Ven. Thomas Belson

Martyr, b. at Brill in Oxfordshire, England, dated uncertain; d. 5 July 1589. He was at the college in Reims in 1584, and in 1589 was arrested at the Catherine Wheel Inn, near Balliol College, Oxford, with his confessor George Nicols, Richard Yaxley, a priest, and Prichard, a servant. They were sent to London, whence, after examination before Walsingham and repeated tortures in Bridewell and the Tower, they were sent back to Oxford to be tried. Belson was found guilty of felony for assisting the priests, and was executed with his companions at Oxford. He suffered after the priests and, kissing the dead bodies of his pastors, begged the intercession of their happy souls that he might have the grace to imitate their courage and constancy.

YEPES, Historia Particular de la persecucion de Inglaterra (Madrid, 1599); CHALLONER, Memoirs; KNOX, Douay Diaries; STAPLETON, Post-Reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire (London, 1906).

Bede Camm.