A Local Saint - John Kemble

 A friend asked for a bit of help in researching the Forty Martyrs - Catholic saints who had been executed in England for their faith in the 16th and 17th centuries.  I was already familiar with several of them - St Nicholas Owen, who built priest holes where the persecuted priests could hide from the authorities, for instance and, because we share a name, St Edmund Arrowsmith, who came from Lancashire.

It was fascinating to find out about some of the others.  I had no idea that one of the Forty Martyrs was local to Herefordshire.  His name was John Kemble, and he was born at St. Weonards.  He went to Douai to study to become a priest, as many English Catholics did, and when he returned to England he spent fifty years quietly ministering to his flock in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire.  He was based at Pembridge Castle, the home of his nephew Captain Richard Kemble.

And then came the Popish Plot, which was concocted by Titus Oates, and became an excuse to round up as many Catholic priests as possible.  Fr. John Kemble was eighty by this time, and refused to go into hiding.  He was arrested by Captain John Scudamore of Kentchurch, and sent down to London to be questioned.  As he was unable to ride that far, he was strapped onto the horse like a pack, so it wasn't a comfortable journey.  When questioned in London, he was found to have no connection to any plot (Titus Oates had made the whole thing up), but he was found guilty of being a Catholic priest and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.  He was sent back to Hereford, but this time he was allowed to walk most of the way.

Sentence was carried out on 22nd August 1679.  He was allowed to finish his cup of sack (a sort of sherry) and his pipe of tobacco before he was executed - the hangman made sure he was dead before he was cut down to be drawn, which means cutting the body open to pull out the intestines and heart and other organs.  This was normally done while the victim was still alive (think Mel Gibson yelling "Freedom!" at the end of Braveheart).  The gallows was set up on Widemarsh Common, which is now owned by Herefordshire Council, and is the home of Hereford Lads Club Cricket Club.

One of Fr. John Kemble's hands was preserved, and is still kept at St. Francis Xavier Church in Broad Street, Hereford.  The church is now open for Mass and private prayer again, and they live stream the Sunday Mass.  The church is built on the site of the medieval convent of St Catherine, and the first Catholic church was built there in 1792, by members of a Lancashire Catholic family who lived there.  The present church dates from 1837, and was paid for by the Jesuits, which is why it is named for their greatest missionary.  The church is now run by the Friends of St Francis Xavier, who raised money to refurbish the church after many years of neglect.  St. John Kemble's shrine is to the right of the main altar - it's a glass box, so you can see the hand resting on a red cushion.

Fr. John Kemble was buried at Welsh Newton near Pembridge Castle, in St. Mary's churchyard, and there is an annual pilgrimage to the site.

In 1970, he became of of the group of 40 martyrs who were declared to be saints by Pope Paul VI.  The feast day is 25th October.

Among Fr. Kemble's relatives were the Kemble family who became famous as actors during the 19th C, the most famous of whom was Sarah Siddons.