Shert, John, Bl.
SHERT, JOHN, BL.
Priest, martyr; b. Shert Hall, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, England; d. hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn (London), May 28, 1582. After earning his baccalaureate at Brasenose College, Oxford (1566), John Shert was a schoolmaster in London. At some point he became convicted of the truth of Catholicism and converted. Thereafter he was a servant, perhaps a tutor, in the household of Dr. Thomas Stapleton at Douai. He entered the English College there in 1576, and completed his seminary studies in Rome. Following his ordination in Rome (1576), he returned to Rheims, then England (Aug. 27, 1579). Shert served two years in the missions of Cheshire and London before his arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of London (July 14, 1581). He was condemned on a fictitious charge of conspiring against the king in Rheims and Rome He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII.
Feast of the English Martyrs: 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; repr. Farnborough 1969). j. h. pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London 1891).
[k. i. rabenstein]