The edict enjoining
this persecution was promulgated in February, 303 A.D., and the
persecution lasted until the Emperor abdicated in May, 305 A.D. It was
carried out in Britain by Maximianus Herculius and Asclepiodotus, and it
was during this persecution that St. Alban won the martyr's crown.
Though the story is embellished with certain miraculous incidents which
most of us will reject as accretions of later ages, yet there seems no
reason to doubt the main facts.
Albanus, or Alban, as we generally call him, was a young soldier and a
heathen, but being a man of a pitiful heart, he gave shelter to a
certain deacon named Amphibalus, who was in danger of death. Amphibalus
returned his kindness by teaching him the outlines of the Christian
religion, which Alban accepted. When at last the persecutors had
discovered the hiding-place of Amphibalus, Alban, in order to aid his
escape, changed garments with the deacon, and allowed himself to be
taken in his stead, while Amphibalus made his way into Wales, where,
however, he was ultimately captured and was brought back by the
persecutors, who possibly intended to put him to death at Verulamium,
but for some reason which we do not understand he was executed about
four miles from the city at a spot where the village of Redbourn now
stands, the parish church of which is dedicated to him.
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