Blessed George Haydock

George Haydock (born 1556; executed at Tyburn, 12 February 1584) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987. He is not to be confused with his relative, also a priest, George Leo Haydock (1774–1849). He was the youngest son of Evan Haydock of Cottam Hall near Preston, Lancashire, and Helen, daughter of William Westby of Mowbreck Hall, Lancashire. After his wife died, Evan Haydock took up studies at the English College, Douai, and was ordained. He returned to England, where he worked for some years before becoming an agent or procurator of the college. His sons Richard and George followed him to Douai. Richard became a doctor of divinity in Rome. From Douai, George Haydock went to the English College, Rome. He was ordained priest (apparently at Rheims), on 21 December 1581. He arrived in England in mid-January 1582 and was arrested around 4 February while visiting an old acquaintance named Hawkinson. In the five years since they'd last met, Hawkinson, a former Catholic, had apostatised and having then encountered Haydock in London, informed the priest hunters Norton and Sledd. Haydock spent a year and three months in confinement in the Tower of London, suffering from a malarial fever he first contracted in the early summer of 1581 when visiting the seven churches of Rome. About May 1583, though he remained in the Tower, his imprisonment was relaxed to "free custody", and he was able to administer the Sacraments to his fellow prisoners. During the first period of his captivity he was accustomed to decorating his cell with the name and arms of the Pope scratched or drawn in charcoal on the door or walls, and through his career, he remained faithful to the spiritual authority of the Papacy. On 16 January 1584, he and other priests imprisoned in the Tower were examined at the Guildhall by the recorder, touching their beliefs.