Richard Reynolds

Richard Reynolds, OSsS (1492 – 4 May 1535) was an English Bridgettine monk executed in London for refusing the Oath of Supremacy to King Henry VIII of England. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970, among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Life Richard Reynolds was a Bridgettine monk of the Syon Abbey, founded in Twickenham by Henry V. He was born in Devon in 1492, educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and joined the Abbey in 1513. Reginald Pole is quoted as saying that Reynolds was the only English monk well-versed in the three principal languages of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Dom Hamilton is of the opinion that as Reynolds was the most renowned spiritual counsellor of the Syon community, he would have likely been consulted by Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, who had been executed at Tyburn almost a year prior for speaking out against the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn. Reynolds had previously arranged a meeting between Elizabeth Barton and Thomas More. It was his connection to Barton that particularly compromised Reynolds in the view of the Crown officers. Reynolds was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London around the middle of April 1535, along with the Carthusian priors John Houghton, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster (a monk of Sheen Priory in Richmond). All four were tried for the denial of the royal supremacy.