WHITE, EUSTACE, ST.

Priest, martyr; b. Louth, Lincolnshire, England, 1560 or 1561; d. Tyburn (London), Dec. 10, 1591. He came of a prominent Protestant family, became a Catholic about 1584, and went abroad. In October 1586 he entered the English College in Rome, took the College Oath in February 1588, was ordained deacon Apr. 16, 1589, and was a priest when he returned to England by way of Rheims in October. En route to the West country where his ministry was, he was captured near Blandford in Dorset, informed on by someone he had mistaken for a Catholic. After a successful theological disputation with a local divine, he was taken to London and imprisoned in Bride-well under harsh conditions. The Privy Council, apprehensive of a fresh attack by Spain, ordered his examination under torture, hoping for information about his associates and movements. Of his trial nothing is recorded, except that he was condemned for his priesthood and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He was executed with Edmund gennings, Swithun wells, Polydore plasden, Brian Lacey, John Mason, and Sidney Hodgson. White was beatified by Pius XI on Dec. 15, 1929, and canonized by Paul VI on Oct. 25, 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Feast: Dec. 10; October 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: r. challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. j. h. pollen (rev. ed. London 1924; repr. Farnborough 1969), 169–85. j. h. pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London 1891). a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater 4:533.

[a. m. c. forster]