Richard Herst
Blessed Richard Herst | |
---|---|
Lancaster, England | |
Beatified | 15 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI |
Feast | 29 August |
Attributes | holding an ear of wheat, or a lamb |
Richard Herst (Hurst) (died 29 August 1628) was an English
Life
Herst is thought to have been born at Broughton, near Preston, Lancashire, England, where he was a well-to-do yeoman, farming his own land. He was arrested while out ploughing his fields.[1] As he was a recusant, Norcross, a pursuivant, was sent by the Bishop of Chester to arrest him. The pursuivants had a fracas with Hurst's servants, in the course of which one of the pursuivant's men, by name Dewhurst, in running over a ploughed field, fell and broke his leg. The wound mortified and proved fatal, and before his death Dewhurst made a solemn oath that his injury was the result of an accident. Nevertheless Hurst was indicted for murder, as the government wished at that time to make severe examples of recusants.[2]
Through Hurst's friends a petition was sent to King
At the gallows he was informed that his life would be spared if he would swear allegiance to the king, but as the oath contained passages to which he objected, he refused and was at once executed. He was executed at Lancaster.[2]
References
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Richard Hurst". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
- Joseph Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.;
- ____, Lancashire Recusants, in manuscript;
- Richard Challoner, Memoirs, II (Edinburgh, 1878) 97-101;
- A True and Exact Relation of the Death of Two Catholiks at Lancaster, 1628 (London, 1737), a rare tract;
- Henry Foley in Stonyhurst Magazine No. XX, 112;
- Charles Dodd-Tierney, Cath. Hist.