Bl. Richard Sergeant
This is an illustration, said to be from about 1680, of the permanent gallows at Tyburn, which once stood where Marble Arch now stands. There was a three-mile cart ride in public from Newgate prison to the gallows, with large spectator stands lined along the way, so many people could see the hangings (for a fee). Huge crowds collected on the way and followed the accused to Tyburn.
English martyr, executed at Tyburn, 20 April, 1586. He was probably a younger son of Thomas Sergeant of Stone, Gloucestershire, by Katherine, daughter of John Tyre of Hardwick. He took his degree at Oxford (20 Feb., 1570-1), and arrived at the English College, Reims, on 25 July, 1581. He was ordained subdeacon at Reims (4 April, 1582), deacon at Soissons (9 June, 1582), and priest at Laon (7 April, 1583). He said his first Mass on 21 April, and left for England on 10 September. He was indicted at the Old Bailey (17 April, 1586) as Richard lea alias Longe. With him was condemned and suffered Venerable William Thomson, a native of Blackburn, Lancashire, who arrived at the English College, Reims, on 28 May, 1583, and was ordained priest in the Reims cathedral (31 March, 1583-4). Thomson was arrested in the house of Roger Line, husband of the martyr Anne Line (q. v.) in Bishopsgate St. Without, while saying Mass. Both were executed merely for being priests and coming into the realm.
He was beatified in 1987.
CHALLONER, Missionary priests, I (London, 1878), nos. 32, 33; KNOX, Douay Diaries (London, 1878); FOSTER, Alumni Oxonienses, (Oxford, 1892); Harleian Soc. Publ. xxi (London, 1885), 258; POLLEN, English Martyrs 1584-1603 in Cath. Rec. Soc. (London, 1908), 129; Cath. Rec. Soc. II (London, 1906), 249, 255, 271.
John B. Wainewright (Catholic Encyclopedia)
