Skulls identified as those of the Welsh Catholic martyrs Philip Evans and John Lloyd. Photo: Stonyhurst College Two skulls and a cluster of other bones discovered in the attic of a house in the Welsh town of Holywell have been identified as Welsh priests and martyrs Philip Evans and John Lloyd.
The bones were discovered in 1858, but it wasn’t until recently they were identified, by Jan Graffius, curator of the Stonyhurst Collections’ assembly of Catholic martyrs’ relics at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.
Ms Graffius made the discovery having examined wounds to the skull and bones, and consulting with experts in Welsh martyrs, she told CNA.
Evans and Lloyd were jailed, executed and buried together, Ms Graffius said, adding that “it makes perfect logical and historical sense for these two bones of these very closely associated men to have been rescued together, and secreted together”.
Graffius said that she was “just thrilled” when she drew the evidence together and connected the Holywell bones to Evans and Lloyd.
“To be able to say with a good degree of confidence, ‘this is who they are,’ is very exciting,” she said.
The story of the bones’ identification is told in an online exhibition, “‘How bleedeth burning love’: British Jesuit Province’s Relics of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales,” inspired by the 50th anniversary of the canonisation of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
The exhibition describes the discovery of the bones at Holywell as well as the lives of Evans and Lloyd, who were among the 40 martyrs canonised in 1970.