BLESSED JOHN HALE - CRANFORD'S MARTYR

Feast Day - the English Martyrs, 4th May.

Blessed John Hale was an English martyr who was the first secular priest to suffer for the Catholic Faith under King Henry VIII and be recognised as a martyr. He was killed at the same time as the first Carthusian Martyrs of London.

He was a secular priest who became Rector of Cranford on 11th September 1505. On 20th April 1521 he was appointed Vicar of Isleworth. It was there that he was arrested on the orders of King Henry VIII, being accused of  treason for speaking out against the King's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and his subsequent remarriage to Anne Boleyn.

Father Hale was executed at Tyburn where he was hanged, drawn and quartered on 4th May 1535.

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 December 1886.