NUTTER, ROBERT, BL.

Priest, martyr; alias Askew, Rowley; b. c. 1555 at Burnley, Lancashire, England; hanged, drawn, and quartered July 26, 1600 at Lancaster. Born into a wealthy family, he and his brother Bl. John Nutter (beatified 1929) studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, before being smuggled across the English Channel to enter the English College at Rheims. Robert was ordained there Dec. 21, 1581. He returned to England with Bl. George haydock using forged names and passports. The next 18 years were divided between ministerial work and imprisonment. Sentenced into exile at Boulogne with 20 other priests, but using the alias, Rowley returned to England, where he was again committed to prison at Newgate on Nov. 30, 1585. In 1587, he was transferred to the Marshalsea, then to Wisbeach Castle, Cambridgeshire (1589–90). He and several other fervent prisoners established and followed a monastic rule of life. From prison Nutter wrote to the French provincial requesting that he be admitted to the Dominican Order as a tertiary. According to the report of attorney Thomas Hesketh, he was professed a Dominican in the presence of secular priests at Wisbeach, which was certified to the provincial at Lisbon. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Nov. 22, 1987 with George Haydock and Companions.

Feast of the English Martyrs: May 4 (England).

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

Bibliography: Catholic Record Society Publications I, 110; II, 248, 252, 256, 270, 273, 277, 279, 282; III, 16, 156, 384, 385, 398. r. challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. j. h. pollen (rev. ed. London 1924), I, 120–21. m. j. dorcy, "Ven. Robert Nutter," St. Dominic's Family (Dubuque, IA 1964), 341–342. j. h. pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London 1891).

[k. i. rabenstein]