John Wilson, Catholic martyrologist.

   John Wilson (my namesake!) was an English Catholic priest living abroad in the first half of the 17th century. His English Martyrologe (first published in 1608) deals with those who died for their faith up until about the end of the middle ages (though most of those listed date from the first millenium A.D.). Consequently, his work is not of direct relevance in itself to this collection, but it is tangentially relevant, as having apparently sparked the anonymous The Fierie Tryall of Gods Saints;-These Suffered for the Witnes of Iesus and for the Word of God vnder Queene Mary ... As a Counter-poyze to I. W. Priest his English Martyrologe [attributed to John Wilson and also to John Watson]. And the detestable ends of Popish Traytors ... set down in a comparative Collection of both their sufferings, etc. (London, T. P., for Arthur Iohnson, 1611, in two parts). The edition shown here is the augmented third edition (1672) of Wilson's work.

 

 

The English Martyrologe, Containing A summary of the most renowned and illustrious Saints of the three Kingdoms. England, Scotland, and Ireland. Collected, reviewed and much augmented By I.W.P. [i.e., John Wilson, Priest]. The Third Edition. (Permissu Superiorum, MDCLXXII, small 8vo, pp. 17+294+2.) A very good copy, in a contemporary vellum binding, with the signature and bookplate of Joseph Gillow, the biographer.

 

 

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