Stephen Rowsham

Who they were

Stephen Rowsham of Oxfordshire was a Church of England minister at the University Church in Oxford until he became convinced of the Catholic faith. He was ordained at Reims and sent to England in 1582.

Arrested on landing, he spent over three years in the Tower, half of it in the tiny cell called 'Little Ease', and was exiled in 1585. He returned in 1586, worked in the west of England for a year, and was taken and executed at Gloucester in March 1587.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

A convert minister who returned from exile to die a priest.