These words, used by more than one contemporary of Blessed Richard Reynolds, suggest at once light, purity, strength; a gaze turned ever to truth, that ‘otherness’ which we associate with the life of the angels and which makes them so ready to give help to sinful mortals.

For what will be said about one of our proto-martyrs in this short account, I have had to rely on the research of the late Dom Adam Hamilton, O.S.B., of Buckfast Abbey in his book, now out of print, called The Angel of Syon (published by Sands & Co.), and on a shorter work by Dom Ernest Graf, published in 1934 for the fourth centenary of the martyrdom.

The birthplace, family and exact date of birth of our subject still evade us, but it seems to be more or less accepted that he was born at Pinhoe, near Exeter, in 1488 or 1489.