Edward Bamber

Edward Bamber (alias Reading) (b. at the Moor, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire; executed at Lancaster 7 August 1646) was an English Roman Catholic priest. He was beatified in 1987. 
==Life==
Educated at the English College, Valladolid, he was ordained and sent to England. On landing at Dover, he knelt down to thank God. Seen doing this by the Governor of Dover Castle, he was arrested and banished. 
He returned again, and was soon afterwards apprehended near Standish, Lancashire; he had probably been chaplain at Standish Hall. On his way to Lancaster Castle he was lodged at the Old-Green-Man Inn near Claughton-on-Brock, and managed to escape, his keepers being drunk. He was found wandering in the fields by a Mr. Singleton of Broughton Tower and was sheltered by him. 
Arrested the third time, he was committed to Lancaster Castle, where he remained in close confinement for three years, once escaping, but recaptured. At his trial with two other priests, Thomas Whitaker and John Woodcock, two apostates witnessed against him that he had administered the sacraments, and he was condemned to die. 
An ode composed on his death is still extant.
==References==
*Richard Challoner, Memoirs (1750)
*William Watson, Decacordon of ten Quodlibet Questions (1602)
*Joseph Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath. (London, 1885)
Category:1646 deaths
Category:English Roman Catholic priests
Category:Beatified people
Category:17th-century venerated Christians