Thomas Tunstall

Who they were

Thomas Tunstall, of an old northern family, was ordained at Douai and left for England in 1610, where he was almost immediately arrested and spent four or five years in various prisons.

He escaped from Wisbech Castle, was recaptured near King's Lynn, and was condemned and executed at Norwich on 13 July 1616. The holiness of his bearing on the scaffold deeply moved the people.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

A priest whose holiness on the scaffold moved all who saw it.