Ven. Roger Cadwallador

Ven. Roger Cadwallador

English martyr, b. at Stretton Sugwas, near Hereford, in 1568; executed at Leominster, 27 Aug., 1610. He was ordained subdeacon at Reims, 21 Sept., 1591, and deacon the following February, and in Aug., 1592, was sent to the English College at Valladolid, where he was ordained priest. Returning to England in 1594, he laboured in Herefordshire with good success especially among the poor for about sixteen years. Search was made for him in June, 1605, but it was not till Easter, 1610, that he was arrested at the house of Mrs. Winefride Scroope, widow, within eight miles of Hereford. He was then brought before the Bishop, Dr. Robert Bennet, who committed him to Hereford gaol where he was loaded with irons night and day. On being transferred to Leominster gaol he was obliged to walk all the way in shackles, though a boy was permitted to go by his side and bear up by a string the weight of some iron links which were wired to the shackles. On his arrival, he was treated with the greatest inhumanity by his gaoler. He was condemned, merely for being a priest, some months before he suffered. A very full account of his sufferings in prison and of his martyrdom is given by Challoner. He hung very long, suffering great pain, owing to the unskilfulness of the hangman, and was eventually cut down and butchered alive. Pits praises his great knowledge of Greek, from which he translated Theodoret's "Philotheus, or the lives of the Father of the Syrian deserts"; but it does not appear when or where this translation was published.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT