62 Christopher Roche

HE was the son of a citizen of Wexford. When he had nearly completed his studies at Louvain, he was obliged, through ill health, to return home. He was arrested at Bristol, examined, and asked to take the oath of Supremacy. He absolutely refused to stain his soul with such a perjury. In consequence he was sent to London. First, he was flogged through the streets by the executioner in a very cruel manner. Then, after enduring the horrors of Newgate prison for four months, he was put to the torture of the scavenger’s daughter, (An instrument of torture invented by Skeffington, Lieutenant of the Tower in the time of Henry VIII. It was a circle of iron, in which the whole body was, as it were, folded up, and the hands, feet, and head bound together), and under it gave up his soul to God, December 13th, 1590. (From Bruodin’s Propugnaculum, p. 457) See also Copinger.