Saint Richard Reynolds | |
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![]() Illustration from The Angel of Syon by Dom Adam Hamilton, O.S.B. | |
Bridgettine Martyr, "The Angel of Syon" Forty Martyrs of England and Wales | |
Born | c. 1492 Devon, England |
Died | 4 May 1535 (aged 42 - 43) Tyburn, London, England |
Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
Beatified | 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII |
Canonized | 25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI |
Feast | 4 May (individual and all English Martyrs) 25 October (collectively with Forty Martyrs of England and Wales) |
Attributes | Book or bible Martyr's palm Bridgettine habit Holding a noose or worn in neck |
Richard Reynolds, O.Ss.S (c.1492 – 4 May 1535) was an English Bridgettine monk executed in London for refusing the Oath of Supremacy to King Henry VIII of England. [1] He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970, among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. [2]
Richard Reynolds was a Bridgettine monk of the Syon Abbey, founded in Twickenham by Henry V. He was born in Devon in 1492, educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and joined the Abbey in 1513. [3] Reginald Pole is quoted as saying that Reynolds was the only English monk well-versed in the three principal languages of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. [4]
Dom Hamilton is of the opinion that as Reynolds was the most renowned spiritual counsellor of the Syon community, he would have likely been consulted by Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, who had been executed at Tyburn almost a year prior for speaking out against the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn. Reynolds had previously arranged a meeting between Elizabeth Barton and Thomas More. It was his connection to Barton that particularly compromised Reynolds in the view of the Crown officers. [4]
Reynolds was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London around the middle of April 1535, along with the Carthusian priors John Houghton, [5] Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster (a monk of Sheen Priory in Richmond). All four were tried for the denial of the royal supremacy.
Against Reynolds, there was the additional charge of attempting to dissuade people from submitting to the king's authority. A witness claimed that Reynolds had stated that the "Dowager Princess" (Queen Catherine) was the true queen. Reynolds denied that he had declared an opinion against the king, except in confession, as compelled thereto. The practice of suborning penitents to accuse their confessors was in vogue at that time. [4]
All four were executed on 4 May 1535 by drawing and quartering at Tyburn Tree in London after being dragged through the streets. Also convicted of treason for speaking against the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn, and martyred with them on that day, was John Haile, the parish priest of Isleworth where Syon Abbey lay. The quarters of the body of Reynolds – the first man to refuse the oath – were chopped to pieces and hung in different parts of London, including the gate of Syon Abbey.
According to The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper, More witnessed Reynolds and his three companions going to execution from his window in the Tower of London. Roper reports the event thus: "As Sir Thomas More in the Tower chanced on a time, looking out of his window, to behold one Master Reynolds, a religious, learned, and virtuous father of Sion and three monks of the Charterhouse, for the matters of the matrimony and Supremacy, going out of the Tower to execution - he, as one longing in that journey to have accompanied them, said unto my wife, then standing besides him: 'Lo, dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage? Wherefore thereby mayst thou see, mine own good daughter, what a great difference there is between such as have in effect spent all their days in a strait, hard, penitential, and painful life religiously, and such as have in the world, like worldly wretches, as thy poor father hath done, consumed all their time in pleasure and ease licentiously. For God, considering their long-continued life in most sore and grievous penance, will no longer suffer them to remain here in this vale of misery and iniquity, but speedily hence taketh them to the fruition of his everlasting deity.'" [6]
According to the book The Angel of Syon, Reynolds said before his execution, "... after a sharp breakfast, they should have a sweet supper." Coincidentally, Blessed John Sugar is recorded having said the same phrase before his execution in 1604, but the author of the book, Dom Adam Hamilton, is uncertain if it originated with Reynolds. [7]
He was beatified in 1886 and canonised by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales on 25 October 1970. His feast day is 4 May.
There is a statue commemorating Saint Richard Reynolds in Our Lady of Sorrows and St Bridget Roman Catholic Church, Isleworth. [8]
A painting of the martyr is housed in the Church of St. Bridget in Rome. [9]
There is a stained glass window of the martyr in St Etheldreda's Church in Ely Place. He is the figure on the right. [10]
A section of the dissolved Syon Abbey is considered a relic of Reynolds, [11] due to the fact that it supported the quartered remains of the martyr after his execution. The nuns of the Abbey took this section after the dissolution. [12]
He is the patron of St Richard Reynolds Catholic College in Twickenham. The college is the federation of St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School and the new St Richard Reynolds Catholic Primary School for pupils aged 4 – 18. [3]
The Bridgettines, or Birgittines, formally known as the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, is a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church founded by Saint Birgitta in 1344 and approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. They follow the Rule of Saint Augustine. There are today several different branches of Bridgettines.
Syon Abbey, also called simply Syon, was a dual monastery of men and women of the Bridgettine Order, although it only ever had abbesses during its existence. It was founded in 1415 and stood, until its demolition in the 16th century, on the left (northern) bank of the River Thames within the parish of Isleworth, in the county of Middlesex, on or near the site of the present Georgian mansion of Syon House, today in the London Borough of Hounslow. It was named after the biblical holy "City of David which is Zion", built on the eponymous Mount Zion.
Elizabeth Barton, known as "The Nun of Kent", "The Holy Maid of London", "The Holy Maid of Kent" and later "The Mad Maid of Kent", was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn.
Syon House is the west London residence of the Duke of Northumberland. A Grade I listed building, it lies within the 200-acre Syon Park, in the London Borough of Hounslow.
The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales or Cuthbert Mayne and Thirty-Nine Companion Martyrs are a group of Catholic, lay and religious, men and women, executed between 1535 and 1679 for treason and related offences under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation. The individuals listed range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged Popish Plot against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials, or with no trial at all.
Augustine Webster, O.Cart was an English Catholic martyr. He was the prior of Our Lady of Melwood, a Carthusian house at Epworth, on the Isle of Axholme, in north Lincolnshire, in 1531. His feast day is 4 May.
John Houghton, OCart was a Catholic priest of the Carthusian order and the first martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first of the Carthusians to die as a martyr. As one of the Carthusian Martyrs of London he is among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
John Roberts, OSB was a Welsh Benedictine monk and priest, and was the first prior of St. Gregory's, Douai, France. Returning to England as a missionary priest during the period of recusancy, he was martyred at Tyburn. He is venerated as a saint by the Catholic church.
The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) is a congregation of autonomous abbatial and prioral monastic communities of Catholic Benedictine monks, nuns, and lay oblates. It is technically the oldest of the nineteen congregations affiliated to the Benedictine Confederation.
John Nelson was an English Jesuit martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.
John Rochester was an English Carthusian choir monk and martyr. He was hanged at York for refusing to concede King Henry VIII's supremacy over the church.
William Exmew, O.Cart was an English Catholic priest and Carthusian hermit. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn and is honoured as a martyr by the Catholic Church. Exmew and his brother Carthusian martyrs were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December 1886.
The Carthusian Martyrs of London were the monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in the City of London who were put to death by the English state in a period lasting from the 4 May 1535 until the 20 September 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then quartering. Others were imprisoned and left to starve to death. The group also includes two monks who were brought to that house from the Charterhouses of Beauvale and Axholme and similarly dealt with. The total was 18 men, all of whom have been formally recognized by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
Robert Lawrence, OCart was one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn for declining to sign the Oath of Supremacy. His feast day is 4 May.
Beauvale Priory was a Carthusian monastery in Beauvale, Nottinghamshire. It is a scheduled ancient monument.
Events from the 1530s in England.
Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B., was an English Benedictine monk and martyrologist. He is best known for his many works on the English Catholic martyrs, which helped to keep their memories alive in the newly reemerging Catholic Church of Victorian England.
Thomas Reynolds was an English bishop and academic. He was the Warden of Merton College, Oxford, from 1545 and was created Bishop of Hereford by Mary I.
John Haile was an elderly secular priest who was vicar of Isleworth Middlesex in the early 16th century; his significance in history, like that of many of the English martyrs, begins only with the events which led to his death.
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