This week’s Monday Martyr is Franciscan friar Anthony Brookby (Brockby), who was executed on 19th July 1537, in the reign of King Henry VIII.

In her 19th century book “Faithful unto Death”, J M Stone explains that Father Anthony Brookby was a Latin, Greek and Hebrew scholar who was Professor of Divinity at Magdalen College, Oxford, and “celebrated for his eloquence as a scholar”. He got into trouble when, during a sermon at the Church of St Lawrence, Brookby “spoke of Henry’s new marriage, as the cause of the dreadful evils which threatened to overwhelm the country”. He went on to denounce England’s break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries.