Blessed ROBERT GRISSOLD, Layman, 1604

GRESWOLD alternative spelling

ZEAL FOR MARTYRDOM

Biography

HE was apprehended by his cousin, Clement Grissold, for being in company with a priest, Blessed Sugar, and refused to escape, both for his love of the martyr and his own zeal to suffer. At the Assizes at Warwick he was repeatedly offered his liberty if he would promise to go to church, but each time absolutely refused. On the morning of his execution he spent one hour in prayer, and begged all the Catholics to say a Pater and Ave in honour of God and St. Catherine, his patroness, Virgin, and Martyr, for fortitude in his passion. To a Catholic woman in tears, he said, " This is no place for weeping, for you must come into the Bridegroom's chamber, not with tears, but with rejoicing." As he walked to the gallows he was bid not to follow Blessed  Sugar, who was being drawn through the mud ; but he said, " I have not thus far followed him to leave him for a little mire." Although so timorous by nature that he would swoon at the sight of blood, he gazed unmoved at the quartering of Blessed Sugar's body, and, taking the halter with which he was to be hung, dipped it in Blessed  Sugar's blood, and gave God thanks that he was to die with him. He suffered at Warwick, July 16.

"For I am ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus."—ACTS xxi. 13.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.