Saint John Rigby

He was born about 1570 at Harrock Hall, in the parish of Eccleston in Lancashire, the fifth or sixth son of Nicholas Rigby and his wife Mary, daughter of Oliver Breres of Preston. ¹ Camm, who visited the house, places it at the foot of Harrock Hill, a famous beacon near Mawdesley, and the decretal letter of his canonization places it near Wigan. ³⁴ The family was old but, Challoner says, not well off, and that is why John had to go into service. ²

He served in the household of Sir Edmund Huddleston. ¹² The decretal letter, translated here from Latin, calls him a steward at Sawston Hall in Cambridgeshire. ⁴

Challoner says that he was always a Catholic at heart, but that while in service he sometimes went to the Protestant church, "through human frailty." ² He repented of it, confessed to the Franciscan priest John Jones, who was then a prisoner in the Clink, and was reconciled to the Church. ¹² From then on, Challoner says, he lived an exemplary life and brought others back, his own aged father among them. ²

Jones was hanged at St. Thomas Waterings on July 12, 1598, on the same spot where Rigby would die two years later. ¹

Sir Edmund's daughter, Mrs. Fortescue, a widow, was summoned to the sessions at the Old Bailey for recusancy, and since she was ill and could not appear, she sent Rigby to say so. ¹² One of the commissioners, Sir Richard Martin, who had a grudge against him, Challoner says, began to question him about his own religion. ² He said he was a Catholic and would not go to church, and he was sent to Newgate. ¹²

The next day, February 14, he was examined by the Lord Chief Justice and signed a confession that he had been reconciled by Jones some two or three years earlier and had not gone to church since. ¹² Rigby's own account of what followed, written in prison and printed by Dr. Worthington the following year, survives in Challoner. ² When the keeper brought a chain to put on him, he said aloud, "I would not change my chain for my Lord Mayor's great chain," and gave the man sixpence for his trouble. ²

He was moved to the White Lion prison in Southwark and brought to trial among a number of felons in early March. ¹² His own account dates the day to Wednesday, March 3; the encyclopedia points out that the first Wednesday of March that year was the 4th, "and not, as the martyr himself supposes, the 3rd." ¹² At dinner the judge, Justice Gaudy, sent for him and told him he had heard he was willing to conform. "No, my lord," Rigby answered, and said he would rather seal his first answer with his blood. ² One of the judges told him, "We were told you were a simple young man, and willing to recant; but we see now thou art a resolute, wilful fellow." ²

The indictment was for having been reconciled to the Roman Church. ¹² He answered that he had indeed been reconciled, to God, by confession, as the Book of Common Prayer itself allowed a man burdened in conscience; that he had never been reconciled away from his obedience to the queen; and that, though he had sometimes gone to church against his will, he had never been of any religion but the Catholic. ² Gaudy told him that even then, if he would only say before the jury went out that he would go to church, they would go no further. ²

He refused. He would not, he said, having "risen thus many steps towards heaven," now "wilfully let my foot slip." ² The jury found him guilty, and he answered with "Laus tibi, Domine." ² When Gaudy sentenced him to death he said "Deo gratias," and that it was "a fleabite" compared with what his Savior had suffered; the decretal letter quotes the same thought in Latin. ²⁴ Then he forgave the judge and the jury. ²

Gaudy got him a reprieve until the next sessions. ¹² On June 19 he was brought to the bar again and asked once more whether he would go to church. "I thank God I am the same man that I was," he said. ² The judge, seeing that he had no irons on his legs, had shackles riveted on, and Rigby kissed them. ²

The next day, Challoner says, the irons fell off his legs in court, and he smiled and asked the keeper to fasten them again, because he esteemed them "jewels of too great price to be lost." ² They fell off a second time, and the keeper's man refused to put them on again. ² Rigby recalled that a Catholic maid named Mercy had dreamed the night before that his irons fell off. ² Most men, Challoner says, thought it miraculous, and one of the judges was seen to weep. ²

On Saturday, June 21, he was told he would die that day, and said it was the best news he had ever had. ² He thanked the minister who came to him and declined his help. ² Laid on the hurdle, he smiled so openly that people asked if he was laughing from his heart, and he said he was. ²

On the way to St. Thomas Waterings the Earl of Rutland and a Captain Whitlock rode up and stopped the hurdle. ¹² "My name is John Rigby, a poor gentleman of the house of Harrock, in Lancashire," he told them, "my age about thirty years," condemned only for having been reconciled and refusing to go to church. ²³ The captain asked whether he was married. "I am a bachelor; and more than that I am a maid," Rigby answered, and the captain asked for his prayers. ¹²

At the cart he gave the hangman a gold coin as a sign that he forgave him. ² When the deputy sheriff asked him what traitors he knew in England, he said, "God is my witness, I know none," and the cart was driven away at once. ² He was cut down so quickly that he stood on his feet until the butchers threw him down, and then said aloud, "God forgive you. Jesus receive my soul," before a bystander set a foot on his throat and they cut him open. ² The Martyrology records that he was disemboweled while still alive. ⁵

None of the sources consulted for this page names Saint John Rigby as the patron saint of anything, so no patronage is given here. ¹²³⁴

Saint John Rigby's feast day is June 21, the day of his death. The current Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, enters him that day at London, a martyr arrested and condemned under Elizabeth I for having been reconciled to the Catholic Church. ⁵ He was canonized by Paul VI on October 25, 1970, with John Jones, the priest who reconciled him, among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. ¹⁴

New Advent's note on the encyclopedia article gives the joint feast of the Forty Martyrs as October 25, and in England he is also kept with the English Martyrs on May 4, the feast the National Calendar for England gives to the men and women martyred for the Catholic faith from 1535 to 1680. ¹⁶

He was not a priest. He was a young man in service who sometimes went to the parish church to stay out of trouble, and was sorry for it. ²

He went to court on an errand for someone else and was asked a direct question, and he answered it truthfully. ¹² After that he was given the same easy way out again and again, and each time he gave the same answer. ²

What he wrote in prison is cheerful almost throughout: a chain he would not trade for the Lord Mayor's, a sentence of death called a fleabite. ²

The captain who stopped his hurdle had never, he said afterward, seen his like for modesty, patience and resolution in his religion. ²