An English Catholic who suffered imprisonment in the closing years of the seventeenth, and during the earlier half of the eighteenth, centuries; he died in 1748.
He was a son of Richard Blackburne, of Thistleton, Lancaster. The Blackburne family is one of the most ancient and respected Catholic families in Lancashire. Robert Blackburne was arrested in 1695 on suspicion of being connected with what was known as the Lancashire Plot. He was never brought to trial, although kept in prison for fifty-three years. The case was more than once brought to the attention of Parliament, but nothing was done for his relief. He was never tried or released, and finally died in prison.
GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., I, 223.
Thomas Gaffney Taaffe.