December 10 – A tortured priest is executed

On this day in Tudor history, 10th December 1591, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Edmund Gennings and Swithin Wells were executed on a scaffold set up outside Wells' house at Holborn.

Gennings, a Roman Catholic priest, had been celebrating mass at Wells' home when the famous Elizabethan priestfinder and torturer, Richard Topcliffe, found them. Topcliffe had Gennings thrown into the Little Ease.

Find out more about St Edmund Gennings and St Swithin Wells, and their sad ends...