KIRBY, LUKE, ST.

English martyr; b. probably near Richmond, Yorkshire, England, c. 1548; d. Tyburn (London), May 30, 1582. Cardinal William Allen calls him a master of arts of Cambridge, but this is uncertain. However, he was educated as a non-Catholic and, crossing to Douai, he was received into the Church at the English College, where he was ordained on Sept. 19, 1577. From Douai he went the next year to Rome to continue his studies. On Apr. 18, 1580, along with (St.) Edmund campion, he set out for England. He left Rheims on June 16, but he was captured immediately on landing at Dover and was taken to London and imprisoned in the Gatehouse. On Dec. 4, 1580, he was transferred to the Tower, where he was subjected to the "Scavenger's Daughter," a double iron hoop that enclosed and contracted the body. On Nov. 16, 1581, he was tried at Westminster Hall with Edmund Campion, Ralph sherwin, and Alexander briant. Although he was condemned with his companions for complicity in a fictitious plot in Flanders, his execution was delayed until May 30 the following year. During this interval he was kept in chains. Before he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, he protested his innocence of any conspiracy against the Queen. Kirby was beatified by Leo XIII on Dec. 29, 1886, and canonized by Paul VI on Oct. 25, 1970.

Feast: May 28; Oct. 25 (Feast of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales); May 4 (Feast of the English Martyrs in England).

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

Bibliography: b. camm, ed., Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII in 1866 and 1895, 2 v. (New York 1904–14) 2:500–522. m. t. h. banks, Blessed Luke Kirby (Postulation Pamphlet; London 1961). a. butler, The Lives of the Saints 2:415–416. r. challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. j. h. pollen (rev. ed. London 1924; repr. Farnborough 1969).

[g. fitz herbert]