Henry Heath

Who they were

Henry Heath, christened at Peterborough on 16 December 1599, was librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Received into the Church in 1622, he became a Franciscan at Douai in 1625, taking the name Paul of St Magdalen.

In 1643 he came to England disguised as a sailor, refused money in the spirit of St Francis and begged his way from Dover to London. Arrested the very night he arrived, he confessed he was a priest and was executed at Tyburn on 17 April 1643, reconciling a condemned criminal in the cart.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

A poor Franciscan who walked to his martyrdom.