and felt, at the same time, three gentle strokes on his right hand, as it were to bespeak his attention to the glorious triumphs of his companions. And that, another time, when he was daily looking to be called out to his trial, in order to undergo the same kind of death, he had an indication from heaven that his time was not yet come; but that he was to say many Masses more before his death.
He was sent into banishment in 1585; but his ardent zeal of the salvation of souls, which, in his banishment, became greater every day than other, and the desire he had to glorify God by martyrdom, did not suffer him to stay long before he returned again upon the English mission, where, whilst he was diligently applying himself to his functions, he was apprehended in the house of a widow lady, called Strange, and carried away to Gloucester jail.
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| Gloucester castle keep in use as part of the county jail |
At the next assizes, was brought to the bar, and arraigned for being made priest beyond the seas, and returning into England, and making it his business there to reconcile the queen's subjects to the catholic church. All this he freely confessed; but so far from acknowledging any guilt, much less any treason in the case, he openly protested, that if he had many lives, he would most willingly lay them all down for so good a cause. When sentence was pronounced upon him according to the usual form, as in cases of high treason, the joy that he shewed on that occasion was admired by all. He suffered with wonderful constancy at Gloucester, some time this year [April 3, 1587]. Writers are not agreed about the day nor the month. Some say it was in March, others in July.
From the Journals of Douay College, the Diary of things transacted in the Tower, from 1580 to 1585, the Catalogues of Martyrs, and Dr Champney's Manuscript Annals of Queen Elizabeth.
Source: Bishop Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Volume 1
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