Blessed Edmund Duke (1563-1590), Catholic priest and martyr.

He was born in Kent in 1563. KENT (1400 AM) is a Radio station broadcasting a Adult Standards/MOR format Only the sparest details are known of his life. He arrived to study for the priesthood at the English College at Rheims on March 3, 1583 and was ordained to minor orders there on September 23, 1583. Reims (alternative English spelling Rheims; riːmz in English and /ʁɛ̃s/ in French) is a city of the Champagne-Ardenne région of northern Events 1284 - Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England 1575 - Indian Events 1122 - Concordat of Worms. 1459 - Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English He was subsequently was sent to Rome and entered the English College there on August 22, 1584. Events 392 - Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Lateran Basilica on September 3, 1589. Events 36 BC - In the Battle of Naulochus, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Admiral of Octavian, defeats Sextus Pompeius Leaving the city for England, he set out on September 15 and on October 15 reached Rheims, where he stayed until setting off for the English mission on March 22, 1590 with three other priests, the Yorkshiremen Richard Hill and John Hogg and Richard Holiday. Events 668 - Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse Italy. Events 533 - Byzantine General Belisarius makes his formal entry into Carthage, having conquered it from the Events 238 - Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman emperor. The group landed on the Northern coast, but made the mistake of keeping together, which made them too conspicuous. They fell under suspicion in a village in County Durham, were found out and imprisoned in Durham. Given the 1585 Act making it a capital offence to be a Catholic priest in England the terrible sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was inevitable. The trial was at Durham and the sentence was carried out there at Dryburne on May 27, 1590. Events 927 - Simeon the Great, Tsar of Bulgaria, dies 1120 - Richard III of Capua is anointed Most unusually the record of the event has survived in the registers of St Oswald's parish, Durham.

With the priests were executed four common criminals felons, who declared that they, too, died Catholics. In the crowd were a good number of Catholics and reportedly when the priests' heads were as customary cut off and held up, only the officers and a Protestant minister or two would say "God save the Queen". It is also said that two Protestant spectators, Robert Maire and his wife Grace, were converted to the Catholic faith.

Edmund Duke was declared Blessed (the last stage prior to sainthood) by Pope John Paul II on November 22, 1987. Pope Events 498 - Kofi Aseidu- After the death of Anastasius II, Symmachus is elected Pope in the Lateran Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar)

Sources

The most reliable compact source is Godfrey Anstruther, Seminary Priests, St Edmund's College, Ware, vol. 1, 1968, pp. 107, 167, 170, 172.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language Encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia