23 May sometimes listed as 22 April
Years later he and David set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. During a stopover in Rochester, England the boy David turned on William, clubbed him, cut his throat, robbed the body, and fled. Because he was on a holy journey, and because of the miraculous cures later reported at his tomb, he is considered a martyr.
A local insane woman found William's body, and plaited a garland of honeysuckle flowers for it; she placed the garland on William, and then on herself whereupon her madness was cured. Local monks, seeing this as a sign from God, interred William in the local cathedral and began work on his shrine. His tomb and a chapel at his murder scene, called Palmersdene, soon became sites of pilgimage and donation, even by the crown. Remains of the chapel can be seen near the present Saint William's Hospital.
throat cut in 1201 at Rochester, England interred in the cathedral at Rochester relics destroyed along with the cathedral in 1538
1256 by Pope Innocent IV his cause had been pursued by Lawrence de San Martino, bishop of Rochester
Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate Catholic Encyclopedia, by John B Wainewright Catholic Online For All The Saints, by Katherine Rabenstein Google Directory Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson