Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Saint of the Day - Roger Cadwallador - August 27th

In an Anglican church not far from London, Robert Bennet, a 17th century bishop of Hereford, is honored in a stained glass image on the western-most window:

The glass is described by Dr Peatling and Francis C Eeles in "Stained Glass in Surrey Churches" (Surrey Archaeological collections) as follows: "In the west most window, south side of the South Aisle is an oval medallion of white glass containing the shield of the arms of Robert Bennet, Bishop of Hereford, 1602-1617. In the middle of the right light a shield very largely in enamel paint, of the arms of Henry VIII impaling the augmented arms of Anne Boleyn, granted on her marriage."

At that time his bishopric was "most talked about and sought after and eventually obtained in 1602 by Dr. Robert Bennet, Dean of Windsor, although a month before the inhabitants of Hereford petitioned against his appointment, on the grounds of his abuse in office as Master of St. Cross." (From "The Works of Michael Drayton", pg 178.)

Bennet, whose coat of arms was of lions, would send Blessed Roger Cadwallador to a Hereford gaol where the saint was "loaded with irons night and day" for the crime of being a Catholic priest.

--Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests___________

So in addition to St. Monica, Roger Cadwallador is remembered today, a priest and English martyr. A search was made for him in June, 1605, but it was not till Easter, 1610, that he was arrested. A blog devoted to the English martyrs has the story here:

When he was near his crown he wrote, "Comfort yourselves, my friends, in this that I die in an assurance of salvation ; which, if you truly love me as you ought to do, should please you better than to have me alive a little while among you for your content, and then to die with great uncertainty either to be saved or damned. If this manner of death be shameful, yet not more than my Saviour's was : if it be painful, yet not more than was His. Only have you care to persevere in God's true faith and charity, and then we shall meet again to our greater comfort that shall never end."

On the morning of his execution, having spent some five hours in prayer, he took some broth and claret, to make himself strong, he said, like Bishop Fisher, to suffer for God, and dressed himself in a new suit of clothes as his wedding garment. On the scaffold, asked to give his opinion as to the oath, he replied that his opinion mattered little; they should regard rather the sentiments of the Church, for his swearing would neither diminish the Pope's authority nor increase the King's.

Cadwallador forgave the bishop, according to Challoner:

Today a hotel stands "on the 'Iron Cross' which was a focal point for hangings, the most notable being that of Roger Cadwallader, a Roman Catholic Priest, hanged in 1610."