Today is the feast day of St. Joan of Arc, Patron of France, who was burned to death by the English on this day in 1431. It is also the feast day of St. Luke Kirby, English Martyr, who was put to death by the English on this day in 1582. A convert to Catholicism, Kirby was ordained to the priesthood in 1577 and took the oath of the English College of Rome on St. George’s Day, 1579 (Shakespeare’s fifteenth birthday). Betrayed by Elizabeth’s notorious spy network, he was arrested upon his arrival at Dover in June 1580 and was imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Westminster. At the end of the year he was transferred to the Tower of London, where, on December 9, he was subjected to the hideous torture of the so-called “Scavenger’s Daughter”. This sadistic device, invented during the reign of Henry VIII, forced the head and the knees together in such a way that the compression of the body forced blood from the nose and the ears.
Condemned to death in November 1581, he spent the final two months of his life chained in irons. Finally, on May 30, 1582, he was put to death by hanging, along with Thomas Cottam (Shakespeare’s schoolmaster’s younger brother), William Filby, and Laurence Richardson, all of whom were beatified in 1885 by Pope Leo XIII. Kirby was canonized by Paul VI in 1970.
St. Luke Kirby, like the other English Martyrs, is completely forgotten by modern Englishmen, festering in the fetid detritus of their own nation’s decay. No matter. Why should we seek the living among the dead? St. Luke Kirby has his reward, as, no doubt, modern Englishmen have theirs. He is in heaven; they are in hell.
St. Luke Kirby, who gave your life that Englishmen might live, please pray for your native land that she may cast off the culture of death and embrace the life-giving waters of grace offered by Christ and His Church. Amen.
Pray for them indeed! And pray for us all as well!
Exactly how many english were martyred in this whole bloody affair? It seems like every other day you or someone else at STAR is posting about another victim of Elizabeth/Henry VIII! How very sad, yet inspiring to see that there were those willing to give up their lives for their faith.
On a side note, since you mentioned Shakespeare in the post:
If you did not already see it, do yourself a favor and avoid “Anonymous”, the oxfordian theory Shakespeare film from last year. I knew it was going to be bunk, but I thought it might still be mildly entertaining. I just saw it the other day, and it was a terrible film. And I don’t mean just on the oxfordian sillyness, I mean just the film itself was bad. Sure the costumes were nice (aren’t they always in these kinds of movies?), but it was so disjointed, so boring, with such lackadaisical writing and directing, and such unsympathetic characters…blah was a good word for it. And if the oxford theory were not crazy enough, this film took it to new heights, complete with a battle for the throne, incest with the Queen, and more!
But the straw that really broke the camel’s back, was the film’s treatment of Shakespeare the man. You would not be expecting a grand portrait of him in an film dealing with the oxford theory, but this was just low, real low. Shakespeare was not just a fraud, he was a whoring, drunken lout, a real scumbag. Complete with all the trimmings! It surprised me how far they took it. The irony too, near the end of the film, when the works of Shakespeare were being praised as the most profound in the english language, that the real author deserved all the credit he was due…did the film makers realize that the man who wrote those works they praised so much, was the man they spent two hours defacating all over?
That was an excellent post. Thanks.