Thomas Wells of Brambridge, by Mary, daughter of John Mompesson. During the Reformation, his family contributed to the secret funerals of Catholics at the local cemetery, and their house was a place of refuge for priests. Wells was well-educated, a poet, musician, and sportsman. Among his travels, he had been to Rome, and had a working knowledge of Italian. In June 1586, he was arrested with seminarians Alexander Rawlins and Christopher Dryland and imprisoned in Newgate, but was released 4 July when his nephew posted bail. On 9 August 1586, he was examined for supposed complicity in the Babington Plot, and on 30 November 1586, he was discharged from the Fleet prison. At one point, he went to Rome on a mission for the Earl of Southampton, but he returned to England to work in the English Catholic underground. He was again examined 5 March 1587, and on this occasion speaks of the well-known recusant, George Cotton of Warblington, Hampshire, as his cousin. In 1591, Edmund Gennings was saying Mass at Wells's house, when the priest-hunter Richard Topcliffe burst in with his officers. The congregation, not wishing the Mass to be interrupted, held the door and beat back the officers until the service was finished, after which they all surrendered peacefully. Wells was not present, but his wife was she and Gennings were arrested along with another priest by the name of Polydore Plasden, and three laymen named John Mason, Sidney Hodgson, and Brian Lacey. Wells was immediately arrested and imprisoned on his return. He was charged under the 1585 Act Against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Disobedient Subjects. At his trial, he said that he had not been present at the Mass, but wished he had been. Wells was sentenced to die by hanging, and a gibbet was erected outside his own house on 10 December 1591. On his way to the scaffold, Swithun caught sight of an old friend in the crowd and said to him, "Goodbye my dear. Goodbye to our nice hunting companies. Now I have something much more important to do." Wells was buried in St. Andrew's Churchyard in Holborn. Gwynne Saint Richard Gwyn (ca. 1537 – 15 October 1584), also known by his anglicised name, Richard White, was a Welsh school teacher. He was martyred by being hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason in 1584. His feast day is celebrated on 17