Venerable Ralph Corbie

Venerable Ralph Corbie

(Called at times Corrington).

Brother of Ambrose Corbie; martyr-priest, b. 25 March, 1598, near Dublin; d. 7 September, 1644. From the age of five he spent his childhood in the north of England, then going over seas he studied at Saint-Omer, Seville, and Valladolid, where he was ordained. Having become a Jesuit about 1626, he came to England about 1631 and laboured at Durham. He was seized by the Parliamentarians at Hamsterley, 8 July, 1644, when clothed in his Mass vestments, conveyed to London, and committed to Newgate (22 July) with his friend John Duckett, a secular priest. At their trial (Old Bailey, 4 September), they both admitted their priesthood, were condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn, 7 September. Stonyhurst has a relic of Father Corbie; for the Duke of Gueldres' attestation in 1650 of other relics, see Foley's "Records S.J.", I, 564; the "Certamen" portrait is reproduced in "Records", VII, (I), 168; for his letters see vol. III, 69 sqq., of the same work. The Corbie alias, according to Foley [op. cit., VII (II), 898] was Carlington or Carlton.

Tanner, Societas Jesu militans, 122; Challoner, Missionary Priests (1742), II, 278; Dodd, Church History, III, 111; Oliver, Collectanea S.J., 674; Foley, Records S.J., III, 59-98, 151 sqq; VI, 299; VII (I), 167; Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., I, 564; Cooper in Dict. Nat. Biog., XII, 209; Certamen Triplex (Antwerp, 1645).

PATRICK RYAN