William Hartley

William Hartley (b. at Wyn, in Derbyshire, England, of a yeoman family about 1557; executed at Tyburn, 5 October1588) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1929.

Life

At eighteen he matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he became a chaplain. Being ejected by the vice-chancellor, Tobie Mathew, in 1579, he went to Reims in August, was ordained at Châlons, and returned to England in June, 1580.

There he helped Robert Persons and Edmund Campion in printing and distributing their books, but was eventually arrested, 13 August, 1581, and sent to Marshalsea Prison, London. Here he was detected saying Mass in a cell before Lord Vaux, and for this he was laid in irons (5 December, 1583).

He was indicted for high treason, 7 February, 1584, but for some reason, not tried. In January, 1585, he was sent into exile. He then spent some little time at Reims, recovering his health, and made a pilgrimage to Rome (15 April, 1586), before returning to the English mission.

In September, 1588, he was arrested in Holborn, London, and, as his friend Father Warford said, incurred the suspicion of having apostatized. ("Acts of English Martyrs", cited below, 272).

Companions

Less is known of Hartley's companions.

*John Hewitt was son of a draper at York and a student at Caius College, Cambridge. He had once been in York prison, but was arrested in Grey's Inn Lane, London, 10 March, 1857, going under the name of Weldon, and died under that name; this had led several early martyrologists into the mistake of making him into two martyrs, Hewett dying at York, and Weldon at London.
*Robert Sutton was a tutor or schoolmaster, born at Kegworth in Leichestershire, who had practiced his profession in Paternoster Row, London.
*John Harrison, alias Symons, had carried letters from one priest to another. As he had before "been slandered to be a spy" we can guess why his fame suffered some obscurity. It is also hardly doubtful that his name, Harrison, was confounded with that of either Matthias or James Harrison, priests, who suffered martyrdom in 1599 or 1602 respectively. This perhaps explains why his name has fell out of the process of the English martyrs, and in its place was inserted that of Richard Williams, a "Queen Mary priest" who really suffered four years later.

References

*"The Month", January, 1879, 71-85; January, 1905, 19;
*John Hungerford Pollen, "Acts of English Martyrs" (London, 1891);
*Catholic Records Society (London, 1906, 1908), II, V;
*Jaeffreson, "Middlesex County Records" (London, 1886), II, 171, 180;
*Charles Boase, "Oxford registers", (Oxford, 1885-89), II, ii, 68;
*Richard Challoner, "Memoirs", I;
*Joseph Gillow, "Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath.", s. v.