Roger Filcock

Blessed Roger Filcock (died 1601), Catholic priest, martyr.

He was from Sandwich in Kent, England. born the son of Simon and Margaret Lowe or Low of London in 1553. He entered the English College at Rheims, arriving on 15 June 1581. From there he was sent with the others on 29 September to the College at Valladolid, where he arrived on 20 February 1591. There is no record of where and when he was ordained a priest, but this happened by October 1597, when he left the College and sailed from Bilbao to Calais in December. His desire was to enter the Society of Jesus, but it was considered prudent that he first gain some experience on the mission, as indeed he did. He was admitted as a Jesuit novice by Father Garnet in 1600 and should have proceeded to Flanders to the novitiate, but was in the meantime arrested on suspicion of being a priest and sent to Newgate gaol in London. The trial was a travesty.

During his time as a missioner he had known Mrs. Anne Line, a widow whose husband had died in exile after being caught attending Mass, and who had managed a variety of safe-houses for priests and lay faithful. Filcock had also been Mrs. Line's confessor. On Candlemas Day, 1601, Father Francis Page, S.J. was about to celebrate Mass in her lodgings when priest-catchers broke in. The priest escaped in the confusion but his hostess was arrested and put on trial at the Old Bailey on 26 February 1601/2, indicted under the Act of 27 Eliz. for harbouring a priest. Though this could not be proved, she was condemned and the next day she led to the gallows. She was executed at the same occasion as Dom Mark Barkworth, O.S.B., as and Father Filcock, who had gone on trial on 23 February

This execution of Catholics was the first at Tyburn since 1595, and it is probable that the aim was to divert public attention from the unpopular trial and execution of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

Roger Filcock was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.

ources

The most reliable compact source is Godfrey Anstruther, "Seminary Priests", St Edmund's College, Ware, vol. 1, 1968, pp. 21-22, 116, 274-275.