ADAMS, JOHN, BL.

Priest, martyr; b. ca. 1543 at Winterbourne or Martin's Town, Dorsetshire, England; d. Oct. 8, 1586, hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn (outside London), England. He had been a Protestant minister. Upon his conversion to Catholicism, he went to Rheims, where he was ordained a priest (1580). He returned to England in March 1581, where he labored at Winchester and in Hampshire, especially among the poor. He was also a noted exorcist. Adams was imprisoned in 1584 and banished the following year with 72 other priests. He returned, was again arrested for high treason, and executed, with two others, BB. John lowe and Robert dibdale. According to Anthony Tyrrell's Confessions, Adams and Lowe were specifically selected for execution by Justice Young on the advice of Tyrrell, who was chagrined by his failure to implicate the Jesuit William weston in the Babington Plot and knew they exercised the greatest influence over imprisoned Catholics. William Warford, who knew Adams, described him as a man of "average height, with a dark beard, a sprightly look and black eyes. He was a very good apologist, straightforward, very pious, and pre-eminently a man of hard work." Adams was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Nov. 22, 1987 with George Haydock and Companions.

Feast: May 4 (England).

See Also: england, scotland, and wales, martyrs of.

Bibliography: r. challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. j. h. pollen (rev. ed. London 1924). j. h. pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London 1891).

[k. i. rabenstein]