Blessed JOHN FELTON, Layman, 1570

CHAMPION OF THE POPE

As a cruel persecutor of the faith she had sworn to defend, Elizabeth was excommunicated and deposed by St. Pius V, February 24, 1570, and the Bull of excommunication was found on May 25, the Feast of Corpus Christi, on the gates of the Bishop of London's palace, where it had been placed by John Felton, a brave and zealous Catholic gentleman. After this act he refused to fly, trusting, he said, to God's grace for whatever might happen, and when the escort arrived for his arrest, he voluntarily surrendered himself. Both at his apprehension and his trial, he openly acknowledged having posted up the Bull, and said that, as he held the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ, what came from him ought to be duly venerated. Notwithstanding this public confession, he was three times racked in the vain hope of extracting from him admission, compromising others. In his satin doublet, on the day of his martyrdom, as he faced the crowd, calm and unmoved, he looked indeed a royal champion, and he told the people that he died for the Catholic faith. His last words on being disembowelled were " Jesus, Jesus." He sent the Queen, from the scaffold, a ring worth ^400, showing he bore her personally no ill-will. He suffered, St. Paul's Churchyard, London, August 8.

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church."—MATT. xvi. 18.

Other martyrs connected with the Excommunication
Martyrs connected with the Excommunication: Thomas Plumtree p., 4 Jan., 1571; John Storey, D.C.L., 1 June, 1571; Thomas Percy. Earl of Northumberland, 22 Aug., 1572; Thomas Woodhouse p., 13 June, 1573.