Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Drury, Robert (1567-1607)
DRURY, ROBERT (1567–1607), catholic divine, born of a gentleman's family in Buckinghamshire in 1567, was educated in the English College of Douay, then temporarily removed to Rheims, where he arrived 1 April 1588. He received the minor orders at Rheims on 18 Aug. 1590, and on the 17th of the following month he, with several other students, was sent to the college lately founded at Valladolid by Philip II of Spain for the education of the English clergy. After being ordained priest there, he was sent in 1593 to England, where he zealously laboured on the mission, chiefly in London and its vicinity. He was one of the appellant priests who opposed the proceedings of the archpriest Blackwell [see Blackwell, George]; and his name occurs among the signatures attached to the appeal of 17 Nov. 1600, dated from the prison at Wisbech (Dodd, Church Hist. ii. 259). He was also one of the thirteen secular priests who, in response to the queen's proclamation, subscribed the celebrated protestation of allegiance (31 Jan. 1602–3), which was drawn up by William Bishop [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Chalcedon (Butler, Hist. Memoirs of the English Catholics, 3rd edit. ii. 56–65). In 1606 the government of James I imposed upon catholics a new oath, which was to be the test of their civil allegiance. About this time Drury was apprehended, brought to trial, and condemned to death for being a priest and remaining in this realm, contrary to the statute of 27 Eliz. He refused to save his life by taking the new oath, and consequently he was drawn to Tyburn, hanged, and quartered on 26 Feb. 1606–7. ‘A true Report of the Arraignment, Tryall, Conviction, and Condemnation of a Popish Priest named Robert Drewrie’ appeared at London, 1607, 4to, and is reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ vol. iii.
[Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests (1742), ii. 16; Douay Diaries, pp. 218, 232, 234; Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, iii. 329; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Panzani's Memoirs, p. 85.]