Alexander Briant was born around 1556 in Somerset to an Anglican family. Educated at Hart Hall, Oxford — where he studied under Robert Persons (the future Jesuit missioner to England).
Around 1577 Alexander converted to Catholicism and travelled to the continental English College at Douai. Ordained Catholic priest on March 29, 1578, Alexander returned to England as a secular Catholic recusant priest in 1579.
Arrested in April 1581 at the London residence of Robert Persons SJ, Alexander was imprisoned at the Tower of London and repeatedly tortured. His imprisonment torture included the Scavenger's Daughter (a compression-torture device), the rack, needles under the fingernails.
During his imprisonment, Alexander requested secretly admission to the Society of Jesus — by the first Jesuit-in-prison-request procedure granted by Superior General Everard Mercurian. Alexander thereby became the first English Jesuit to be martyred.
On November 20, 1581, Alexander was condemned to death alongside Edmund Campion and Ralph Sherwin — the three companions condemned simultaneously.
On December 1, 1581, Alexander was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn alongside Campion and Sherwin. Canonized on October 25, 1970 by Pope St. Paul VI.