+ Saint CUTHBERT MAYNE Priest, 1577

FIRST FRUITS

Biography

WHEN Protestant chaplain at St. John's College, Oxford, he was nearly arrested on account of an intercepted letter from Douay urging him to go there. After an interval of three years he arrived there in 1573, and in 1576 was welcomed as a priest in Mr. Tregian's house in Cornwall, where he passed as his steward. On June 8, 1577, High Sheriff Greville surrounded the house with some hundred men, and in seizing the martyr struck his hand against something hard, and asked him if he wore a coat of mail. On tearing open his clothes an Agnus Dei was discovered hanging from his neck in a case of silver and crystal. In his indictment the fourth article charged him with having brought into the Kingdom a vain and superstitious thing called an Agnus Dei, blessed, as they say, by the Bishop of Rome, and having delivered the same to Mr. Francis Tregian. There was no proof in support of any of the charges against him, but he was nevertheless sentenced to death. After five months' imprisonment amongst the lowest criminals, he suffered at Launceston, November 29, 1577. On the eve of his execution a bright light filled his cell, as a harbinger of the Proto-martyr of Douay on receiving his crown.

"The first fruits to God and the Lamb."— Apoc. xiv. 4.

Shrine in Lauceston