Saint Luke Kirby

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1912 says he was born in the north of England about 1549, and that he "is said to have graduated M.A., probably at Cambridge." ¹ Where in the north is not agreed. Richard Challoner, writing in the eighteenth century, gives the bishopric of Durham on the authority of the Flemish chronicler Raissius, and adds that others say Richmond in Yorkshire. ² The Spanish life on es.catholic.net says Lancashire, and gives Richmond as the alternative. ⁴

He was not brought up a Catholic. The encyclopedia says he was reconciled to the Church at Louvain, and es.catholic.net says the same. ¹⁴ In 1576 he entered the English College at Douai, the seminary founded to train priests for England, and he was ordained at Cambrai in September 1577. ¹²

He left for England on May 3, 1578, but was back by July 15 and went on to Rome. ¹ Challoner says he went "partly for devotion, and partly for further improvement in learning." ² On April 23, 1579, Saint George's Day, he took the oath of the English College there, binding himself to return to England on the mission. ¹ es.catholic.net says that on the way home in 1580 he traveled with Campion and Ralph Sherwin, and that at Geneva the party challenged the Protestant theologian Theodore Beza to a public debate; no other source read tells that story. ⁴

He was taken in June 1580 as soon as he landed at Dover, and committed to the Gatehouse prison at Westminster. ¹ es.catholic.net says the authorities already had a description of the priests on that crossing from a spy who had befriended one of them. ⁴

In December he was moved to the Tower of London, on the 4th by the encyclopedia's account and the 5th by Challoner's, who found the date in a printed diary of the Tower kept from 1580 to 1585. ¹² Within days he was put in the Scavenger's Daughter, on December 9 by the encyclopedia and the 10th by Challoner. ¹² The encyclopedia says he was held in it "for more than an hour." ¹

Challoner describes the device from Raissius and the Douai diary: Kirby "was thrust into a hoop or circle of iron, in which his whole body was, as it were, folded up, and his hands, feet, and head bound fast together." ² es.catholic.net adds that before it he had to sit through a sermon from a Protestant minister and had answered his arguments. ⁴

In November 1581 he was condemned "at the same time and for the same cause with Father Campion and others," as Challoner puts it. ² The encyclopedia dates the sentence November 17; Challoner, November 20. ¹² es.catholic.net says the charge was a conspiracy, said to have been hatched at Rome and Reims, that never existed, and that in truth he and the three who died with him were condemned for having been priests in England. ⁴

From April 2, 1582, until his death he was kept in irons. ¹ Challoner prints a letter he wrote from the Tower on January 10, 1582, to friends outside. ² It tells them that John Nichols, a former Catholic whose books and sermons had been used against the priests, had come to his window to ask pardon and to say that the evidence against them was false. ² It reports that Richardson and Filby had at last been given some bedding after sleeping on boards since their condemnation, and that John Hart had been put in the dungeon that morning. ²

He expected to die soon, and was not sure he deserved it: "Yet I much fear lest our unworthiness of that excellent perfection and crown of martyrdom should procure us a longer life." ² He signed it "Yours to death and after death, Luke Kirby." ²

On Wednesday, May 30, 1582, four priests were drawn on hurdles from the Tower to Tyburn early in the morning: William Filby, Luke Kirby, Laurence Richardson and Thomas Cottam. ¹² The Roman Martyrology, in its Italian text, translated here, says that after many torments he was hanged on the triple gallows at Tyburn. ³ Challoner's own notice on Kirby says he "suffered not till the 28th of May 1582," but the narrative he prints a page earlier puts all four on the 30th, and the other sources agree. ¹²³

Challoner's account has Filby die first and Kirby brought from the hurdle to watch. ² When the executioner cried "God save the Queen," Kirby joined in the wish, and prayed God to send Elizabeth "a long and prosperous reign." ² A minister told him to add, from the pope's curse and power. Kirby answered: "If the Pope levy war against her or curse her unjustly, God preserve her from him also." ²

He protested his innocence and asked that his accuser, Anthony Munday, be brought forward. ² Munday said that in Rome Kirby had warned him of trouble to come in England; Kirby denied it, and said he had only given Munday money to buy pictures. ² Then the sheriff offered him his life if he would confess and ask the queen's forgiveness. He replied that to deny the pope's authority "was denying a point of faith, which he would not do for saving his life." ²

He prayed in Latin. Asked to pray in English with the ministers, he said "that in praying with them he should dishonour God," and asked the Catholics present to pray with him instead. ² He had finished the Our Father and begun the Hail Mary when the cart was drawn away. ² es.catholic.net says Cottam died last, having seen the other three quartered. ⁴

Leo XIII beatified him with his three companions in 1886; es.catholic.net gives the date as July 30. ⁴ On October 25, 1970, Paul VI canonized him among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. ⁴⁵ The other three remain Blessed. ⁴

Paul VI did not name Kirby in his homily, but in its Italian text he spoke of the Venerable Colleges of Rome and Valladolid and the seminaries of Saint-Omer and Douai, "from whose ranks many of the Forty Martyrs came," a description, translated here, that fits Kirby on both counts. ¹⁵

None of the sources used for this page names a patronage for Saint Luke Kirby, so none is given here. ¹²³⁴

Saint Luke Kirby's feast is May 30, the day of his death at Tyburn in 1582. ³⁴ The Roman Martyrology enters him that day. ³ In England he is also kept on May 4 with the English Martyrs, the men and women put to death for the Catholic faith between 1535 and 1680 and beatified or canonized by the Holy See. ⁶

He came into the Church as an adult, at Louvain, and within a few years he was a priest bound by oath to go back to a country where that was a capital crime. ¹⁴ He was caught the day he landed in 1580 and spent the two years left to him in prison. ¹

In prison he wrote to his friends that he feared he was not worthy to die for the faith. ² The same letter tells of a man who had written against the priests coming to his window to ask their pardon, and of Kirby urging him to make amends for his sins. ²

At Tyburn he prayed for the queen who had signed his death, and would not deny the pope to save his life. ² He asked the Catholics in the crowd to pray with him, and was saying the Hail Mary when he died. ²