Philip Howard was a man-about-town in 16th century England. A conversion to Catholicism in the midst of Elizabethan England, however, changed all that. Arrested by authorities, he was put in the Tower of London and condemned to death unless he attended a Protestant service as requested by his sovereign, Elizabeth I. He refused. For the next six years, Philip’s only companion in the Tower was his Greyhound who, unlike Philip, was free to move around.

The sentence of death was never carried out, but Philip languished in the Tower until his death at the age of thirty eight. He was beatified in 1929, and was among the English martyrs canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.