Blessed Robert Drury, Priest and Martyr of Tyburn

Who was Blessed Robert Drury?

Blessed Robert Drury was an English priest who served the hidden Catholics of London for fourteen years and died at Tyburn because he would not swear an oath he believed was false. Condemned for being a priest, he was told he could live if he took King James I's new Oath of Allegiance. He chose death instead and was hanged on February 26, 1607. We keep his feast on February 26.

His case shows something easy to miss about the English martyrs. Drury was not a rebel. He had publicly promised loyalty to the Crown in every civil matter. What he would not do was deny the spiritual authority of the Pope.

The life of Blessed Robert Drury

From Buckinghamshire to Reims and Valladolid

Robert Drury was born into a gentleman's family in Buckinghamshire. Like many young English Catholics of his generation, he crossed to the Continent to study for a priesthood that was a capital crime at home. He took his course of philosophy at the English College, then living at Reims. In 1590 he was among the students sent from Reims to Valladolid in Spain, to the college King Philip II had just founded there for English clergy. He finished his studies, was ordained, and was sent back to England in 1593.

A priest in London

For the rest of his life Drury worked mainly in and around London, where Bishop Challoner says "his learning and virtue made him considered amongst his brethren." When Queen Elizabeth's proclamation of November 1601 hinted at favor for priests who could assure her of their loyalty, thirteen leading secular priests drew up and signed a protestation of allegiance. Drury was one of them. They promised to obey the queen in all civil matters and to defend her against any invasion, whatever excommunication might be pronounced. They also declared that they acknowledged the Bishop of Rome as successor of St. Peter, and that they would give their lives rather than violate the lawful authority of the Church.

The Oath of Allegiance

Elizabeth died in 1603. In 1606, after the Gunpowder Plot, a new Oath of Allegiance was imposed on Catholics under James I. It did not stop at loyalty. It required them to abjure as "damnable and heretical" a doctrine about the Pope's power that neither Scripture nor the Church had condemned. Some priests took it. Most refused. Pope Paul V forbade it in two briefs to the Catholics of England.

About the time the oath appeared, Drury was arrested. He was tried under the statute of 1585 that made it treason for an English-born priest ordained abroad to remain in the realm, and he was condemned. Challoner is careful about what happened next. Drury was not put to death for refusing the oath, but once he was condemned for his priesthood, his life was offered to him if he would take it. He would not swear to what he judged a falsehood.

The martyrdom of Robert Drury

Robert Drury "suffered with great constancy at Tyburn," as Challoner writes, on February 26, 1607, at the age of thirty-nine and in the fourteenth year of his mission. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, from 1606 to the end of that reign the martyrs could have saved their lives by taking the oath. No grave or relic is known.

Beatification

Drury was declared Venerable in the first English cause. On November 22, 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified him with George Haydock and 83 others, the martyrs of England, Wales and Scotland who died between 1584 and 1679. In his homily the Pope said these martyrs "gave their lives for their loyalty to the authority of the Successor of Peter."

• Approved: as a martyr he was beatified without a miracle. No miracle has yet been approved for his canonization.

Symbols of Blessed Robert Drury in art

There is no known portrait of Robert Drury. As a priest martyr he is fittingly shown with the martyr's palm, the rope, and a priest's stole or a chalice, signs of the Mass he risked his life to offer. A rolled or refused document can stand for the oath he would not swear.

Feast day and prayer

We keep his feast on February 26. In England and Wales he is also honored with all the martyrs of the Reformation on May 4. See the feast day calendar.

We know of no traditional prayer to Blessed Robert Drury. Let us ask him to pray for priests, for all who must choose between their conscience and their safety, and for the unity of the Church under the Successor of Peter. Blessed Robert Drury, pray for us.