Edmund Arrowsmith

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Saint Edmund Arrowsmith (1585 – 1628) is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Edmund was the son of Robert Arrowsmith, a farmer, and was born at Haydock, Merseyside, England. He was baptized Brian, but always used his Confirmation name of Edmund. The family was constantly harassed for its adherence to Roman Catholism, and in 1605 Edmund left England and went to Douai to study for the priesthood. He was soon forced to return to England due to ill health, but recovered and returned to Douai in 1607[1].

He was ordained in Arras on 9 December 1612 and sent on the English mission a year later[2]. He ministered to the Catholics of Lancashire without incident until about 1622, when he was arrested and questioned by the Protestant bishop of Chester. Edmund was released when King James I of England ordered all arrested priests be freed, joined the Jesuits in 1624 and in 1628 was arrested when betrayed by a young man, the son of the landlord of the Blue Anchor Inn in south Lancashire, who he had censured for an incestuous marriage. He was convicted of being a Catholic priest in England. He was sentenced to death, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster on August 28th 1628. His hand was cut off by a fellow Roman Catholic and given to his mother as a relic. His final confession was heard by Saint John Southworth, who was imprisoned along with Edmund.

Edmund Arrowsmith ministered to Catholics of Lancashire, before being arrested and questioned, at the still standing Wallcroft Farmhouse located in Chorley, Lancashire. His hand was preserved and kept by the Arrowsmith family as a relic until he was beatified and it now rests in Saint Oswald's Church, Ashton-in-Makerfield, England. His beatification occurred in 1929 and he was canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970. His feast day is August 28.