Maurus Corker

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Maurus Corker (born in 1636 in Yorkshire; died 22 December 1715, in Paddington near London) was an English Benedictine who was accused and imprisoned as part of the Popish Plot.

His baptismal name, James, he exchanged for Maurus when he entered the order. On 23 April, 1656, he took vows at the English Benedictine Lamspringe Abbey near Hildesheim, in Germany, and returned to England as missionary in 1665. Being accused by Titus Oates of implication in the Popish Plot, he was imprisoned in Newgate Prison, but was acquitted of treason by a London jury, 18 July, 1679. Hereupon he was arraigned for being a priest and sentenced to death, 17 January, 1680. Through influential friends he was granted a reprieve and detained in Newgate. While thus confined he is said in some reports to have converted more than a thousand Protestants to Catholicism.

One of his fellow-prisoners at Newgate was Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, with whom he formed a close friendship, and whom he prepared for his execution, which took place on 15 June, 1681. Some correspondence which was carried on in prison between these two was later published. On the accession of James II of England in 1685, Father Corker was released and kept at the court as resident ambassador of Prince-Bishop Ferdinand of Bavaria, the Elector of Cologne. In 1687 he erected the little convent of St. John at Clerkenwell, where religious services were held for the public, but which was destroyed by a mob, 11 November, 1688, during the Glorious Revolution. Father Corker himself was obliged to seek refuge on the continent. In 1691 he was made Abbot of Cismar Abbey near Lübeck and, two years later, of Lamspringe, where he had made his religious profession. In 1696 he resigned as abbot and returned to England to continue his missionary work. He is the author of various pamphlets proving the innocence of those condemned for implication in the "Popish Plot".

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