(From Bruodin’s Propugnaculum, p. 426)

The first of our martyrs in later times mentioned was John Travers, a native of Dublin, a priest of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, and a Doctor of Theology.

He wrote anonymously a famous work bearing the title On the Authority of the Roman Pontiff.2  In it he proved that the primacy of Henry VIII was a mere fiction, without any foundation in fact or in reason. Whereupon he was seized by the King’s ministers and sent to London.

He was kept in the Tower for four months in succession. During that time he was examined, and put to various kinds of torture, and being found faithful and steadfast, he was declared guilty of high treason by Cromwell and other flatterers of the King.

He was led out, hands tied behind his back, rope round his neck, placed on a hurdle, and taken to the usual place of execution. 3

(A hurdle's a moveable section of light fence made from wattle. A hurdle was used as a makeshift sledge, to which a prisoner was tied to be dragged behind a horse to his execution.)4

At the top of the ladder, he prayed for pardon, and heartily exhorted the bystanders to pray earnestly to God, the refuge of sinners, for the conversion and salvation of the King and of all the mad heretics who adhered to him.

And then he exclaimed in a loud voice.

‘It is not for any crime, Christian hearers, that I have been sent hither from Ireland, my native country, but rather because I professed the Catholic faith, which I, like my ancestors, have drunk in with my mother’s milk; and also, because I am supposed to be the author of a certain work lately spread abroad among the Catholics. The moment of my death is now close at hand, which will surely open for me the door to eternal life. Hence it behoves me not to use any ambiguous or obscure language for the purpose of concealing the truth. Wherefore I declare openly that I am a priest of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, and, moreover, that it was with these three fingers,’ and he raised aloft the three fingers of his right hand, ’I wrote that work on the Authority of the Roman Pontiff.’

When he had said this, he was hanged, cut down before life was quite extinct, and quartered.

His right hand and intestines were cast into the fire; and while other parts were reduced to ashes, the three fingers of his right hand which he had raised aloft on the scaffold, were seen in a like position in the flames, and afterwards found whole and fresh, as if they had never been cast into the fire, like the hand of King Oswald, which Bede5 tells us remained fresh and uncorrupted.

Harpsfield6 says he was assured by eye-witnesses that the flesh on the martyr’s fingers remained fresh long after his death.

O’Sullevan says Travers was put to death on the 30th July; Fitzsimon on the 31st 

See also Harpsfield, Bridgewater, Fitzsimon, White, Copinger, O’SuJlevan , O’Daly, and Lynch.

Broudin writes Tanner; but it is usually written as above. 

The identity of the facts given under both names by different authors shows that they refer to one person only.

2 Though I’ve searched for this book, I have not been able to find a copy of it.

3 Tyburn, close to Marble Arch. A stone marks the spot where Tyburn stood.

4 Channel4.com (25 March 2009) "Perkin Warbeck (1474-99)" Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant. Retrieved 2011-11-19

5 Hist. Eccl.Angl., iii.6

6 In whose work he is called Gravesius, no doubt a misprint for Traversius See Dial, p995

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.