Wright, Peter, VENERABLE, martyr, b. at Slipton, Northamptonshire, 1603; suffered at Tyburn, 19 May, 1651. After spending ten years in a country solicitor’s office he enlisted in the English army in Holland, but deserted after a month, and for two years remained in the Flemish Jesuit Seminary at Ghent. In 1629 he entered the novitiate of the Society at Watten. After holding various offices at Liége and Saint-Omer he became chaplain to Sir Henry Gage’s English regiment in the service of Spain. When Gage returned to England in the spring of 1644, Wright went with him and was present at the relief of Basing House, the seat of John, 5th Marquess of Winchester. On Gage’s death (13 January, 1645), at which he was present, Wright became the marquess’s chaplain in his London house, where he was arrested on Candlemas Day, 1651. Committed to Newgate, he was eventually condemned at the Old Bailey under 27 Eliz., c. 2. His execution on Whit Monday took place before over twenty thousand spectators. He was allowed to hang till he was dead.
FOLEY, Records of the English Province S.J. (London, 1877-83), II, 506-65; VII, 870; CHALLONER, Missionary Priests, II, no. 189; Stanton, Menology (London, 1887), 218; Cooper in Dict. Nat. Biog., 8. v.
John B. Wainewright.