George Haydock

Who they were

George Haydock, youngest son of a Lancashire family, studied at Douai and Rome and was ordained in 1581. Arrested in London soon after landing, he spent over a year in the Tower in strict confinement, sick with fever; he scratched the pope's name and arms on his cell walls, so great was his love of the papacy.

Pressed at his examination, he declared the queen a heretic. Condemned with other priests, he was the first of them to die, at Tyburn on 12 February 1584.

The miracles

As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.

Why that counted as sanctity

A frail young priest whose love of the Church carried him through prison to death.