- John Thulis
John Thulis (Thules) (born at
Up Holland ,Lancashire , probably about 1568; executed at Lancaster,18 March 1616 ) was an EnglishRoman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr,beatified in 1987.Life
He arrived at the English College,
Reims , 25 May, 1583, and receivedtonsure from CardinalLouis de Guise on 23 September following. He left forRome , 27 March, 1590, where he was ordained priest, and was sent on the English mission in April, 1592.He seems to have been a prisoner at
Wisbech ,Cambridgeshire , when he signed the letter of 8 November, 1598, in favour of the institution of thearchpriest , and the letter of 17 November, 1600, against it. Later he worked in Lancashire, where he was arrested byWilliam Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby , and was committed toLancaster Castle .There Roger Wrenno, a weaver, was confined. They managed to escape one evening just before the Lent assizes, but were recaptured the next day. After that he was imprisoned with thieves, four of whom he converted. These were executed with Thulis and Wrenno. Thulis was
hanged, drawn, and quartered ; the quarters were set up at Lancaster,Preston ,Wigan , andWarrington . Wrenno was hanged next, and, the rope breaking, he was once more offered his life for conformity; but he ran to the ladder and climbed it.A metrical account of their martyrdom, as well as portions of a poem composed by Thulis, were printed by John Hungerford Pollen in his "Acts of the English Martyrs" (London, 1891), 194-207.
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