Saint John Roberts

Church of the Holy Cross, Gellilydan

St John Roberts was born in Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia in 1577.  Born a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism while living in France and eventually entered the Benedictine life in Spain, making his profession at the Abbey of Saint Martin in Compostella, where he was ordained priest.  After the dissolution of the monasteries he was the first monk to return to England.  Arrest and banishment followed almost immediately, but he managed to return to England and worked devotedly among the victims of the Great Plague. 

There followed a second and a third arrest, imprisonment and exile, during the last of which, in Douai, he founded and became the first Prior of a house for English Benedictine monks who had entered monasteries in Spain.  This became the Abbey of St Gregory, a community of which was established in Downside, just outside Bath,  in the 19th century.

Two more periods of arrest, escape or release and exile followed before once again he returned to England, knowing that if arrested he would face the death sentence.  In 1610 as he was finishing saying Mass, he was arrested and taken to Newgate still in his vestments.  He was tried and found guilty.  He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. 

In 1970 he was canonised as one of the representatives of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

He is remembered in the Church at Gellilydan, where a relic of his finger is kept.  Pictures there show him praying before his martyrdom. 

A new exhibition centre - Llys Ednowain -  featuring a specially commissioned sculpture has been created in his native Trawsfynydd to commemorate his memory and that of poet Hedd Wyn.  There is also a St John Roberts Pilgrim Trail as part of the network of Christianity Pilgtimage Trails in Meirionydd.

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400th Anniversary Celebrations of the Martyrdom

10th December 2009 - 10th December 2010

Events

10th December 2009  
6.00 pm Catholic Church, Dolgellau
Mass to mark the start of the anniversary year
Celebrant - Rt Rev Edwin Regan, Bishop of Wrexham

At a Reception after Mass, Keith O'Brien, a leading authority on St John Roberts, gave a short presentation on the history of the Saint

5th - 8th May 2010
A group visited Douai in Northern France where Saint John Roberts founded a Benedictine Monastery

6th June 2010 
2.30 pm Ruins of Cymer Abbey Dolgellau
Open air Mass - principal celebrant the Bishop of Wrexham, with representation from the Vatican, Valladolid, Douai and Downside.
Over 1000 people were present

15th - 18th July 2010
A Pilgrimage was made from Wales to Tyburn in London, with a visit en route to Downside where Saint John Roberts was martyred
The group also visited the crypt at Tyburn and had an opportunity to view the relics of the martyrs

17th July 2010
Interdenominational celebration service in Westminster Cathedral addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Welsh) and the Archbishop of Westminster (English)

18th July 2010
Sung Mass in Latin, Welsh and English at St John's College, Oxford