Today in 1645, William Laud, the first Anglo-Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, and best buddies with King Charles I, had his head chopped off. The Puritan Parliament hated him so much for making their churches smell Catholic that after they failed – not surprisingly – to convict him in court of treason, they simply passed a law saying that they could take his head off anyway, which they did at Tower Hill. He was memorably called ‘the greatest calamity ever visited upon the English Church’.
Pope Fabian became Pope today in the year 236. At the papal election, Fabian wasn’t even a contender, until a dove randomly flew down and perched on his head. This was taken by onlookers as a sign, and before he knew it, Fabian was sitting on the papal throne. Bonkers but true.
It is the feast of St Peter Orseolo, who died in the year 987. He was two years into being the Doge (Duke) of Venice, when he left in the middle of the night, not even bothering to tell his wife and son, travelled to France and became a monk. Presumably, he’s the patron saint of midnight flits and abandoned wives.