Edward Oldcorne

Edward Oldcorne alias Hall (1561 – 7 April 1606) was an English Jesuit priest. He was known to people who knew of the Gunpowder Plot to destroy the Parliament of England and kill King James I; and although his involvement is unclear, he was caught up in the subsequent investigation. He is a Roman Catholic martyr and was beatified in 1929.

Early life Oldcorne was born in York in 1561, the son of John Oldcorne, a bricklayer, and his wife Mary. His father was a Protestant, and his mother a Catholic who had spent some time in prison due to her faith. He was educated at St Peter's School in York; school friends were John and Christopher Wright and Guy Fawkes.

Oldcorne was educated as a doctor, but later decided to enter the priesthood. He went to the English College at Reims, then to Rome where after ordination in 1587, he became a Jesuit in 1588.

On the English mission In late 1588 Oldcorne returned to England, in the company of Father John Gerard. In early 1589 he went with Father Henry Garnet to the West Midlands, visiting Coughton, Warwickshire and settling at Baddesley Clinton. He then worked chiefly in Worcestershire for 17 years. Oswald Tesimond assisted him after 1596; Father Thomas Lister, another Jesuit, also supported Oldcorne's mission but found the requirements of the covert life difficult.

Oldcorne sometimes stayed with Thomas Abington, whose house at Hindlip Hall was near Worcester. There he converted Thomas's sister Dorothy.

From 1601 to 1605

On 3 November 1601, Oldcorne went on a pilgrimage to St Winefride's Well at Holywell in north Wales to obtain a cure for a cancer of the throat. The cancer cleared up and in 1605 about thirty people returned with him to give thanks for his recovery. Amongst this group were the priests Oswald Tesimond, Henry Garnet and John Gerard, as well as Jesuit brothers Nicholas Owen and Ralph Ashley.

Also in the group was plotter Everard Digby and his wife, whose priest was Oldcorne. The timing of this second pilgrimage and the people involved later aroused suspicion. The government investigation used this gathering as circumstantial evidence to implicate some of those there in the plot. Oldcorne and Garnet were arrested by Sir Henry Bromley and held briefly at the castle at Holt in Worcestershire before being taken to the Tower of London.

Trial and execution Oldcorne was tortured, but no evidence was found to connect him to the Gunpowder Plot. He recounted under interrogation that on 8 November 1605 there arrived Tesimond from Robert Wintour's who told Mr (H)Abington and himself that "he brought them the worst news that they had ever heard, and they were all undone". Tesimond said that certain people had intended to blow up the parliament house but they had been discovered a few days before it was meant to happen.

Some allege that Oldcorne was executed just for his priesthood. At his trial, Humphrey Littleton asked for his forgiveness and it was said that he believed he deserved to die for revealing his friend's whereabouts.

Oldcorne was executed at Red Hill, Worcester on 7 April 1606, together with John Wintour, Humphrey Littleton and Ralph Ashley, his Jesuit brother colleague. which he lost when the executioner decapitated him: it is said that the force of the blow was so great that his eye flew out of its socket. A secondary school, Blessed Edward Oldcorne Catholic College, named in his honour, is in Worcester. His right eye is preserved at Stonyhurst College. They believe that the eye was taken by a Catholic sympathiser while his body was being parboiled after he was quartered.

Abington's wife Mary was the sister of William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle; Lord Monteagle was later to become a pivotal figure in the capture of the gunpowder plotters. The authorship of Monteagle's letter has been a significant problem for historians. One of the candidates put forward is Oldcorne.