Christopher Buxton

Christopher Buxton (1562 – 1588) was an English Roman Catholic priest and martyr.

Born in Derbyshire in 1562, he was a scholar of Nicholas Garlick at the Grammar School, Tideswell, Peak District. He studied for the priesthood at Reims and Rome, and was ordained in 1586.

In July 1582 Buxton arrived with two schoolfriends at Rheims. In 1584 he was sent to the English College in Rome where he was ordained on 26 October 1586. He had a lengthy and difficult journey across Europe, calling in at Rheims on his way to Dieppe. In September 1587 he crossed over to Kent, but was arrested there in November and taken to the Marshalsea prison. On 15 August 1588, he was examined at which time he admitted he was a priest. As he was so young, it was thought that his constancy might be shaken by the sight of the deaths of his companions, and his life was offered him if he would conform to the new religion; but he answered that he would not purchase a corruptible life at such a price, and that if he had a hundred lives he would willingly surrender them all in defence of his faith.

While in the Marshalsea Prison he wrote a Rituale, the manuscript of which is now preserved as a relic at Olney, Buckinghamshire. He sent this manuscript to a priest, as a last token of his friendship, the day before he was taken from the prison. He was taken to Canterbury for trial and execution at the end of September. Christopher Buxton is counted as one of the Oaten Hill Martyrs, and was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.