Alexander Briant

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Saint Alexander Briant
Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
Born	c. 1556 in Somerset
Died	2 December 1581 in Tyburn
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	1970
Feast
Saints Portal

Saint Alexander Briant was an English Jesuit and martyr, born in Somerset about 1556; executed at Tyburn, 2 December 1581.

He entered Hart Hall, Oxford, at an early age. While there, he became a pupil of Father Robert Persons to which fact, together with his association with Richard Holtby, is attributed his conversion.

Having left the university he entered the English college at Reims, and was ordained priest 29 March 1578. Assigned to the English mission in August of the following year he labored with zeal in his own county of Somersetshire.

A party of the persecution, searching for Father Robert Persons, placed Alexander Briant under arrest on 28 April 1581, in the hope of extorting information. After fruitless attempts to this end at Counter Prison, London, he was taken to the Tower where he was subjected to excruciating tortures. To the rack, starvation, and cold was added the inhuman forcing of needles under the nails. With six other priests he was arraigned, 16 November 1581, in Queen's Bench, Westminster, on the charge of high treason, and condemned to death. The details of this last great suffering, which occurred on the 2 December following, like those of the previous torture are revolting. Through either malice or carelessness of the executioner he was put to needless suffering. His face is said to have been strikingly beautiful even up to his death.

In his letter to the Jesuit Fathers he protests that he felt no pain during the tortures he underwent, and adds: "Whether this that I say be miraculous or no, God knowth". He was scarcely more than twenty-five years of age at the time of his martyrdom.

He was canonised in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia.