Isle of Wight Martyrs

 Blessed Robert Anderton and Blessed William Marsden

Captured at Cowes and executed for the Faith on 25th April 1586.

The martyrs proposed for Beatification, were presented at the General Assembly of the Congregation of Rites, in the presence of His Holiness, Pope Pius Xl on 8th December 1929, the 75th anniversary of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to commemorate the centenary of the Catholic Emancipation Act, which restored to English Catholics their freedom and rites. 

One week later the Holy Father solemnly beatified the martyrs on 15th Dec. 1929

(the year of His Golden Jubilee to the Holy Priesthood)

On Sun 13th July (Sea Sunday), 2003, a memorial to the two ~land martyrs was blessed and dedicated at St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, Cowes by the parish priest, Fr. M. Purbrick.

Blessed Robert Anderton 

Robert Anderton was born in the Isle of Man and educated at Rivington Grammar School, Lancashire before going to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1578, where he met and made friends with William Marsden. Together they went to Douai to study for the priesthood and entered the college at Rheims on 10th July, 1580. He .was ordained by the Cardinal of Guise on 31st March, 1584. With William Marsden he set out by ship for England on 4th Feb. 1586. In a storm their ship sought shelter at Cowes, where they were betrayed when they were heard praying for calm weather. They were sent from the Isle of Wight to the assizes at Winchester and then committed to Marshalsea Prison in London on 10th March, 1586. Having been found guilty of Treason for returning to England as priests, they were sent back to the Island for execution in order to warn the people of the penalty for becoming a priest and for giving them assistance.

Robert Anderton was moderate in height and had a “manly countenance”. He had proved to be a brilliant scholar and was particularly proficient in Hebrew. After his Ordination he spent two years at Douai assisting other students with their studies. He was a skilful debator and an excellent preacher and was selected out of the whole college to give a sermon before a “noble and learned assembly of churchmen”.

Together with Fr. William Marsden he was hung, drawn and quartered on 25th April, 1586 on the Island; the exact spot remaining a mystery, although the likely place of execution was either Cowes, where they were caught, or Newport, being the principal town.

Blessed William Marsden 

William Marsden was born at Goosnargh in Lancashire and educated like Robert Anderton at Brasenose College, Oxford. From Oxford he went to Douai in France to commence his studies for the priesthood on 10th July 1580. He was ordained a year after Robert Anderton in 1585. Setting out together for England to bring the Faith that once prospered within its shores, they were caught as they prayed for calm in the storm on board ship in the English Channel. “O Lord thy Will be done! But if we are to die, suffer us to die for Thy cause in our own country. Let us not be remembered as the first seminarians who have perished in the waters’. They were betrayed by the words and manner of their own prayer and taken ashore at Cowes where they were brutally treated. With Robert Anderton he was sent to the assizes at Winchester and then on to the London Prison at Marshalsea, having been found guilty of Treason under the new Act (27 Elizabeth) which made it illegal to return to England having been ordained as a priest overseas.

William Marsden’s life was closely linked with his friend and fellow priest, Robert Anderton. The two were almost inseparable from the time that they met at Oxford until they died together on the scaffold on the Isle of Wight on 25th April, 1586.

A proclamation was ordered to be read out to those assembled at the place of execution which quoted the relevant Act of Parliament and informed those present that the two priests had: “sought to persuade her Majesty’s subjects, under colour of maintainence of Popery, to rebellion”. This served to intimidate the Island people to refute all allegiance to the Pope.

Report on the Beatification of the Island Martyrs

at St. Peter’s, Rome (1929)

   On 15th December,1929 the solemn ceremony of Beatification took place in St. Peters in the presence of a vast multitude. The wonderful Basilica, brilliantly illuminated, wears a majesty on these occasions, which enhances the character of the solemnity, and the vast throng filling it gives sonic idea of its immensity. The first Mass in honour of the new Beatified Martyrs was celebrated with all the splendour of ceremony and music for which St. Peter’s is famous.

   After Mass the Holy Father received a deputation from the Catholic Union of Great Britain, introduced by His Eminence Cardinal Bourne. In the absence of the Union’s President, Lord FitzAlan, through ill health, it fell to the Earl of Denbigh to read the address to the Sovereign Pontiff in which he recalled that the Union was established to uphold Papal sovereignty.

   In the afternoon the Holy Father came to venerate the relics of’ the one hundred and thirty-six newly beatified martyrs. Thousands of English pilgrims were present in St. Peter’s for this historic occasion. They watched with a sense of awe and excitement as the Holy Father dressed in his traditional white was borne aloft up the centre of the great nave. Naturally one’s mind went back to those heroic figures whose relics the Vicar of Christ had come to venerate. What a contrast between the triumphant enthusiasm of this day and their execution when most were dragged through the muddy streets, to their Calvary, where the tall gibbet and the hangman’s rope awaited them. The names of their executioners and persecutors are forgotten, buried in oblivion; but God’s saints are held in everlasting remembrance, and this is the day of their triumph.

   After this brief ceremony all those present prepared to venerate Our blessed Lord in the monstrance; an act of veneration for which the Martyrs had been willing to give their lives as they consecrated the Sacred Host during Holy Mass in secret chapels throughout England. After Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament the Holy Father was once again carried in his sedatorial chair back along the nave blessing the faithful on his right and ii as he went. The great day was nearly over; one which will never fade from the memory of those privileged to take part in it.

(Report from TheTablet -- 21st Dec. 1929)

The Address of the Holy Father, Pope Pius XI to the

congregation in St. Peter’s, Rome on the occasion of the

Beatification of the 136 British martyrs in 1929

    Replying to the address of His Eminence Cardinal Bourne, His Holiness said: “Our first words are those of gratitude to the Divine Goodness which has brought another superhuman joy by a spectacle that is both grand and intensely appealing. We see before our eves the new array of Beatified Martyrs from England and Scotland. We hail them not only in the name of their Church and country, but on behalf of the whole Church, rejoicing as we behold them ascend to the honours of the altar in the sight of the King of Martyrs. They all come as children of Christ, as belonging to that people of election which is the Church, where all are equally called to sanctity and where each one can climb the supreme heights of heroism and holiness. The new martyrs remind us that we are indeed the children of the saints, capable if need be to make the supreme sacrifice.

    We declare that these martyrs were not merely heroes of the Church in that sense which we may term generic, but the martyrs of this Roman Church whose secret infallibility which is founded upon the rock of Peter, upon Papal authority, a Divine Disposition, which dominating history has given a Roman character to the Church. Therefore these new martyrs are martyrs of the Papacy, of the Roman Church, in a word, our martyrs. We would then give expression to the great and particular joy we feel in being able to render the highest recompense to them which the Goodness of God has placed in our hands through the power of the Keys.

Like the blood of the first Christians, the heroic sacrifice of these new English and Scottish martyrs avails to maintain the sacred fire of Truth, Fidelity to the Church, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Roman Pope. The Beatification of these holy men and women who gave their lives so readily for the Faith gladdens our heart as it did the King of Martyrs in His prayer on the eve of His sacrifice, which not only consoled Him in the hour of sadness, but consoled too, by the promised advent of the one sheep-fold beneath the One Shepherd”.

                                    (Report from TheTablet -- 21st Dec. 1929)