Richard Leigh, Venerable

Leigh, RICHARD, VENERABLE, English martyr, b. in Cambridgeshire about 1561; d. at Tyburn, August 30, 1588. Ordained priest at Rome in February, 1586-7, he came on the mission the same year, was arrested in London, and banished. Returning he was committed to the Tower in June, 1588, and was condemned at the Old Bailey for being a priest. With him suffered four laymen and a lady, all of whom have been declared “Venerable”. Edward Shelley, of Warminghurst, Sussex, and East Smithfield, London (son of Edward Shelley, of Warminghurst, a Master of the Household of the sovereign, and the settlor in “Shelley’s case”‘ and Joan, daughter of Paul Eden, of Penshurst, Kent), aged 50 or 60, who was already in the Clink for his religion in April, 1584, was condemned for keeping a book called `My Lord Leicester’s Commonwealth” and for having assisted the Venerable William Dean (q.v.). He was apparently uncle by marriage to Benjamin Norton, afterwards one of the seven vicars of Dr. Richard Smith. Richard Martin, of Shropshire, was condemned for being in the company of the Ven. Robert Morton, and paying sixpence for his supper. Richard Lloyd, better known as Flower (alias Fludd, alias Graye), a native of the Diocese of Bangor (Wales), aged about 21, younger brother of Father Owen Lloyd, was condemned for entertaining a priest named William Horner, alias Forrest. John Roche (alias Neele), an Irish servingman, and Margaret Ward, gentlewoman of Cheshire, were condemned for having assisted a priest named William Watson (as to whom see Gillow, op. cit. inf., V, 575) to escape from Bridewell.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT