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| St.David Lewis |  |
For 30 years he worked in Cwm, Wales.
Became a victim of the so-called Titus Oates plot.
Titus was twice expelled from European Jesuit schools and was
later refused admission into
the Society, so he spread the story that the Jesuits were plotting
to overthrow England's king and make the country Catholic once again, thereby
depriving many landowners of the estates confiscated from Catholic lands.
After David's arrest, one of his examiners was Titus Oates who was
unable to make any charge
stick, but David was condemned anyway.
He then gave such a moving speech at the gallows that it was later published. "I believe you are here met not only to see a fellow-native die, but also with expectation to hear a dying fellow native speak. I suffer not as a murderer, thief, or such like malefactor, but as a Christian, and therefore am not ashamed. My religion is the Roman Catholic one; in it I have lived above these many years; in it I now die, and so fixedly die, that if all the good things in this world were offered me to renounce my faith, all should not move me one hair's breath from my Roman Catholic faith. A Roman Catholic I am; a Roman Catholic priest I am; a Roman Catholic priest of that religious order called the Society of Jesus I am, and I bless God who first called me."
The hangman fled the scene, fearing the crowd would stone him but the
job was finished by a man bribed to take the executioner's place.