Ven. Christopher Robinson

Born at Woodside, near Westward, Cumberland, date unknown; executed at Carlisle, 19 Aug., 1598. He was admitted to the English College at Reims in 1589, and was ordained priest and sent on the mission in 1592. Two years later he was a witness of the condemnation and execution of the venerable martyr John Boste (q.v.) at Durham, and wrote a very graphic account of this, which has been printed from a seventeenth-century transcript in the first volume of the "Catholic Record Society's Publications" (London, 1905), pp. 85-92. His labours seem to have been mainly in Cumberland and Westmoreland; but nothing is known about them. Eventually he was arrested and imprisoned at Carlisle, where Bishop Robinson, who may have been a relative, did his best to persuade him to save his life by conforming, under 27 Eliz., c. 2, for being a priest and coming into the realm, suffered the last penalty with such cheerful constancy that his death was the occasion of many conversions.

John B. Wainewright.