John Roberts

Who they were

John Roberts, from Merionethshire, studied at Oxford and law in London, and was converted in Paris in 1598. He became a Benedictine at Compostela, was ordained and set out for England in 1602.

Banished, he returned again and again to work among the people, and became first prior of St Gregory's at Douai, now Downside Abbey. He was martyred on 10 December 1610.

The miracles

As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle. Canonised among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Why that counted as sanctity

A Welsh Benedictine who kept returning to England to serve its Catholics.

Connected on this site

• Thomas Somers Blessed
  “The Roman Martyrology remembers him at Tyburn with Saint John Roberts of the Order of Saint Benedict, priests and martyrs condemned under King James I for their priesthood and hanged on the same scaffold together with sixteen criminals; the Acts of the Apostolic See describe him as a secular priest from Westmorland…” — this site's research