Ven. William Hartley
Martyr; b.
at Wyn, in Derbyshire, England, of a yeoman family about 1557; d. 5
October, 1588. At eighteen he matriculated at St. John's, Oxford,
where he became
a chaplain. Being ejected by the vice-chancellor, Tobie Mathew, in
1579,
he went to Reims in August, was ordained at Châlons, and returned
to England in June, 1580. He was of great service to Fathers Persons
and Campion in printing and distributing their books, but was
eventually arrested, 13 August, 1581, and sent to Marshalsea Prison,
London. Here he was detected saying Mass in a cell before Lord Vaux,
and for this he was laid in
irons (5 December, 1583). He was indicted for high treason, 7
February, 1584, but for some unknown reason, not tried. In January,
1585, he was sent into exile. He then spent some little time at
Reims, recovering his health, and made a pilgrimage to Rome (15
April, 1586), before returning to
his perilous mission. In September, 1588, he was arrested in
Holborn, London, and, as his friend father Warford said, "being
beset by the deceits of the heretics, incurred the suspicion of
having apostatized. But the
event showed how unjust the suspicion was; when he suffered at
Tyburn he
won the greatest credit for constancy. He was a man of the meekest
disposition and naturally virtuous, modest, and grave, with a sober
and peaceful look. His beard was blackish and his height moderate"
("Acts of English Martyrs", cited below, 272).
The Armada
year was for Catholics both the time of worst bloodshed and of the
greatest dearth of news, and this explains why we know but little of
Hartley's companions. The first was a priest, the Venerable John
Hewitt, son of a draper at York and a student at Caius College,
Cambridge. He had once been in York prison, but was arrested in
Grey's Inn Lane, London, 10 March, 1857, going under
the name of Weldon, and died under that name; this had led several
early
martyrologists into the curious mistake of making him into two
martyrs, Hewett dying at York, and Weldon at London. Hartley's
second companion was the Venerable Robert Sutton, a tutor or
schoolmaster, born at Kegworth in Leichestershire, who had practiced
his profession in Paternoster Row, London. The fourth [sic] was John
Harrison, alias Symons, who had carried letters from one priest to
another. As he had before "been slandered
to be a spy" we can guess why his fame suffered some obscurity. It
is also hardly doubtful that his name, Harrison, was confounded with
that of
either Matthias or James Harrison, priests, who suffered martyrdom
in 1599 or 1602 respectively. This perhaps explains why his name
has fallen out of the process of the English martyrs, and in its
place we find inserted that of Venerable Richard Williams, a
"Queen Mary priest" who really suffered four years later.
The Month, January, 1879, 71-85; January, 1905, 19; Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891); Catholic Records Society (London, 1906, 1908), II, V; Jaeffreson, Middlesex County Records (London, 1886), II, 171, 180; Boase, Oxford registers, (Oxford, 1885-89), II, ii, 68; Challoner, Memoirs, I; Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s. v.
J.H. POLLEN
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII
Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York