William Dean (priest)
William Dean or Deane (died 28 August 1588) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is one of the Catholic martyrs, beatified in 1929.[1][2]
Life
Son of Thomas B. of Grassington, West Riding of Yorkshire, William Dean attended schools in Leeds and Clitheroe.[2]
Dean was matriculated sizar from Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1575 and was admitted pensioner at Caius College, Cambridge in November 1577, aged 20.[2] He then became a minister. In 1581, he was reconciled to the Catholic faith by the seminary priest Thomas Aufield.[3]
That same year he studied at Reims and was ordained priest at Soissons, 21 December 1581, together with the martyrs George Haydock and Robert Nutter. Their ordination coincided with the time that the news of Edmund Campion's death reached the college.[4]
Dean said his first Mass 9 January and left for England 25 January 1582. He was probably being tracked the whole time and was arrested 21 February and sent to Newgate prison and subjected to torture. In April 1584 he was moved to The Clink. He was banished with a number of other priests in early 1585, put ashore on the coast of Normandy, and threatened with death if he dared to go back to England. Nevertheless, in November he returned to his mission work there and was again arrested and confined to Gatehouse Prison. He was tried, and condemned for his priesthood on 22 August 1588.[4]
The failure of the Spanish Armada brought about a fierce anti-Catholic persecution and some twenty-seven Catholics were executed that year. Six new gibbets were erected in London, it is said at the Earl of Leicester's instigation, and Dean, who had been condemned with five other priests and four laymen, was the first to suffer on the gallows erected at Mile End. With him died a layman, Henry Webley, for relieving and assisting him.[4]
At his execution Dean tried to speak to the people, but he was struck on the head and gagged.[3] Seven Catholics died on the same day. Edward Shelley, a layman of between 50 and 60 years of age, was hanged at Tyburn 30 August 1588 for having provided some measure of assistance to Dean.[5]
References
- ^ "Patron Saints Index: Blessed William Dean". Saints.sqpn.com. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
- ^ a b c "Deane, William (DN575W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b Dunn, Henry E., "Venerable William Dean", Lives of the English Martyrs, (Edwin Hubert Burton and John Hungerford Pollen,eds.) Longmans, Green and Co., 1914, 351.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b c Camm, Bede. "Ven. William Dean." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 24 March 2020 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Flocchini, Emilia. "Beati Riccardo Leigh, Edoardo Shelley, Riccardo Martin e Giovanni Roche Martiri", Santi e Beati, May 12, 2014
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ven. William Dean". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
- Richard Challoner, Missionary Priests (1741), I, 209;
- Stow, Annales (1615), 749;
- 'Douay Diaries (1878);
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