William Hart was an English Roman Catholic priest. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1886.

Life

Elected Trappes Scholar at Lincoln College

Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

, Oxford, 25 May 1571, he supplicated B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

, 18 June 1574. The same year he followed the rector, John Bridgewater

John Bridgewater

John Bridgewater, known also as Aquapontanus, was an English clerical historian of the Catholic Confessors under Queen Elizabeth I Tudor.-Biography:...

, to Douai College. He accompanied the college to Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

, and returned there after a severe operation at Namur

Namur (city)

Namur is a city and municipality in Wallonia, in southern Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia....

, 22 November 1578.

He took the college oath at the English College, Rome, 23 April 1579, where he was ordained priest. On 26 March 1581, he left Rome, arriving at Reims 13 May, and resuming his journey 22 May.

On reaching England he worked on a ministry in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. He was present at the Mass at which William Lacy

William Lacy

-Biography:William was born at "Hanton", Yorkshire ; suffered at York, 22 August 1582. He married a widow, named Cresswell, whose sons, Arthur and Joseph, became Jesuits. Little is related of his family by his biographers. He had a brother Ralph of Preston in Amounderness, a sister Barbara, and...

 was captured, and only escaped by standing up to his chin in the moat

Moat

A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...

 of York Castle

York Castle

York Castle in the city of York, England, is a fortified complex comprising, over the last nine centuries, a sequence of castles, prisons, law courts and other buildings on the south side of the River Foss. The now-ruinous keep of the medieval Norman castle is sometimes referred to as Clifford's...

.

Betrayed by an apostate Catholic on Christmas Day, 1582, and thrown into an underground dungeon, he was put into double irons. After examination before the Dean of York and the Council of the North

Council of the North

The Council of the North was an administrative body originally set up in 1484 by king Richard III of England, the third and last Yorkist monarch to hold the Crown of England; its intention was to improve government control and economic prosperity, to benefit the entire area of Northern England...

, he was arraigned at the Lent Assizes.

The account of his trial states that he was arraigned on two counts. He might have been on trial on three, namely:

1. under 13 Eliz. c. 2 for having brought papal writings, to wit his certificate of ordination, into the realm;
2. under 13 Eliz. c. 3. for having gone abroad without royal license; and
3. under 23 Eliz. c. 1. for having reconciled John Wright and one Couling.

On what counts he was found guilty does not clearly appear, but he was certainly guilty of the second.