The Tudor Society

December 1 – Priest Alexander Briant is executed

On this day in Tudor history, 1st December 1581, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Alexander Briant was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, along with Ralph Sherwin and Edmund Campion.

The twenty-five-year-old Roman Catholic priest had been imprisoned, and had suffered being starved, racked and tortured in other awful ways, but claimed that he felt no pain due to God's help. He also refused to give his interrogators the information they wanted. Briant was tried for treason and suffered a full traitor's death.

Let me share Alexander Briant's story, what led to his arrest, his account of what happened when he was tortured and his fellow prisoner's account of what was done to him...

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December 1 – Priest Alexander Briant is executed