Bls. Thomas Hunt and Thomas Sprott

After escaping from an Elizabethan prison, the English priests Thomas Hunt, of Norfolk, and Thomas Sprott, of Skelsmergh, resumed their secret apostolate to the country's persecuted Catholics. But soon afterward, the inn where Fathers Hunt and Sprott were staying was raided by officers looking for robbers. Upon searching the two fugitives' belongings, the officials discovered two breviaries and holy oils, arousing the suspicion that the two were priests. Fathers Hunt and Sprott admitted to having been Catholics from their infancy, but refused to say whether they were priests. Their profession of papal primacy led to their arrest. At their trial, where they were summarily condemned to death for being priests, Fathers Hunt and Sprott were subjected to a barrage of polemics from Protestant ministers. The priests refuted the ministers' arguments so ably that they began to win the sympathy of the onlookers, leading the magistrates to order an end to the debate. Both priests were executed by drawing and quartering.

For other people with the same name, see Thomas Sprott (disambiguation).

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Thomas Sprott (died 1600), also spelled Thomas Spratt, was an English martyr, as was his colleague, Thomas Hunt, who is also known as Thomas Benstead.

Biography

He was born in about 1571 at Skelsmergh, near Kendal in Westmorland; suffered at Lincoln with Thomas Hunt on 11 July 1600. Sprott was ordained priest at Douai College in northern France, in 1596. He was sent on the English mission that same year, and signed the letter to the pope, dated 8 November 1598, in favour of the institution in England of the archpriest.

Hunt, born in Norfolk in approximately 1573, studied for the priesthood at the Royal English College in Valladolid and subsequently the English College of Seville, being ordained in 1599. His service in England was brief, being initially imprisoned at Wisbech, where he then escaped with five others. Some months later, they were arrested at the Saracen's Head, Lincoln, upon the discovery of the holy oils and two Breviaries in their mails. When brought to trial, though their being priests was neither proved nor confessed, nor was any evidence produced, the judge, Sir John Glanville, directed the jury to find them guilty, which was done. The judge died sixteen days afterwards under unusual circumstances, as Dr. Worthington (quoted by Bishop Challoner) records.

Thomas Sprott and Thomas Hunt were among the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.