Roger Cadwallador

Roger Cadwallador (b. at Stretton Sugwas, near Hereford, in 1568; executed at Leominster, 27 August1610) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987.

Life

He was ordained subdeacon at Reims, 21 September, 1591, and deacon the following February. In August 1592, was sent to the English College at Valladolid, where he was ordained priest.

Returning to England in 1594, he worked in Herefordshire as a missionary, especially among the poor, for about 16 years. Search was made for him in June, 1605, but it was not till Easter, 1610, that he was arrested at the house of Mrs. Winefride Scroope, widow, within eight miles of Hereford. He was then brought before the Bishop of Hereford, Robert Bennet, who committed him to Hereford gaol where he was loaded with irons night and day. On being transferred to Leominster gaol he was obliged to walk all the way in shackles, though a boy was permitted to go by his side and bear up by a string the weight of some iron links which were wired to the shackles.

He was condemned, merely for being a priest, some months before his execution; a very full account is given by Richard Challoner. He hung very long, suffering great pain, owing to the unskilfulness of the hangman, and was eventually cut down and butchered alive.

Pits praises his knowledge of Greek, from which he translated Theodoret's "Philotheus, or the lives of the Father of the Syrian deserts"; but this translation was unpublished.