of California
n Regional
y Facility
LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
MR. AND MRS. HERMAN
S. JORGENSON
UCSB LIBRARY
ROEHAMPTON :
PK1NTED BY JOHN GRIFFIN.
[All rights reserved.]
LIVES OF THE
ENGLISH MARTYRS
DECLARED BLESSED BY POPE
LEO XIII. IN 1886 AND 1895
WRITTEN
BY FATHERS OF THE ORATORY, OF THE
SECULAR CLERGY AND OF THE SOCIETY
OF JESUS.
COMPLETED AND EDITED BY
DOM BEDE CAMM, O.S.B.
OF ERDINGTON ABBEY
VOLUME II.
MARTYRS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH
IN SERVIS SUJS
CONSOLABITUR DEUS
Reissue
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
1914
All rights reserved
fUbtl
FR. JOANNES CHAPMAN, O.S.B.,
CENSOR DEPUTATUS.
Imprimatur :
GULIELMUS PRAEPOSITUS JOHNSON,
VICARIUS GENERALIS
IVestmonasterii,
Dit 22 Aprilis,
First published by Messrs. Burns and Oates, 1905.
Transferred to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., Jan., 1914.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Page
I. Elizabeth's Settlement of Religion . . ix
II. Resistance to the Settlement of Religion by the
Crown is considered Treason . . xii
III. The Northern Rising . . . . xiv
IV. The Excommunication . . . . xv
V. The Martyrs of 1570 to 1572 . . . xvii
VI. Increase of Missionary Zeal and of Persecution
in 1580 ..... xxii
VII. Reasons for the Increase of Persecution . . xxiii
(a) Sir Francis Walsingham .
(b) Errors of Catholic Politicians
(c) The Fictitious Papal League .
(d) Other Reasons ....
VIII. Persecution at its height . . . . xxvii
IX. The Procedure of Martyrdom . . . xxviii
X. Authorities ...... xxxix
XI. Writers of the Present Volume . xli
2033039
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIVES OF THE MARTYRS.
Page
I. B. John Felton, Layman.
St. Paul's Churchyard, August 8, 1570 ... i
II. B. John Storey, Layman.
Tyburn, June i, 1571 ... 14
III. BB. Thomas Percy and Thomas Plumtree.
Durham, January 4, 1571, and
York, August 22, 1572 ... in
IV. B. Thomas Woodhouse, Secular Priest.
London, June 13, 1573 ... 186
V. B. Cuthbert Mayne, Proto - Martyr of the
Seminary Priests.
Launceston, November 29, 1577 ... 204
VI. B. John Nelson, Jesuit.
Tyburn, February 3, 1577-8 ... 223
VII. B. Thomas Sherwood, Layman.
Tyburn, February 7, 1577-8 ... 234
VIII. B. Everard Hanse, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, July 31, 1581 ... 249
IX. B. Edmund Campion, Jesuit.
Tyburn, December i, 1581 ... 266
X. B. Ralph Sherwin, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, December i, 1581 ... 358
XI. B. Alexander Briant, Jesuit.
Tyburn, December i, 1581 ... 397
XII. B. John Payne, Secular Priest.
Chelmsford, April 2, 1582 ... 424
XIII. B. Thomas Ford, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 28, 1582 ... 443
XIV. B. John Shert, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 28, 1582 ... 460
XV. B. Robert Johnson, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 28, 1582 ... 474
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
XVI. B. William Filby, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 30, 1582 ... 491
XVII. B. Luke Kirby, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 30, 1582 ... 500
XVIII. B. Lawrence Richardson (vere Johnson), Secular
Priest.
Tyburn, May 30, 1582 ... 523
XIX. B. Thomas Cottam, Jesuit.
Tyburn, May 30, 1582 ... 536
XX. B. William Lacey, Secular Priest.
York, August 22, 1582 ... 564
XXI. B. Richard Kirkman, Secular Priest.
York, August 22, 1582 ... 578
XXII. B. James Thompson (alias Hudson), Secular
Priest.
York, November 28, 1582 ... 589
XXIII. B. William Hart, Secular Priest.
York, March 15, 1583 ... 600
XXIV. B. Richard Thirkeld, Secular Priest.
York, May 29, 1583 ... 635
WRITERS IN THIS VOLUME.
ED Dom BedeCamm, O.S.B. Nos. I., II., VII.,
VIII., X., XIII.,
XXL, XXII.,
XXIII., XXIV.
H. S. B. ... Father Henry Sebastian Bowden, No. IX.
Cong. Orat.
E. S. K. ... Father Edward S. Keogh, Cong. Nos. I., IV, V., VI.,
Orat VIII., X., XL,
XII., XIII., XIV.,
XV., XVI., XVII..
XVIII., XIX., XX.
G. E. P. ... Father George E. Phillips, of ... No. III.
Ushaw College.
J. H. P. ... Father John H. Pollen, SJ Introduction, Nos. IV,
IX., XI., XVII.,
XIX.
INTRODUCTION.
THOUGH the Lives of the martyrs which will be
found in the ensuing pages are told with a fulness
not attempted hitherto, none of them illustrate the
whole period of the struggle. None of them, therefore,
explain with sufficient clearness the origin, nature,
and tendency of the quarrel in which the martyrs
lost their lives. A few words of introduction will
therefore be required to elucidate these points, and
others of a like nature. Why. for instance, in a
religious persecution were the victims indicted for
treason ? Why were such absurd charges preferred
against the martyrs, and why were they believed
and brought forward again and again ? Before we
can appreciate the heroism of the martyrs' deaths,
we must find a solution of these problems.
Section I. Elizabeth's Settlement of Religion.
In the previous volume it was shown that the Wars
of the Roses and other causes had led to a very
great increase in the power of the Crown at the cost
of the other estates of the realm. The resolution of
INTRODUCTION
King Henry to marry Anne Boleyn in spite of all
obstacles, caused a violent breach with the Church,
in consequence of which the country as a whole
tamely lapsed into schism. Under King Edward a
further step downward was taken. Heresy was
introduced into the Court, and took a strong hold
on the large towns and the eastern counties. The
Puritans, to use a name which came into use later,
thus acquired considerable, though not a command-
ing power. We shall find them the prime movers of
the persecution, influencing the legislature, deter-
mining the administration of the law, and clamouring
round the gallows for the blood of the martyrs.
Mary's restoration of Catholicism, 1 though
popular, and carried out with more respect for
the Constitution than had been shown by her
predecessors, was nevertheless rather her work than
her people's. Popular liberty was not known in
those days. The actual government was in the
hands of a bureaucracy, as it had been under her
brother Edward, as it was to be again under her
sister. Thus the old religion was restored by the
very power that had plucked it down, but was not
ensured against a second overthrow similar to the
first. Nor was the second fall long in coining.
The Catholic revival lasted for less than four
years, from the time when it was fully sanctioned
by Parliament. Elizabeth succeeded on the i7th
of November, 1558. She at once entrusted her
fortunes to a small clique of Protestant advisers, of
whom William Cecil was the leader and type, and
1 Pp. 23 37, 116 118.
INTRODUCTION
by so doing decided, once and for all, the future
of her reign, of herself, and of her realm.
Some account of the steps by which England was
severed from the unity of the Church, will be found
below. 1 The great measures were the Supremacy
Bill and the Act of Uniformity, which received royal
assent on the 28th of May, 1559. These were rein-
forced on the 3rd of March, 1563, by the so-called
" Act of Assurance." 2 But it must be repeated that
the character of the religious policy was decided far
more by the personal feelings of the Ministers than
by the legislature. Sure of their positions, and with
nothing serious to fear, Cecil and his companions
had many reasons for tempering tyranny with
mercy. When the fanatical party, to whom we
have already alluded, raised the cry of "kill the
caged wolves ! " (i.e. the imprisoned Bishops), they
wisely adopted a milder course, thus advancing their
cause and strengthening their mistress's position
far more than any violence would have done.
Though much constancy was displayed up and
down the country, 3 though England would never
have changed at all if force had not been applied,
still, the resistance was, it must be confessed, small.
Unconstitutional pressure brought to bear by the
Crown on a people so childlike in the trust they
reposed in their rulers, so childish in their incapacity
for self-help, had all the evil effect that might have
been expected. The practice of the faith was laid
aside with lamentable rapidity, considering the
tenacity with which it should have been maintained.
1 Pp. 38, 118. * Pp. 126, 127. * Pp. 129, 132, 565.
INTRODUCTION
Section II. Resistance to the Settlement of Religion by
the Crown is considered Treason.
This brings us to the solution of one of the
problems which was indicated at the commence-
ment of this Introduction. Why was it that our
martyrs were falsely accused of treason and dis-
loyalty ? Why were they not charged with having
offended, as they certainly had, against the religion
by law established ? The persecutors had no doubt
many reasons. Some of the most efficacious were
not peculiar to England. It is an ordinary thing
for one who has done, or is about to do an injury
to another, to overwhelm his victim with reproaches,
and ages ago holy Job lamented that the sinner,
even " when there is peace, suspecteth treason."
Religious persecutors, moreover, even in ages much
simpler than the sixteenth century, have generally
been ashamed of alleging the real motives of their
cruelty, and almost always pretend that those
whom they oppress have been guilty of sedition.
" We find this man stirring up the people, and
refusing tribute to Caesar." The Elizabethan
persecutors in particular were especially averse to
confessing the truth in this matter, for none had
decried the persecutions of Mary, or of Alva, or of
Spain, more loudly than they. Their pharasaical
minds were therefore wholly bent on proving that
they were now, not aggressors, but defenders of the
course of justice.
The progress of events, too, naturally led to the
INTRODUCTION
charge of disloyalty being brought against the
Catholics. The schism had grown out of the blind
devotion to the Crown, then so prevalent. In the
case of the greater number at least, fidelity, principle,
even conscience, had been at the sovereign's disposal.
The sovereign could, and did, alter the objects to
which her loyal subjects had previously adhered.
But the change could only be made out of deference,
not out of loyalty. Those who were truly loyal
stood firm to the old objects of allegiance. They
refused to be drawn into schismatical and heretical
excesses, but remained as conservative and sub-
servient as ever. They scorned revolutionary ideas
as proper to Zwinglians and new religionists. In
the previous volume we heard Blessed Edward
Powell in the dialogue defying the heretic Barnes,
What doest thou know
of bate or sedition
of grudge or rebellion
within English region
that the old sort did sow ? 1
Similarly in this volume we hear Father Campion
cry, " The day shall come, O Queen, the day that
shall make it clear as noontide which of the two did
love thee best the Company of Jesus, or the brood
of Luther." And Persons was not less emphatic in
declaring in a book dedicated to the Queen herself,
that "the Catholique faythe teachethe obedience
more than other religions." 2
But, alas ! Elizabeth and her Ministers had
hardened their hearts. Those only who followed
1 Vol. I. p. 501. Pp. 339, 343, 344.
her in her revolutionary course were to be styled
loyal, whilst those who were loyal in the true and
unvarying sense of the word, were branded with
the designation of traitors.
Section III. The Northern Rising.
We have noted the comparative mildness with
which the persecuting laws were administered at
the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. This lasted
about ten years, until the flight of Mary Queen
of Scots into England on the i6th of May, 1568.
She was by blood heir to the throne, the " second
person in the kingdom," 1 and it is through her,
not through Elizabeth, that our present reigning
house traces its hereditary right. That Mary's
presence in England did something to animate
the English Catholics cannot be doubted, even
though we know so little about the details. The
conservative party among the Protestants, how-
ever, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, were now
encouraged to attempt the overthrow of Cecil and
the advanced reformers, and the Catholics were in
sympathy with these plans. But whilst they did
nothing, Cecil put the laws in force against the
Catholics with greater and greater stringency, until
on the i4th of November, 1569, the Northern earls
rose in rebellion. Their motives were no doubt
many, but religion predominated, and the Spanish
Ambassador, than whom no one was at that time
more capable of arriving at a broad and true judg-
ment on the matter, declared that they rose because
1 P. 134-
INTRODUCTION
of the enforcement of the laws enjoining attendance
at the Protestant churches. 1 For a week the tide of
success flowed with them. Then fortune changed,
and three weeks later not one of the Northerners
maintained the field.
Section IV. The Excommunication.
Three months after the Rising came the excom-
munication of the Queen. Pope Pius V. had not
been unaware of the discontent which had been
fermenting in England, but, and this is a point
very much to be remembered, he was far removed
from regular and reliable sources of information.
Letters from the English Catholics to him, and his
answers, might take two, three, or even four months
on their way, 2 and thus it was very difficult for him
to know exactly what to do, still more so to choose
the right moment for action. In the year 1568 he
had sent Doctor Nicholas Morton, once prebendary
of York, to report on the state of affairs in England,
and Morton had started back a few months before
the actual outbreak, with the news that an insurrec-
tion was not impossible. But while he was on his
way Sir William Cecil had brought the discontent
prematurely to a head, and the Rising was over and
crushed, before the Pope had so much as heard of
the likelihood of its breaking out.
When he did hear of that probability, he took a
step characteristic of the man and the time. Those
were days in which a wonderful renewal of fervour
was taking place in Rome. The utmost zeal was
1 Spanish Calendar, 1568 1579, p. 212. 2 P. 156
INTRODUCTION
being evinced for restoring ancient observance, and
the greatest benefits were resulting from the return
to pristine severity and mediaeval practices. Hence
the idea that the remedy for England was a drastic
measure of primitive discipline. The previous Pope,
Pius IV., had taken the advice of the Catholic powers
as to the excommunication of Elizabeth, and finding
them most hostile to any such measure, had decided
to proceed no further. But Pius V., far less cautious
than Popes usually are, was also, alas ! far too sanguine
in trusting the few English exiles who happened to
be in Rome. He summoned these men to a court
held to inquire into Elizabeth's offences, which were
of course as plain and as grave as they could
possibly be. He thereupon issued his Bull, Regnans
in excelsis, on the 25th of February, 1570, by which
he both excommunicated her and deprived her of
her realm, believing that the sentence would at once
be put into execution. Only after this was done
did he hear of the collapse of the Rising. Thus the
clauses which concerned the deprivation, resulted in
complete failure 1 and did actual harm. The excom-
munication in itself, however, did no little good
to the Church at large, and to the Catholics in this
country in particular. For whereas we have seen
that the greatest of all snares for the English
Catholics had been their blind obedience to their
sovereign, even in matters of faith and conscience,
the excommunication of that sovereign did much
1 There were indeed complications in England for a couple of
years after the excommunication, but they had no influence on the
general course of our history. (See The Month, February, 1902.)
INTRODUCTION
to remove the veil from their eyes. It is no mere
coincidence then that soon after the excommunica-
tion Mayne, 1 Campion, 2 Ford, 3 Robert Johnson, 4
and Lawrence Johnson 5 to confine ourselves to
those martyrs only of whom we shall treat below
left all that England could offer to hold them in
Anglicanism, and went abroad to follow their con-
sciences in suffering and poverty.
Section V. The Martyrs of 1570 to 1572.
Coming now to Felton, Storey, Woodhouse,
Percy, whose deaths were connected in one way
or another with the Rising or the excommunica-
tion, we see that their causes involve many more
problems than the lives of the other martyrs do.
One might, for instance, discuss their patriotism
in so far as they championed the old order, which
was being subverted by a monstrous exercise of
royal tyranny. One might draw out parallels
between them and others, such as Hampden, who
are commonly belauded as champions of popular
resistance to the encroachments of the Crown, and
the comparison would be greatly in favour of the
Catholics. But here we are only concerned with
the precise question of their martyrdom. Were
they executed out of the motive of hatred of the
Faith ? Were they persecuted for professing the
Faith, or for performing some act intimately con-
nected with that profession ? On these points, too,
this group of martyrs is somewhat exceptional.
1 P. 209. 2 P. 282. 3 P. 444.
P. 474- 5 P. 524-
b
INTRODUCTION
For, whereas all the other martyrs were conspicuous
for their inoffensiveness, these four had annoyed
the Queen or opposed her titles or temporal claims.
If we take a partial view of their cases, and fix our
eyes exclusively on their abnormal features, we
may feel a doubt about their claim to the honours
of martyrdom. But it is needless to say that such
a way of looking at them would not only be quite
unfair, it would misrepresent the facts. We cannot
arrive at the truth without considering the cases in
their surroundings ; we must consider these execu-
tions as parts of a cruel persecution.
Let us, for instance, first consider the case of
the Blessed Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumber-
land. He rose in defence of the ancient Faith,
but it is not on that account that he has been
venerated as a martyr. His claim depends on the
courage with which he held to his belief in the hour
of weakness and defeat, and on the animus with
which his life was taken. When so many other
offenders were pardoned on conformity ; when
even clerics who recanted were received again into
favour, 1 when offers of life were made to him, if he
too would conform, 2 the conclusion becomes ever
clearer and clearer that he should be reckoned
with the sufferers for religion, of whom there were
many at that time.
In Felton's case, if we regard nothing but the
fact of his having set up the Bull of Deposition, we
might remain uncertain about his claim to martyr-
dom. It is not everyone who meets his death while
1 P. 149. a Pp. 172 176.
INTRODUCTION xix
executing the sentences of an ecclesiastical court
who is a martyr, for such sentences may and do
provoke many passions besides hatred of the Faith.
Even Catholic princes who would on no account
have tampered with the faith or discipline of the
Church, have been known to execute Papal mes-
sengers who brought them notice of excommunica-
tion, and yet no one pretends that such messengers
deserve to be canonized as martyrs.
But if we enlarge our view, and regard the whole
of the circumstances of Felton's case, we at once
see how different his was from that just described.
He was not executed by a Catholic unwilling to
tamper with the liberties of the Church, but by a
persecutor of the Church eager to extinguish every
single one of its liberties. Nor did either side
regard the exercise of Papal authority in question
as an issue unconnected with the continuance of the
old Faith in this country. It seemed to be the only
remedy in that desperate struggle. Felton took
what seemed the last chance " to secure that the
Pope's Apostolic voice should be heard, and his
Apostolic judgment made known among his
English flock. Death endured for that cause was
true martyrdom."
Elizabeth's Government took a similar view of
the situation. Felton's indictment 2 shows us that
1 P- 13-
2 In the Life of Felton, mention should have been made of the
record of his trial, which is preserved. The chief clauses in the
indictment are that he conspired on the iyth of May, 1570, with one
Cornelius, an Irish cleric, and that on the 24th, "about eleven
xx INTRODUCTION
he was charged with aiding and assisting the
Pope " to assume and usurp power and authority
within this realm of England." " Assume and
usurp," what else do these strong words convey,
except that Papal authority was extinct, and that
Felton meant to restore it ? If this was the point
of view of the Government, they were doing all
that was necessary on their part to provide Felton
with the martyr's palm.
The case of Woodhouse l is liable to an exception
similar to that which was just noticed, though
rather more subtle. He accepted and acted rigidly
upon the mediaeval theories concerning the deposition
of princes by Popes. But, as was said just now,
not every one who may be put to death because he
accepts and acts upon a sentence of deprivation is
necessarily a martyr. Indeed it may be doubted
whether Rome, so considerate of the usual prejudices
of temporal rulers, ever has declared, or ever would
declare such a one to be a martyr upon this ground
only, unless there be many other causes making for
o'clock at night, he affixed to the gate of the Bishop of London's
Palace a copy, printed on paper, of a Bull of Pius the Fifth, Bishop
of Rome, which Bull contained the impious and most wicked decla-
ratory sentence, in which he assumes and usurps power and
authority within this Kingdom of England, &c., and declares that
the Queen has been lawfully deprived," &c. And " further, on the
27th of June, by a writing signed with his own hand, he affirmed
all the matters contained in the Bull, &c., and declared the Queen
ought not to be Queen of England," &c. " Friday, 4 August, at
Guildhall, Felton pleaded Not guilty. Verdict, Guilty. Sentence as
usual in cases of High Treason." (Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper
of the Rolls, 1843, p. 265.)
1 Pp. 187 203.
INTRODUCTION
martyrdom. In Woodhouse's case there are many
additional reasons. The persecutor's animus was
shown beforehand by having confined him to prison
indefinitely for the exercise of spiritual functions
only. Nor could an unprejudiced statesman have
taken mortal offence at the very gentle way in
which Woodhouse uttered his warnings. 1 Moreover,
when one reads the whole story, one perceives that
it was not so much the lengths to which Woodhouse
went, which gave offence, as the constancy with
which he " defended the Pope's authority " and
maintained that "the Pope hath to do in this realm." 2
It was this profession, not the amiable eccentricity
with which he urged it, which was the true cause
of his death, and death for that cause is surely
martyrdom. 3
Storey's case is clearer still. It might indeed be
alleged that he had irritated the Protestants in
Mary's time, and that he was executed because of
his personal unpopularity. But this is a very inade-
quate account of the matter. His execution of the
law in Mary's time was neither unconstitutional 4
nor gratuitously cruel, indeed his refutation of the
charge of cruelty is a very strong one, 5 and in his
trial no legal hold could be taken of him in this
matter. It does not appear that he ever denied
1 Pp. 191194.
2 Pp. 194, 195.
3 I have searched the Coram Rege Rolls for the record of
Woodhouse's trial, but hitherto in vain. We do not yet seem to
know his indictment.
4 P. 33-
5 Pp. 8991.
INTRODUCTION
the Queen's power, 1 or ever positively offended her.
But he was a representative of the old order, and a
conspicuous man among the Catholic refugees.
He was brought home by fraud and violence, and
then immolated by exalte fanatics to spread terror
among his co-religionists, to show how strong
Elizabeth was to punish, how powerless Spain to pro-
tect. The moment was one of Protestant triumph,
twelve years had passed since the occasion of offence.
The charge now alleged was trumpery, even if it had
been true. If the rest of the persecution was due to
odium fidei, what reason is there for doubting that
this act was inspired by the same motive ? 2
Finally, with regard to these four martyrs it is
well to remember that, as has been explained in the
previous volume, 3 the decree, by which their cultus
is permitted, is still liable to amendment and is not
final, and that Bishop Challoner for prudential
reasons omitted them from his lists.
Section VI. Increase of Missionary Zeal and
of Persecution in 1580.
The excommunication was one of the chief
means of staying the tide of defection in England,
1 Sander, indeed, interpreted his refusal to plead before
Elizabeth's judges, as evidence that he rejected the authority of
one who was excommunicated. This may be a good inference, or it
may not, but at all events it is only an inference. Storey's own
explanation (p. 88) is different, and sufficient in itself. This should
be borne in mind while reading Sander's resume on p. 82.
2 Besides the copy of Storey's indictment mentioned on p. 77, a
reference may be added to the complete record of his trial, on the
Coram Rege Roll, 13 Elizabeth, Easter, pt. ii. rot. vii.
3 Vol. I. p. xix.
INTRODUCTION xxiii
but until a new fervour was breathed into the
persecuted, terror-stricken Catholics their persever-
ance was still insecure. The first step towards a
reorganization was the foundation of the English
Seminary at Douay in 1568, and the sending of
missionaries in I574- 1 The next year, 1575, the year
of Jubilee, was marked by an awakening of fervour
in all classes. The pilgrim spirit becomes wonder-
fully strong from this time, 2 and also zeal for the
missions, which reached its height with the change
of the old English hospice in Rome into a
Seminary under the direction of the Jesuits, for
training priests for England. 3 This was accom-
plished in 1578. A year later, Dr. Allen obtained
the mission of the Jesuits to England, and Fathers
Persons and Campion set out for England about
the I7th of April, 1580. Their party had increased
to thirteen, and included, besides alumni from
the English College, Rome, several grey-headed
chaplains who had belonged to the former hospice,
and even old Bishop Goldwell. At the same time
the Douay College (now at Rheims) was sending in
missionaries at a rate which under the circum-
stances well deserves to be called rapid. Thus
we may consider this period as the golden age of
missionary effort.
Section VII. Reasons for the Increase of Persecution.
(a) Sir Francis Walsingham.
These efforts were met by a notable increase in
the persecution. It has been already stated that
1 Pp. 204207. 2 Pp. 475, 539, 569. 3 Pp. 360362.
INTRODUCTION
the persecution was decided more by the Ministers
than by the laws. The Machiavelli of the period
now under discussion was Sir Francis Walsingham.
He was not indeed so original nor so powerful a man
as Sir William Cecil, but he accepted Cecil's policy,
and exceeded him in fanatical earnestness, an
earnestness which hardened him against scruple
and pity. His object was to keep the Queen and
the realm in a state of alarm, until the " bosom
serpent," as he called Queen Mary, had been killed
and the Catholics were utterly crushed. He, the
Earl of Leicester, and others of their party, were
labouring for this end during the period covered by
our volume, and a year or two later they succeeded
in accomplishing their purpose.
(b) Errors of Catholic Politicians.
Walsingham's plans were assisted by various
errors on the part of the Catholic politicians. The
gravest of these was the expedition to Ireland of 1579,
in which Pope Gregory himself was compromised.
Elizabeth's pirates and her policy in Flanders had
enraged public feeling against her on the Continent,
and when two adventurers, Thomas Stukely, an
Englishman, and James Fitzgerald, an Irishman,
asked for a small force of ships and men, with
which to vex her in Ireland, they were received
with friendly neutrality both in France and Spain,
and the good-natured, but impolitic Gregory furnished
them with vessels and munitions of war. Stukely
perished without achieving anything, but Fitzgerald
succeeded in landing in Ireland, where he lit up a
INTRODUCTION
civil war which lasted for some time. He was
accompanied by a notable English churchman,
Dr. Nicholas Sander, who went, not exactly as a
Papal Nuncio, but at least as some sort of Papal
representative. This expedition caused Elizabeth
much annoyance, and some passing fears, but no
serious alarm, and, as we see from the French
Ambassador's despatches, she affected to despise the
whole enterprise.
The excuse for the Pope's adviser, the Cardinal
of Como, who was chiefly responsible for the under-
taking, is this that when it was decided upon, in
1577, there seemed to be no chance of its injuring
missionary efforts in England. Nobody then fore-
saw the great good that the Seminary priests would
soon achieve. On the other hand the expedi-
tion was carried out so slowly that, as Father
Persons tells us, he and Campion did not hear of
Sander's doings in Ireland till they were at Rheims,
in June, 1580, and the news caused so much dismay
that many persons advised that the Jesuit mission
to England should be given up. From all this it
follows that Mr. Simpson and other writers who
believed that the Papal Government sent warships
to Ireland simultaneously with missionaries to
England, were under a misapprehension. The
warships were sent, because there seemed no
opening for messengers of peace. It was a grave
mistake, however, even then ; and a worse mistake
still not to have recalled them when the spiritual
ambassadors were sent forth. The result of per-
severing with both enterprises was to give plausibility
INTRODUCTION
to Walsingham's contention that the preaching of
the old Faith was a political propaganda.
(c) The Fictitious Papal League.
The Irish expedition, however, was at most a
very small affair, and did not impress the public
very much. Walsingham therefore endeavoured to
excite the Queen and the public by more stirring
news. There was a great league, he declared,
between the Pope, the King of Spain, and the
Grand Duke of Florence, for the destruction of
English Protestantism. 1 Rumours of Papal Leagues
had been frequently raised among German Pro-
testants, in order to induce the reforming princes
to co-operate more closely, but they had been rare in
England. Owing to the Irish expedition the Papal
League rumour now won some credit, and had its
effect in deepening the suspicion against the Catholic
priests. The first proclamation against Persons and
Campion, that of the I5th of July, 1580, denounced
the missioners as engaged in its support. It is also
objected against the martyrs as evidence justifying
their execution. 2
(d) Other Reasons.
The Irish Expedition and the Papal League
were, if one may say so, Walsingham's trumps, but
he also had in his hand a number of useful small
cards of the same suit. He could recall the
cruelties of Alva, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
1 See The Month, March, 1901, and March, 1902.
2 P. 508.
INTRODUCTION
and the attempts on the life of the Prince of Orange,
and he drew the unjustifiable conclusion that Eliza-
beth's life was never safe from her faithful and
inoffensive Catholic subjects.
After 1581 the young King of Scotland showed
signs of restiveness under the galling yoke which
Protestantism had placed on his shoulders. Once
or twice it really seemed as if he might have drawn
the forces of Scotland into opposition to England,
and if he had succeeded in this, considerable changes
might indeed have followed. But these moments of
danger were but few, and they ceased altogether in
1584. The vacillations, however, had only made
Walsingham's party more eager than ever to get
their work over and settled.
Even Elizabeth's flirtations with the Due
d'Alencon were made to assist the projects of the
Puritan politicians. The further the marriage
negotiations were carried, the more irritated did
the fanatics become, and the more ready were
Elizabeth's Ministers to sacrifice Catholics in order
to propitiate them. The resolution to execute
Campion seems to have been finally taken for this
reason.
Section VIII. Persecution at its height.
Thus from the year 1580, a change is perceptible.
Hitherto the persecutors had not done their worst.
They had so fashioned their laws, that Catholicism,
as they thought, would be sure to be extinguished
sooner or later. Now the intention was to crush
out the Church at once. The Statute of 23 Elizabeth
INTRODUCTION
imposed on Recusants the ruinous fine of twenty
pounds per lunar month ; it made reconciliation with
the Church high treason, with grave penalties for
all who aided the conversion ; it also put the severest
penalties upon keeping Catholic tutors or school-
masters. Proclamations were published against the
entertainers of Jesuits and Seminarists, and all
students in foreign colleges were summoned home.
Worst of all was the pest of spies, informers, and
pursuivants, who were now turned loose on the
unfortunate Catholics, for whom there was nowhere
rest, or safety, or escape. Their misfortunes had
entered on a new phase. A war of utter extermina-
tion had been commenced against them, at the
very time they were beginning to hope that they
might regain some of the ground they had lost.
The increase in cruelty was partly intended as a
counter-move to the revival of missionary zeal, and
was partly due to political occurrences, which were
used or abused in order to represent the missionaries
as political traitors. As the persecutors had already
perverted the popular conception of loyalty, it was
now no longer impossible to take the lives of some
of the holiest and noblest of their fellow-countrymen
on pretences as absurd as that of the plot of Rome
and Rheims.
Section IX. The Procedure of Martyrdom.
The reader will notice that the martyrdoms of
the missionary priests, owing to the uniformity of
the laws under which they suffered, were in many
INTRODUCTION
things similar one to another. It will be worth
while to enumerate these points of likeness, for they
will show us how the different lives may be profitably
compared and contrasted one with another.
Of the life previous to the arrest we know too
often very little beyond the entries in the college
registers, which give us the dates of arrival,
departure, and the receipt of Holy Orders. The
life on the mission was in those days passed in
secrecy. It is rare that we know any details what-
ever about it. The martyr does not generally come
under observation until his arrest. This might take
place in a great variety of ways. Frequently, in
later times generally, it was the result of a syste-
matic search, which might be carried out by a
considerable force, 1 and might sometimes last for
several days. 2 Other arrests were due to the merest
chance. Hanse was suspected because he was
wearing French boots. 3 Briant was taken during
a search made for Father Persons. 4 The identity
of Lawrence Richardson was mistaken until his
death. 5 Others were captured at posts of special
danger. Kirby and Cottam (the latter under
peculiarly interesting circumstances) at landing ; 6
Sherwin while preaching ; 7 Hanse, Lacey, and
Kirkman while visiting prisoners. 8 When arrested
the victim was searched, often to the very skin, 9
robbed of all he possessed, 10 and led off to prison
1 Pp. 5, 212. ! P. 338.
3 P. 249. * P. 402. 5 P. 532.
6 Pp. 502, 542. 7 p. 380. 8 Pp. 252, 570, 637.
9 P. 213. " Pp. 242, 436, 638.
INTRODUCTION
with some demonstration of triumph. Campion
and his companions had their faces to their horses'
tails, and on his hat was the placard, " Campion,
the seditious Jesuit." l
After committal the prisoners were fettered,
sometimes amongst the felons in the common gaol. 2
It is recorded in several instances that the martyrs
welcomed these insignia of Christ with notable pride
and contentment. 3 The chains were sometimes
doubled, sometimes fastened down, sometimes so
galling that the hand had to be used to relieve the
weight, sometimes used as means by which the poor
sufferer might be " tugged and lugged " from one
place to another. 4 Amongst the miseries of prison
are mentioned thirst, nakedness, starvation, depriva-
tion of beds, confinement in darkness, in underground
dungeons, amongst rats, and over stinking drains. 5
For " refusing to uncover when heretics said grace
at table, Woodhouse was set in the stocks." 6
Under Henry VIII. the treatment had been more
cruel still. Blessed Edward Powell complained
that his keeper " was not content to set me in the
chain, but now he hath taken from me my own bed,
and hath tied me so that I cannot lie down on the
boards, but am hanged in the collar, and do lie in
the stocks with gyves on my legs." 7
1 Pp- 339. 35 6 - n - 5-
2 PP- 217, 539, 593-
J Pp. 196, 383, 384, 572.
4 Pp. 197, 257, 406, 612.
5 Pp. 240, 242, 243, 403, 404, 406, 409, 483, 531, 587, Gil.
6 P. 190.
7 Vol. I. p. 493. Cases of death while in prison occur pp. 159,
176, 646.
INTRODUCTION
Then came the examinations. Though chiefly
directed to the inculpation of others, it was also a
primary object to draw from the prisoner evidence
tending to his own incrimination. Examinations
were generally repeated more than once, and torture
was frequently applied to "bolt out" 1 evidence,
which the victim wished to withhold, or was
suspected of withholding. The torture generally
consisted of the rack, 2 sometimes of Skevington's
irons, popularly called "The Scavenger's Daughter." 3
The only rack we read of was that in the Tower of
London, and it does not seem to have been used
without the order of the Privy Council. 4 The
torture of Briant by needles 5 is a solitary case;
perhaps the idea was borrowed from the procedure
against witches. Blows are not often mentioned. 6
Hanse is reported to have been hung up by the feet.
Whilst on this topic it may not be amiss to add
that, atrocious as these tortures were, we must not
be too superlative in our denunciations of the
persecutor for using them. It must be remembered
that the manners of the times were very hard and
very rough, that torture was in use in most, if not
in all other countries, and that it was here employed
seldom, except during certain outbursts of savagery.
What aggravated the abuse was that the English
law clearly forbade it altogether ; and that English-
men were even then naturally inclined to humanity,
and not liable to fits of violent anger, to scares, to
1 Pp. 6, 404. J Pp. 6, 242, 385, 404, 433, 447, 467, 483.
3 Pp. 385. 386, 507, 550. * Pp. 5, 75, 340, 343, 404, 433, 483.
5 P. 406. 6 Pp. 198, 254, 550.
INTRODUCTION
morbid fanaticism, which have general!)' occasioned
the application of torture abroad. Nor had public
feeling been brutalized by prolonged war or any
pressing danger of it. The tortures were applied
calmly by the Privy Council warrant, in order to
win evidence that would bolster up the monstrous
fiction that the Catholics were traitors by reason of
their religion. The worst crime of the Elizabethan
persecutors was their hypocrisy.
After the examination by the civil magistrates
came the disputations with the Protestant ministers.
In the cases here recorded the victory remained with
the priests, but the harsh treatment of the martyrs
was sometimes aggravated through their successes. 1
In one case the meeting leads to an increase of
humanity, in another to a conversion. 2 From time
to time the martyrs were dragged to Protestant
sermons, or had to be present at prayers, to which
they offered such opposition as they could. 3
In ordinary course the trial would then follow.
Up to the end of the time covered by this volume
there was no statute under which missionaries as
such could be executed, 4 and in order to put them
to death it was necessary to concoct some bogus
plot, as for Hanse, Payne, Campion, and his
companions, or else to maintain that acceptance of
Orders and Jurisdiction from the Pope and still
more the reconciling of others to the Church was
equivalent to a renunciation of fealty to the Queen,
and the seduction of her subjects from their
i P. 515. 2 Pp. 341, 612. 3 Pp. 189, 386, 508, 551.
4 Pp. 438, 574, 641.
INTRODUCTION
allegiance. 1 The latter point was legalized by the
statute of 23 Elizabeth, 1581, but the former did not
become the law until 1585.
As to the use of evidence the fuller account we
have of Campion's trial is interesting. It seems that
more than usual pains were taken in this case to
produce proofs of guilt, but the futility of the
testimony adduced is remarkable. 2
Another noteworthy point is the use of con-
fessions or self-accusations. Sherwood, for instance,
was questioned by his judges, whether, if the excom-
munication of Elizabeth was valid, she was deposed;
and being forced to speak by every means that
tyranny could employ, including the rack, had
uttered an affirmative answer, which, however, he
immediately begged to retract. It was not pretended
that he was in the habit of uttering or disseminating
these opinions, but the solitary fact of his having
uttered them at that definite time and place before
the Commissioners was objected to him as treason,
a capital offence, and for it he was executed. 3 This
case, with that of Nelson and Hanse,* seem to
stand by themselves. As a rule the confession was
treated not as treason in itself, but as evidence for
something else (say for priesthood, or reconciling to
the Church), which was accounted a mortal offence.
After condemnation the severities of imprison-
ment were often increased, 5 and it seems to have been
1 Pp- 254. 574. 5 8 5. 592, 616.
2 Pp. 389, 437, 484, 509, and especially the case of Cottarn,
551554-
3 P. 246, compared with Acts of English Martyrs, pp. 14, 17.
4 Pp. 226, 254, 257. 5 Pp. 419, 454, 493, 510.
C II.
INTRODUCTION
a common thing for the prisoners to be thrown into
the low and foul dungeon called " Limbo " before
they were executed. 1 Catholic friends occasionally
managed to send in letters, and even the means to
say Mass. 2 It was rare that such things were done
in the Tower, or even in Newgate, but Elizabeth's
officials were almost always open to bribes, and
in the smaller and less severe prisons, e.g., the Fleet
or the Clink, some alleviation seems to have been
generally obtainable. Only in the case of Storey
do we read of a priest being admitted to prepare
a dying man to meet his doom. 3
We now come to a matter somewhat difficult to
explain, a method of defaming victims which was
afterwards regularly know T n as that of "the bloody
question." To understand it one must bear in mind
that, while our martyrs were freely accused of being
traitors, when they were tried for such charges,
however slight and one-sided the inquiry might be,
their innocence of treason was always more manifest
than before. An attempt was therefore made to
draw from them some expression of opinion which
would cause an outcry against them, and under its
cover to proceed to their actual execution. They
were plied with catch questions, the first of which
would be more or less in this form : " Would you
not accept freedom for yourself and your Church if
you could ? " The examinee was bound to answer
this in the affirmative, under pain of condemning
himself as irrational. Then came the insidious
1 Pp. 229, 587. A " pit " is described pp. 408, 409, and n.
2 Pp. 415, 422. 3 Pp. 83, 8C.
INTRODUCTION
sequel, " Would you accept it from a Papal
force ? "
Then there was no escape from offending the
prejudices both of the Queen and of the Puritan
mob. It was no use to say that you would fight
against the Pope when he was the unjust aggressor,
for the Puritans considered him as Antichrist,
always to be resisted, and Elizabeth held that
neither the Church nor conscience had any liberties
which could be justly defended against her.
This insidious test was applied to seven of our
martyrs under the form of the six questions. 1 The
last of these was, " If the Pope, or any other, by his
authoritie doe invade this realme, which part ought
a good subject of England to take ? " The martyrs
answered, that when the circumstances should
occur, they would do what should be right, or what
other good Catholics did, &c., and their execution was
proceeded with. The iniquity lay, not in putting an
awkward question to a religious opponent, but in
putting it with a murderous intent. That one con-
troversialist intent on victory should ask another
the most invidious questions he can think of, will
cause no one any wonder. But to compel your
controversial adversary to give an answer satisfactory
to yourself, and to kill him if he fails, this is gross
tyranny. The course of the Elizabethan perse-
cutors was hardly a whit less iniquitous. They
condemned their victims to death without reason,
but spared those whose replies on an irrelevant
controversial question seemed satisfactory to them-
1 Pp. 449452.
INTRODUCTION
selves. That such irrelevant matters should have
been raised at all, was an obvious violation of the
course of justice, and was, as such, eloquently
denounced by Campion. 1
For, whereas the martyrs were put to death on
a definite charge of treason, these questions were
intended, not to test their fealty, but to obscure it,
and to ensure that the fanatical crowd, who heard
the answers read from the gallows, should mis-
understand their case and drown the voices of
sympathizers by clamours for their blood. 2
The martyrs' last chance of life being lost by
their answers to "the bloody question," they were
in time led out to die. The warrant for those
confined in the Tower had to be signed, it is said,
by the Queen, and a singular rumour connected
with this is recorded at p. 449. They were drawn
to the gallows upon a hurdle or a sledge, 3 to which
they were pinioned, two on one hurdle when there
were several to be executed at the same time. 4
A prominent feature in the cortege was the Pro-
testant parson, whose rude disputativeness was
doubtless intended to prevent the dying priests from
speaking or praying with peace. 5 Friends, however,
could also now approach, and during the via dolorosa
sometimes tried to speak or make signs to them. 6
1 P. 452.
2 For further discussion of these topics, see pp: 342 344, 449,
450.
3 Pp. 9 (hurdle or dray), 85 (sledge), 219, 231, 351, 454, 459,
57 6 - 587. 594. 628, 645.
4 Pp. 393- 597-
5 Pp. 8, 471, 590, 614, 630, &c.
6 Pp. 351, 454 (mutual confession), 576.
INTRODUCTION
Arrived at the gallows they were stripped to their
shirts, in order that the quartering might be pro-
ceeded with more easily afterwards.
They then ascended the cart, when the execu-
tions were at the London Tyburn. Here there
were not one but three cross-pieces, fastened in a
triangle, each angle supported on an upright about
twelve feet high. This " pair of gallows made in
triangular manner " had been put up new to give
solemnity to the execution of Storey. 1 Nooses were
tied to the cross-beams, and the person to be
hanged was driven in the cart under the noose
intended for him. When it had been fastened
round his throat, the cart was driven away. 2 After
the Assizes in those brutal times sixteen to twenty
corpses were often left hanging on the same day
from " Tyburn tree." At the smaller places of
execution, away from London, the martyr mounted
a ladder, while the rope was being fastened, then
the ladder was turned, or he thrown off it.
A good deal of speaking generally took place
between the fastening of the rope, and the drive off
of the cart. On occasion of the martyrdoms of
the 3Oth of May, 1582, Sheriff Martin offered pardon
to any who would conform, but this was rarely
done in explicit terms. These offers, however, were
inspired not by clemency, but by the desire to throw
upon the sufferers the responsibility for their own
deaths. In the same spirit, they were regularly
asked "at least" to beg the Queen's forgiveness.
This the martyrs ever refused to do, 3 and the refusal
i P. 85. 2 Pp. 93, 472, &c. J Pp. 10, 198, 440, 469, &c.
INTRODUCTION
was held by the worshippers of royalty to be in
itself arrant treason, though the dying men, even
with their last breath, made striking declarations of
their loyalty to the Queen. 1 Then the martyr would
be expected by the people to make a speech. Some-
times he did so, sometimes the officials interfered.
At last he was generally left some minutes to pray,
but if he used the Latin prayers so familiar to
Catholic priests, the ministers and people would cry
to him to pray in English. 2 The last words used
by the martyrs are wonderfully devout and full of
significance. In later times, they more frequently
murmured the Jesu Psalter, and the custom is obser-
vable also in the Lives now under consideration. 3
The final butchery was too hideous to describe. In
one case the quartering was dispensed with, 4 but in
others the last tortures even exceeded the severity
of the sentence. 5
After the martyrdom, the quarters were set on
the city gates and the heads on London Bridge, or
other conspicuous places. The Catholics generally
succeeded in securing some of the precious relics,
often at great risk to themselves.
1 Pp. 260, 488, 496, 519, 617, &c.
2 Pp. 198, 352, 441, 457 ., 521. In the (Protestant) account
of Storey, he appears to have prayed with Protestants, p. 91.
Otherwise the martyrs were careful to pray with Catholics only,
pp. 198, 231, 232, 260, 265, 457 ., 560, 631.
3 Pp. 10, 395.
4 P. 597-
5 P. 85.
INTRODUCTION
Section X. Authorities.
Besides the ordinary references to the provenance
of quotations, there will be found at the end of each
Life a description of the authorities which especially
concern it. It will therefore only be necessary to
speak here about those general sources, a knowledge
of which has been elsewhere presumed.
The most important records for the history of
the martyrs were those originally preserved in the
Seminaries of Douay and Rome, but which are now
in great measure printed, or dispersed, or lost. The
archives of the Archbishop of Westminster and
those of Stonyhurst College contain most of the
manuscripts v/hich survive, but there are others at
Oscott, the English College, Rome, and elsewhere.
The above-mentioned records were used by
Cardinal Allen when drawing up the first martyr-
ology, which was published anonymously, under
the title Briefe Historic of twelve Reverend Priests
[Rheims, I582]. 1 This was translated into Latin,
somewhat amplified, and continued till 1585, by
Father John Bridgwater and his fellow-workers, 2
under the title Concertatio Ecclesice Anglicancz, of
which there were editions in 1583, 1588, and 1594.
This work was translated into Spanish and again
amplified and brought up to date by Fray Diego
Yepes, Jeronimite, and afterwards Bishop of Tarra-
cona, in his Historia Particular de la persecucion de
Inglaterra, 1599. 3
1 There is a copy in the British Museum (catalogued under
" Catholic Faith "), 4707, aa. 6.
2 P. 634. 3 Cf. p. 597.
xl INTRODUCTION
In the next century we have the catalogues of
Dr. Thomas Worthington (1614), and of Richard
Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon (still unpublished).
Though important for some subsequent martyrs, they
add little to our knowledge of the earlier sufferers
now under consideration. The most important of
all later writers is Bishop Challoner, whose Memoirs
of Missionary Priests [1741], is still deservedly popular
amongst us. Challoner continued the martyrology
to the end of the persecution period, and made use
of all the then known material, both printed and
manuscript, with singular accuracy and sobriety of
judgment.
Since Challoner's time a very important source
of information has become available, the Public
Record Office, which contains many original pieces
referring to our martyrs. These have been " calen-
dared," but are not yet published in full. The
Calendars for this period (in unfortunate contrast to
those for the reign of Henry VIII.) are very meagre,
and presume that the reader has access to the
original manuscripts.
Coming now to general printed sources, we have
Anthony aWood's A thence Oxonienses, not only learned,
but also noteworthy as the first attempt of a non-
Catholic to write the Lives of the Martyrs without
prejudice. Dodd's Church History is rich in material,
though its accuracy is not to be implicitly trusted.
In modern times we have the works of Mr. Richard
Simpson, who was the first to make extensive use
of the Record Office papers. 1 Mr. Joseph Gillow's
1 P. 354-
INTRODUCTION xli
Dictionary of English Catholics is indispensable to
students, and Father Richard Stanton's Menology of
England and Wales contains in brief a great deal
of information and many useful references. The
Dictionary of National Biography, notwithstanding
certain defects, is for the history of our martyrs, as
for the rest of English History, one of the most
important works of the nineteenth century. Brother
Henry Foley's voluminous Records of the English
Province of the Society of Jesus is valuable for the
large number of papers quoted and persons men-
tioned. The Records concern not Jesuits only, but
Catholics of every class.
Section XI. Writers of the Present Volume.
As the table of contents will show, the majority
of these Lives has been written by the late Father
Edward S. Keogh. The task of revising and bringing
them up to date has, as the reader will see, been
most ably discharged by the Editor, Dom Bede
Camm. His ill-health somewhat retarded the publi-
cation of the volume, and the mere fact of my having
written this Introduction in his stead (I should
add that I am also responsible for a share in the
correction of the proofs and some other collabora-
tion) is in itself an indication that his unfitness
for work was serious and prolonged. Happily a
change for the better has at last taken place, and
I may now congratulate him on his recovery.
The thoroughness of the work speaks for itself,
and will, I trust, enable it to rank as a standard
xlii INTRODUCTION
authority on the Lives of our Martyrs. When we
compare this edition of the Lives with the last
standard edition of them, that of Dr. Challoner, we
find not only that the bulk has increased five-fold,
but also that the information contained is multiplied
an even greater number of times. Every effort,
moreover, has been made to give or to indicate all
that is known about each martyr, except in the case
of Campion, where omissions were inevitable. This
task was the more difficult seeing that so much of
the material was still inedited. I will conclude by
expressing the hope in the name of all cultores
martyrum that our recently formed " Catholic Record
Society " will ere long undertake the task of bringing
out a complete collection of these valuable but
inedited papers, to which might well be added the
extremely rare and indispensable printed tracts, such
as the often quoted Brief e Historic of twelve Reverend
Priests, of which there is perhaps not a single copy
in any Catholic library.
The work is concluded by an Index the fulness
and lucidity of which will be welcome to all
readers, and especially to those who know best
what good index-work is. In their names I heartily
thank Miss Gunning, who has spent an infinity of
labour and skill in its compilation.
J. H. POLLEN, S.J.
I.
THE BLESSED JOHN FELTON.
London, St. Paul's Churchyard, 8 August, 1570.
DURING the latter part of 1569 formal proceedings
were carried on at Rome against Elizabeth. She
had undoubtedly deserved the censures of the Holy
See by her tyranny and persecution, and above
all because she had forced her realm into heresy
and had refused all communication with the
Supreme Pastor. Evidence was given against her
by Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, Maurice Clenock,
Bishop-Elect of Bangor, Dr. Nicholas Morton, pre-
bendary of York, and a number of other ecclesiastics,
and at length sentence of excommunication and
deposition was pronounced against her by the holy
Pontiff St. Pius V., and published in a Bull dated
the 25th of February, 1569-70.
Elizabeth and her ministers affected indifference
to the Pope's sentence. There is, however, quite
sufficient evidence that whatever she may have
thought of its spiritual effects, she was by no means
indifferent to its political results. In the Europe of
the sixteenth century there were still Catholic
powers who might be ready to execute the sentence
B II.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
of deposition which was in those days the corollary
of the excommunication, and the insurrection which
she had just quenched in blood was proof that a
Protestant and persecuting Government did not as
yet rest on a secure basis in England.
It is easy then to understand the sensation
created in London when, with the morning light
of Thursday, May the 25th (the feast of Corpus
Christi), 1 the Bull of Excommunication was found
fastened to the gates of the Bishop of London's
palace beside St. Paul's Cathedral. There for several
hours it was seen and read and even copied by a
great many persons.
Vigorous steps were at once taken to find out
the doer of this daring deed. A general search of
known Catholic houses in and near London was
soon rewarded by the discovery of a copy of the
Bull in the chambers of a lawyer in Lincoln's Inn,
a well-known Catholic. He was absent at the time,
but was soon secured. The methods of Elizabeth's
reign were unceremonious. He was racked without
any tedious forms of law, and under the agony
confessed that he had received the copy from his
friend, Mr. Felton. 2
1 Dixon points out that "it is curious that three dates have been
given for Felton's exploit." Strype gives March 2 ; Stow gives
May 25, and Catholic writers give June 2, Corpus Christi day.
Dixon adds, " Undoubtedly it was June," and refers to the letter of
de Guaras quoted below. (Vol. vi. p. 270.) Lingard gives May 15
as the date. Corpus Christi day in 1570 fell on May 25.
2 A Spanish agent, Don Antonio de Guaras, wrote as
follows, June 17, 1570 (Spanish Calendar, 1568 1579, p. 251) : "The
declaration of the Pope against the Queen has been posted on the
Bishop of London's gate, which has caused great sorrow to the bad
BLESSED JOHN F ELTON
The Blessed John Felton was a well-known and
wealthy Catholic. He was of a Norfolk family, but
he lived at Bermondsey Abbey, near Southwark, a
mansion built a generation before on the site and
out of the materials of a great Cluniac monastery. 1
His wife had been the playmate of the Queen, when
they were both children, and afterwards a maid of
honour to Queen Mary. He is described as a man
of short stature, dark complexion ; and an ardent
excitable temperament, stirred chiefly, as friend
and foe alike declare, by whatever touched the
interests of religion. His courage and zeal were so
well known that when it was thought desirable
that the excommunication should be published in
England he was asked to undertake the dangerous
people and much delight to the godly, who are convinced that as a
consequence of it, a redress for their evils will follow by the arms
of Christian Princes, since this declaration can only have been made
by the consent of such Princes, and especially of his Majesty. The
first results of the declaration had been the persecution and
imprisonment of Catholics ; but the Council finding them constant,
and that some people of position were passing over to Spain and
Flanders to escape the ban of His Holiness, the Queen had ordered
that the Catholics should not be persecuted for their religion. This
however was only the result of fear, as her heart is much corrupted,
and she herself had answered the Pope's declaration in Latin verse,
scoffing at the apostolic authority, saying that the boat of St. Peter
should never enter a port of hers, and other heresies of a like
nature."
1 The monastery was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir Robert
Southwell in 1541. He sold it to Sir Thomas Pope, who threw
down the church and part of the monastery and built the mansion,
and then re-sold it to Sir Robert Southwell in 1555. It does not
appear whether it had become Blessed John Felton's property. But
later it belonged to the Earl of Sussex, who was living there in 1578
and died there in 1583. (Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. v. p. 93.)
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
task. His daughter, in a MS. relation 1 still extant,
declares that "the danger of such an employment
which he took for an act of virtue, daunted him not
a whit. Whereupon promising his best endeavours
in that behalf, he had the Bull delivered him at
Calais, and after the receipt thereof came presently
to London, where being assisted with one Lawrence
Webb, 2 doctor of the civil and Canon Laws, the five
and twentieth day of May, 1570, betwixt two and
three of the clock in the morning he set it upon the
gate of the Bishop of London his palace." Sander 3
tells us that his companion he does not name him,
for he wrote in the following year, and it would not
have been prudent entreated him at once to fly
from the country as he was about to do himself;
but Felton refused ; the grace of martyrdom was
stirring within him, and he declared that by God's
grace he was ready for whatever might happen.
The trial of his constancy was not long delayed.
At an early hour, on the morning after his friend's
racking, the neighbourhood was roused by the clang
of arms and the tramp of soldiers. The abbey was
1 This MS. is preserved in the Archives of the see of West-
minster, vol. ii. p. 3. It is headed, Ex relatione D. Francisco Salisburiz
filia ipsius Martyris, accepta ab ejus ore per G. Ferrarum, Presb. an. 1627.
An English translation of the document has been printed in
Pollen's Acts of English Martyrs, pp. 208 212.
2 Dr. Webb was ordained priest in Queen Mary's reign. On
Elizabeth's accession he went abroad and was one of the most
respected of the exiles. He was for many years professor of Moral
Theology and Sacred Ceremonies at Douay and Rheims, and after
keeping his full jubilee of priesthood, died at Douay, January 14,
1608. (Dodd, ii. p. 382.)
3 De Visibili Monarchia, p. 734. (ist Edition.)
BLESSED JOHN F ELTON
quickly surrounded by five hundred halberdiers,
with their officers, headed by the Lord Chief
Justice, the Lord Mayor, and the two Sheriffs.
The martyr and his wife, drawn to a window by
the noise of the armed men, saw them preparing
to break in the gate. Mrs. Felton fell down in a
swoon, but the brave and courteous gentleman
called to them from the window " to have patience,
saying he knew they came for him, and he would
come down unto them," which he did, himself
opening the door, and bidding them welcome. He
was immediately arrested, and remained a prisoner
nearly three months. Both at his apprehension
and at his trial 1 he said he would save all further
trouble by acknowledging that it was he who had
posted up the Bull, and also that as he held the
Pope to be the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, if
it really came from him it ought to be duly
venerated. But in spite of his open acknowledg-
ment of the act, he was three times racked with the
vain hope of extracting from him admissions which
might compromise others.
The entry of the Council Order for his torture
is as follows : 2
" 25th Jun>s, 1570.
" A letter to Sir Thomas Wroth and others, her
Majesty's Commissioners for the examination of
the Bull. Where by their letters it appeareth that
John Felton being charged by William Mellowes
both for the having of the printed Bull and speech
1 Sander, ibid. 2 Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, vol. vii. p. 373.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
also with the Spanish Ambassador he utterly denieth
it and will in no wise confess the truth. For the
boulting out of the truth thereof their Lordships
think it convenient that he be delivered to the
Lieutenant of the Tower, 1 whereby he may be
brought to the place of torture and so put in fear
thereof. And if they shall perceive him to be
obstinate and will in no wise confess that which is
to be demanded of him, that then to spare not to
lay him upon it, to the end he may feel such smart
and pains thereof as to their discretion shall be
thought convenient." 2
A period of over two months followed, during
which every effort was made to " boult out " the
truth about his communications with the Spanish
Ambassador, Don Guerau de Spes. 3
But it is clear that nothing was discovered which
would enable Elizabeth's Government to treat our
martyr as a merely political offender. We can
see this from the pamphlets published under their
inspiration, which show that the motives for con-
1 From this it appears that at first he was confined in some
other prison, probably Newgate, as it was there he was taken after
his trial.
2 Yet Dixon (vol. vi. p. 273) says that the story of his racking
"seems improbable. Felton owned the fact, then why should he
have been put on the rack to extort a further confession ?" &c. It is
strange that the historian should have overlooked this letter.
3 He must not be confounded with the agent Antonio de Guaras.
The latter was a banker or merchant living in England, who
corresponded with the Duke of Alba, and after the expulsion of the
Ambassador in December, 1571, was instructed to look after Spanish
interests informally. See Hume's Introduction to Spanish Calendar
(1568 1579), p. xxxviii.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
demning him to death were mainly religious.
Moreover, we have now access to a considerable
number of the Spanish Ambassador's papers, and
from these it is clear that Felton had nothing to do
with the procuring of the Bull, or with any con-
spiracy against the Government.
It is evident too that he was not animated by
any personal ill-will to the Queen, but solely with
the desire that justice should be done against the
fautors of heresy. His motives and his action were
in accordance with the ideas that had so long been
current in Europe, and which were still held, even
in England, by men who did not dare to confess
tljeir opinions.
It is pretty certain that Felton received the
Bull from Ridolfi. This man was subsequently
involved in intrigues of a secret and not very com-
mendable character, but it is clear that these
intrigues were the result of Elizabeth's cruel perse-
cution of the Catholics, and not in any sense the
occasion, and still less the justification of her
repressive measures. Nor is there the least ground
for supposing that Felton was implicated in any
blame which Ridolfi may really deserve. The nego-
tiations which have brought discredit on the latter
took place in Spain, a year after our martyr's death. 1
1 See Father Pollen's article in The Month, February, 1902.
Dixon says that the Bull was received or brought from abroad by
Peter Berga, the chaplain of Don Guerau de Spes, the Spanish
Ambassador, who was by birth a Catalan and prebendary of
Tarragona. Gabutio (Vita Pii Quinti, p. 104) says that it got into
England through Ridolfi, from whom Felton, among others, got
a copy, and that many were put to death for making copies of it.
(Dixon, vi. pp. 270 and 272, note.)
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
His trial took place on Friday, August the 4th,
at the Guildhall. There could be no doubt about
the result, for he openly acknowledged the act with
which he was charged. But he took advantage of
the occasion to make public declaration of his faith
in the Supremacy of the Holy See, or in the
language of the persecutors, " most traitorously
denied the Queen's Supremacy with other heinous
and traitorous words against the Queen's Majesty,
not worthy to be rehearsed." 1
His martyrdom was consummated on the
following Tuesday, August the 8th. 2 The peace
of his last hours was invaded by." two or three godly
and learned preachers," who tormented him to the
best of their power with "divers good and learned
arguments as well out of divers and sundry places
of the Scriptures, as also out of the ancient
Fathers, the doctors of the Church." Remem-
bering his natural character, we can imagine what
an ordeal this must have been for his patience. The
preachers reported that " he answered arrogantly,"
and when, no doubt, wearied out, he gave over
answering them, they, or the author of the pamphlet
from which we are quoting, say that " being over-
1 " The End and Confession of John Felton, the rank traitor, u-ho set
up the traitorous Bull on the Bishop of London's gate. Who suffered,
before the same gate, for High Treason against the Queen's Majesty, the
8th day of August, 1570. By J. Partridge, Imprinted at London,
by Rd. Johnes and Tho. Colwill, 1570." Reprinted in Cobbett's
State Trials, vol. i. 1086.
2 " The day and the hour of the execution were unusual ones
for fear of the people," wrote Antonio de Guaras. (Spanish Calendar,
p. 267.)
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
come, he could say no more." Then they took him
to task for his "treasons," and then came another
preacher or disputant, who " willed him to remember
himself and put his trust in Christ's death, and
thereby only hope to be saved." And again he
" answered arrogantly that he believed the ancient
and Catholic faith, which the Sovereign Pontiff hath
ever defended, and that whosoever believed any
other faith or held any other opinion it was most
wicked and erroneous."
At length the hour appointed for his martyrdom
freed him from the persecution of the preachers.
As he came down the steps of his prison to the
hurdle on which he was to be laid, he found a crowd
of people assembled. Imprisonment and racking
had not cowed his manly courage, nor cooled his
zeal for God's cause, and no one who saw him come
out in his satin doublet, and with his bold step,
would have imagined he was going to a cruel death.
Before lying down upon the hurdle, he took off his
doublet, and then, addressing the people, told them
" he was going to die for the Catholic faith and
because he acknowledged the Primacy of the
Sovereign Pontiff and denied the pretended Queen
to be the supreme head of the Church." Then he
was bound upon the hurdle or dray, on which, with
many a rude bump, and covered with the thick dust
and mud of the bad roads, he was drawn to the
place of execution. On the way he recited aloud
the Penitential Psalms. As they turned into
St. Paul's Churchyard, they came in view of the
scaffold which had been erected for the martyrdom.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
It was placed facing the Bishop of London's gates,
on which Blessed John had posted the Apostolic
sentence, not out of party spirit or reckless bravado,
but as an act of religious and filial devotion to the
Church of Christ and His Vicar, and clearly fore-
seeing the peril of the forfeit he was now about to
pay. On the scaffold were arrayed all the instru-
ments of the butchery that was to be done : the
grim gallows, the fire into which his bowels were to
be cast before his eyes, the butcher's knife that was
to do its cruel work upon his body, the cauldron in
which his limbs were to be half-boiled, and the
quartering-block.
At the sight of these ghastly preparations there
came over the blessed martyr a trial specially
humiliating and grievous to a brave man, the
unwonted sense of fear and quailing of the heart.
Our Blessed Lord was pleased to endure it for the
encouragement and consolation of His servants
ccepit pavere et tcedere, 1 He began to fear and to be
heavy, and perhaps He allowed Blessed John to
experience it in order that his sacrifice might not
be lessened by his natural fearlessness. At any rate,
he was able quickly to shake it off, and crying
to himself, " What is this, art thou afraid of
death ? " he pointed to the Bishop's gate, and said
aloud as if contented that his work was done, " The
Sovereign Pontiff's letters against the pretended
Queen were duly exhibited there, and now I am
prepared to die for the Catholic Faith." Some of
the bystanders called upon him to ask the Queen's
1 St. Mark xiv. 33.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
forgiveness. " I have done her no injury," he
answered, "but if I have injured any one, I ask
for forgiveness of him, and for the matter of that
of the whole world." And then to show that no
bitterness lurked in his heart against her, he took
from his fingers a precious diamond which he was
accustomed to wear, valued at 400 of the money of
that day, and gave it to the Earl of Sussex, who
was present, to be delivered to the Queen from
him.
He then knelt and recited the Miserere, and
rising, went up the ladder. As he pronounced the
words, In manus tiias Domine commendo spiritum
meum, he was thrown off. The hangman was
inclined to spare him by leaving him hanging till
he was dead, but the Sheriff insisted on his being
immediately cut down so that he might undergo
the rest of the sentence whilst yet alive ; and his
daughter relates that while Bull the executioner had
his hand on his heart to tear it out he twice called
on the holy Name of Jesus.
The martyr's constancy is the prevailing idea in
a very hostile ballad published fifteen days after his
death, from which we learn a characteristic incident
of his trial.
Oh ! traitorous heart, oh martyr vile
Such martyrs nowadays
Would fain be made to mortar thin
To stop the hollow ways.
He never once relented this
Not once before his death
But as malicious traitor he
On gallows gave his breath.
BLESSED JOHN FELTON
Where, as he said in midst Guild Hall
Before the judgment seat
That they might well his body take
But more could never get. l
His property, chiefly in plate and jewels, valued
at 33,000, was confiscated to the Queen, who
however was so far mindful of her old regard for
the widow, as graciously to license her by letters
patent to have a priest in her house as long as
she lived. So writes his daughter Frances, who
afterwards married a Mr. Salisbury, in her Relation
above referred to. We find mention of one other
child, Thomas, who was at the time of his father's
death a child of but three years old, and who
afterwards became a Friar Minim, and, following his
father's footsteps, shed his blood for the Faith.
Bishop Challoner did not number Blessed John
Felton amongst the martyrs whose lives he wrote,
looking upon the act for which he died as belonging
to the political rather than the religious order. The
truer judgment of the martyr's own time placed him,
under the sanction of Pope Gregory XIII., with the
Blessed Fisher and More, Mayne and Campion and
their companions, on the walls of St. Thomas de
Urbe; and that judgment has been confirmed by
the Decree of 1886. It is not necessary to go into
the question of the excommunication or the deposi-
tion of Elizabeth in order to defend his rights to
1 "A pithy note to Papists all, and some that joy in Felton' s
martirdome ; desiring them to read and to judge, and not in spite at simple
truth to grudge, &c. Imprinted at London, at the long shop adjoining
unto St. Mildred's Church, in the Pultrie, the xxiii of August, by
John Allde." See Registers of the Stationers' Company, 1570 1587.
BLESSED JOHN F ELTON 13
the martyr's crown. He shed his blood for the
prerogatives of Christ's Vicar, and not merely to
bear witness to the truth of his supreme authority,
but to secure that his Apostolic voice should be
heard and his Apostolic judgment made known
amongst his English flock. Death endured for that
cause was true martyrdom.
E. S. K. and ED.
AUTHORITIES. The chief sources for the history of
Blessed John Felton are the MS. account by his daughter,
Mistress Frances Salisbury, and the account by Sander in
his work, De Visibili Monarchia Ecclesia, 1571. These have
been referred to in the text. The latter has been reprinted
by Bridgewater, Concertatio (1589), fol. 41 B 43 A, and trans-
lated into Spanish by Bishop Yepes, Historia particular (1599),
pp. 288 291.
The Protestant pamphlets also, referred to above, in the
main confirm the Catholic accounts of the martyr's firmness
and constancy. Felton is of course continually referred to by
contemporary writers and controversialists on either side.
See also Stow's Chronicle, p. 667. Among modern writers the
reader may consult Lingard (v. p. 120), Dixon (vi. p. 270), and
Mr. Cooper's account in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Few details however will be found that are not included in
this life.
II.
THE BLESSED JOHN STOREY.
Tyburn, i June, 1571.
THE BLESSED JOHN STOREY'S life has many points
of resemblance with that of Blessed Thomas More.
Like More, Storey was a layman and a married man,
and yet both were attached by close bonds to an
ancient Religious Order ; like More, Storey was an
Oxonian, and shed lustre on his University both by
his learning and his saintliness ; like More, Storey
adopted the legal profession, and rose to great
eminence in it, and like More, our martyr had to
suffer (though to a still greater degree) from the
posthumous attacks of Foxe and other Protestant
writers for his alleged cruelty to the heretics.
John Storey was born about the year 1504^ and
was the son of Nicholas Storey and Joan his wife.
It is almost certain that he was a member of a
family settled in Northumberland and Durham, 2
and was connected with the Selby family.
Antony a Wood says he became a Franciscan
1 Mr. Pollard in the Dictionary of National Biography gives the
date of his birth as 1510 ; but the martyr at his death said he was
sixty-seven.
- Surtees, Durham, i. p. 233. Cf. Douay Diaries, p. 73.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 15
lay-brother, 1 and this has been repeated in the
Dictionary of National Biography, but if it is true, he
cannot have remained long with the Grey Friars.
We think it is more probable that what is meant is
that he became a Tertiary of the Order. At any
rate he " was educated in philosophical learning and
in the rudiments of the civil law in an ancient hostel
for civilians called Hinksey Hall, in St. Aldate's
parish in Oxford." He graduated B.C.L. the 8th
of May, 1531, and made such progress in his legal
studies that he quickly became " the most noted
civilian and canonist of his time." When Henry
VIII. 's commissioners in 1535 established certain
lectures in the University, they appointed John
Storey to read that of the civil law, and in 1537
he was elected Principal of Broadgates Hall, now
Pembroke College.
On the 2gth of July, 1538, he graduated D.C.L., 2
and in 1539, on resigning his position at Broad-
gates Hall, he was admitted advocate of Doctors'
Commons.
The state of religion in England at the time was
so disturbed, with the King in open rebellion against
the spiritual authority of the Holy See, changing
the ancient sacred customs, suppressing and destroy-
ing the monasteries, pillaging the churches, and
slaying those who remained faithful to the cause of
God, that Storey, who had desired to be a priest,
1 Athen. Oxon. (Edit. Bliss), i. p. 387. We follow a Wood for the
details of Storey's early life. The Franciscan historians are silent
as to Storey's connection with the Order.
2 Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 164.
1 6 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
felt that it would be better and safer for him to serve
God as a layman. He therefore, in course of time,
married a young lady named Joan Watts, whose
fidelity and love were to prove a support and con-
solation to him during his troubled life, and to be
gratefully and tenderly remembered at the hour of
his cruel death.
At present however all smiled on him. Though
always an ardent Catholic at heart, he went so far
with the times, as to take the Oath of Supremacy
exacted by the laws of Henry VIII. This fall of his
was bitterly lamented all his life, and as we shall
see, he considered that it could never be fully
expiated, save by the shedding of his blood.
In 1544 he was summoned to Boulogne, which
was being besieged by the English, who in conjunc-
tion with the Emperor Charles V. were at war with
France. His services were required there however
not as a warrior, but as a lawyer. He is said to have
performed " such excellent service in the adminis-
tration of the civil law under the Lord Marshal
there, that the King in consideration thereof did
renew his former grant of the said lecture by letters
patent for the term of his natural life." In other
words, he was confirmed in his office of Regius
Professor of Civil Law in the University of Oxford,
and he was the first to hold that high position. At
the same time an assistant in the work was given
him in the person of Mr. Robert Weston, who later
on became also his son-in-law. 1
As he was not only a distinguished lawyer and
1 Le Neve, iii.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 17
scholar, but also a most eloquent and persuasive
speaker, he speedily found his way into the House
of Commons, of which he became one of the leading
members. So weighty, and at the same time winning,
were his speeches in the House, that Sander tells
us he was considered by every one facile princeps
among the members. 1
The time was coming when he would have to
stand out from among them as a defender of the
Catholic faith.
Storey sat as member for Hindon in Wiltshire
in the first Parliament of Edward VI. At first he
seems to have remained on good terms with the new
Government, for on the igth of November, 1548,
the Privy Council gave the Treasurer " warrant to
continue payment to John Storey of his annuite for
reading of the Cyvile Lecture in Oxenford, and to
pay him tharerages [the arrears] of the same." 2
But the storm was just about to burst. Only
five days later, on November the 24th, Parliament
assembled for its second session. Its principal
business was to sanction the changes of creed and
ceremonial which Cranmer had long been maturing
and now at last ventured to bring forward. The
old King was gone, and there remained no barrier
against the tide of heresy which threatened to over-
flow the land. A new English Liturgy was to be
1 Sander, De Visibili Monarchia, lib. 7. This is quoted in full
in the Concertatio of Bridgewater, Edit. 1589, fol. 43, &c., and also
in Spanish in Bishop Yepes' Historia particular (1599), p. 291, &c.
Sander was a friend of Storey.
2 Acts of the Privy Council,- ii. 229.
C II.
i8 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
substituted for the ancient service-books of the
Catholic Church, the awful Sacrifice of the Body
and Blood of our Lord was to be abolished from
the land, and heresy as well as schism were to be
forced on a reluctant nation.
It was now that Storey stood forth as the
champion of the ancient faith, with a courage and
fervour which were but too rare in the times of
Tudor tyranny. The Act of Uniformity was not
brought forward until the yth of January, 1548-9 ;
but the new Prayer Book of which the Act was the
sanction must have been laid before the House at
the beginning of the Session. It naturally gave rise
to heated discussions in both Houses, and in the
Lower, our martyr distinguished himself by the
learning and constancy with which he opposed its
heretical novelties. 1
The great point at issue between the Catholic
and the Protestant party was of course the doctrine
of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. " On the
passing of the Act in the session of 1547 for com-
munion in both kinds, a service had been put out
in which the Catholic doctrine was maintained
substantially intact ; but heresy and orthodoxy
changed places rapidly, and among the reforming
clergy Lutheranism was fast disappearing. . . .
' On the I4th of December,' Bartholomew Traheron
wrote to Bullinger, ' a disputation was held on the
Eucharist in the presence of almost the whole
1 For a learned and exhaustive estimate of this book, its history
and origin, see Gasquet and Bishop, The first Prayerbook of Edward
VI.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 19.
nobility ; the battle was sharply fought by the
bishops ; Canterbury, contrary to expectation,
maintained your opinion (the Zwinglian) ; truth
never obtained a brighter victory. ..." ' Every
day,' wrote Peter Martyr, ' the question is dis-
cussed among the Lords, with such disputing of
bishops as was never heard ; the Commons throng-
ing the Lords' galleries to hear the arguments.' " l
Among those who hung upon these debates with the
most painful interest was our martyr.
When the Bill was introduced in the House
of Commons, he spoke out boldly against it.
He revolted against the indecent haste with which
Cranmer and his colleagues were destroying the
old religion, in the name of an infant Sovereign.
" Woe to thee, O land," he cried, in the words of
holy writ, " Woe to thee, O land, whose King is a
child." 2 This speech seems to have been delivered
at the time of the third reading of the bill that
established the English liturgy, on the 2ist of
January, 1548-9. The freedom with which he
spoke gave such offence, that the House decreed
that he should be committed a prisoner to the
custody of the Sergeant. 3 The journal of the House
repeated the order next day, and on the next, articles
of accusation were read against him. It was
ordered on the following day that he should be
committed a prisoner to the Tower. His wife
soon afterwards presented a petition to the House
1 Froude, iv. pp. 385, 386. 2 Eccles. x. 16.
3 Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. p. 6. Cf. Hallam, i. 365
(1827 Edit.).
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
in his favour, which was referred to the Protector.
On February the 2Oth we find that letters from
Storey in the Tower were read in the House.
These were probably not deemed satisfactory, for it
is not till March the 2nd that we find in the journal
an entry of a letter from Mr. Storey with his sub-
mission. An order immediately follows that "the
King's Privy Council in the nether house shall
humbly declare unto the lord protector's grace that
the resolution of the house is that Mr. Storey shall
be enlarged and at liberty, out of prison ; and to
require the King's majesty to forgive him his
offences in this case towards his majesty and his
council." 1
The case has attracted attention because it is
the first recorded instance of a member's commit-
ment by order of the House. "It is also remarkable,"
says Hallam, " that the Commons by their sole
authority should commit their burgess first to their
own officer and next to the Tower, and that upon
his submission they inform the Protector of their
resolution to discharge him out of custody, recom-
mending him to forgiveness as to his offence against
the council, which, as they must have been aware,
the privilege of Parliament as to words spoken
within its walls . . . would extend to cover."
The Act of Uniformity of course passed, as
Storey, in spite of his brave resistance, must have
foreseen that it would. To use Sander's significant
words : " There was no other way to the plundering
of the chalices, the silver pixes, the crucifixes, the
1 Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. p. 9.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
ewers and other sacred vessels, the candlesticks of
silver and of brass, the sacred vestments of woven
gold, the silk banners, the money given for the pro-
vision of wax, oil and everything else used in the
worship of God. And lastly, it was the only excuse
to give for seizing upon the money and lands given
for the maintenance of that worship, and for con-
verting them into profane uses of private persons." 1
" The magnitude of the innovation," writes
Froude, " can now with difficulty be appreciated
when the novelty of the sixteenth century has in its
turn been consecrated by time. Of the strange
features of the change the strangest was perhaps
that the official opinion of Convocation was scarcely
asked even in form. Parliament now discussed
the faith of England, and laymen decided on the
doctrine which the clergy were compelled to
teach."' 2
If we may trust Dodd's account, Storey after
purging himself from his contempt on his knees
before the House, retired to the country, where
" he appeared very forward in opposing all inno-
vations, and hindering the people in his neighbour-
hood from plundering and making a prey of the
goods of the Church ; to which purpose (being a
justice of the peace) he made a very warm harangue
at one of the quarterly meetings. This behaviour
being carried to Court, he was severely threatened,
and soon after obliged to withdraw into Flanders,
where he remained the rest of King Edward VI. 's
1 Sander, Anglican Schism (Edit. 1877), p. 173.
3 History of England, vol. iv. p. 382.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
reign." 1 Whether this be so or not, certain it is
that he soon found that England under the present
regime was no place for him, and he retired into
exile to a land where the exercise of the Catholic
religion was not prohibited, and where he could
assist freely at the Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass.
He was warmly welcomed at Louvain, where
he took up his abode, and at once became a
member of that distinguished University. 2 Here
he found other English exiles for the Faith,
such as the famous Nicholas Harpsfield, William
Rastall, nephew of Sir Thomas More, and Antonio
Bonvisi, the noble-hearted friend of that blessed
martyr, who ministered to him of his substance as
he lay in the Tower of London. Storey, like More,
became an intimate friend of the old Italian
merchant, and when he made his will in 1552 he
appointed his "great and special friend, Anthonie
Bonvice," to be overseer or executor.
The will is very edifying reading, and we have
printed it in full in the Appendix. It seems to have
been the martyr's custom to begin whatever he
1 Dodd, part iv. bk. ii. art. vi. p. 165.
- At the ter-centenary of the Bodleian Library in 1902, the
University of Louvain sent an address to her elder sister of Oxford,
dwelling on the ties that from very early times had united the two
seats of learning. In this address occurs the following allusion to
Storey : "Then, again, how many of your scholars and professors
in the sixteenth century, during the religious dissensions which
broke out in England, retired to the Louvain University and
adorned it by their writing and teaching, as testified by the annals
of the times ? Among these were Thomas Harding, . . . Nicholas
Sander, John Storey, . . . and many others whom it would be too
long to enumerate here. " (See Dublin Review, April, 1903, p. 287.)
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 23
wrote with the holy name of " Emmanuel," and so
this will begins. His prayers for the conversion of
England, his contrition for his sin in acknowledging
an earthly King as Supreme Head of the Church,
his firm faith and deep penitence are very touching.
This document portrays to us the man as he really
was, and helps us to reckon at their true value
the ferocious calumnies circulated against him by
his enemies. It will be noted that he desired to be
buried in the church of the Franciscans at Louvain,
and that he left legacies both to that community
and to the Carthusians. He had indeed a great
devotion to both these Orders, and the greater part
of his time at Louvain was spent in prayer and
penitential exercises at the Charterhouse. The
other point worthy of notice in the will is the
promise which he had exacted of his wife never to
return to England until it was restored to the unity
of the Church. He was determined that by God's
grace neither he nor his should ever again run the
risk of making shipwreck of the faith.
After the early death of King Edward VI. and
the accession of his Catholic sister, Storey and his
family returned to England, about August, 1553.
His patent as Regius Professor was renewed,
but he resigned it before the end of the year in
order to undertake more important duties ; being
appointed Chancellor of the dioceses of London and
Oxford, and Dean of the Arches.
These appointments resulted inevitably in his
taking a prominent part in the suppression of
heresy, which threatened at once the spiritual and
24 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
temporal peace of the nation. As the greater
number of the heretics lived in London, they
came under the jurisdiction of Bishop Bonner,
whose Chancellor Storey had become. It is hardly
necessary in these days to undertake the defence
of this Bishop from the calumnies heaped upon him
by Foxe, since this has been already done in so
admirable a manner by such Anglican writers as
Dr. Maitland and Dr. Gairdner. When therefore
we find Foxe calling Blessed John Storey " a bloody
tyrant," "a cruel persecutor of Christ in His
members," and "a bloody Nimrod," 1 "even worse
than Bonner," we need not be greatly disturbed,,
it is only what was to be expected. As to Bishop
Bonner, Dr. Maitland has proved conclusively that
he has been most grossly calumniated. And what
he says about the Bishop we may apply with equal
truth to his Chancellor.
" We can scarcely read with attention any one
of the cases detailed by those who were no friends
of Bonner without seeing in him a judge who (even
if we grant that he was dispensing bad laws badly)
was obviously desirous to save the prisoner's life."
Indeed, Dr. Maitland says that he believes that one
of the causes of the bitter hatred with which the
Puritans regarded the Bishop, was his remarkable
success in inducing them to abjure their errors.
" Certainly, while the public sufferings of their
steadfast brethren formed in every point of view the
best subject for invective against the papists . . .
1 See Foxe, Memorials, viii. pp. 743 745. "The cursed and
bloody end of Dr. Storey."
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 25
there was among the leaders a great fear of
the Bishop's powers of persuasion ; or as Foxe
oddly calls them 'subtle snares of that bloody
wolf: " *
Yet Foxe, among other lies, dares to write of the
Bishop :
This cannibal, in three years space, three hundred martyrs
slew,
They were his food ; he loved so blood ; he SPARED NONE he
knew.
" The servant is not above his master," and a
subordinate official like Storey could not hope to
escape his share of the " rodomontade, decla-
mation, and scurrility as odious for its falsehood
as for its coarseness" 2 with which his chief was
so plentifully bespattered. If, then, we find Foxe
accusing Storey of an act of gross brutality,
of throwing a faggot in the face of a heretic
at the stake to make him cease singing psalms,
we cannot believe it on his evidence alone. It
is true his accusations have been repeated by
Strype and other Protestant writers, but as Maitland
reminds us, "the coloured and exaggerated accounts"
of contemporaries like Foxe, " have been still
further coloured and exaggerated I will add, per-
verted and falsified by more modern copyists. . . .
These stories have been handed down from one
1 S. R. Maitland, The Reformation. Essay xx. " Bonner's
Cruelty," p. 424. The whole essay is well worthy of study. The
reader may compare Dr. Gairdner's appreciation, History of the
English Church, &c., pp. 341, 342, 353, &c.
2 Ibid. p. 406.
26 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
careless writer to another, containing monstrous
falsehoods, even beyond what might be warranted by
the statements of the most loose and declamatory
writers of the time." l
Now that we have seen the worst accusations
of cruelty brought against our martyr, and shown
that they are unworthy of credit, there remains
nothing for which we can legitimately blame him
in the part that he took in the unhappy Marian
persecution. As he said while on his defence in
Parliament, he did nothing but what was prescribed
by the law, whose minister he was, and at his death
1 Dr. Maitland examines two of Foxe's accusations against
Storey and shows how baseless they are. Thomas Greene, "who
was scourged and beaten by Dr. Storey for religion," proves to have
been a London prentice who had printed a seditious libel called
Antichrist, directed against the Queen and the Council, and whose
"obstinate perseverance in lying" when brought to account for it,
was but paternally punished by a good birching. " It seems to me,"
writes Maitland, " that he got off rather better than he might have
expected." (Reformation, pp. 20 27.) Another calumny was that
he had caused some of his own kinsfolk to be burnt, " never leaving
them until he had brought them to ashes. Such was the rage of
that devout Catholic and white child of the mother church, that
neither kindred, nor any other consideration, could prevail with
him although it did (at his request) with others, who in respect of
him were but strangers to them. The Lord, if it be his will, turn
his heart, or else rid his poor church from such a hydra, as
thanked be the Lord, now he hath." (Foxe, vii. 343.) Will it be
believed that although Foxe found out later on that these people
were no relation whatever to Dr. Storey, as he admits in another
page of a subsequent edition, yet he retains the original calumny
in this new edition with the marginal note, " Storey persecuteth
his kinsfolk " ? At the same time be it noted that he admits that
our martyr at the time of the first apprehension of the woman in
question, "was a very earnest suitor for her deliverance" and did
in fact obtain it for a time, and that he had also interceded for
others who were comparatively strangers to him.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 27
he earnestly deprecated the charge of personal
cruelty. We may deeply regret the ill-judged policy
which re-enforced the heresy laws, and look with
as much horror as any Protestant on the fires of
Smithfield, but we cannot justly blame those who
administered these laws, so long as they carried
them out with equity and justice.
We should not indeed represent the position of
Blessed John Storey aright with regard to the laws
in question, if we supposed him to have been
distinctly averse to them. Indeed, if any of our
readers choose to think that he was over-zealous
in a matter in which he should (to say the least) have
moved with the utmost caution, that is a point on
which the evidence does not seem to be sufficient to
defend or condemn him. Only this seems certain
that he was not broadly speaking behind his age.
In the sixteenth century no one doubted the law-
fulness or the duty of suppressing heretical opinions,
which were a danger both to Church and State.
On this point it will be sufficient to quote the
words of Blessed Thomas More. 1
" The fear of the outrages and mischiefs to
follow upon such mischiefs and heresies, with the
proof that men have had in some countries thereof,
have been the cause that Princes and people have
been constrained to punish heretics by terrible
death, whereas else more easy ways had been taken
with them. And therefore here will I somewhat
(said I to your friend) answer the points which ye
1 Dialogue, bk. iv. cap. 13, pp. 275, &c.
28 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
moved at our first meeting, when ye said that many
men thought it an hard and uncharitable way taken
by the clergy to put men convict of heresy sometime
to shame, sometime to death, and that Christ so
far abhorred all such violence, as He would not that
any of His flock should fight in any wise, neither in
the defence of themselves nor any other . . . but
that we should all live after Him in sufferance and
patience. . . . But as I said before, if the heretics
had never begun with violence, though they had used
all the ways they could to affect the people by
preaching, though they had therewith done as
Luther doth now, and as Mahomet did before,
bring up opinions pleasant to the people, giving
them liberty to lewdness, yet if they had set
violence aside, good Christian people had per-
adventure yet unto this day used less violence
toward them than these do now. And yet were
heresy well worthy to be as sore punished as any
other fault, since there is no fault that more
offendeth God. Howbeit while they forbare violence
there was little violence done to them. . . . And yet
as for heretics rising among ourselves and springing
of ourselves, be in no wise to be suffered, but to be
oppressed and overwhelmed in the beginning. For
by any covenant with them Christendom can
nothing win. For as many as we suffer to fall to
them we lese (sic) from Christ. And by all them we
cannot win to Christ one the more though we won
them all home again for they were our own before.
And yet, as I said, for all that in the beginning never
were they by any temporal punishment of their
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 29
bodies anything sharply handled, till they began to
be violent themselves. We read that in the time- of
St. Austin, the great doctor of the Church, the
heretics of Afric called the Donatists fell to force
and violence, robbing, beating, tormenting, and
killing such as they took of the true Christian flock,
as the Lutherans have done in Almayne. For
avoiding whereof that holy man St. Austin, which
long had with great patience borne and suffered
their malice, only writing and preaching in the
reproof of their errors, and had not only done them
no temporal harm but also had letted and resisted
others that would have done it, did yet at the last for
the peace of good people, both suffer and exhort the
Count Boniface and others, to repress them with
force and fear them with bodily punishment.
Which manner of doing holy St. Hierome and
other virtuous fathers have in other places allowed.
And since that time hath thereupon necessity per-
ceived, by great outrages committed against the
peace and quiet of the people in sundry places of
Christendom, by heretics rising of a small beginning
to an high and unruly multitude, many sore punish-
ments been devised for them, and specially by fire,
not only in Italy and Almayne, but also in Spain,
and in effect in every part of Christendom. Among
which in England as a good Catholic realm, it hath
been long punished by death in the fire. And
specially for as much as in the time of that noble
Prince of most famous memory King Henry the
fifth, while the Lord Cobham maintained certain
heresies and that bv the means thereof the number
30 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
so grew and increased that within a while though
himself was fled into Wales, yet they assembled
themselves together in a field near unto London,
in such wise and such number that the King with
his nobles were fain to put harness on their backs
for the repression of them, whereupon there were
distressed and many put to execution, and after that
the Lord Cobham taken in Wales and burned in
London ; the King, his nobles and his people there-
upon considering the great peril and jeopardy that
the realm was like to have fallen into by those
heresies, made at a parliament very good and
substantial provisions besides all such as were made
before, as well for the withstanding as the repress-
ing and grievous punishment of any such as should
be founden faulty thereof and by the clergy left
unto the secular hands.
" For here ye shall understand that it is not the
clergy that laboureth to have them punished by
death. Well may it be that as we be all men and
not angels, some of them may have sometime
either over fervent mind or undiscreet zeal, or per-
chance an angry and cruel heart, by which they may
offend God in the selfsame deed, whereof they
should else greatly merit. But surely the order of
the spiritual law therein is both good, reasonable,
piteous and charitable, and nothing desiring the
death of any man therein. For at the first fault
he is abjured, forsweareth all heresies, doth such
penance for his fault as the Bishop assigneth him.
And is in such wise graciously received again into
the favour and suffrages of 'Christ's Church. But
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 31
if he betaken eftsoons with the same crime again
then is he put out of the Christian flock by excom-
munication. And because that being such his
conversation were perilous among Christian men,
the Church refuseth him, and thereof the clergy
giveth knowledge to the temporality, not exhorting
the prince or any man else to kill him or punish
him, but only in the presence of the temporal
officer, the spirituality not delivereth him, but
leaveth him to the secular hand and forsaketh him
as one excommunicate and removed out of the
Christian flock. And although the Church be not
light and sudden in receiving him again, yet at the
time of his death, upon his request with tokens of
repentance he is absolved and received again."
That the opinions of Sir Thomas More were
fully shared by Dr. Storey is clear. In a letter of
his to Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, written
in 1555, we find the following passage :
" Albeit, I be ... as it were relegate from the
court and tied in the city for the better purging of
the same from schism, sedition, and heresy, . . .
yet have I thought it my bounden duty to let your
honour to understand that the state of the city, being
(as you know) the spectacle of this realm, daily
drawing, partly for love and partly for fear, to confor-
mity, doth not a little amend. Whereof God grant
increase and restitution to the old state and dignity r
to God's honour and glory. And where of late
through too much pity mixed with sinful civility,
32 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
the inferior sort yea, in times of executions began
to be stout, and seemed to glory in their malignity;
now the sharpness of the sword and other correc-
tions, hath begun to bring forth that the Word in
stony hearts could not do. So that by discreet
severity we have good hope of universal unity in
religion, and thereby perfect unanimity among the
superior sort, unless some lurking darns 1 (which as
yet in every assembly lacketh not) interturbet omnia.
The full cause of all good men is, that by God's
gracious assistance and the good counsel of your
Lordship and others, the late instruments of God's
fury, being now worldlings respecting only the
weathercock, shall shortly so be weeded, that they
choke not the corn. Which God grant, and to your
Lordship your heart's desire. With my most hearty
commendation to my fond patron and second
Father, good Mr. Bonvise, fautor of all good
Catholic men, whom I trust your Lordship hath
or will visit. Whereof I know he will be very
glad.
" Your L[ordship's] orator,
" (Signed) JO[HN] ST[OREY].
" London, June 17, 1555."
This was in fact the universally accepted
teaching of the time, and even Protestants, however
they might reject the authority of the Church and
claim for themselves liberty of conscience, were the
last to give it to others.
1 Darnels, weeds or tares ?
2 Venetian Calendar, vi. n. 137.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 33
" We must remember, too," writes Mr. Simpson, 1
" that there was a great difference between upholding
the ancient religion by the then established laws
of Europe, and establishing a new religion, profes-
sing to be built on individual freedom of conscience,
by the most ruthless persecution of all consciences
that adhered to the old system." It is also well
to bear in mind that what More says about the
violence and disloyalty of heretics was more than
ever exemplified in the reign of Queen Mary. As
Mr. Gairdner has admirably put it :
" The experience of twenty years had convinced
Mary, and no doubt her subjects generally, that
defiance of Papal authority had shaken the founda-
tion of all other authority whatsoever. Rebellion
and treason had been nourished by heresy nay,
heresy was the very root from which they sprang.
And it was really more important in the eyes of
Mary to extirpate the root than merely to lop off
the branches. She had all possible desire to show
indulgence to the misguided, if they could be brought
to a better state of mind ; and the bishops might be
trusted, especially Bishop Bonner, to do their very
utmost to dissuade the obstinate from rushing on
their fate. But there was to be no more toleration
for incurable perversity."- Again, ''There were
heretics whose acts if the opinions which prompted
the acts had not been regarded as the greater evil
1 Rambler, New Series, vol. vii. (1857), p. 183. We take the
opportunity of expressing our indebtedness to this admirable article,
from which we have not scrupled to quote freely.
2 Gairdner, English Church in the Sixteenth Century, p. 353.
D II.
34 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
would have deserved very severe punishment indeed,
even in days like our own." 1
Blessed John Storey then must have felt that
the part he had to take in the trial and condemna-
tion of heretics was a duty, though a distasteful one.
At the same time he undoubtedly felt much com-
passion for the poor ignorant people who were often
brought before him, and who he saw were obstin-
ately clinging to errors which they did not really
understand. He more than once, as we have seen
even Foxe admit, exerted himself to obtain pardon
and liberty for these misguided people. On one
occasion he and his intimate friend, the devout and
gentle Abbot Feckenham, went to the Queen and
begged off the lives of twenty-eight poor wretches
condemned to the flames. He felt strongly that it
was a great mistake to punish these poor people and
let the ringleaders go scot free. And in open con-
sistory he once strongly advocated the punishment
of seven or eight of the principal of the Zwinglian
faction, instead of the dozens of lesser note who
suffered death. This it was no doubt that rendered
him a peculiar subject of hatred and revenge to
Elizabeth, Cecil, the Earl of Bedford, and the
rest. 2
In 1555 Storey was appointed Queen's proctor
for the trial of Archbishop Cranmer. 3 It was
observed that Cranmer on being brought before
1 Ibid. p. 360.
' 2 Simpson, ibid. p. 184. See Persons' Temperate Ward-word to
the turbulent and seditious Watch-word of Sir Francis Hastinge, &c.
(1599). p. 32, quoted below.
3 Strype's Cranmer, pp. 543 545, et seq. See also Foxe, viii. 53.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 35
the court made low obeisance to Dr. Storey
and Dr. Martin as the royal commissioners, but
refused to bow to the Bishop of Gloucester, who
presided as the Pope's delegate. Foxe quotes
Storey's speech on this occasion; from which we
give an extract :
"Ye say that the King in his realm is supreme
head of the Church. Well, sir, you will grant me
that there was a perfect Catholic Church before any
King was christened. Then if it were a perfect
Church, it must needs have a head, which must
needs be before any King was member thereof: for
you know Constantine was the first christened King
that ever was. And although you are bound (as
St. Paul saith) to obey your rulers, and Kings have
rule of the people, yet doth it not follow that they
have cure of souls ; for a fortiori the head may do
that the minister cannot do, but the priest may
consecrate, and the King cannot, therefore the King
is not head."
Cranmer was in a dilemma ; he had justified all
his crimes against the Church by pleading the royal
authority, now here was the royal authority en-
deavouring to restore Papal Supremacy once more
here was the delegate of the " Supreme Head "
proclaiming that "to rule the Church was only
given to Peter." He refused to plead. " The canons
which be received in Christendom," proceeded
Storey, " compel you to answer, therefore you are
bound to do so. And although this realm of late,
through such schismatics as you were, hath exiled
and banished the canons, yet that cannot make for
3 6 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
you ; for you know yourself that nee pars in
partem, nee pars in totum aliquid statuere potest.
Wherefore this isle, being indeed but a member
of the whole, could not determine against the
whole."
In February, 1556-7, Storey was put on a
commission together with the Bishops of London
and Ely, Lord Windsor, Lord North, Sir Francis
Englefield, Cole, Dean of St. Paul's, Sir Thomas
Pope, Dr. Martin, and several others for them to
discover more stringent means of suppressing
" heretical and seditious books, concealments, con-
tempts, conspiracies, of all false rumours, tales,
seditions and clamorous words and sayings," as
well as of punishing all enormities and disturbances
committed in sacred places, those who refused to
hear Mass, &c., and all vagabonds and suspect
persons abiding in or near London, &c. This seems
to be Foxe's sole ground for asserting that Storey,
" thinking their punishment in the fire not cruel
enough, went about to invent new torments for the
holy martyrs of Christ, such was his hatred to the
truth of Christ's Gospel."
Just at this time he wrote another letter to the
Earl of Devon, who was in Italy, which is preserved
in the Record Office, and is interesting " as showing
the good prospects opened to this country, had
not Almighty God in His inscrutable providence
shortened Queen Mary's days." 1
1 Simpson, ibid. p. 185. This and several of the documents
quoted below are printed in the Rambler article.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 37
" EMMANUEL.
"Although, my singular good lord, it be long
sithence I have visited your honour with this my
scraping hand, yet hath not my heart forgotten my
bounden duty to pray for the preservation and
prosperous estate of your good lordship, whom God
hitherto hath proved with manifold travails, to the
end that hereafter His mercy may use you to His
glory and no small comfort of all Christian religion
in this our native country ; wherein although many
things concerning spiritual and civil government be
yet. to be desired, yet is the same through the
virtuous contemplation of the Queen's majesty and
of my lord Cardinal his grace so much repaired, and
by the prudent activity of my now Lord Chancellor 1
in the execution of justice so reduced into order, that
if your lordship were present to behold how right
ruling doth daily succeed in place of ruffling raging,
your honour would conceive no less good hope of
the extirpation of vice, and planting again of virtue,
than we do here of your lordship to be no small
instrument to that purpose, when it shall please God
to send you to us again ; whereof I have thought it
my duty to certify your honour, although it be
notorious, knowing that your honour having ever
desired the same, will now the more rejoice you
do hear thereof. How other things doth stand,
this bearer your diligent servant will declare unto
your honour, which God will increase to His glory.
From London, this 23rd February [1556].
" Your lordship's most bounden servant,
"JOHN STOREY." 2
1 Heath, Archbishop of York. 2 R.O. Domestic, Mary, vii. 9.
38 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
There is little more to tell of our martyr during
Queen Mary's reign. We may add however that on
the 3ist of January, 1553-4, William Frankelyn,
parson of Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire,
gave a lease of all his parsonage to John Storey,
LL.D., and Joan his wife and Ellen Storey their
daughter, for thirty-one years, at a yearly payment
of 26 135 4d. x He therefore probably lived in this
quaint old village during the vacations, and Chalfont
St. Giles, which boasts of being the home of Milton,
may reckon this illustrious martyr among its glories.
But he was not to enjoy for long this quiet country
home. The death of Queen Mary and of Cardinal
Pole upon the same sad day (November 17, 1558)
put an end to the hopes of Catholics, and the worst
apprehensions of our martyr were speedily realized.
Elizabeth proceeded warily, but her immediate
choice of Protestant councillors was an omen of
the coming change. The Device for the alteration of
Religion, 2 which was drawn up by these councillors,
sketches out with consummate skill the end to be
attained and the means of attaining it. The altera-
tion was to be first attempted " at the next Parlia-
ment," and Cecil took care that the Lower House
should be packed with heretics. The Device had
laid down that none were to be admitted, even to
lower offices of trust under Government, except
those who were "young in years," "were known to
be sure at the Queen's devotion." And this was the
class of men who filled the benches of the first
1 Wood, Athen. Oxon. Edit. Bliss, 1.389.
2 Burnet, v. p. 327.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 39
Parliament of Queen Elizabeth. It was in fact known
as the " Beardless Parliament," so largely did it
consist of licentious young men. The Duke of
Feria, the Spanish Ambassador, reported that it
consisted " of persons chosen throughout the country
as being most perverse and heretical," and an
English Catholic told the Pope that in a House of
about two hundred members only ten were found
true to the old creed. 1
But among these few was Blessed John Storey.
He was returned for Downton, in Wiltshire, on the
I7th of January, 1558-9. 2 It must have been with
a heavy heart that he assisted at the opening
ceremony in Westminster Abbey, on January the
25th. The Mass of the Holy Ghost was not sung
as usual, and when Abbot Feckenham in his ponti-
fical robes, with his monks in procession bearing
lighted candles, received the Queen at the west
door, she behaved with extraordinary rudeness,
crying, "Away with these lights ; we see very well ! "
The Litany was sung in English, and Dr. Cox, a
married priest and a most bitter heretic, 3 preached
the sermon. In this discourse, "after saying many
things freely against the monks, proving by his
arguments that they ought to be persecuted and
punished by her Majesty, ... he then commenced
praising her, . . . exhorting her to destroy the
1 See article by Father John Pollen, S.J., Dublin Review, January,
1903, pp. 4463.
- He had sat successively for East Grinstead (September 25,
1 553)> Bramber (March, 1553-4), an d Ludgershall (October 6, 1555).
3 Cox was one of the framers of the Anglican Prayer Book.
He became Bishop of Ely.
4 o BLESSED JOHN STOREY
images of the saints, the churches and monasteries,
and all other things dedicated to divine worship ;
proving by his own arguments that it is very great
impiety and idolatry to endure them ; and saying
many other things against the Christian religion." 1
With these auspices did Elizabeth's first Parlia-
ment open. Meanwhile things were going from
bad to worse outside. Insults and outrages
against Catholic priests and Catholic rites passed
unpunished, three of the Bishops were imprisoned,
while the heretics were set free, and the Court
amused itself with buffoonery, plays and lampoons
of so abominable and horrible a description that
Catholics wondered that their authors did not perish
by the act of God. On the feast of the Epiphany
Elizabeth had amused herself with a mummery after
supper, in which crows appeared clad in Cardinals'
robes, asses habited as Bishops, and wolves repre-
senting Abbots. Worse than this, the churches
were broken into and robbed, the Blessed Sacra-
ment trodden underfoot, and the licentious outrages
of the mob, excited as they were by the fanatical
preachers who hastened over from the Continent,
daily grew more violent.
Even the mild and gentle Abbot Feckenham
could not contain his indignation at these outrages.
He spoke out in the House of Lords:
1 II Schifanoya to the Mantuan Ambassador. (Venetian Calendar,
vol. vii. pp. 22, 23.) Schifanoya was an admirable reporter and most
trustworthy witness. His accounts of the Coronation and the
opening of Parliament, &c., are most minute and graphic. He says
that Cox's sermon lasted an hour and a half.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 41
" My good Lords, when in Queen Mary's days,
your honours do know right well how the people
of this realm did live in an order, and would not
run before laws, . . . there was no spoiling of
churches, pulling down of altars, and most blas-
phemous treading down of the Sacrament under
their feet, and hanging up the knave of clubs in the
place thereof. There was no skurching nor cutting
of the face and legs of the crucifix and image of
Christ. There was no open flesh-eating nor shambles
keeping in the Lent and days prohibited. The
subjects of this realm, and especially the nobility
and such as were of the honourable Council, did in
Queen Mary's days know the way unto churches
and chapels, there to begin their daily work with
calling for help and grace by humble prayer and
serving of God. But now since the coming and
reign of our most sovereign and dear lady Queen
Elizabeth, by the only preachers and scaffold-players
of this new religion, all things are changed and
turned upside down, . . . obedience is gone, humility
and meekness clean abolished, virtuous, chaste, and
straight living abandoned, and all degrees and kinds
desirous of fleshly and carnal liberty." 1
Parliament soon settled down to its business,
the first point of which had been declared to be
Pro Reformanda Religione et tollenda idolatria.
The Supremacy Bill was introduced into the
House of Commons at the beginning of February,
1 MS. Cott. Vesp. D. xviii. fol. 86. See, too. Lord Somers'
Tracts, vol. i. p. 81.
42 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
read the first time and referred to Committee.
During the second reading it was, says D'Ewes,
"long argued, as appears plainly from the original
journal books of the House of Commons." 1 We
have few details, however, as to the opposition.
The most prominent part in it however, was taken
by Blessed John Storey. He spoke often and
strenuously on the proposed changes, by which
England was once more to be torn away from
the unity of the Church. He was taunted by his
opponents with his severity against the heretics,
and he replied (at least, so it was reported ten
years later) that he had nothing to regret save that
more had not been done. " I see," he declared
boldly, " nothing to be sorry for ; but am rather
sorry that I have done no more, and that I had not
more earnestly given my advice to spare the little
twigs and shoots, but to strike more boldly at the
roots and great branches. If this had been done
we should not see so many seeds of wickedness
taking root everywhere and flourishing so abun-
dantly." 2
1 Journals of all the Parliaments, Reign Elizabeth (1682), p. 44.
- There is no contemporary report of this speech. It may be
found in Holinshed, Edition 1587, vol. ii. p. 1180. Cf. Declaration
of the Life and Death of John Storey, . . . by Thomas Caldwell, 1571,
printed in the Harleian Miscellany, iii. p. 190 ; in Lord Somers' Tracts,
i. p. 480, and in the State Trials, i. p. 1087. Here the version is:
41 I did often-times in Queen Mary's time say to the Bishops that
they were too busy with Pecora Campi, chopping at twigs, but I
wished to have chopped at the root, which if they had done, this
gere had not now come in question."
Father Persons, S.J., in A temperate Ward-word, &c., questions
the accuracy of the report. He says (p. 32) : " For the words
themselves they had never yet any other proof that they were
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 43
This was indeed a courageous speech to make
at such time ; and no wonder that his adversaries,
on hearing it, "gnashed at him with their teeth."
He was, of course, accused of referring to the Queen
herself, though there is a good deal in what Father
Persons says to show that in this interpretation of
his words there was " more passion than truth, and
more rigour than reason." For, as he goes on to
argue :
" Why is it necessary we should admit the
bloody commentary and heavy exposition only of
spoken, to my knowledge, but only that his enemies affirmed
them (to make him thereby more odious) when they had him in their
power and desired his destruction. For I never heard that himself
confessed them either in liberty, captivity, at the bar, or at his death,
and that he should not speak them (though he had thought them)
when Queen Elizabeth was now settled in her crown, as this
K affirmeth (he being known to be wise and no fool), all reason
may induce us to think and believe, seeing they could not serve to
any purpose but to his own ruin." However, as he goes on to argue
as to what Storey meant by the words, if he did say them, it is
clear he is not very sure of his ground in denying their authenticity.
I think that Storey certainly must have said something of the
kind, because this alone can explain the outcry raised against him
and because, as Persons admits, these were certainly his sentiments.
But what, to my mind, puts the matter beyond dispute is that
Sander, who knew Storey intimately at Louvain, puts this speech
into his mouth without hesitation or qualification:
" De crudelitate vero sua id in publicis comitiis Joannes ipse regnante
jam Elizabetha, respondit, se nulla in re alia peccasse, nisi quod omissa
radice, nescio quos ramusculos pracidisset, cum potius debuisset robus-
tissima quceque zizania radicitus evellisse : quod factum si fuisset, jam
(in quit) non tot ac tanta videremus impietatis germina ubique stare, atque
adeo florere ." (De Visibili Monarchia, Edit. 1571, lib. vii.)
Foxe has embroidered the speech in his usual way, making
Storey glory in the barbarities which Foxe, as we have seen, imputes
to him out of his own evil imagination. This is indeed incredible.
Holinshed and Strype merely reproduce Foxe.
44 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
his enemies, . . . who will needs have him mean
by those words the bereaving of our dear Sovereign's
life ? Was lad) 7 Elizabeth (I pray you) taken to be
this root of heresy in Queen Mary's time, being
holden by most Catholics to be no Protestant at all,
as before I have shewed ? Why might not Dr. Storie
meane rather (if he had spoken those words) of
some Bacon, some Cecil, some Cook, some Knowles,
some Throgmorton, some Russell, and many other
like, that were known Protestants in Queen Mary's
time, supporters of others, and practitioners against
the present state, and yet suffered, yea borne out
by known Catholics ; while other poor cobblers,
clothiers, carriers, and such like, were punished ?
At which manner of dealing I do confess that
Dr. Storie being a man of zeal in his religion,
misliked exceedingly, and stormed also publicly one
day, before the Bishops and Privy Council in a
public consistory (for that Councillors also, for
honour's sake, and to protect their friends and
kindred, would needs be inquisitors in that Govern-
ment), complaining grievously of this abuse, . . .
whereby also it is much more probable that his
complaint of the root of heresy remaining and not
touched, was meant rather of the infected nobility
and gentry within the land . . . than of lady
Elizabeth at that day, for that indeed she was not
the root then, nor did the change of religion spring
of her principally afterwards, but of those other
inferior roots which I have mentioned." 1
Whatever the martyr may have said, his
1 A temperate Ward-word, &c.,pp. 32, 33.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 45
enemies were determined to make use of his speech
to bring him to destruction.
In defiance of the privileges of Parliament, he
was brought up before the Council to answer to
the charge of having spoken evil of the affairs of
religion. Another Doctor of Laws, a priest, was
summoned at the same time. " They bravely and
prudently answered the Lords of the Council, and
especially the layman, Master Storey, who said :
' You need not interrogate me about these matters,
as I know better than any of you both the canon
laws and those of this kingdom ; let my accusers
appear and prove what I have said, for I certainly
said nothing at which you could reasonably take
offence; but should her Majesty will otherwise, I do
not refuse to die for -the Church.' The other said
the like, telling the Lords of the Council besides
that her Majesty could not do them a greater favour.
So from what I hear, all the clergy are united and
confirmed in this holy and good opinion. Some of
them will perhaps change their minds, but they will
be esteemed for what they are." l
For the moment, Blessed John Storey was
dismissed with a caution, but from this time, says
Sander, his enemies never ceased collecting new
matter of accusation against him. It was not long
before he got into trouble again. A Bill had been
introduced to deprive the venerable Bishop Whyte
of large portions of the lands belonging to his see
of Winchester. It had passed the Commons, but
nevertheless. Dr. Storey had the boldness to appear
1 II Schifanoya, Venetian Calendar, vii. p. 26.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
before the Lords as the Bishop's counsel. 1 This
was reported to the House, on March the 23rd, and
Storey, on acknowledging the offence, received a
severe reprimand from the Speaker. The Bishop's
crime had been the same as his own, and he had
already been imprisoned in his own house for daring
to teach Catholic truth in his sermons.
Blessed John Storey was soon to taste the
vengeance of his enemies. Their fury was so great
that he thought it best to hide himself for a time,
but he was soon " taken in the West country,
riding before a mail in a frieze coat like a serving-
man, and was apprehended in the highway by one
Mr. Ayleworth, one of the Queen's servants,"' 2 and
being brought before the Council, was by them
committed to the Fleet, on the 2Oth of May, 1560.
At the same time, Watson, Bishop of Lincoln ;
Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster ; Cole, Dean of
St. Paul's ; and Chedsey, Archdeacon of Middlesex,
were sent to the Tower. 3 The offence with which
they were charged was, " having obstinately refused
attendance on public worship, and everywhere
declaiming and railing against that religion which
we now profess." 4 In the words of Foxe,
1 These lands had been granted to seculars by letters patent
under Edward VI., but taken from them and restored to the see
by Mary. They now claimed them back, and the Bishop properly
resisted the confiscation. The patentees further ventured to accuse
the Bishop of cancelling records, and some articles were devised
for his punishment. (Dixon, v. p. 96.)
2 The Declaration, v. supra.
3 Machyn, p. 235.
4 Jewel to Peter Martyr (May 22, 1560), Zurich Letters, First
Series, p. 79.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 47
" Elizabeth, staying the bloody sword of persecu-
tion from raging any further (!), caused Dr. Storey to
be apprehended and committed to ward, with many
other, his accomplices, sworn enemies to Christ's
glorious Gospel."
In the Fleet prison Blessed Jo"hn Storey found
other glorious confessors in chains. Dr. Cuthbert
Scott, Bishop of Chester, had been committed
prisoner there a week before (May the I3th), and
Dr. Nicholas Harpsfield and other dignified eccle-
siastics shared with him the miserable accommoda-
tion of the prison. In those days prisoners who
desired the common decencies of life had to pay
heavily for them, and we find, from some constitu-
tions drawn up for the government of the Fleet in
this very year, that the prisoners who had a bed
to themselves, had to pay for board and lodging
more than i a week, a sum we should have to
multiply many times to reach its modern value.
We do not know how long Dr. Storey was con-
fined in the Fleet at this time. Sander says he
spent " some years " in prison. All we know is that
by some means or other he escaped for a time, for
we find that he was re-taken in April or May, 1562.
This we learn from a letter of Parkhurst, Bishop
of Norwich, to Bullinger (May 31, 1562) : " Storey,
that little man of law and most impudent Papist,
has been arrested in the West of England in a
courtier's dress." 1 He was thrown into the
Marshalsea prison, where among his fellow-prisoners
1 Zurich Letters, n. 48. The words are "more aulico," which
have been translated " in his barrister's robes " !
48 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
was his old master, the Bishop of London. His
enemies meanwhile sought for a legal pretext to put
him to death. Nor had they long to wait. Early
in the next year Parliament passed a new Act
authorizing the Protestant Bishops to require the
Oath of Supremacy from any one who had held office
in the last three reigns, and made the penalty of
the first refusal perpetual imprisonment, and of the
second, death.
On the 2gth of April, 1563, Bishop de la
Quadra, Spanish Ambassador, wrote to King Philip
as follows : x
"This week they begin to demand the oath from
the Catholic Bishops, in accordance with the new
Act passed in Parliament recently, and the Bishops
of London and Lincoln, and Doctors Cole and
Storey have been summoned for Monday next.
After them will come the rest, and there is no doubt
some will die. I am much more afflicted at this
misfortune than at all the insults and injuries I have
received here, as I see the great danger the Catholic
religion will suffer from the death of these men,
and still more, if from faint-heartedness any of
them were to take the oath."
On May the gth the Ambassador had still more
stirring news to report.
"Last week a commission was issued to summon
for trial four of the Catholic prisoners, two Bishops
of London and Lincoln and two doctors Cole,
1 Spanish Calendar, vol. i. p. 322.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 49
who was commissioner against the Lutherans in
the time of our lady, Queen Mary, now in heaven,
and Storey. The commission has not yet been
signed by the Queen, as when they took it to her,
she said she would sign it another day at her
convenience. In the meanwhile Dr. Storey was so
alarmed at the news that he determined to save
himself by flight rather than have to choose between
taking the oath or being hanged. He accordingly
made the attempt about ten days ago with the
assistance of a Flemish gentleman who was con-
fined in the same prison for debt. He went into
a garden at midnight, and having scaled the wall
came to the river, where he took a boat and came
to my dwelling. He asked for a chaplain of mine
with whom it appears he had had some conversation
about his intention, although the chaplain had not
approved of it. As he was not in the house, he
awaited his arrival, and when he came begged him
to help him to escape. The chaplain excused
himself as best he could, and even compelled him
to leave the house immediately, which he did, and
got away safely, at least up to the present they have
not been able to find him. By the indications of
the boatmen and some of the prison warders the
Council has discovered that this man disembarked
at my house, and as soon as they learnt it, which
was already nearly midnight, they sent the marshal
to me to demand the surrender of the man. I, who
barely even heard that he had escaped from prison,
answered that I knew nothing whatever about him,
as I and D'Assonleville had been the whole day in the
E II.
50 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
country and we returned home very late, but that if
they liked to search the house they were welcome to
do so, and I added that if they discovered that any
servant of mine had helped him in his flight or
hiding, I would have him punished without any
respect."
The Bishop then found on inquiry that the
chaplain had known of the escape but had not
helped it. He reproved him for not informing him
of the matter and sent him away to a friend's house,
since as he was a man who knew every Catholic in
the place, and had absolved and administered the
sacraments to many, it would be very dangerous if
the Council got hold of him. They did send for
him later, but Quadra excused himself, saying he
could not dispense with his chaplain. As he tells
the King (in cipher) : " I will rather put up with
the molestation of these Councillors, than expose
so many people to suffering and injury, as would be
the case if this chaplain were to be handed over."
The Ambassador, however, thought it was safest to
get the chaplain out of the way, and sent him
secretly over to Flanders.
The King answered on June the I5th : l
" I note what has happened about the flight of
Storey, and as your chaplain aided him to escape
you have done well in deciding to send him to
Flanders, in consequence of the inconveniences that
might result from his statements if they were to
1 Spanish Calendar, vol. i. n. 230, p. 333.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 51
take and interrogate him. I do not think he would
do anything in this matter to render him deserving
of punishment."
Meanwhile Dr. Storey had succeeded in escaping
the hands of his enemies. After lying hid for some
time in the houses of divers of his friends, he landed
in safety in Belgium, and took up his quarters in
Louvain.
Here, beside the ordinary trials of exile, he had
to bear those of poverty. His family, who came
to join him at Louvain, were now increased in
number, and he had lost all he possessed in the
world. Added to this he had to bear interior trials,
for his conscience was continually tormented with
the fear that he had done wrong in escaping from
death, since thereby he had lost the crown of
martyrdom. He spoke of this scruple very often
to his wife, and sometimes also to his friends, and
on one occasion he confided his trouble to our
informant, Sander, asking him whether it would be
lawful for him to give himself up once more into the
power of the heretics. " But I," says Sander, "did
not venture to advise him to return to prison. For
it seemed that he had been delivered by the design
of God, and that he could not count upon the
divine grace, if he placed himself in danger, when
God had set him free." He then wished to devote
the rest of his life to penance, and he fixed upon the
Charterhouse at Louvain as a fitting place of
retirement, intending to enter that Order, if his
wife also would agree to embrace the religious
5 2 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
state. But though she refused to do this, Storey
nevertheless remained so firm in his resolution to
do penance, that he spent more time in prayer with
the Carthusians than at home with his family. 1 But
his poverty was so great that he was forced to look
out for means of livelihood, especially when those
dependent on him for bread were increased in
number by a nephew and niece and their family,
who were sent out from England to him. As he
had four children of his own it can be imagined
that he had difficulty in providing them with
the barest necessaries. His married daughter,
Mrs. Weston, and her children also, came out to
join him, her husband being a prisoner in the Fleet.
It is true that he was highly thought of by the
Duke of Alva, and that at his intercession the King
allowed him a grant of a hundred florins out of the
revenues of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Gertrude
at Louvain. 2
Later on we find a spy writing to Cecil (the yth of
April, 1570), " Storey remains at Brussels . . . and
has continual access to the Duke of Alva, and was
lately rewarded with 250 crowns." 3 Again, on April
the i6th he writes : " The Duke of Alva has delivered
to Storey of the benevolence of the King of Spain
a thousand crowns to be distributed among the
scholars at Louvain and Douay. The religious
men and women in this country, being English, are
appointed to receive 10 a piece." 4
1 So also Molanus, De Claris Exteris, being part ii. of his Historic
Lovaniensum, lib. xii. cap. i.
* Foreign Calendar, 1560 1561, n. 846.
3 Foreign Calendar, 1570, n. 803. 4 Ibid. n. 811.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 53
Blessed John Storey thus acted as the King's
almoner for his distressed fellow-countrymen. This
is no doubt what the spy means by calling him
" still a preferrer of all the English traitors' business
and causes."
But all the while he was very insufficiently
provided for himself, and was quite at a loss what
to do to earn his daily bread.
Meanwhile his enemies at home were not idle ;
and the martyrdom he so ardently desired, he was
by the grace of God at length enabled to attain to.
Elizabeth, Leicester, and Cecil laid the following plot
to entrap him : The King of Spain and the Duke
of Alva had recently appointed an office at Antwerp
for the search of all English ships going into or
coming out of that port, in order to prevent the
traffic in heretical books and other forbidden mer-
chandise. The English Government, hearing of
this, saw in it a means of wreaking their vengeance
upon our martyr. " One William Parker, brother
of Elizabeth's new Archbishop, 1 a wool-draper, a
man well skilled in mercantile affairs, was largely
bribed by the Council to go to the Low Countries
to the Duke of Alva, and professing himself a
1 We are quoting Mr. Simpson (p. 187). He adds that the
relationship of this Parker to the Archbishop is affirmed in a
marginal note attached to one of his letters to Cecil, in the Record
Office. It is true that Strype does not mention William as one of
the Archbishop's brothers, probably because of his being a Popish
lost sheep, as he (not knowing the plot) would consider him. Many
of the Archbishop's near relations were connected with the wool
trade, according to Strype, and his father's name was William;
it was therefore a family name and family trade.
54 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
fugitive from England, and a convert to the Catholic
faith, to solicit the office in question. The Duke,
rejoicing beyond measure in having such a near
relation to the chief spiritual heretic in England
for a convert and refugee, and withal a man so
skilled in mercantile affairs, gladly conferred on
him the office he asked for. As soon as he was
installed, he named as his assistant Dr. Storey who,
as we have seen, was living in great poverty at
Louvain. He considered it his duty to his family
to accept the office, against the wish of his friends,
who told him it was an odious one, and unworthy
of a man of his position. Thus the first part of the
plot was successful." The second part was soon to
follow, and it proved to be a most audacious act of
vindictive and illegal treachery.
It seems that a certain John Mershe, one John
Lee, and a man named Saltanstall were agents for
Cecil in the Low Countries. They were spies in
his pay, pretending to be good Catholics in exile for
the faith, and reporting to their chief all that they
could worm out of the confidence of the Catholic
refugees, or that their malignant ingenuity could
invent against them. Great numbers of these
refugees were now collected in the Low Countries
under the protection of their former Sovereign,
King Philip. Some of them, like Storey himself,
despairing of England after the failure of the
Northern Rising, seem to have become naturalized
as Spanish subjects. Priests, lawyers, knights,
peers, noble ladies, representatives of all sorts and
ranks were there, united by a common faith and
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 55
a common suffering. Victims all of them of
Elizabeth's tyrannical laws, they preferred to serve
God in exile rather than stain their consciences
by apostasy from the faith. Among the more
prominent of these exiles were the Earl of
Westmoreland, the Countess of Northumberland
(wife of the Blessed Thomas Percy), the Nortons,
and Leonard Dacre, who had been the leaders of
the Rising in the North. Who shall blame them
if they looked to Spain to help them and their
country in its hour of need ? Blessed John Fisher
had besought the Emperor through Chapuys, the
Imperial Ambassador, to invade England in the time
of Henry VIII. , in order to preserve the Catholic
faith in the land, and we cannot wonder (especially
now that Elizabeth had been excommunicated
by St. Pius V.) if English Catholics in their
distress looked to that Emperor's son to be the
champion of their proscribed religion. There is
no proof however (except the mere assertion of his
bitter foes) that Blessed John Storey was in any way
implicated in any plot against the Queen or her
Government. As we shall see, the indictment
brought against him at his trial did not venture to
charge him with any specific treasonable act, but
merely, in the usual vague way, of conspiring the
death of the Queen, just as in the case of Blessed
Edmund Campion and his companions. The real
cause of the hatred against him was his well-known
2eal for the old religion.
Among this company of Catholic exiles moved
the spies whom Cecil's gold had bought body and
56 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
soul. Feigning themselves to be devout Catholics,
living lives of continual sacrilege and of unspeak-
able treachery, they wove their dark plots for the
destruction of those who trusted and befriended
them.
The plan conceived against Blessed John Storey
in Cecil's crafty brain, to be carried out by these
agents, was no less a one than to kidnap him while
he was discharging the duties of his office and carry
him over to England. Mershe and Lee, in con-
junction with Parker and a certain Pigotte, arranged
that a ship, sufficiently manned and armed for the
purpose, should enter the port of Antwerp, and that
Dr. Storey should be induced to visit it for pro-
hibited goods which were to be placed in her. The
plan nearly failed owing to the indiscretion of
Pigotte, and the information of one of the sailors,
who suspected the plot and ran away, and after-
wards told Parker to take care of himself, thinking
that he was the victim of, and not a partaker in, the
conspiracy.
However, three merchants trading to the Low
Countries, viz., Roger Ramsden, Martin Bragge,
and Simon Jewkes, allured by the bribes of the
Lords of the Council, were found ready to under-
take the dangerous enterprise which Pigotte had
mismanaged. They arranged with the captain of a
smack, by name Cornelius Van Eycke, and settled
that this time the point of departure should be
Bergen-op-Zoom, opposite Zealand, about thirty-
five miles north of Antwerp. The plan was that as
soon as Dr. Storey and Parker should go under the
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 57
hatches to search the cargo, the hatches were to be
shut down, and the two conveyed to England, all
sail being set as quickly as possible ; nobody
knowing at the time the complicity of Parker but
Mershe and Lee who, under the English Govern-
ment, were the chief conspirators. This was
accordingly acted upon, and was perfectly success-
ful. Dr. Storey was landed at Yarmouth on the
evening of the i4th of August, 1570. Cecil had got
his enemy into his clutches again, and this time he
would take care he did not escape.
Storey wrote to Cecil from Yarmouth the
morning after his landing as follows :
"In first proof that I am personally present in
this the Queen's Majesty's town of Yarmouth, I am
bold to scribble unto your honour these presents.
The circumstances of my apprehension on water by
Zealand, this bearer and his company, diligent and
yet merciful, can better declare than myself, deceived
by my simple and yet foxy skipper, can but by
conjecture declare. If it shall stand to your
pleasure to have me restored to my keeper, from
whom like a very wreckling I did escape, then it is
my humble suit unto her Majesty and your honour
so to temper the yet continued heat of my said
keeper, that he content himself with laying on irons
on that of my legs which is only able to bear the
same, until your leisure may serve to call the corpus
before you, or so with charity to dispose the same,
now much decaying and decayed, by competent
lodging, that it perish not ante tempm a Deo prcefixum*
58 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
If any pre-occupation have been used with your
honour of me by Mr. John Mershe, late at Brussels,
or Mr. Thomas Palie, now turned a 1 Je . . . , it
may yet like you andire alteram partem, in which
your doing, sicut non pcenitebit ; ita opposite juxta
seposita magis elucescent. Decimo quinto Aug. Tni
honoris orator.
"JOANNES STOREY." 2
This letter was sent up to London by Parker
and Simon Jewkes, as we learn from the following
items in the bill of expenses 3 which was afterwards
to form such a bone of contention. (Parker was of
course a nominal prisoner and Jewkes his keeper.)
*' Paid at Yarmouth for three horses
and a post, sent up with Parker and
Simon Jewkes 214
Paid them in their purses, to bear their
charges to London and to the court .300"
Parker however broke down on his journey when
he got to St. Alban's, and sent Cecil the following
letter from thence :
" Right Honourable, Not long since your
Honour was advertised from Yarmouth of the
arrival of Dr. Storey, brought from beyond the seas
by me and my supports, or assistants, the I4th
of this instant, about eight of the clock in the
afternoon ; since which time I have been travelling
towards your Honour, with whom my hearty desire
1 Illegible. ' 2 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 18.
3 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 64.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 59
is to have conference of those things which in these
affairs doth appertain ; but being a man not much
used to travel, I have over-travelled myself, so as
yet I could not attain to the presence of your
Honour, and also not having any determinate time
to have any access to your Honour, which I require,
if it may stand with your Honour to signify the
same by the bearer hereof, and then shall I give my
diligent attendance at all times, according to my
bounden duty herewith. The Almighty have your
Honour in His blessed tuition.
" From St. Alban's, this present night, i8th
August, 1570.
" By your honour's obedient during life,
"WILLIAM PARKER. MI
Roger Ramsden and the rest set off with their
prisoners after a three days' stay in Yarmouth,
having received a strict injunction to let Storey
speak to no one. So rigorously was this injunction
observed, that one Gosling, a bailiff, got into trouble
for supplying the prisoner with kersey to make
hose of.' 2
The bill here also supplies us with considerable
information.
" Paid for 5 more horses when we came
up is. and to the post for his pains,
and for bringing up our mails and
other things 3 10 o
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 21.
- The martyr was most probably imprisoned in the ancient
Toil House, a picturesque mediaeval building which contains
several dungeons.
60 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Paid for our charges at Yarmouth the
space of 3 days with the Doctor,
Parker and the rest so long as they
were in our company, as also that
which was spent upon the master
and mariners 3 15 o
Paid for all our charges from Yarmouth
to London 5 10 o
Paid for our charges here in London to
this 26 of August, 1570, with our
horse meat the first night .... o 13 2
Paid for one to help to bring up the hoye
from Yarmouth to London because
the master came up with us . . .010 2"
Blessed John Storey arrived in London August
the 2ist. His capture naturally caused great excite-
ment and unbounded joy among the heretics. The
Spanish agent, Don Antonio de Guaras, wrote
August the 2oth to Zayas as follows :
" I wrote to your Worship on the i6th and the
news since then is that they have enticed Dr. Storey,
whom you will know, on board a ship in Flanders,
and have brought him hither. He was betrayed by
a false companion of his, a treacherous Englishman,
and an acquaintance of mine met the traitor on the
i6th instant coming from Yarmouth whither Storey
had been taken.
" My acquaintance seeing the traitor alone was
surprised that he should be here ; the latter said :
' I have come hither to do the Queen a great service,
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 61
for I have managed to bring into England a bitter
enemy of the Queen and this country.' It is now
understood that Dr. Storey will arrive here a prisoner
to-night or to-morrow."
In a letter written three days later the Ambas-
sador adds : " These people in London are only
talking of the martyrs they are going to make."
The jubilation of the Protestants may be judged
from the following letter of Bishop Horn, of Win-
chester, written to Bullinger a year later (August,
I57 1 ):
"There was here not long since a doctor of
laws, of some learning, such a one as I imagine as
those among the Jews who menaced Christ with
death. His name is Storey, a man as it were born
for cruelty, a most raging persecutor in Marian
times to whom it was gain to kill the saints and
sport to shed blood.
" This man after the happy day had shone on us
. . . was thrown into prison on an evident charge
of treason. A short time afterwards ... he
escaped to Flanders, . . . where like a fury fresh
from hell, or more truly like a wicked Davus, it is
wonderful how he made mischief. . . . There
comes to him one of his friends, whose fidelity he
least suspected, but who had been suborned by the
merchants. 1 This man whispers in his ear that a
ship has just arrived from England with I know
1 Even Horn did not know that Parker had been sent to
Flanders for the very purpose of kidnapping the martyr. But it is
evident from the whole letter that Horn cared little forgaccuracy.
62 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
not what golden mountains of treasure. Fired with
the love of plunder, he straightway sallies forth,
promising the money to himself and death to the
merchants. After he had entered the ship and
was prying about in every corner, and had just
gone down into the interior of the vessel, they
suddenly closed the hatches, and with their sails set,
are carried by a prosperous and safe breeze to
England.
"And so at length he was brought to London
amidst the great congratulations of the people
awaiting him on his return." 1
The Lords of the Council ordered Dr. Watts,
Archdeacon of London, to take care of Dr. Storey
till the Lollards' Tower 2 could be got ready for his
reception ; for no common prison would do for such
a man.
As Lord Cobham wrote to Cecil : " In my
poor opinion no common prison is fit for him, for he
shall find too many friends." " No," comments
Simpson, " the man who might have put Cecil and
1 Zurich Letters, First Series, n. 98.
2 Not the tower at Lambeth Palace, commonly so called, but
a tower attached to St. Paul's Cathedral, where heretics who came
under the Bishop of London's jurisdiction were confined. "At
each corner of this West End [of St. Paul's] was a strong tower
of stone, made for Bell-Towers, one of them, viz., that next the
Bishop's Palace, was used by the Palace in Stow's time, and the
other, toward the South, was called the Lollards' Tower, and used as
the Bishop's Prison, for such as were detected for Opinions in
Religion contrary to the Faith of the Church." (The History and
Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. By Seymour and
Marchant. London, 1754, vol. i. p. 739.)
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 63
Leicester, and Elizabeth herself to death, and had
only put them in fear, was not to be allowed the
use of friends. He was to have no common prison,
the vindictiveness of the Court faction was to ape
the vengeance of God, and Dr. Storey was to be
punished by that wherein he had sinned. The
Lollards' Tower, in which he shut up the heretics
whom the ancient laws then punished, was to be
new-locked and bolted to shut him up."
On August the 26th, Archdeacon Watts wrote
to Cecil that on the Friday evening last Dr. Storey
had been brought to his house, "albeit I am very
unmeet and unprovided for such a charge." The
Lollards' Tower should be made ready for him, the
locks and bolts having been broken off its doors at
the death of Queen Mary and never repaired since.
" My house is so weak," he plaintively adds,
"that I am forced to get men to watch every night,
which is a great trouble to me ; and the care that I
have of his safe keeping (being a person of whom
such an account is made) doth much impair my
health. I will commit him to the Lollards' Tower as
soon as it is ready, and will appoint a couple of
keepers to keep him there." 1
He wrote again on September the 4th, that
Storey had been in the Lollards' Tower since the
Friday before.
" He seemeth to take little thought for any
matters, and is as perverse in mind concerning
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 30.
64 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
religion as heretofore he hath been ; and plainly
saith that what he did in Queen Mary's time he did
it lawfully, because he was but a minister of the
law ; and if the like law were again he might do the
like. I have appointed two of my neighbours, being
honest men and favourers of the truth, to be his
keepers jointly, and have divided the keys of the
prison between them, so as the one cannot come
at him without the other ; and I have given them
strait charge to keep him secret and safe, and not
to suffer any to have conference with him." 1
Meanwhile the blessed martyr was filled with
supernatural joy. Though entirely taken by surprise
at his capture, he soon divined what was in prospect
for him, and earnestly gave thanks to God, who had
brought him back again to the place of suffering,
ardently praying that he might obtain the martyr's
crown and palm. 2 The Catholics were plunged into
deep distress, and many prayers went up to Heaven
that he might be constant in the hour of trial.
The Spanish Ambassador, Don Guerau de Spes,
wrote on September the 3rd :
"Dr. Storey is at present very strictly imprisoned
and is being examined. The man who betrayed
him is also under arrest, in order to make the people
believe that he did not betray him. Many burlesque
verses have been printed about the kidnapping of
Storey." 3
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxxiii. 30. - Concertatio, f. 44.
3 Spanish Calendar, 1570, n. 216.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 65
On the nth he wrote to the King :
" The captain of the smack which brought
Dr. Storey is called Cornelius Hadria, 1 who I do
not think is a Bergen man. He is swaggering
about here very impudently. He arranged the
matter with Mershe the English commissioner, and
others whose names I am ascertaining."
Meanwhile the rogues engaged in this conspiracy
were quarrelling over the payment and division of
the spoil. William Parker was the luckiest of all;
for as Cecil did not desire the share he had in it
to be known, and as for appearance sake he was to
be kept in prison and tried with Dr. Storey as an
accomplice with him, under the pretence that both
of them were entrapped and brought over as traitors,
it was necessary to pay him very handsomely not
to divulge the plot, and to submit quietly to his
imprisonment in the Tower, to which both he and
Storey were transferred in December. Among the
State Papers we find Sir Owen Hopton the
Lieutenant's charges for their maintenance there ;
each of them being charged 135. 4d. a week for
diet, 53. for a keeper, and 45. for fuel and lights. 2
John Mershe wrote to Cecil and Leicester on
the nth of September, 1570, enclosing the porten-
tous bill of charges presented by his accomplices :
" Right Honourable, my duty remembered, I
am earnestly pressed by these 3 young men who
1 Ramsden and his companions call him Cornelius Adrianson,
but Van Eycke seems to have been his real name.
- R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 46.
F II.
66 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
brought over Dr. Storey to commend their suit to
your Honours, which is that they may be answered
such money as they say they have laid out, amount-
ing, besides 68 us. 4d., which I have answered to
that account, 109 35. 2d., as by an account which
they will exhibit may appear. And therefore I am
bold to be a humble suitor unto your Honours
to be as good to them as may be ; for they have
adventured so far as they may no more go into
the Low Countries, their names being notoriously
known, and yet two of them are married. They
trust also that their dangerous services taken in
hand with so good a will is taken in so good part
that they shall have some further consideration, and
although they have kept themselves close in one
house which is clear, yet will they spend 5 or 6
days in the country ere they come to the city." *
We much regret that -considerations of space
forbid us from printing the bill of charges in its
entirety. It is a most interesting document and the
effrontery of the ingenuous young men who drew it
up is very amusing. It evidently quite took away the
breath of the worthies to whom it was addressed. 2
It is headed A die 23 Julii anno 1570, and has
been annotated by Mershe as we shall see. The
whole comes to the respectable total of 177 145. 6d.
(which may perhaps be multiplied by at least eight
to get the modern value). This bill was of course
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 62.
2 It is printed in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Relations Politiques des
Fays Bas et de I'Angleterre, etc. torn. vi.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 67
for money out of pocket, and did not include the
reward claimed by the merchants. Among the more
interesting items are the following :
" Paid for our charges the space xiii
days at the English house in
Barrow as well for Parker as for
ourselves and two men more for
divers which came out of Zealand
and from Antwerp, as also expenses
upon the master and mariners
during our abode there ...'.. 8 4 6
(Margin, Too much.)
Paid more than we were fain to give to
be released of a hoye which we had
bought at Barrow aforesaid for
that she was not so able, nor so
fit to serve our turn as we took her
to be 16 13 4
(Margin, / doubt thereof.)
Paid more to be released of x sacks of
tow and other things which at the
first were determined to be laid
upon the said hoye, and afterwards
we resolved upon the contrary . 328
Paid more for beer, bread and beef and
other victuals for this our last hoye
our company being in all x persons 10 o o
(Margin, There was V liv. paid.}
Paid to Cornelius Adrianson skipper for
his freight, according to our bargain
made with him 50 o o
(Margin, He had but 33 liv. 6s. 8d.)
68 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Paid unto iii mariners which we hired
for x liv. a man, whereof the one
had but iii liv. vis. viii d. in hand
and afterwards ran away from us,
so that to encourage the rest which
we feared would have done the
like, we granted them the rest of
his hire, so have they in all ... 30 o o
(Margin, He that maketh freight
with the master hireth also the
mariners.)
Paid more unto one Englishman which
we took with us for over more
strength, if need should have been,
as also to be our pilot when occasion
might serve 13 6 8
(Margin,/ think he had xx or xxxfl.)
More we have promised unto another
Englishman as well for his pains
taken on the other side as also for
his coming with us for over more
aid and strength, whatsoever might
have happened by the way 20 o o
(Margin, This was needless, I would
they had left him alone.) "
Of the total sum they had already received over
68, which was paid to them at Antwerp by one
John Taylor. They still demanded 109 35. 2d. ;
but Cecil was not disposed to give a penny more,
though Mershe wrote many strenuous letters, urging
that it were better to give way, for if the young men
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 69.
were made discontented the affair might acquire an
awkward publicity. He hoped, however, that it
would not be thought that he " allowed of their
account, which I think untrue and unreasonable,
as by the 'notes in the margin may appear;
but yet I cannot remove them from it ; they doubt
by likelihood how they shall be considered [i.e.,
what reward they will get] and therefore would help
themselves this way." He went on to plead for
more money for himself. 1 We learn from this letter
that Ramsden had a wife and children at Antwerp
to whom he could not safely return, and that he
and Bragge had refused a reward of 40 a piece
offered them by Cecil's agent Lee, " saying they
would stand to the reward of the Lords of the
Council."
Cecil, in one of his last replies (after the affair
had gone on sometime and Dr. Storey was executed)
jocosely suggested that if the young men were not
satisfied, they might have Dr. Storey's carcase
among them to sell as relics. They at last invented
a new tale, namely, that they had left 2,300 of
debt behind them in the Low Countries which
the Duke of Alva had confiscated ; for that the
seizure of Dr. Storey had very much embittered
both the King and himself against Elizabeth and
her Government. However, as Simpson says,
if there had been any truth in this story, " we
doubt whether they would have been a whole
twelvemonth in finding it out as an argument for
the payment of their bill, and we have still greater
1 Letter of September 14, 1570. R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 64.
70 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
doubts whether they would have undertaken the
affair with the almost certain prospect of losing
everything they had in the Low Countries."
We may end this episode by giving one of their
whining letters to Cecil, dated June, 1571, a few
days after the martyrdom, because of the great light
it throws upon the whole transaction. We do not
know if they ever got their money, but probably
they did not. As it was, they had already received
considerably more than the traditional thirty pieces
of silver.
" To the Right Honourable my very good Lord
the Lord of Burghley,
" The cold answer, right honourable, which of
late we received of Mr. Mershe to his motion, made
as he saith, of our cause unto your lordship, had
wholly dismayed us, had not the right honourable
Earl of Leicester sundry times declared unto us the
contrary ; and you yourself of your great goodness
very lately confirmed the same, which yieldeth us
indeed great hope that notwithstanding the said
Mershe's discouragement, we are shortly to have
some good end of that which so long we had sued
for, wherein undoubtedly your great bounty shall so
much the more appear and shine, as our present
necessity doth urgently crave the same ; and our
hope is likewise the better assured, in that you have
used, as of late we understand, so great liberality
towards Parker, whose good hap in that behalf, as
we do not in any wise malign, so doubt we not but
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 71
our travail and losses, without whom he had never
prevailed, will also be somewhat considered accord-
ingly. Yet forasmuch as those, perhaps, to whom
we had partly trusted, have not so effectually
declared our cause as both by promise and in
conscience they are bound to do, and to the intent
(whatsoever report be made to the contrary) it may
plainly appear to your lordship, that of all prudence
touching those affairs, ours hath been and still is the
greatest, may it please your lordship to understand
the whole order how we came first to deal in this
matter. The thing being pretended and planned by
others long before, charge was committed unto one
Pigotte to furnish a ship with men and mariners
sufficient for the purpose. He proceeded therein
so far, that the very place, time, and tide were
appointed, where the Doctor should be shipped with
the whole train almost in all points as we now
lastly used, for none other to that end could aptly
have served. But in effect those matters were so
slenderly handled, that when it came to the very
point, all was dashed and like to be discovered. For
beside that the men and mariners forsook the enter-
prise, and refused to deal any more therein, certain
of them letted not to make exclamation at Parker's
house, where Storey and all other rebels resorted ;
and not knowing that Parker was privy thereunto,
warned him, as he said unto us himself, to take
heed, for there were that pretended to carry him
and another into England. Until the matter was
brought into this exigent, we never dealt therein,
nor once understood of any such pretence ; and in
72 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
this extremity did one John Lee, gentleman, break
the news unto us, declaring how lewdly Pigotte had
ordered the matters, greatly complaining the danger
he stood in himself, being in fear their enterprise
would be bewrayed, that in very deed he once
determined with the rest to have fled and absented
themselves, for fear of the peril which was like to
ensue ; and so far discoursed upon the matter with
us, that plainly we perceived him to be the principal
dealer therein by order from hence, and the only
man that by promises of great rewards and other
things had allured Parker to consent thereunto :
craving instantly (for so much as he brought the
matter so far) our aid and assistance in that distress
towards the accomplishing of the rest ; whereunto,
although in heart we were very well inclined, yet
could we not upon such a sudden be persuaded to
hazard all that we had and our lives withal, until
such time as, upon sight of certain letters which he
showed us from Mr. Saltanstall and Mr. Mershe,
wherein your lordship was also mentioned, he
showed in the end your lordship's own letter for
confirmation of the rest, without which indeed we
had not so far endangered ourselves at that sudden.
But perceiving thereby that our service should be
great and very acceptable to the State, we judged
no time to be omitted, nor any danger refused,
which might further so good an enterprise. So that
it was neither Lee, Saltanstall, or Mershe, but the
credit of your lordship's letters, my lord, that moved
us, all other things set apart, presently to employ
ourselves that way, and without further delibera-
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 73
tion to hazard our lives, and all that we ever had,
rather than so good a piece of service should be
overthrown. It was a dangerous attempt, and very
well handled of Lee, the winning of Parker to
consent thereunto ; for without him the Doctor
could never have been blinded in such sort as he
was. But all the rest was our deed only, and no
man's else, as we trust Lee hath long sithence writ
unto your lordship ; and we have also his letters to
testify the same, if need require, whereby it shall
plainly appear, if Mr. Mershe have not likewise
reported accordingly, that he hath greatly abused
us. As for Parker, be it spoken under correction,
my lord, it was the opinion which Storey had of his
simplicity, and not his own policy, that so deceived
and allured him into those dangers ; which thing
Storey by this one point sufficiently declared, in that
he thought him not able to deal in any matter
touching his office without his presence to guide and
direct him ; and sure I am your lordship doth well
perceive him to be very incapable of any such affairs
as these were. For our parts, more assistance than
of a very child or infant we never had of him, and
accordingly were forced from time to time to instruct
him what he should say or do in every respect ; and
for his office, if your lordship make account what he
hath lost thereby, surely as it was his only substance,
it is well known, although he bore the name, that it
was a matter of trust, and that Storey notwith-
standing would have reaped the greatest fruit
thereof. For our parts, right honourable, besides
that we lack a great part of our disbursed money,
74 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
and the great charge which we have been at in
following her Majesty's Court these ten months
continually, what we have lost and are likely to
lose, if we should so amply declare as our cause
requireth, your lordship may think it very much ;
for over and above the 2,300 heretofore mentioned,
our liberty and traffic in those places hath hitherto
maintained the estate of mean merchants, whereof
we are now wholly destitute. And for mine own
part, those hopes which on behalf of my wife I am
like to lose, I would not willingly have given for
1,000 marks. Thus humbly beseeching your lord-
ship to weigh our cause with compassion, for that
Mr. Mershe declaring unto us so heavy a message
from you, the same is a double grief that your
lordship should wish us Dr. Storey's carcass among
us, as Mr. Mershe saith, or otherwise to make some
more reasonable suit. Wherein, my good lord, as we
have lost all that ever we had in doing this service,
so, for that matter what we require tends to the
Queen's Majesty's profit, and the Commonweal, and
is but a casualty to what it may be worth to counter-
vail our damages before mentioned ; yet we humbly
content ourselves therewith, desirous no further to
enjoy it than as the same be not prejudicial to the
intercourse and good policy of the State. And now,
if we be driven to change our suit again, as we were
once before for the matter of leather, we must be
driven withal to beg our bread, and so leave to
trouble your lordship any more. But behold your
lordship as our good patron, whose goodness it is to
consider how extremely we be forced, whilst that we
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 75
must trouble you with so many words. But we
beseech you of pardon and some end, whatsoever it
be. For* these five months the Earl of Leicester
hath promised us good despatch ; and so we be put
off to our greater destruction, fed only with hopes,
and lastly are further now from any relief at all.
Praying God to move his heart, and to preserve
your good lordship in all felicity, your honour's
orator,
" ROGER RAMSDEN."
But we must return to the Blessed Martyr whom
we left in prison in the Tower. On the I3th of
December, 1570, Don Guerau wrote to King
Philip :
" Dr. Storey has been lodged in the Tower and
confronted with the man who brought him. He is
accused of having plotted with the Duke of Alva.
They are putting him to the torture to-day, and I
expect it will go badly with him. God help him.
All the Catholics pray for him." l
On the 2nd of March, 1570-1, he wrote again :
"Your Majesty will see by the letters from Dr.
Storey to me how he is suffering in the Tower. 2
Our knowledge of the martyr's doings and
sufferings from this point rests wholly on the
evidence of extremely hostile writers. It is well
to call attention to the fact before proceeding
further.
" He bore his fate with considerable stoicism,"
1 Spanish Calendar, p. 288.
2 Ibid. p. 296. These letters are unfortunately not forthcoming.
76 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
writes Froude, " but his firmness failed him in the
terrible ordeal which followed. He was examined
in his cell under the rack as Felton had been. The
Catholics prayed that God would support him under
it, but he was seventy years old and feeble for his
age, and his dark secrets were wrung from him by
his agony." 1
We shall hear more of these " dark secrets " later
on. As a matter of fact, his long imprisonment
and frequent torturings before his trial are to be
accounted for by the difficulty which Cecil and
Leicester had to trump up some charge of treason
against him by which he might legally be put to
death, for it was clear that they could not make
his having been ecclesiastical commissioner under
Queen Mary or his speech in the House of Commons
treason, although they were the real cause of his
execution. It was not till Easter, 1571, that they
concocted an indictment against him. He had
been on friendly terms with the Nortons and other
refugees, actors in the Northern Rising, who had
been indicted for treason. He was therefore indicted
for comforting traitors, and one of the particular
charges against him was, that " he came one day
to Parker's house at Antwerp ; where sitting at
dinner, the elder Norton and some other of his
company came in from the church, and one said,
' This is Norton ; ' and thereupon Storey rose and
gave him place and bid him welcome, and so the
elder Norton sat down in Storey's place."
The indictment against him is still extant, 2 and
1 History of England, ix. p. 312. ' 2 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxvii. 64.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 77
it shows how false were the virulent and spiteful
attacks made by the authors of two tracts which
were published against him after his death, and to
which we shall have to refer later on.
After reciting the indictment against the Nortons
and others for their share in the Northern Rising,
and that the said Richard Norton and the rest
traitorously fled to Antwerp, it goes on to present :
"That John Storey, of London, doctor of laws;
William Parker, of London, draper ; and John
Prestall, of London, gentleman, feloniously and
traitorously conspired, compassed and imagined the
death of the Queen, and her deprivation ; and well
knowing that Richard Norton and the rest had
committed, done, and perpetrated divers treasons
and rebellions in England, did feloniously and
traitorously, at Antwerp and divers other places,
comfort, receive, entertain, and assist the said
Richard Norton and the rest against their allegiance,
&c., and against the peace, &c., and against the
statute in that place made and provided."
" He was brought to Westminster Hall on May
the 26th, 1 before the judges of the Queen's Bench
and arraigned. He refused to plead, saying ' that
he was not an English subject, that men were not
born slaves but freemen ; that kings were made for
the people, and not the people for their kings ; that
the doctrine of natural allegiance was tyrannical
1 So Simpson. The Spanish Ambassador, however, says May 27,
and Sander May 25. The trial may have lasted more than one day.
78 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
and unjust, for that as men were born free they had
a right to choose their own country, and could owe
no allegiance before they had sworn allegiance.'
He acknowledged however that he was born in
England. 'Then,' said they, 'it follows you are a
subject to the Queen and laws of the realm.' But
he said that he had not been the Queen's subject
for the last seven years, having been naturalized a
Spaniard, and was the subject of the most Catholic
and mighty Prince, Philip of Spain. He added that
God commanded Abraham to go forth from the
land and country where he was born, from his
friends and kinsfolk unto another country ; and so
he followed his example, for conscience' sake in
religion, did forsake his country and the laws of the
realm, and the prince, and had given himself up to
the service of another governor. Abraham had been
commanded to do this, to escape being involved in
the sin of idolatry in which Chaldaea was then
plunged, and he to escape the sin of heresy and
schism. 1 Perceiving that they were about to give
judgment against him, he said they had no law to
1 "Quite right too, Dr. Storey," breaks out Mr. Simpson;
" you Elizabethan Catholics are much too advanced in your notions
of the rights of man, . . . now we have to defend you for the
abominable doctrine that a man is not delivered over bound hand
and foot, or rather body and soul, into the hands of any ogre who
may happen to be sitting on the throne, simply because the poor
man was born within the fortunate dominions of the ogre aforesaid.
You really do hold that a civilized man who has the misfortune' to
be born of civilized parents within the territories of Mumbo-Jumbo
or Nangaro, may, if he chooses, migrate to another realm, and
transfer his allegiance to a more sympathetic sovereign ! Fatal
error," &c., &c.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 79
do so ; then turning to the people, he said : ' Good
people, I trust ye see how violently I am used, and
how unjustly and contrary to all justice and equity
they use me.' And he added 'that he had good
hope that he was not destitute of some friends there
who would give notice to the most Catholic Prince,
his master, how cruelly they dealt with him. One
of them said to him : ' Master Storey, because you
think it violence that is shown to you instead of
law and justice, you shall know that we do nothing
but what we may do by law and equity.' Then
one of the judges said, 'This is Scarborough's
case.' ' Nay,' answered the martyr, 'my case is not
Scarborough's case ; but indeed I had Scarborough's
warning 1 to come to this arraign, for I knew nothing
of it till seven o'clock this morning.' Then there
was a book delivered unto him to read wherein he
might see what they might do by law ; and after
he had read it, the Judge demanded of him ' how
he liked it ? ' Storey answered : ' God have mercy
upon me.' Then the Lord Chief Justice gave him
judgment to be drawn, hanged and quartered; and
so he was again sent unto the Tower."
1 " First knocking a man down and then bidding him stand,"
an old proverb called by the common people in those days
"Scarborough's Warning." (Simpson.) The account of the trial
as also that of the execution and last speech is taken from one of
the tracts already mentioned, which is virulently hostile in tone,
The Declaration of the Life and Death of John Storey. The other is
entitled, A copy of a Letter lately sent by a Gentleman, Student in the
Lawes, to a Friende of his, concernyng D. Storie, a black-letter pamphlet
published after the martyr's death and purporting to contain his
confessions. Reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, viii. pp. 608 613.
8o BLESSED JOHN STOREY
It has been said by the King of Martyrs that
*' except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." And so it was in the case of Blessed
John Storey. There was one present at the trial
who was wavering as to whether he should follow
the divine call. But the cruelty and injustice
there displayed decided him, and Blessed Edmund
Campion, for it was no other than he, was convinced
by what he saw and heard that England was no
place for him. He was "animated to offer himself
by this blessed man's example," writes Father
Persons, 1 " to any danger and peril for the same
Faith for which the Doctor died." And so he went
abroad, not indeed to escape from like dangers, but
to prepare to meet them, and presented himself
to Dr. Allen at Douay. Later on, when he returned
on that short but triumphal mission of his, he was
wont to salute bareheaded the sacred tree of Tyburn
consecrated by the old martyr's blood, and fervently
to pray beneath it for a like glorious crown.
Having thus been seized in a foreign land by
craft and violence, and condemned in a country
that he had never meant to enter again, the martyr
was taken back to the Tower.
On his way there he was insulted by the rabble
who scoffed and jeered at him. " As he went by
the way, certain persons in several places met with
him, and one said, ' O Storey, Storey ! thou art a
strange story ! remember Master Bradford that
godly man ; his blood asketh vengeance on thee,
1 Life of Campion, p. 7.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 81
Storey; repent in time.' . . . Another cried unto
him and said, ' Blessed be God, Storey, who hath
made thee partaker of such bread as thou wast wont
to deal to the innocent members of Jesus Christ.'
Another also cried out on him and said, ' Storey,
Storey, the abominable cup of fornication and
filthiness, that thou hast given others to drink be
heaped up topful, that thy plagues may be greater
at the terrible day of God's wrath and vengeance,
unless thou ask mercy for thy filthy, corrupt, and
stinking life.' And yet another cried out unto him
and said : ' I pray God that thy heart be not
hardened as was Pharaoh's, and made harder than
the adamant stone or the steel ; that when he would
he could not repent and call for grace.' And among
the rest, one came to him at London-stone and
saluted him with this metre, saying :
Master doctor Story
For you they are quite sorry,
The Court of Lovaine and Rome :
Your holy father the pope
Cannot save you from rope,
The hangman must have your gown.
And to all these outrages ' he answered never a
word.' "*
The martyr was confined in the Beauchamp
Tower, 2 in the large room on the first floor, on the
walls of which he has left a precious relic of his
imprisonment. The inscription
I57O : IHON STORE DOCTOR.
1 The Declaration.
- We presume that the inscription retains its original site.
G II.
82 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
no doubt cut with his own hand, can still be seen
on the left hand of the chimney.
While in the Tower he was several times offered
the Oath of Supremacy, which he steadily refused to
take. 1
Two days after his condemnation he wrote a
letter to his wife at Louvain. He complained of
the injustice of his condemnation. It would have
been easy for him, he wrote, to have refuted the
charge of treason, if the case had been tried before
other judges. And he cited as witnesses of his
innocence those very men with whom he was said
to have conspired at Antwerp. But his conscience
would not allow him to act otherwise than he had
done. He could not plead as if he acknowledged
an excommunicated Queen, and especially could
not, according to his conscience, acknowledge
the jurisdiction of any judge appointed by one so
excommunicated, for fear of himself being involved
in the same condemnation. In order, therefore,
to save his own conscience, and that he might die
in the communion of Holy Church, he did not
hesitate to shed his blood. He therefore not only
returned thanks to God that he was thought worthy
to die for so good a cause, but believed that his wife
and all his friends would congratulate him, if they
really knew with what eagerness he prepared
himself for that death, by which in so short a time
he would expiate the faults of a life of nearly seventy
years. 2
1 Wood, A then. Oxon. i. 388.
2 Sander, Concertatio, ff. 448, 45 A. We have only Sander's
resume of this letter.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 83
The fanatical preachers who had hitherto annoyed
him with their importunities now left him, and on
the evening before his execution the Lieutenant of
the Tower asked him if he would like any minister
of God to attend him. He said he would be most
grateful for the assistance of a Catholic priest, but
he would have nothing to do with any heretic or
schismatic. The Lieutenant, upon this, gave leave
that his old friend, the learned and saintly Dr.
Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, himself a con-
fessor in chains for the Catholic faith, should attend
him. This was almost the last time that such a
favour was granted. The Abbot remained with him
all night, and we know from the martyr's Own
testimony, how great was the spiritual comfort
which he derived from the good old man. The fear
of death was taken away and his soul was flooded
with supernatural joy.
Meanwhile, it will be asked, what were his
powerful friends doing ? What efforts were being
made to save him by the great King whose liege
subject he had claimed to be ? If Blessed John
Storey had ever been tempted to put his trust in
princes, he knew now how true was the Psalmist's
warning that there was " no help in them."
It is true that some feeble efforts had been made
by the Spanish Ambassador and the Duke of Alva
on his behalf, but Philip II. could not afford just
then to quarrel with Elizabeth, and so to throw her
into the arms of France, even to save Dr. Storey
from his cruel fate.
" If Alva and Philip endured this, the Catholics
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
in England might well despair of help from them,
and Elizabeth might lay aside her fears. Here was
a man living under the King of Spain's protection,
in the employ of the Government, and seized and
carried off, as it were, under Alva's eyes. Yet
Alva contented himself with a mild remonstrance
to the English Minister. ' The proceeding appeared
strange to him,' he said, ' the Queen of England
should remember that it would discontent her to
have the like done in her countries ; it was the
King's pleasure, however, to bear with her in a
matter which he would not have suffered at another
prince's hand.' The English Catholics little expected
such an answer." 1
Nor indeed did the Spanish Ambassador. On
the 27th of May, 1571, he wrote to the King :
" Your Majesty will have learned that I addressed
this Council from the Duke of Alva, in order to
attempt to procure the release of Dr. Storey. 2 I now
hear that they took him to-day to be tried at
Westminster, and that they have condemned him
to death in the usual way. I will say no more about
it, as I have no fresh instructions to do so." . . .
He adds, in a postscript : " I had written thus far
when I decided to convey to the Council the enclosed
remonstrance. Cecil replied that an answer should
be sent after the Queen and Council had been
1 Froude, History of England, ix. p. 313.
- This was on April 16. The Ambassador, through his
secretary, John Cipres, required the punishment of Storey's
abductors, and complained of the encouragement given to the rebels
and pirates of the Low Countries in England. (Foreign Calendar,
1569 157 1 - n -
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 85
consulted, as had been done previously, but he
was much surprised that the Duke and I should
intercede for an Englishman." 1 The Ambassador
had demanded that Storey should be returned to
Flanders. When the answer came it was character-
istically insolent. Elizabeth sent a message that
she would keep the body of the condemned man,
but would be quite willing to send his head to the
King of Spain. 2
We now approach the final tragedy. The execu-
tion took place on the ist of June, 1571. It was
carried out, says Pollard, "with horrible cruelty." a
Some of the details of the martyr's sufferings are
indeed too abominable to describe in these days,
they will be found in Antony a Wood and other
writers. It had evidently been determined by the
old martyr's relentless foes that he should be spared
no detail of extremest ignominy" and horror. We
give the account furnished us by the contemporary
pamphleteer, 4 who was evidently present at the
martyrdom. Though so bitterly hostile a witness,
his account seems trustworthy, and indeed his bias
against the victim makes his testimony doubly
precious.
" The first day of June, the said Mr. Storey was
drawn upon a hurdle from the Tower of London
unto Tyburn ; where was prepared for him a new
pair of gallows, made in triangular manner. And
by the way, as he went, many people spoke unto
1 Spanish Calendar, 1571, p. 313. * Relations Politiques, vi. p. ii.
3 Dictionary of National Biography. * The Declaration.
86 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
him, and called unto him to repent of his tyranny
and wickedness ; and willed him to call upon God
for mercy ; but he lay as though he had been asleep,
and would not speak to any person. And when he
was taken from the hurdle, and set in a cart, he
made there a solemn protestation and said :
" I am come hither to die, and truly if this death
were ten times more fierce and sharp than it is, I
have deserved it. I have lived the space of three
score and seven years, and now my body must abide
this temporal pain and punishment, provided for
me here in this life, by means whereof my days
shall be cut off. But, where at the first I stood in
fear of death, I thank God, this night past I have
been so comforted with God and godly men, that
the fear of death is taken from my sight. And now
I appeal to God the Father, trusting in the Passion
of His Son Jesus Christ, and hoping by the shedding
of His Blood only to be saved. And although a long
time I could not apply the virtue of His Passion
and Death to the use and benefit of my soul, because
of my long hovering in fear ; yet now, I thank God,
I know how to apply this medicine ; as for example,
an apothecary may have a medicine in his shop
seven years, that may help a sick or diseased man,
by the counsel of a physician, but if this medicine
be not applied to the patient but still remaineth in
the apothecary's shop, it profiteth nothing no
more could the benefit of Christ's death help me,
because, although I knew the medicine good, I did
not apply it unto my soul's health : but now it hath
pleased Almighty God to call me to account of my
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 87
sixty-seven years, which now must have an end, and
this corrupt body must feel a temporal punishment,
for my sins have deserved it (as I said before). I am
now come to a proof of this medicine. David,
when he had committed adultery with Bathsheba,
the wife of Uriah (whose husband also he caused
to be put into the front of the battle, and so was
murdered) ; he for that trespass felt a temporal
punishment, by the loss of his son, whom he loved
tenderly. Also, when he numbered his people, he
greatly displeased God ; and for his offence and
transgression he felt a temporal pain ; and choice
was given unto him from above, to choose one
of these three temporal and bodily punishments ;
that is to say : three days' pestilence ; the sword,
that is to say : bloody battle seven years ; or famine
seven years. And he thought to choose the least,
and he chose three days' pestilence ; but this scourge
took away an infinite number of his subjects. So
now as my sins deserve a temporal pain, which here
have an end, even in this flesh ; I am of the same
mind that the prophet David was : and with him I
agree saying, Invoco te, Domine, &c. ' Lord, I call
upon Thee in this day of my trouble. Hear me,
O Lord, out of Thy dwelling-place,' &c.
" But now to speak a little of my arraignment :
when I was at Westminster, I alleged in my plea
that I was no subject of this realm ; as I did like-
wise before the Queen's commissioners, Sir Thomas
Wrath, Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, late Recorder of the
City of London, Mr. Peter Osborne, Mr. Marshe, and
88 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Mr. Dr. Watts; where the Recorder of London made
a like demand as was demanded of me at West-
minster ; and that was, whether I was born in
England or no ? Whereunto I answered, ' I was.'
' Then,' said he, ' it followeth that you are and ought
to continue the Queen's faithful subject.' Where-
unto I replied then, as I do now, saying: 'I am
sworn to the noble King, defender of the ancient
Catholic Faith, King Philip of Spain, and he is
sworn again by a solemn and corporal oath, to
maintain and defend the University of Louvain,
whereof I am a member ; and therefore no subject
of this realm, nor yet subject to any laws thereof.
For it is well known that I departed this realm
being freely licensed thereunto by the Queen, who
accounted me an abject and castaway ; and I came
not hither again of my own accord, but I was
betrayed.
" And although I had an inkling given me before
of such a thing pretended towards me, yet I could
not shun or escape it : for sure it was God who
made dim my understanding and blinded mine
eyes, so that I could not perceive it. But Holy
Writ commandeth me to love my enemies, and
here I forgive them freely with all my heart ;
beseeching God that they take no harm for me in
another country. I would be right sorry they should,
although they betrayed me. I travelled with them
from ship to ship, by the space of eight days, and
mistrusted no peril to be at hand, until I was
clapped fast under the hatches. But sure, sure it
was God that wrought it ; yea, and although I
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 89
was accounted a poller of the Englishmen of your
country, I stand now here before God, and by
the death I shall die, I had never out of any ship
more than two pieces of gold, and forty dollars
that were laid in my hand.
" But once again to my arraignment. Where
there were certain letters laid to my charge,
wherein I should go about to provoke the Mortons,
the Nevilles, and others to rebel ; I never meant
it ; yet will I discharge my conscience freely and
frankly, and tell you truth. There was a com-
mission for a like matter sent into Scotland, which
I wrote with mine own hand : but it contained
a proviso, wherein the Queen of England and her
dominions were excepted.
" There are yet two things that I purpose to talk
of; namely, for that there are here present a great
number of youth ; and I would to God I might
say or speak that which might bring all men to the
unity of the Church ; for there is but one Church,
one Flock, and one Shepherd ; if I could this do I
would think myself to have wrought a good work.
" The first point toucheth my cruelty, wherewith
I am sore burdened, and the second concerneth my
religion. As touching the first ; there were three
in commission of the which I was one who might
do least, for I was the last of the three. And
though I might, by persuasion, essay to cause them
to revoke the Articles, which they had maintained,
and to confess the presence wherein I stand ; ye
know that he who chideth is not worthy to be
condemned for fighting ; no more am I worthy to
90 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
be counted cruel for chiding. It was the Bishop
that pronounced the sentence (Excommunicainns)
and against that I could not do, for I was one of
the laity. Yet often -times the Bishop, to whom
I was a servant, was bold with me, when he had
so many prisoners that he could not well bestow
them. For at one time the Lord Riche sent him
out of Essex 28, and at another time 16 and 14,
and some of them were sent to me, whom I kept
in my house with such fare as I had provided for
myself and my family at my own cost and charge.
And to prove that I was not so cruel as I am
reported to be, let this one tale suffice : there were
at one time 28 condemned to the fire, and I moved
the dean of Paul's to tender their estate, who
after was Abbot of Westminster, a very pitiful-
minded man. I think the most part of you know him,
it is Mr. Fecknam, and we went up and persuaded
with them, and we found them very tractable ; and
Mr. Fecknam and I laboured to the Lord Cardinal
Poole, showing they were nescientes quid fecerunt.
The Cardinal and we did sue together to the
Queen, and laid both the swords together, and so
we obtained pardon for them all, saving an old
woman that dwelt about Paul's Churchyard ; she
would not convert and therefore she was burned.
The rest of them received absolution and that with
all reverence. Search the Register and you shall
find it. Yea, and it was my procurement that
there should be no more burnt in London ; for
I saw well that it would not prevail, and therefore
we sent them into odd corners, into the country.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 91
"Wherefore, I pray you, name me not cruel; I
would be loth to have any such slander to run on
me ; but sith I die in charity, I pray you all of
charity to pray for me, that God may strengthen
me with patience to suffer my death, to the which
I yield most willingly.
"And here I make a petition to you my friends,
who would have bestowed anything on me ; I
beseech you, for charity sake, bestow it yearly on
my wife, who hath four small children, and God
hath now taken me away that was her staff and
stay ; and now my daughter Weston and her three
children are gone over unto her, and I know not how
they shall do for food, unless they go a begging
from door to door for it; although, indeed, no English
persons do beg but of English, being helped by the
Lady Dormer and Sir Francis (Englefield).
" I have good hope that you will be good unto
her, for she is the faithfullest wife, the lovingest
and constantest that ever man had ; and twice we
have lost all that ever we had, and now she hath
lost me to her great grief, I know.
" The second point that I thought to speak of
is concerning my religion, for that I know many
are desirous to know what faith I will die in ; the
which I will briefly touch. I say with St. Jerome,
that ancient father and pillar of the old ancient,
Catholic and Apostolic Church, grounded upon the
Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, that in the same
faith that I was born in, I purpose to die in. And
as the ark that Noe and his family did possess,
figured the ship of Christ's Church, out of which
92 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
ship whosoever is, cannot be saved, in that ship
am I. ... A ship that is tossed on the floods is
often in danger of loss on the sands, and sometimes
on the rocks ; but when the men who are in the
ship espy present peril at hand, there is a cockboat
at the tail of the ship, whereunto they fly for
succour; so likewise I, being in the ship of Christ,
once fell out of the same ship, and was in present
peril and great danger : but then I, following the
example of a good mariner, took the cockboat,
thinking to drive to land ; and at the last, being in
the boat, I espied three oars, that is, to wit, contri-
tion, confession, and absolution ; and I held all
these fast, and ever since then I have continued in
the ship of Christ, of which the Apostle Peter is
the guide and principal, and in the faith Catholic of
my King I die.
" Then said the Earl of Bedford : ' Are you
not the Queen's subject ? ' '" No,' said Storey, ' and
yet I do not exclude the Queen, but I pray for her,
her Council, and the nobility of this realm long
to continue.' Then said the Lord Hunsdon : ' Are
you not the Queen's subject ? You were born in
England ? ' Then said Storey : ' Every man is
freeborn, and he hath the whole face of the earth
before him to dwell and abide in, where he liketh
best ; and if he cannot live here, he may go
elsewhere.' Then was there (as I think) one of the
ministers hearing him to make so light of our noble
Queen and country, demanded of him whether she
were not next and immediately under God Supreme
Head of the Churches of England and Ireland ?
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 93
Whereunto he answered, ' I come not hither to
dispute, but if she be, she is. My nay will not
prevail to prove it otherwise.' And then they cried,
' Away with the cart ! ' And so he was hanged
according to his judgment."
The Elizabethan libeller prudently stops here.
The horrible scene that followed was little calcu-
lated to display to advantage his ''noble Queen and
country."
" The execution," says Simpson, " was con-
ducted with more atrocious cruelty than was usual
even in those most barbarous times. Lords Burleigh
and Hunsdon, the Earl of Bedford, and another earl,
whom we may not uncharitably suppose to have
been Leicester, came to gloat over the dying
moments of the man they both hated and feared in
Queen Mary's days and detested still. Dr. Fulke,
a celebrated Protestant controversialist, and many
others of the leading Puritans, were present. He
was cut down the instant he was hanged, in order
that he might have all his senses about him. He
was then stripped, and as soon as the executioner
began his obscene and disgusting function, the
modest martyr rose and gave him a box on the ear.
He was however held down by three or four men
while the rest of the cruel butchery was performed."
The malice of his enemies did not cease with
his death ; most violent attacks were made on his
memory. 1 Everything which he did (or was said
1 Especially in the two tracts already mentioned. Strype,
Holinshed, and Burnet are very foul-mouthed against him. They
do but re-echo Foxe, for the most part.
94 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
to have done) as a young man, which could in any
way tell invidiously was brought up against him to
blacken his character nay, the very cries he uttered
at the time of his martyrdom, wrung from him by
their own barbarity, were brought against him by
way of reproach.
The notorious Dr. Fulke, the antagonist of
Blessed Edmund Campion, thus wrote against
him : l
" Such as were manifestly void of patience can
be no true martyrs, as were most of those rebels
and traitors ; and Storey, by name, who for all his
glorious tale, in the time of his deserved execution
by quartering was so impatient, that he did not
only cry and roar like a hell-hound, but also struck
the executioner doing his office, and resisted as long
as strength did serve him, being kept down by three
or four men till he was dead ; and he used no voice
of prayer in all that time of his crying, as I heard
of the very executioner himself, besides them that
stood by, but only roared and cried, as one overcome
with the sharpness of the pain ; as no martyr, as the
Papists did mightily boast of him."
This passage, though quoted with relish by
both Strype and Bishop Kennet, will disgust most
readers, who will probably agree with Mr. Simpson,
that " the term hell-hound is rather applicable to
those who could complacently write such atrocious
language, and to those who could come and gloat
1 Strype, Annals, ii. 84, anno 1571.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 95
their vengeance over the sufferings of a poor dying
man to Elizabeth and her infamous ministers, and
to the Protestant Bishops and clergy, who were con-
tinually urging them on to still further atrocities."
Strype also finds pleasure in quoting some
doggerel written by Lawrence Ramsey, a poet near
about this time, in a book entitled The Practice of
the Devil, wherein the devil is brought in, speaking
thus :
" Stand to it Stapleton, Dorman and Harding,
And Rastal, that rakehell, to maintain my order:
Bonner and Gardiner are worth the regarding,
For keeping articles so long in this border.
O Storey, Storey, thou art worth recording :
Thou stood'st to it stoutly against God and King,
And at Tyburn desperately gav'st me an offering." 1
i A modern accuser, Mr. Froude, brings a serious accusation
against our martyr which needs fuller consideration. He writes
thus of Storey : " Besides the ordinary plots for invading England,
it seems that he had a scheme on foot in connection with one of the
Hamiltons for a feat which would have eclipsed the murder at
Linlithgow. It was nothing less than making away with the little
King of Scots, in the belief that with his life would be removed the
principal obstacle to his mother's marriage with some Catholic
prince." In a note he adds : "This preposterous piece of wickedness
would have been incredible had it not been confessed by Storey
himself. The account of it was transmitted by the Spanish Ambas-
sador to Philip. Don Guerau's words are these." He then quotes
a passage in Spanish of which we give the translation. " Storey
said that Hamilton told him that Prestal had written to him, that
as to the business which Storey and Hamilton had mentioned to
him, it could be done with [the] Englishman] who was then in
Ireland ; it could not be accomplished without great supply of money.
And that secret was about slaughtering the King of Scotland ; for
this Prestal had said to Hamilton that with difficulty could the
Scots be reduced to the obedience of the Queen, while she was
without a husband, and that no principal person \vould seek her
as wife while that boy lived. But that if [he] slaughtered him that
96 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
The savage execution of the aged martyr caused
a great sensation among Catholics both in England
and on the Continent, where he was everywhere
venerated as a saint.
On the 5th of August, 1571, King Philip wrote
to Don Guerau de Spes : "The death, or rather
martyrdom, of Dr. Storey was, I see by the state-
ment you send, so firm and faithful in the Catholic
religion that it is a subject of gratitude to God that
He has still preserved such men as this in England,
since by means of them hopes may be entertained
he hoped that the brother of the Emperor \vould marry her."
(History of England, ix. 310, 311.)
Now at first sight this does look very black against Storey,
especially to the reader who does not know Spanish, and therefore
assumes that Froude's quotation confirms his statement. Besides,
it rests on the authority of the Spanish Ambassador, who would
of course have no reason whatever for misrepresenting Storey to
his Sovereign.
But when the matter is examined the whole structure collapses.
This statement does not rest on the authority of the Spanish Ambas-
sador at all ! It is taken from a mere translation into Spanish
of one of the scurrilous pamphlets written against the martyr, to
which we have already referred, that namely by the Gentleman
Student in the Lawes of the Realm, which is full of the most virulent
abuse of the martyr. This student maintains that though Storey
was not charged at his trial with his various horrible treasons, he
might and would have been had he been only content to plead. He
then goes on to give what he asserts to be a series of Extracts out of
DY. Storey's Confessions, ix December, 1570.
This letter was translated into Spanish, and found its way
eventually to the State Archives of Simancas. Part of it is printed
in Spanish by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Relations Politiques,
Ac. vi. p. 141. The reference is Archives de Simancas, Estado, Leg.
826, fol. 63, and is entitled Copia de carta escripta por un cavallero que
estudia leyes de Inglaterra a cierto amigo suyo sobre el Doctor Estory.
Among the stories it contains, is one that the martyr was ever in
the habit of cursing the Queen as a form of grace after meals. It
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 97
that the true religion may yet be restored there.
Having respect to the need and trouble in which
I was informed Storey's wife was at Louvain, where
she lives, I have ordered the Duke to make the
necessary provision for the maintenance of her and
her children."
The martyr's life and death is said by a
Protestant informer, to have become one of the
regular themes at the English College at Rome. 1
When the time came to paint the famous frescoes
on the walls of the church, Dr. Storey was
is full of quite unsupported charges against the martyr, none of
which were brought forward at the trial. Froude's transcripts from
Simancas are now in the British Museum (Add. 26,056 b, 158), and
there it can be seen how he has made his extracts from this pre-
posterous pamphlet, which then he has the audacity to give as the
testimony of the Spanish Ambassador. His methods of dealing with
history are however too notorious to allow even such an instance
as this to cause much surprise. Besides this, when the so-called
Confessions are attentively read, it will be seen that they come to
little or nothing. Storey was certainly in communication with
Prestal and Hamilton, and we have seen that he acknowledged at
his martyrdom that he was doing his best to aid the cause of the
imprisoned Queen of Scots, and to restore her to her own kingdom.
But all the " confession " shows is that Storey had been told by
Prestal that a mysterious Englishman had a scheme for killing the
King of Scots, and that this Englishman wanted money. Later on
we find him saying " that Prestal told him he could do much with
that Englishman in Ireland, therein this examinate discouraged him."
This Prestal seems to have been in reality a traitor in the pay
of the English Government, trying to involve other men in pre-
tended plots. At any rate, Lee, Cecil's agent, who had so much
to do with Storey's capture, constantly reports long conversations
with him to his master, and says that he is very well disposed.
He pretended to be a necromancer, and boasted he could predict
the day and the hour of the Queen of England's death. Camden
calls him " a magical impostor against the Queen's life."
1 Anthony Munday, English Romaine Life, p. 25.
H II.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
represented there among the other martyrs of
England, and so it is that he now receives the
honours due to a Beatified Servant of God. But
nowhere did he receive more veneration than at
his old University of Louvain, and among the
Carthusians and the Grey Friars to whom he had
been so devoted. They honoured him as a saint,
and his relics and picture were placed over the
altars in certain of their churches. And indeed he
deserved their homage, for few more illustrious
martyrs have suffered in England for the defence of
the Supremacy of the Holy See, than this old man,
this Regius Professor of the Civil Law, who died
amidst such excruciating agonies at Tyburn. Even
the posthumous attacks of his enemies, as Sander
reminds us, only serve to add to his glory ; " for in
trying to cast the note of infamy on the memory of
a venerable and aged man and a most holy martyr,
they only prove how great were his merits, since
even after his death their hatred and envy against
him have no rest. Frustra enim post Dei opera,
hominum attexuntur verba"
A word must be added as to those who betrayed
our martyr to his death. The arch-villain Parker,
received a handsome pension from the Government.
He became one of Cecil's regular spies. The true
history of his treachery was kept carefully concealed.
Strype himself gives two accounts of it ; that in his
Life of Archbishop Parker, 1 being the more trust-
worthy. " Parker was procured by certain persons,
1 ii. p. 366.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 99
to which they say Cecil was privy, to go to
Antwerp and decoy Storey," but then he adds that
"the Roman Catholics did not forget Parker;
for this year, for some pretence, he was cast into
prison by the craft and malice of Storey's private
friends as a pirate." The truth was of course
that Parker was conveyed to England with Storey
apparently against his will, imprisoned and arraigned
with him, in order that his complicity with Cecil
might not leak out ; and Parker was well paid for
submitting to it with a good grace. Strype gives us
another version in his Life of Sir J. Cheke, asserting
that Parker was a merchant trading to Antwerp,
and that when Storey came to search his vessel
unnecessarily, he was so angry that he carried him
off to England on his own responsibility. This is
no doubt the version that the Government wished
to be accepted. 1
We do not know if Ramsden and his worthy
comrades ever obtained the price of blood for which
they so greatly hungered. Lee, who lived at Antwerp,
where he was married to an Irishwoman, did not
altogether escape the punishment he so richly
merited. He contrived to get Parker's wife and
family conveyed safely over to England, and intrigued
1 There is a long story in Froude (ix. 460, &c.) in which Parker
and Cecil reappear in peculiarly disgraceful parts. According to
this, Parker personated Storey in the Tower in order to elicit a
confession from a prisoner named Baily, and to corrupt his fidelity
to the Catholic party. This, though recounted in great detail by
Froude, rests upon authority which is by no means convincing.
However this may be, Cecil and Parker were no doubt quite capable
of the treachery ascribed to them.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
with Prestal in order to get evidence against our
martyr. But having at last (through information
furnished by Don Guerau) been detected as one of
the principal agents in the whole disgraceful business,
he was thrown into prison by the Duke of Alva.
From his cell he wrote piteous letters to Cecil and
Leicester, who eventually thought it worth their
while to intercede for his release. Probably they
recognized that he could yet do them useful service
(for even in prison he kept up the farce of being a
devout Catholic exiled for the faith), and very likely
they feared that he would betray their secrets if
pushed to desperation. Strange to say, the Duke
of Alva granted the petition and let the traitor go
free.
The wife and family of the martyr continued to
inhabit the Low Countries, though we learn from
an entry in the Acts of the Privy Council that they
paid a visit to England in 1577.
The martyr's son John became a church student
at Rheims, and eventually a priest. 1 His mother,
who was still at Louvain in 1557, came to Rheims
in order to be near her son, where we find her in
1582. 2 Dr. Allen, it would appear, found she had
a sharp tongue, and did not much relish her living
so near him. Perhaps the poor woman's temper
had been soured by her troubles.
The life of Blessed John Storey seems to show
how a man who was naturally of a choleric tempera-
ment can be purified by suffering, if he has a firm
1 Knox, Douay Diaries, p. 300.
- Knox, Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, p. 168.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
grasp of the truths of our holy religion. Much as
we dislike the Marian persecution in which he took
a prominent part, it must be conceded that he was
ever moved by a passionate love for the Catholic
Faith, and an intense desire to see his fellow-country-
men united once more in religious truth. His ardent
desire for the crown of martyrdom, his passionate
sorrow when, yielding to the frailty of the flesh, he
lost, as he thought for ever, the opportunity of
gaining the palm, his deep and life-long penitence
for his early fall into schism, his joy when he found
once more within his grasp the crown which he so
greatly coveted, have all deep lessons for us, who in
these soft days of religious peace are in danger of
losing the keenness of our faith, of sinking into a
false and specious toleration of error which is but
another name for indifferentism. It is well if in
these milder times we have learnt to shrink from all
that approaches to religious persecution, but it would
not be well if we were tempted to minimize or
conceal the fundamental distinctions between truth
and error, or allow our compassion for the heretic
to lead us to think lightly of the evil of heresy.
Rather, do we need more than ever in these days
the lessons of such a life as that of Blessed John
Storey.
ED.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
APPENDIX.
Dr. Storey's Last Will and Testament made at Louvain
Anno 1552. 1
EMMANUEL.
In the name of God, Amen. In the year
of our Lord God, a thousand five hundred fifty
and two, and in the last day of May, I, John
Storey Doctor, lauded be Almighty God, being
whole of mind and body, do to God and the
world declare my last will and testament in manner
and form following. First and before all things
transitory, as I do most humbly render thanks,
laud and praising to my Lord God, for my creation
and redemption, so do I also most humbly acknow-
ledge His great mercies by leading me a wretched
sinner out of my native country ; the which (being
swerved out of the sure ship of our salvation), I
beseech Almighty God of His infinite mercy to
restore again to the unity of the same vessel, being
our mother the holy catholic church, for His holy
name's sake. And having full trust and affiance
that I am one, and within the number of the said
1 The original MS. (undoubtedly a holograph by Blessed John
Storey) from which this has been printed is among the Petyt MSS.
in the Inner Temple Library. (No. 538, vol. 47, fol. 66, seq.) The
will is printed by Strype, Annals, vol. ii. Part 2, Appendix x. p. 450,
but with omissions, which are here supplied. The MS. is endorsed,
" A coppye of a will made by John Story doctor in law." The water-
mark of the paper of the MS. is a unicorn.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 103
catholic visible church (the which doth, and here in
earth shall contain both good and bad, until the
same by wilful leaping out, or lawful separation be
excluded), I do confess to God and before the world,
that I in this perilous time of trial of the corn from
the moveable chaff, do believe, and have full trust
and affiance in all and every article, clause or
sentence, that our said mother the holy church, con-
tinued from the time of the apostles, hath and shall
decree, set forth and deliver to be kept and observed
by us her children. And for my breaking of any
commandment of God set forth by the authority of
the same church, and for my non-observance of
any decree, ordinance or counsel of the same, and
specially for mine offence in forsaking the unity of
it, by the acknowledging of any other supreme head
than our Saviour Jesu Christ did depute here
in earth to remain (which was St. Peter and his
successors, bishops of the see of Rome) I do
most humbly and penitently cry God mercy, desir-
ing of Him pardon ; as I do also ask forgiveness
of all such as, by my said offence and evil example,
I have by any means slandered or offended in this
world : desiring all Christian people remaining
within the unity of our said mother the catholic
church to pray for me, being a simple and a
wretched member of the same.
And as concerning such my temporal goods, as
by the sufferance of Almighty God, I have been
steward of here in this vale of misery, my mind is
that all my debts be truly contented and paid by
mine executor hereunder named to all such persons
io 4 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
as by any lawful means can show any bill or other
sufficient title to any part thereof. Also I do give
and bequeath to Ellen Storey my daughter the sum
of six hundred and iii score florins, to be paid and
delivered to her at the day of her marriage. So,
and under this condition, that she do take to husband
and marry such one as her mother then living,
or mine overseers hereunder named, or any one of
them do first consent and give licence to my said
daughter to marry or take to husband. And if
my said daughter following her own sensuality do
chance to marry with any man without, or against
the good will, pleasure and consent of her foresaid
friends, or of one of them, then my mind is that
she shall have only iii score florins towards her
raiment and no more. And if my said daughter,
Ellen, by God's good motion, do enter into religion:
then do I give and bequeath to the house and
company where she shall chance to be professed,
one hundred and xx florins, desiring them to be
good instructors of my said daughter, and of their
charity to pray for the souls of my father and
mother, Nicholas and Joan, for my soul and all
Christian souls.
Also, I do bequeath my soul to Almighty God,
of whom this my mortal flesh hath received the
same : and my body to be buried within the grey
friars in Louvain, if I do depart in Louvain, as
near unto the burial of Mr. Thomas Tybald as may
be permitted. For the which my burial, exequies,
and other divine services, then by that convent to
be done and solemnized for the wealth of my soul,
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 105
I do bequeath to that same convent twenty florins.
Also I give and bequeath unto the said convent forty
florins more, desiring them of their charity, in their
daily celebrations of Mass, that they will pray for the
souls of Nicholas and Joan my parents, for my soul
and of all Christian souls ; and to limit and appoint
one devout person of their company by the space
of ii years next after my burial, daily to make a
special memory to God for my soul and of all
Christian souls. And my mind is that the same
convent, the next day after my month's mind by
them to be kept for my soul, do receive of mine
executor the said whole sum of money, viz., iii
score florins. For the which I beseech them that I
may have my year's mind kept with Mass and Dirige
by the space of iii years.
Also, I do give and bequeath to the house and
company of the charter house in Louvain the sum
of xx florins ; requiring them of their charity in
their celebrations to pray by special memory for the
soul of my said parents and for my soul, so long
as by their charity they shall be moved thereunto.
Also I give and bequeath to the great hospital,
which lodgeth and keepeth sick persons, the sum of
ten florins, desiring them of their charity to pray
for my soul and all Christian souls. 1
1 The original ending of the will here follows in the MS. It was
afterwards cancelled by the martyr, and the conclusion printed
above substituted for it. In the margin the martyr has written,
" Cancellatio hec facta est per me Jhoannem Story." It runs as follows :
" The residue of all my goods, wheresoever and in whose hands soever
they be, I do give and bequeath to Joan Storey my wife, whom I do
make mine executrice so and under the condition that she do not
io6 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
The residue of all my goods and specialties, in
whose hands soever they be, upon full trust and
confidence that I have in the promise of my well-
beloved wife, Joan Storey hereafter mentioned, I do
give and bequeath unto her ; whom I do make my
whole and sole executrice, to perform this my last
will. Provided always, and it is my full mind and
deliberate will, that my said executrice shall not
take nor demand my whole money out of my great
and especial friend Mr. Bonvice's hand, by the
space of iii years next after my decease ; but shall
return and by the space of one month abide in England, neither
send her daughter and mine thither or carry her, until the same land
or state thereof be converted and returned to the unity of our mother
the holy catholic church, out of the which the same land by schism
is swerved. And if my said wife, following her sensuality and
neglecting her soul, shall chance to return into England, as God
forbid, and make her abode there above the space of one month,
without lawful impediment of her return, or do at any time before
religion be there reformed, carry or send her daughter and mine
into that land or any part thereof, then and in such case my mind
is that my especial good friend Mr. Anthony Bonvice, upon suit
made to him by my said wife, do deliver to her of such money as
remaineth of mine in his hands twenty pounds Flemish or of English
money at her choice, and to keep the rest of my money remaining
in his hand for the payment of my legacies abovesaid, and for the
use of my daughter for her best profit, to be delivered to her
at the day of her marriage ; so that she do not marry but with the
consent of my said especial good friend Mr. Bonvice then living.
And in case that my said daughter do rather choose to enter and
continue in religion than to marry, then my will is that, after one
hundred and xx florins by Mr. Bonvice paid to the cloister where
she will be professed, and after all other my legacies performed,
that the rest of my money with him remaining shall still remain in
his hands and with the profits thereof to find my nephew John
Storey to school in Louvain by the space of iii years; and after that
time to distribute all such money as then shall remain in his hands,
the one moiety thereof to poor scholars and priests being English-
men here tarrying in these parts and the other moiety to my said
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 107
receive only such money of him, as will pay my
legacies to be prayed for, (the which several sums
my mind is shall be paid although I do depart this
life out of Louvain) and such other money as my
said worshipful friend of his charitable benevolence
will give to her for occupying such her stock as he
hath of mine in his hands. And my mind is that
this clause shall take place only in the life of my
said worshipful friend Mr. Bonvice, or else my said
wife to take up the whole at her pleasure.
Item, I do desire my said good friend,
Mr. Anthony Bonvice, 1 to be overseer of this my
wife, daughter, nephew, and servant called Bess, after such sort
and rate, as to his wisdom shall seem to be most requisite and
expedient according to their necessity and following of this my last
will. And I shall most entirely desire my said worshipful and
charitable friend Mr. Bonvice to be overseer of this my last will,
and in my wife's refusal by her departing into England, to execute
this my last will as well concerning my burial and legacies, as in
causing a piece of brass to set upon my grave declaring my name and
day of my departing, if I chance to die in Louvain ; provided alway
that if my said wife do continue still in Louvain and do marry or
not marry, and do take upon her to be mine executor or not take
upon her, my full mind and special request is, that my said worship-
ful friend Mr. Bonvice do not deliver to her above the sum of thirty
pounds by the year. And after she hath tarried here at Louvain iii
full years after my decease, my mind is that my said worshipful
friend, upon her bond that she will not return into England until it
be reformed, do deliver to my said wife (if they both shall think it
best) the whole sum remaining for the behoof of her and my
daughter.
In witness whereof I have written these presents, the year and
day abovesaid.
Per me,
Jo: STORYE."
1 Antonio Bonvisi, our martyr's dear and faithful friend, was a
wealthy wool merchant, sprung from an ancient and noble family
of Lucca, but probably born in England. He was a fervent
io8 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
last will and testament, most heartily desiring him
to be good instructor of my wife, to keep and perform
her promise made to God and me. Whereupon I
have altered the last end of my will above written.
Which promise is that she at no time, until the
land of England be restored to the unity of Christ's
Catholic, a kindly patron of learned men, and the devoted
friend of Blessed Thomas More, Blessed John Fisher, and Cardinal
Pole. He ministered to Fisher and More in prison, stood by
Friar Peto when he had to fly to the Low Countries after his
courageous sermon against Henry VIII. 's first divorce, and was
eulogized by Pole, who calls him " a special benefactor of all
Catholic and good persons, . . . worthy is he of name, and I doubt
not but his name is in the book of life." He resided at Crosby
Hall, Bishopsgate Street, which he at first leased from the nuns of
St. Helen's, and after the dissolution of the priory, bought (in 1552)
from the King. . At the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. he
went into voluntary exile for the Faith, his property in England
was confiscated, and in the general pardon which concluded the
Acts of the Parliament of 1553, he was specially excepted, together
with his friends Pole and Storey. He recovered his English
property in the reign of Queen Mary, and died at Louvain at a very
advanced age, December 7, 1558. His nephew, Benedict, inherited
his English property.
Two Inquisitiones post mortem relating to him are to be found in
vol. xv. of the publications of the British Record Society, the first
taken at the confiscation of his property (p. 113), the second at his
death (p. 182). From the former we learn that before he, " without
licence from the King, craftily and rebelliously took flight with all
his family and went to parts beyond the seas, to wit, to Antwerp,"
he had conveyed Crosby Hall (or Crosbies Place as it was then
called), and other property, to William Roper and William Rastell
(both near connections of Blessed Thomas More), for the term of
99 years.
We may add that More says, in a letter written from the Tower,
that he had been for nearly 40 years " not a guest, but a continual
nursling of the house of Bonvisi," and calls Antonio the most
faithful of his friends. For other details see Dictionary of National
Biography, vol. v. p. 335 (by C. Trice Martin).
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 109
church, will return thither, or carry her daughter
and mine into that land, except it be for the only
intent to procure her mother to come thence. And
in such case not to tarry there above the space of
iii months, unless she by compulsion be enforced
thereunto.
In witness whereof I have written these presents
and subscribed my name.
Per me JOHANNEM STORYE.
AUTHORITIES. The principal Catholic authority is, of
course, Sander, who was a friend of the martyr. His account
of him in the De Visibili Monarchia (1570) is perhaps most
accessible in the Concertatio (Treves, 1589), fol. 43 A 45 B.
It has been translated into Spanish by Bishop Yepes, Historia
Particular (Madrid, 1599), pp. 43, 44. Sander also speaks of
the martyr in his History of the Anglican Schism (Edit. Lewis,
1877), pp. 200, &c.
The principal general sources are, the Calendars of State
Papers, especially the Spanish and Foreign, passim.
Acts of the Privy Council (Edit. Dasent).
Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. pp 6, 8, and 9.
Camden's Annals, for 1569 and 1571.
Strype's Life of Archbishop Cranmer, and Life of Archbishop
Parker, also Memorials and Annals of the Reformation, passim.
Burnet, History of the Reformation (Edit. Pocock).
Wood, A thence Oxon., Edit. Bliss, i. 386 90.
Macleane, History of Pembroke College (Oxford Hist. Soc.,
1897).
Foster, Alumni Oxonienses (1500 1714).
Wright, Elizabeth, i. 373, 374, 378.
Maitland's Essays on the Reformation.
Foxe's Acts and Monuments (Edit. Townsend), very bitter
and unscrupulous.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Dictionary of National Biography (by A. F. Pollard, vol. 54,
p. 427).
There are also the pamphlets issued by various Protestant
writers in 1571, to which we have referred in the text, and the
letters printed in various volumes of the Parker Society (see
Cough's Index), all of which are exceedingly hostile. The
reader will find Froude not less bitter. He may also refer to
Dixon, History of the Church of England, vols. iv. and v., and
the Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii. pp. 474 and 585.
The other authorities, including R. Simpson's admirable
article in the Rambler, are fully referred to in the text.
III.
THE BLESSED THOMAS PERCY,
York, 22 August, 1572;
THE BLESSED THOMAS PLUMTREE,
Durham, 4 January, 1572.
FEW writers, even among Catholics, appear to have
given quite the attention it deserves to the magni-
ficent confession of the Faith, made both during
life and still more at his death, by the martyred
nobleman who forms the subject of this memoir.
He was born in 1528, and was the eldest son of
Sir Thomas Percy, brother and heir-presumptive to
Henry Algernon, sixth Earl of Northumberland,
who was childless. His mother, the Lady Eleanor,
was daughter to Sir Guiscard Harbottal, who had
fallen at Flodden Field in 1513, slain by the hand
of the Scottish King himself. 1
Sir Thomas and his lady seem after their
marriage to have resided partly at Newburn, partly
at Prudhoe Castle, on the Tyne, one of the many
fortresses belonging to the Earl ; and there most
probably were spent the early years of the future
martyr's life. It was a time when there was rarely
1 History of Northumberland. By Cadwallader J. Bates, p. 209.
ii2 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
peace for long together upon the Scottish border,
and when, even whilst a truce existed between the
English and the Scotch, the tranquillity of the
country was too often disturbed by petty feuds
between the gentry of Northumberland themselves.
The din of arms must thus have been familiar to the
little Thomas Percy, even from his earliest years.
When he was but little more than eight years
old, there broke out, in the October of 1536, the
movement known as the Pilgrimage of Grace,
which stirred the whole North of England, from
the Scottish borders to the H umber. Gathering
together under banners bearing the representation
of our Lord upon the Cross, and the Chalice with
the Host, the good simple people of the northern
counties marched in thousands into Yorkshire,
crying out for the re-establishment of the monas-
teries, the repeal of the laws by which the Pope's
authority had been abolished, and the restoration
of the ancient Faith in its entirety. At first King
Henry quailed before the Pilgrims, and found it
necessary to dissemble his resentment until, by
deceitful promises of redress of their grievances, he
had cajoled them into dispersing and returning to
their homes. But, in the next spring, on their
reassembling, having meantime despatched more
numerous forces to the Duke of Norfolk, his lieu-
tenant, he succeeded in securing the persons of
their leaders ; and these were forthwith sent up to
London to be tried and executed, while their more
humble followers were hanged in scores at York,
Hull, and Carlisle.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 113
In the Pilgrimage of Grace no one, after Robert
Aske, its leader, seems to have figured more con-
spicuously than Sir Thomas Percy, our martyr's
father. He led the vanguard of the pilgrim army,
composed of six thousand men, marching under the
banner of St. Cuthbert. After their dispersion, he
returned to Prudhoe Castle ; but, on being sum-
moned to Doncaster by the Duke of Norfolk, he
surrendered of his own accord, and being taken up to
London, was thrown into the Tower. Thence, after
the formality of a trial at Westminster, he was
drawn to Tyburn on the 2nd of June, 1537, an d
there hanged, in company with other supposed
leaders of the movement, amongst whom were the
Abbot of Jervaulx and a Dominican friar named
John Pickering. The official report of the trials,
now published amongst the State Papers, 1 shows
that the charge, on which these sufferers were
condemned, was that they " did, as false traitors,
conspire and imagine to deprive the King of his
royal dignity, viz., of being on earth Supreme Head
of the Church of England." We may therefore be
allowed to hope that, in the sight of God, they died
true martyrs for the Catholic Faith.
The knowledge, if not the actual recollection (for
he was nine years old when it occurred), of the
circumstances which led to his brave father's death,
in defence of the very cause for which he was himself
to die so gloriously, cannot have failed to influence
the character of our martyr, especially considering
1 Given in De Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy, vol. i.
PP- 570. 57 1 -
I II.
n 4 BB - THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
the sufferings which Sir Thomas Percy's execution
brought upon his family. As a consequence of his
attainder, his children were excluded from succeed-
ing either to the earldom of Northumberland, or to
the estates which, on the demise of the Earl, their
uncle, a few weeks later, would naturally have fallen
to them; and for a time they had to depend entirely
upon the charity of strangers. The Lady Eleanor
Percy, their poor widowed mother, seems to have
been considered too much implicated in the so-called
treason of her husband to be allowed to retain them
in her charge ; and for a while, at all events, the
little Thomas and his still younger brother Henry
were placed under the keeping of Sir Thomas
Tempest one of the Commissioners appointed for
the trials of the Pilgrims who lived at Holmside,
near to Durham.
The cost of their maintenance there to his
honour be it said was defrayed by none other
than the Duke of Norfolk, 1 who, in spite of the
relentless manner with which he had executed the
King's vengeance on the defeated pilgrims, pitied
the forlorn condition of these homeless children of
their leader. The position of Holmside exposed it,
however, to the attacks of Scotch marauders, who
might be tempted, it was feared, to carry off the
little Percys in hopes of obtaining the payment of
a ransom. Some months later, therefore, at the
request of Sir Thomas Tempest, Bishop Tunstall
wrote to Cromwell, begging that some place might
be provided for them " more within the country.
1 De Fonblanque, ii. p. 4.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 115
The children be young, and must be among women." '
We are not told what followed from the Bishop's
application, nor how long the poor children were
kept separated from their mother ; 2 and but little
more is known with reference to the early life of our
martyr. He and his brother are said, however, to
have received some part of their education at Liver-
pool, which must then have greatly differed from
the present crowded city. 3
Meanwhile Henry VIII. passed to his account,
and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Under
the boy-king, in the February of 1549, an Act of
Parliament was passed "for the restitution in blood
of Mr. Thomas Percy," 4 who in that year attained
the age of manhood. By this Act the young Percy
was so far rehabilitated, as heir to his father, as to
be entitled to inherit any property which might come
to him from collateral branches of his family ; and
he was enabled also to receive the benefit of an
annuity which his uncle, the late Earl, had left him.
About this same time, moreover, he was knighted.
It was not till three years later that restoration
was made to him of any part of the North-
1 R.O. Henry VIII. Domestic, vol. v. p. 118.
2 In the year following her husband's execution, Lady Percy is
mentioned as being at Preston Tower, a residence some ten miles
south of Berwick, which she had inherited from her father's
family, with a portion of the Ellingham estate. (Bateson's History
of Northumberland, ii. p. 106.)
3 See Collins's Peerage of England, 1779, vol. ii. p. 386, where bills,
&c., relating to the board and education of the two young
Percys are referred to as amongst the papers of the Duke of
Northumberland.
4 Lords' Journals, 2. Edward VI.
n6 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
umberland estates, but he was then allowed to
take possession of Langley, Ellingham, and certain
other manors. Meantime the entire barony of
Alnwick was bestowed by the young King on
the adventurous and unprincipled Dudley, Earl of
Warwick, with the then unprecedented title of
Duke (not Earl) of Northumberland.
The downfall of this nobleman, consequent on
his attempt in 1553 to exclude Queen Mary from
the throne, removed the chief obstacle to Sir Thomas
Percy's reinstatement in the ancient honours and
possessions of his family ; and we may be sure that
from the first he must have had the sympathy of
the good Queen, whose own fidelity to the Faith
had been the occasion of so many sufferings. Soon
after her accession, Sir Thomas Percy was named
Governor of Prudhoe Castle, and throughout her
reign he showed himself a faithful and active
supporter of her interests. In the April of 1557, he
earned particular distinction by capturing, after a
two days' siege, the Castle of Scarborough from Sir
Thomas Stafford, who had seized upon it whilst in
conspiracy with the French King against Queen
Mary. The restoration of Sir Thomas Percy to
the earldom quickly followed, and on May the
ist of the same year he was created Earl of
Northumberland, with remainder to his brother
Henry: the subordinate titles of Baron Percy, Baron
Poynings, Lucy, Bryan, and Fitzpane, having been
conferred upon him on the previous day.
The patent of his creation set forth that "the
same was done in consideration of his noble descent,
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 117
constancy of virtues, valour in deeds of arms, and
other shining qualifications." Of the ceremony of
his installation at Whitehall, Hutchinson writes :
" It was attended with great pomp. The procession
was preceded by eight heralds and twelve trumpeters.
He was accompanied by the Earls of Pembroke,
Arundel, and Rutland, and the Lord Montague
walking in the middle in robes of crimson velvet,
and a coronet of gold." l
Queen Mary gave him a fresh proof of her con-
fidence by appointing him at the same time Warden
General of the Marches, in conjunction with Lord
Wharton. He was soon called upon in this capacity
to show his prowess in the field. A fresh outbreak
of hostilities with the Scotch occurred in the July
f I 557j when the latter crossed the Border. The
new Earl of Northumberland led an expedition to
the Cheviots, where he not only gained a victory,
but succeeded in taking prisoner Sir Andrew Ker,
the Scotch leader.
In the following January the Queen commissioned
him to treat with Scotland for a truce between the
two kingdoms, and wrote at the same time to the
venerable Bishop of Durham, Cuthbert Tunstall,
requesting him to assist the Earl with his counsel
in this important matter. 2 The truce, however,
proved but of short duration ; and in the summer
of the same year we again find the Earl and his
brother, Sir Henry Percy, occupied, not always with
complete success, in repelling the inroads of the
Scotch, now led by French officers.
1 View of Northumberland, ii. 238.
- Scottish Calendar, January 21 and 23, 1558.
n8 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
Meanwhile, we must not forget to mention the
Earl's marriage, in the same year, 1558, with Anne
Somerset, daughter of the Earl of Worcester, a
courageous lady, who, by her patient endurance
throughout the long period of her widowhood and
exile, proved herself no unfitting consort for the
destined martyr. His mother, the Lady Eleanor,
seems to have continued living on her Ellingham
estate, which she had made over to him, but had to
receive back for her lifetime ; and we find her com-
plained of to Cecil, in 1563, as having had Mass
said in her house. About four years after her
husband's death, the Lady Eleanor had married
Sir Richard Holland, of Denton, in Lancashire, who
died in 1548 ; from which time, until her own
death in 1567, she remained a widow. 1
In the November of 1558, Queen Mary died ;
and the accession of her half-sister, Elizabeth, was
the signal for England's being plunged again, more
hopelessly than ever, into heresy and schism.
The new Queen soon made it clear that her first
object was to sever all connection between England
and Rome ; and, following the bad example of her
father, to leave no stone unturned to wrest to herself
the authority which God has given to the Roman
Pontiff.
Elizabeth's first Parliament assembled on the
25th of January, 1559, and was dissolved on May
the 8th following. In this, in opposition to the
votes of all the Bishops, and to counter-resolu-
1 Collins, ii. p. 386.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 119
tions of both Houses of Convocation, were passed
the two Acts of Supremacy and of Uniformity, the
effect of which was to depose the Catholic religion
from its place as the religion of the country (the
observance of it being thenceforth made into a
legal crime), and to set up in its stead the institu-
tion still styled in law the Established Church of
England, to which all the old Catholic churches and
cathedrals were from that time made over.
By the first of these two Acts the spiritual
authority of every foreign prelate was declared
within the realm to be abolished, the jurisdiction
exercised till then by the Pope being made over
to the Crown. Assertors of the Pope's authority
were to be punished, for a first offence by forfeiture
of property, fora second by perpetual imprisonment;
whilst a third transgression was to be visited with
the penalty of death, inflicted as in cases of high
treason. By the Act of Uniformity the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass was prohibited, and it was required
that in all churches the ministers should use the
Protestant Book of Common Prayer alone, under
like penalties of forfeiture, deprivation, and death. 1
It was thus that the so-called Church of England
came into existence ; the faithful Bishops, who had
all, save one, refused to take the oath of the Queen's
Supremacy, being at the same time deposed from
their sees by the civil power, and condemned to
end their days in prison or in voluntary exile ; whilst
into their bishoprics, thus forcibly vacated, they
1 Hallam, Constitutional History of England, i. 152 ; Lingard, vi.
P- *3-
120 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
had to witness the intrusion of ministers of the new
State-made religion.
Most justly, therefore, did our martyr Earl
exclaim later, as he stood upon the scaffold : " As
to this new Church of England, I do not acknow-
ledge it ! " How, indeed, could he acknowledge it
as the Church of Jesus Christ when he had seen
it thus brought into existence, and knew whose
handiwork it was ?
The Earl was not himself present at the passing
of these Acts, having been specially instructed by the
Council to remain in the North (where he was much
occupied as Warden of the Marches), and not to
come up to attend the Parliament. 1 It may be true
enough that the disturbed condition of the Borders
at the moment supplied the Council with some
pretext for this action ; but there can be little doubt
that the real reason of his being thus kept at a
distance at so critical a juncture, was his well-
known attachment to the ancient Faith, which
would have ensured his opposition to the evil
measures then in contemplation.
Being thus debarred from attending Parliament
in person, the Earl of Northumberland named as
his proxy in the House of Lords, with power to vote
1 Foreign Calendar, January n, 1559. Privy Council to Earl of
Northumberland. "He is to stay in the North, and not come to
Parliament." In the first issue of this memoir (by the C.T.S.), the
Earl of Northumberland was wrongly said to have been present at
some of the Sessions of this Parliament ; the writer having been
misled by the lists of Peers in the Lords' Journals, in which the
Earl's name is found with those of the others, but without a p
(meaning przsens) added to it.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 121
in his name, the Earl of Arundel, who was then
regarded as a zealous Catholic. Unfortunately,
however, this nobleman proved himself in the event
unworthy of the trust reposed in him ; having been
" won over [if Rishton is correct] by the expectation
of marrying the Queen held out to him by Elizabeth
herself." 1 After absenting himself from Parliament
for a great part of the Session " from indisposition "
(as the Mantuan Envoy wrote), " feigned, as some
think, to avoid consulting about such ruin of this
realm;" 2 Arundel is said, in the end, to have
actually voted for the Bill conferring religious
Supremacy upon the Queen. Of this, however,
grace was given him to repent before he died ; nor
can Northumberland be held in any way responsible
for the weakness of his proxy.
On May the loth, two days after the Parliament
had closed, the Queen despatched to the Earl of
Northumberland, in conjunction with the Bishop of
Durham, Cuthbert Tunstall, and Sir Joseph Croft,
a commission to conclude a fresh treaty with the
Queen Dowager of Scotland. This treaty was
signed by the representatives of the two nations,
at Upsatlington, on the 3ist of May, 1559. 3
The venerable Bishop, with whom Northumber-
land was associated in this commission, had also
been dispensed by the Queen from attending Parlia-
ment ; the Acts passed by which had rilled him with
1 Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, Sander and Rishton.
(Edit. Lewis, p. 255.)
2 Venetian Calendar, March 21, 1559.
3 Scottish Calendar, May 10 and 31, 1559.
4 Domestic Calendar, December 19, 1558.
122 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
sorrow and dismay. As soon as the business con-
nected with the treaty was concluded, the aged
prelate wrote from his residence at Auckland both
to Cecil and the Queen herself, expressing his great
" wish to do his duty to his Sovereign once in his
days," l and announced his coming up to London,
with some faint hope perhaps of being able even
yet to do something to avert the change. Causing
himself therefore to be conveyed thither with such
haste as his great age would permit, he reached
London on July the 2Oth. It is needless to say
that the remonstrances of the good Bishop were
altogether ineffectual ; and after making a noble
protest against the introduction of any change into
the diocese of which he was the Bishop, and on
refusing to take the new Oath of Supremacy he
was declared to be deprived of his see (as already
had been most of his brother Bishops), and was
placed in strict confinement in the house of Matthew
Parker, whom Elizabeth had appointed to the
archbishopric of Canterbury. There did Bishop
Tunstall die. a prisoner for the Faith, on November
the i8th following.
Meantime, on August the 6th of the same eventful
year, 1559, the Queen had addressed to the Earl
of Northumberland, whom she still detained in his
own county, a fresh commission " for the reforma-
tion of the disorders committed by the Scots upon
the frontier." With him, however, were joined in
the commission Sir Ralph Sadler and Sir James
Croft, and the instructions secretly issued to the
1 Foreign Calendar, June 30, 1559.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 123
first of these a few days later, 1 prove that the Earl's
name was placed at the head of the commission
merely to deceive the public ; the real purpose of
Elizabeth and Cecil being to give all the secret
encouragement they could to the Scottish insur-
gents, whom the fanatical John Knox was heading,
in the hope of bringing about the overthrow of the
existing Government. 2 The Earl's connection with
the commission, which was from the first, as I
have said, but nominal, soon came to an end
entirely; and that he was no party to the transac-
tions carried on is shown by a letter of Sadler's,
written from Berwick a few days after he had entered
on his mission, in which he tells Sir William Cecil
that " he intends to take the assistance of Sir James
Croft in preference to that of Sir Henry Percy, or
the Earl of Northumberland : that he thinks the
former not in any wise comparable to Croft, and
the latter very unmeet for the charge committed
to him." 3
To have been thought " unmeet " by an un-
scrupulous agent of Elizabeth's, need certainly be
taken as no blame in our eyes ; and it is worth
remarking that, at the time referred to, Sir Henry
Percy, whom Sadler seems to have considered less
" unmeet " than his brother, the Earl, had already so
far abandoned his religion as to let himself be used
1 On August 8, the Queen despatched to Sadler 3,000 in gold,
whh which secretly " he may reward any manner of person in
Scotland with such sums of money as he shall think meet." (Foreign
Calendar, August 6 and 8, 1559.)
- Lingard, vi. 34.
3 Scottish Calendar, August 29, 1559.
i2 4 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
by Cecil as a medium of communication with John
Knox. The understanding which already existed
between Sir Henry and the Scotch heresiarch, is
shown by a letter of the latter, written on July the
ist, in which he requires such friendship from Sir
Henry "that there may be conference and knowledge
from time to time between the faithful (i.e., the
Protestants) of both realms." l
His brother's apostasy must have been one of
the sorest trials of the Earl ; and it was not till
several years later, that Sir Henry was brought back
to the Faith, when he atoned for his past infidelity
by the patient endurance of much persecution.
It was not long before Northumberland was
driven by the mistrust of the Government and the
opposition of his own colleagues in the office to
resign the Wardenship of the Marches. He then
retired to the south, and during the next few years
lived much at his Sussex residence at Petworth.
Though he still enjoyed, at all events externally, the
favour of the Queen, who in 1563 bestowed on him
the Order of the Garter, indications are not wanting
that in consequence of his well-known attachment
to the ancient Faith, he was at this time kept more
or less under surveillance, and perhaps occasionally
restricted in his movements. Thus in the May of
1565, Elizabeth's agent in Scotland wrote to Lord
Leicester, praying that " the Earl of Northumber-
land be stayed in London. From all I hear it is
very necessary. The Papists in these parts do stir
themselves." 2
1 Scottish Calendar, July i and August 4, 1559. ' 2 Ibid. May n, 1565.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 125
In like manner the Spanish Ambassador in
London is found writing to his Sovereign in April,
1566 (namely, three years and a half before the
rising): " The Earl of Northumberland has come.
. . . He is considered very Catholic." l
Facts such as these, joined to the martyr's own
dying declaration that he had held the Catholic
Faith " from his earliest years " even to that
day, are inconsistent with any idea of his having
ever really fallen away from his religion ; and yet
it would seem, from an expression used by him
during his imprisonment, that he must at one time
have failed in some way in a right profession of it.
One of the questions put to him when examined,
was : " Were you reconciled to the Church of Rome
before you did enter into the rebellion ? and by
whom ? " To this the Earl replied : " I was
reconciled by one Master Copley two years or
more before our stir : " adding, in answer to a
further question, that the said Master Copley
"hath no certain abiding, but was sometimes in
Lancashire and sometimes elsewhere." '
If " reconciliation " is to be understood here in
its usual sense, something more would seem to be
implied than an ordinary sacramental absolution ;
and in those times of special trial, without re-
nouncing their religion, Catholics were sometimes
led through ignorance or weakness into unlawful
1 Spanish Calendar, April 29, 1566. Guzman de Silva to King
Philip II.
- Sir Cuthbert Sharpe, Memorials of the Rebellion of 1369,
pp. 204 213.
126 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
acts, which afterwards gave just trouble to their con-
sciences. We know for instance how many in the
first years of Elizabeth endeavoured to escape the
penalties of non-attendance at the Protestant
service by consenting to be present at it, though
in a merely external manner ; and it may be that
to some such weakness Northumberland had at one
time yielded. If so, however, we have no other
proof of it than his reply, as above given, the exact
sense of which is not altogether clear. On the
other hand, his public acts, as far as they are
recorded, display no sign of weakness ; and in each
of the two Parliaments which he was able to attend
we find him making a courageous opposition to the
persecuting measures which they passed.
The second Parliament of Queen Elizabeth met
in 1563, and sat from January the nth to April
the loth ; the Earl of Northumberland being present
at most of the sittings of the House of Lords. By
the Act of 1559, the obligation of taking the Oath
of the Queen's Supremacy had been imposed only
on certain classes of her subjects ; but in the
Parliament of 1563 a further Act was passed
requiring it of all, who should either have said, or
heard Mass; thus extending it, says Lingard, "to
the whole Catholic population of the realm.'' To
all such, moreover, the oath, if at first refused, was
to be tendered again a second time ; the penalty
of a second refusal being death as in cases of high
treason. Against the passing of this cruel measure
our good Earl spoke boldly in the House of Lords.
He said (wrote the Spanish Ambassador on January
BB, THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 127
the 27th of the same year) " that the heretics should
be satisfied to enjoy the bishoprics and benefits of
the others without wishing to cut off their heads
as well. He said when they had beheaded the
clergy they would claim to do the same by the lay
nobles, and he was moved by his conscience to
say that he was of opinion that so rigorous
an Act should not be passed." 1 In spite of this,
however, and of a vigorous speech in the same
sense by Lord Montague, the Bill was passed on
March the 3rd.
Parliament did not again assemble until the
autumn of 1566 ; in the November of which year
in spite of the counter-votes of Northumberland
and ten other peers the Lords passed an Act
to remedy the defective consecration of the first
Protestant Bishops, declaring it to have been
"good, lawful, and perfect." It ought, however,
especially to be observed that, though the Catholic
opponents of this measure could not hinder it from
passing, they did nevertheless get a proviso added
to it refusing confirmation to any of the new-made
Bishops' acts affecting either life or property. In
this way they saved the life of the brave Bishop
Bonner, to whom in prison the Protestant Bishop
Horn of Winchester had tried to administer the
Oath of Supremacy, in order thereby to get him
condemned to death. It was, in fact, principally
in order to obtain " good Bishop Bonner's " con-
demnation (wrote the Spanish Ambassador) that
i Spanish Calendar. Bishop Quadra to King Philip II., January
27. 1563-
128 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
the Protestant prelates had asked for a confirmation
of their acts. 1
When Parliament next met in 1571 the Earl of
Northumberland was a prisoner in Scotland, having
fled thither on the failure of the Northern Rising, of
which we must now try to trace the origin.
The troubles of the unhappy Mary Queen of
Scots whose subjects, incited by the continual
intrigues of Elizabeth and Cecil, had openly rebelled
against her were naturally viewed with the liveliest
sympathy by the Catholics of England, for they
placed in Queen Mary, as heiress to the English
throne, their own hopes of relief from persecution
in the future. Northumberland, in particular, made
no secret of his sympathy, and when, in the May of
1568, the Scottish Queen was forced to flee from
her own kingdom and seek refuge at Carlisle, the
Earl set out from Topcliffe, in Yorkshire, where he
was staying at the time, to do what he could for
her safe and honourable entertainment. His views,
however, with reference to the Royal fugitive, were
very different from those of Elizabeth and her
minions ; and his demand to be allowed to take
charge of Mary met with a rude refusal from the
Deputy Warden of the Marches; nor were either he
or his Countess permitted to have speech with the
captive Queen, excepting once in presence of some
others. The Earl found means, however, of occasion-
ally communicating with her during her confinement
in the course of the next year at Bolton and at
1 Spanish Calendar. Guzman de Silva to Philip II., November
n, 1566.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 129
Tutbury; and he himself, in his answers when
examined, tells how he had written " praying her
especially to regard the advancement of the Catholic
religion." This, in fact, more than any mere com-
passion for her sufferings, was, he makes quite plain,
the one real cause of his supporting her; and he
adds that, when the idea of marrying her to the
Duke of Norfolk had been mooted, he " sent her
word how her marriage with the Duke was misliked,
he being counted a Protestant. If she ever looked
to recover her estate, it must be by the advancing
and maintaining of the Catholic faith ; for there
ought to be no halting in those matters." 1
Meanwhile, the exercise of the Catholic religion
had been becoming day by day more difficult
and dangerous, and the only wonder is that the
ancient Faith contrived, as it did, still to keep its
hold upon the people, and that it continued for so
long a period, and particularly in the northern
counties, to be yet in reality the religion of the land.
In virtue of the sacrilegious and unjust Act of
Uniformity, all the grand old churches and cathedrals
with which, throughout its length and breadth, the
soil of England had been covered by our Catholic
ancestors, had been diverted from the sacred purpose
to which they had been originally consecrated, and
had been given over during the last eleven years to
the ministers of the new State-made religion, whose
pretended mission was derived, not from the Vicar of
our Blessed Lord, but only from the Queen. The
crucifixes and the images of our Blessed Lady and
1 Sharpe, p. 192.
J n.
130 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
the Saints had been everywhere torn down and
broken, on the senseless plea that they were incen-
tives to idolatry ; and the innumerable altars, on
which the Holy Sacrifice had been daily offered up
for centuries, had been overturned and desecrated ;
whilst the Holy Mass itself might now no more be
heard, or offered up, unless in the safe concealment
of some vault or secret chamber. The priests too,
who, remaining faithful to their trust, had refused to
take the oath affirming the Royal Supremacy in
matters of religion an oath which, of course, no
Catholic could take without apostasy had been
ruthlessly ejected from their cures, turned adrift to
live how and where they could, and liable, if found
to be still exercising their priestly office, to immediate
seizure and imprisonment ; or, if the offence were
often repeated, to the punishment of death. Nor
were the lay people free to refuse the ministra-
tions of the new-fangled clergy, but were made
liable to a fine each time they were absent from
their services on a Sunday.
Nevertheless, although the ministers of the new
religion were thus supported by the whole power of
the law, their own admissions supply us with the
clearest evidence of the extreme difficulty which they
experienced in thrusting the new doctrines on the
people. Indeed, if the whole subject were not so
supremely sad, the story of the difficulties encoun-
tered by these so-called Bishops (on whom Elizabeth
had astutely conferred the titles of the ancient sees),
in their attempts to execute their office, would be
highly entertaining. Thus, to take a few examples
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 131
out of many: in the August of 1561, the State
Papers show us Scory, the new Bishop of Hereford,
indignantly complaining to Cecil, that " a number of
Popish priests, who had been driven out of Exeter
and elsewhere, had been received and feasted in the
streets, with torch-lights ! ' 51
In the same year, the newly-made Bishop of
Carlisle, in reporting the state of his diocese to the
same official, writes : " The priests are wicked imps of
Antichrist, for the most part ignorant and stubborn,
and past measure false and subtle ; " 2 and in the
following January, the same prelate is found again
complaining of the "great prevalence of Popery in
his diocese," and announcing in dismay that "Articles
of Religion in French are being circulated among the
disaffected Papists of the North." 3 As to Durham,
Dr. Pilkington could find no other way of describing
his experiences than by saying that, " Like St. Paul,
he has to fight with beasts at Ephesus; " 4 and even as
late as 1576, Dr. Barnes, his successor, in writing of
his difficulties with "the reconciling priests and
massers " of Northumberland, " whereof there was
store," actually goes on to call Durham an "Augice
stabulum, whose stink is grievous in the nose of God
and men, and which to purge far passeth Hercules'
labours." 5
Lastly, to pass to Yorkshire (for our present
interest is with the northern counties), the words of
Sir Ralph Sadler have repeatedly been quoted, in
which, when the Rising we are now to speak of had
1 Domestic Calendar, 1547 1580, p. 183.
2 Ibid. p. 180. 3 Ibid. p. 192. 4 Ibid. p. 187.
5 Surtees Society, 1850. Proceedings of Bishop Barnes, Preface
132 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
begun, he writes to Sir William Cecil: "There are
not ten gentlemen in all this country that favour her
(the Queen's) proceedings in religion. The common
people are ignorant, superstitious, and altogether
blinded with the old Popish doctrine, and therefore so
favour the cause which the rebels make the colour
of their rebellion. . . . No doubt all this country had
wholly rebelled, if at the beginning my Lord Lieu-
tenant had not wisely and stoutly handled the
matter." 1 It is hardly necessary to explain that, in
the mouths of men such as Sadler and the Protestant
Bishops, the terms " ignorance " and " superstition "
were but synonyms for adherence to the ancient
Catholic belief.
There would be no difficulty in multiplying such
quotations, but the above seem sufficient to prove
the tenacity with which, in spite of every obstacle,
the good people of the North retained their affection
for the ancient Faith ; and this fact explains the
readiness with which like their fathers in the
Pilgrimage of Grace many of them flocked to join
the banners of the Earls of Northumberland and
Westmoreland, when, in 1569, in the beginning of
Elizabeth's twelfth year, a brave, though in reality
ill-judged, attempt was led by these two noblemen,
to obtain the restoration of the Catholic religion.
Unwise as the Rising of the North was, and
difficult to defend when measured by its prospects
of success, no one can set himself to an impartial
study of its history without feeling that the movement
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, December 6, 1569.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 133
originated solely and entirely from the desire of the
actors to bring about the restoration of the Catholic
religion, the practice of which had become impos-
sible under the persecuting policy of Elizabeth and
of her Chief Secretary, Sir William Cecil. This is
proved conclusively, not only by the proclamations
of its leaders and by the whole conduct of those
that took part in the movement, but even still more
clearly by the admissions of their adversaries
themselves.
In the spring of the year 1569, Dr. Nicholas
Morton, a former Prebendary of York Minster, had
been sent by the Pope as Apostolic Penitentiary to
the northern counties, for the purpose of imparting
to the persecuted priests the faculties which they
required, the surviving Bishops being all imprisoned.
He was related to two of the Yorkshire families
afterwards most prominent in the Rising, the
Mortons and the Markenfields, whose 'estates lay
near to Ripon ; and was declared by Francis
Norton to have been "the most earnest mover
of the rebellion." The Earl of Northumberland,
who was then residing at his Yorkshire seat of
Topcliffe, was amongst those whom Dr. Morton
visited ; and in a letter written afterwards to Lord
Burghleigh the same Francis Norton tells how the
Earl had sent for his father, old Mr. Richard
Norton, and declared to him "the great grief he
had for that they all lived out of the laws of the
Catholic Church, for the restitution whereof he
would willingly spend his life." 1 Sander, moreover,
1 Sharpe, p. 281.
134 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
in speaking of the conferences held between the
leaders before the actual outbreak, relates that
when certain persons urged the policy of putting
forward some other pretext for the Rising rather
than the Catholic faith, the Earl of Northumberland
exclaimed : " I neither know of nor acknowledge
any other, for we are seeking, I imagine, the glory
not of men but God." 1
If the liberation of Mary Queen of Scots from
her unjust captivity entered into the designs of
the leaders of the Rising, it was because they con-
sidered the freedom of the Catholic heiress to
the English throne an indispensable condition for
securing their religious liberty. " In the having
of her," says the Earl in his answers to the Privy
Council, " we hoped thereby to have some reforma-
tion in religion, or at the least, some sufferance for
men to use their conscience as they were disposed ;
and also the freedom of her whom we accounted
the second person and right heir apparent." 5
If we turn, moreover, to the letters of the Earl
of Sussex, Lord President of the Council of the
North, written from York to Sir William Cecil and
to the Queen herself at the first beginning of the
outbreak, we find him again and again asserting
religion as its cause. " These Earls and their con-
federates will do what they can for the cause of
religion, and therefore this matter should not be
dallied with." "They have been . . . drawn on
... to what was intended by those wicked coun-
sellors at the beginning. ... I mean the cause
1 Bridgewater's Concertatio, fol. 46. * Sharpe, p. 193.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 135
of religion." And a few days later, " The people
like so well their cause of religion that they flock
to them in all places where they come." 1
Other similar expressions from the despatches
of Government and other officials, and even from
a letter of Elizabeth herself, will be quoted later ;
but the above appear sufficiently to show how clearly
it was understood on all sides that the desire to
restore the Catholic religion was the actuating
motive of the Rising.
The early autumn was spent by the northern
Catholic gentry in holding frequent consultations.
Northumberland's reluctance to take action was
due, as he says in his answers, partly to his
" finding the matter apparently without all likeli-
hood of success," and therefore "likely to breed
bloodshed " to no purpose ; and partly to his strong
sense of his obligation to remain submissive to his
Sovereign, so long as the fact of her excom-
munication should remain uncertain. His doubts
on these two points caused him much painful
hesitation, and made him the last of all the leaders
to give his sanction to the enterprise ; and even
then he only yielded under pressure which was
little short of violence, and whilst still maintaining
his loyalty to the person of the Queen herself. 2
To solve their doubts as to the lawfulness of
their contemplated Rising, the two Earls, on the jth
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, 1566 1579, pp. 103, 108, 112.
' 2 The loyalty of the Earl's sentiments towards the Queen is
shown by a letter which he wrote to her on the day before the
outbreak. (Sharpe, p. 320.)
136 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
of November, 1569, addressed a joint letter to Pope
St. Pius V., asking for advice and help. It is true
that they were driven into taking action long before
the Holy Father's answer could arrive ; and that,
when it was given, the movement already had been
crushed. Still the Pope's letter has a very special
interest, since apparently it justifies completely the
enterprise looked at in itself. It is given in full
by the continuator of Baronius, and it should be
noticed that it was dated the 22nd of February, 1570,
that is, three days before the famous Bull by which
Elizabeth was excommunicated. Clearly Dr. Morton
had not been wrong in representing her as con-
sidered by the Pope to be already practically
excommunicated, and deprived of her right of
sovereignty. 1
In replying to the letter of the Earls, dated
November the 7th (which he had received, he says,
on February the i6th), the Pontiff wrote as follows :
" Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has inspired you
with this resolution (which is worthy of your zeal
for the Catholic faith), to endeavour, by delivering
yourselves and your kingdom from a woman's
passion, to restore it to its ancient obedience to
this holy Roman See . . . and if, in maintaining
the Catholic faith and the authority of this Holy-
See, even death should be encountered by you and
your blood should be shed, it is far better for the
confession of God's truth to pass quickly to eternal
1 " Master Copley and another priest consulted by the leaders,
thought that the formal excommunication ought to be waited for
before rising." (Sharpe, p. 204. Answers of the Earl.)
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 137
life by the short road of a glorious death, than to
live on in shame and ignominy, to the loss of your
souls, in bondage to a feeble woman's passion. For
think not, beloved sons in Christ, that those
Bishops, or other leading Catholics (principibus
Catholicis) of your country whom you mention, have
made an unhappy end ; who, for their refusal to
give up their confession of the Catholic faith, have
been either cast into prisons, or unjustly visited
with other penalties. For their constancy, which
has been encouraged by the example (still, as we
believe, effective) of the blessed Thomas Archbishop
of Canterbury, can be praised by none as much as
it deserves. Imitating this same constancy your-
selves, be brave and firm in your resolve ! and
abandon not your undertaking through fear or
threat of any dangers." 1
A few days after the two Earls had despatched
their letter to the Pope, they were startled by a
sudden summons to present- themselves before the
Queen, who had received information of their move-
ment. On this they held a last consultation with
their chief supporters at Brancepeth Castle, the
residence of Lord Westmoreland, where, though
almost wrung from him by force, Northumberland's
agreement to the Rising was at last obtained. 2
Accordingly, setting out from Brancepeth with
1 Laderchi, Baronii Aniiales,ad. an. 1570, 384.
a The following is Northumberland's own account of this
Council, held at Brancepeth, as abridged from his answers on
examination: "My Lord (of Westmoreland), his uncles, old Norton,
and Markenfield were earnest to proceed. Francis Norton, John
138 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
such forces as could hastily be gathered, the two
Earls made a public entry into Durham on the
afternoon of November the I4th, amidst the accla-
mations of the people. Their first care on entering
was to proceed to the Cathedral and give directions
for its immediate restoration to Catholic worship,
the communion - table and Protestant books of
service being carried out and publicly destroyed ;
and this was the signal for St. Cuthbert's city once
more to assume its old appearance, and openly show
itself the Catholic town it had always remained at
heart. During the short month the Rising lasted
we read of altars rebuilt in nearly all the churches
there, and of Masses heard by crowded congre-
gations; of holy water carried to the people's houses,
and of processions headed by the cross ; and, best
Swinburne, myself, and others thought it impossible ; so we broke
up and departed, every man to provide for himself. Lady West-
moreland, hearing this, cried out, weeping bitterly, that we and
our country were shamed for ever, and that we must seek holes to
creep into. Some departed, and I wished to go, but my Lord's
uncles and others were so importunate that I and my Lord should
not sunder, or we should cast ourselves away, that I remained a
day or two. If any of us had provided a ship, we should have been
glad ; but when I found I could not get away I agreed to rise with
them, and promised to go and raise my force in Northumberland,
to join Lord Westmoreland upon the Tyne. They misliked my
departing, but I told them I must go, unless I went under my Lord's
standard without force of my own. I had got away an arrow-shot,
when the Nortons and others came to persuade me to return. Being
desperately urged, I returned, and met my Lord riding homeward.
I thought, but he passed towards Durham. When I understood
they would begin the matter there, I would no further, and willed
my Lord to return home and take better advice. I walked up and
down till sunset, and then they forced me to go." (Domestic Calendar,
Addenda, June 13, 1572.)
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 139
of all, of thousands kneeling at the feet of priests
commissioned by Christ's Vicar, to receive absolution
from censure and from sin.
On this first day of the Rising the Earls stayed
no longer in Durham than was needed for the pro-
clamation of their enterprise ; and returning to
Brancepeth for the night, they set out next day with
their army southwards. But this public restoration
of the Catholic religion in a city such as Durham,
in the beginning of Elizabeth's twelfth year, is an
event so striking as to deserve more attention than
it has usually received. Let us then interrupt the
narrative to supply some details regarding it not
noticed by most writers.
The following account of the proceedings in
Durham on November the I4th, is contained in a
letter to the Earl of Sussex from Sir George Bowes,
then in command of Barnard Castle, and is inter-
esting from the fact of its having been written on
the following day : " The doings of the Earls of
Westmoreland and Northumberland. Yesterday,
at four of the clock in the afternoon, the said Earls,
accompanied with Richard Norton, Francis, his
son, with divers other of his said sons ; Christopher
Nevill, Cuthbert Nevill, uncles of the said Earl of
Westmoreland ; and Thomas Markenfield, with
others to the number of three [score] horsemen
armed in corselets and coats of plates, with spears,
arquebuses, and daggers, entered the Minster there,
and there took all the books but one, and them and
the communion-table defaced, rent, and broke in
pieces. And after made a proclamation in the
i 4 o BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
Queen's name that no man, before their pleasure
known, should use any service ; and calling the
citizens before them, told them how they had done
nothing but that they would avow, and was after
the Queen's proceedings. And so tarrying about
the space of one hour they departed, putting a
watch of twenty-four townsmen to the town, which
took a servant of mine, which I sent thither, and
him carried to his lodging, and there he was kept
till this morning, and so came away. In haste at
Barnard Castle, November the I5th, at twelve of
the clock, 1569."
The fact of a watch of twenty-four of their own
fellow-townsmen being thought by the Earls a suffi-
cient force to guard the city, shows clearly how
entirely they had the sympathy of the citizens of
Durham in their proceedings at the Minster; and,
in fact, we have the express declaration of the Earl
of Sussex, made in answer to questions from the
Queen as to the " Earls' outrageous doings at
Durham," that " there was no resistance made, nor
any mislike of their doings." He says too in another
letter : " They pay for all they take, and suffer no
spoil. At Durham a man of the Earls' took a horse
of the Dean's out of his stable, but the horse was
restored and the taker punished." 1 Indeed, the whole
conduct of the people at this time showed that they
were no mere passive spectators of the attempt to
give back to them the means of practising again
their ancient Faith, but were actual and glad co-
operators in it : and yet it must not be forgotten
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, pp. 119, 120.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 141
that for the eleven years preceding they had been
entirely debarred from attending (unless occasionally
by stealth) either Mass or Sacraments ; and that
every church and chapel in the country had been
for the same space of time in the hands of ministers,
who, whether priests or not by ordination, had all
conformed to the new heresy, and who were for
the most part animated by a virulent hatred of
everything that savoured of the old religion, attend-
ance at their own services being, moreover, enforced
by rigorous penalties. Of these, James Pilkington
("the late supposed Bishop," as one of the Earls'
proclamations described him 1 ) had openly praised
God for having kept him from the " filthiness " of
the religion and orders of his predecessor, Cuthbert
Tunstall ; 2 whilst the fanatical Dean Whittingham
(who then presided over the Cathedral, and who
owed his only orders to the Calvinist ministers of
Geneva 3 ) displayed his love of Catholicity by sacri-
legiously rifling the tomb of Venerable Bede, whose
relics, some say, he scattered to the winds, 4 and by
burning the corporal cloth of St. Cuthbert, which
had been upheld by the monks as a banner at the
victory of Nevill's Cross.
As to the eleven Canons who then occupied the
places of the monks, two brothers of the Bishop
John and Leonard Pilkington may be supposed to
have shared his sentiments ; as also Swift, his Vicar-
1 Sharpe, p. 98.
2 Bridget! and Knox, Elizabeth and the Catholic Hierarchy, p. 48.
3 Estcourt, Question of Anglican Ordinations, p. 149.
4 Acta Sanctorum, Mali 27 (Ada S.Bedz), Edit. Bollandists.
142 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
General, who afterwards presided at the trials for
ecclesiastical offences which followed the suppres-
sion of the Rising ; whilst of the rest it is enough
to say that all of them had been appointed, or at
least confirmed in office, by Elizabeth ; l and that
(sad to tell) no less than three amongst them
Stephen Marley (last Subprior), Thomas Spark, and
George Cliff were apostate monks, who, following
no principle except the securing of their worldly
interests, had accepted each successive change that
had followed the suppression of their monastery in
1541, renouncing their Faith again finally on the
accession of Elizabeth.
The first two of these ex-monks were probably
in 1569 the only members of the Chapter who had
been validly ordained, George Cliff having appar-
ently received no more than acolyte's orders from
Bishop Tunstall. 2 Nearly all of these worthies
seem to have fled from Durham on its occupation
by the Earls, since a memorial of Cecil's is found
to contain the following item under the heading of
" Proceedings for the suppression of the Rising : "
" The Bishop and Dean of Durham and all ecclesi-
astical persons (to be) commanded to return to their
charges." 3 Most, however, of the more subordinate
1 One John Rudd had been dispossessed by Mary. See Le
Neve's Fasti. Hardy's Edition.
2 Surtees Society, 1845. Depositions and Ecclesiastical Proceedings
from the Courts of Durham, p. 137. Cliff was made a Canon by
Elizabeth.
3 Most of the details which follow are gathered from the Reports
of the trials held after the Rising, published by the Surtees Society,
Depositions, &c., pp. 127, seq.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 143
officials appear without reluctance to have lent their
services to the faithful priests, who, as long as the
Rising lasted, were allowed to take undisturbed
possession both of the Cathedral and the other
churches. Of these priests a word must now be
said.
In virtue of special faculties received from Rome,
the chief conduct of religious matters was under-
taken by a zealous and courageous priest named
William Holmes, whose memory deserves to be
rescued from the oblivion into which it has been
allowed to fall. So conspicuous, indeed, was the
part played by this man at the time we speak of,
that it won for him from his enemies the name of
the " Pope's Patriarch ; " and we find him so
described by them in their despatches. Thus, after
the suppression of the Rising, the Attorney-General
writes to Cecil : " One Holmes, thought to be the
Patriarch, is indicted here (Durham), but he is fled." 1
Mr. Holmes was assisted in his difficult and
dangerous undertaking by three other priests, named
Robert and John Peirson and John Robson. The
first of these is spoken of by one of the witnesses
at the trials held after the Rising as " the priest of
Brancepeth," and he appears to have been private
chaplain to the Earl of Westmoreland. John Peirson
(perhaps brother to the former) was one of the
Minor Canons of the Cathedral, and had probably
made his submission to the Church some time
before. Whatever may have been his history, there
was evidently no question raised about his Orders,
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, April i, 1570.
i 4 4 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
and he was now fully reinstated in his ministry, for
which he afterwards suffered deprivation of his
benefice. 1 It was in his chambers on the Palace
Green that Mr. Holmes appears to have found a
lodging, and there that he received some of the
conforming clergy, who came to him for absolution
from their censures. As to Mr. Robson, no particu-
lars seem discoverable, beyond the frequent mention
of him in the trials as having said Mass in the
Cathedral.
The burning of the Protestant service-books at
the Cathedral had been the signal for similar pro-
ceedings at the other churches; those, for instance,
of St. Oswald's consisting of " a Bible, the Book
of Comon Praier, the Apologe, and the Homilies "
having been brought down, as was afterwards
deposed, and " byrnt at the brig ende." The next
step was to rebuild a certain number of the ruined
altars, on which the Holy Sacrifice might again
be offered up, and to replace the holy-water
stoups at the church doors ; and the laborious way
in which this work was set about shows how
permanent it was meant to be by its directors
Mr. Holmes and Mr. Robert Peirson to whom
Lord Westmoreland's uncle, Mr. Cuthbert Nevill,
lent his powerful support. Orders are said to have
been given by them for the rebuilding of no less
than five of the Cathedral altars, although only two
seem to have been actually erected. These were
the high altar in the choir and that of our Blessed
Lady in the south transept, called the Lady
1 Sharpe, pp. 231, 260. 2 Probably Elvet Bridge.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 145
Bolton altar, from the tithes of Bolton chapelry with
which it had been anciently endowed. For the re-
erection of these altars two of the old altar-stones,
which lay buried under rubbish (one at the back of
the house of Dr. Swift, Pilkington's Vicar-General,
and the other " in the cemetery garth "), were with
considerable trouble got back into the Cathedral,
three days being spent in the work of their erection
by some dozen workmen, some of whom afterwards,
when put on their trial, had the weakness to profess
themselves sorry for their " fault." In at least
four also of the other churches those, namely, of
St. Giles, St. Margaret, St. Nicholas, and St. Oswald
the altars and the holy-water fonts were restored
in the same way, and in these and the Cathedral as
many Masses as the small number of priests avail-
able would permit began now to be celebrated, to
the indescribable delight and comfort of the crowds
that flocked to hear them.
It is hard, indeed, to realize what must have
been the joy of these long persecuted Catholics, to
hear their well-loved churches once more echoing
with the old familiar Latin chants of Mass and
Vespers ; to receive again in the old way holy water 1
and blessed bread ; to be suffered freely (as they
quaintly expressed it) to " occupy their gaudes "
[i.e., to use their rosaries, then commonly called
gaudies], as the widow, Alice Wilkinson, declared
upon her trial " many thowsand dyd ; " to be able
i Holy water was also taken to the people in their houses. The
parish clerk of St. Nicholas' owned to having " willed two boys to
go about the parish with holy water."
K II.
146 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
once more to confess their sins to a true priest,
who had power from Christ's Vicar to forgive
them ; and, above all, to feel that our Blessed Lord
Himself was once more present on the altar, and
could be received as their food in Holy Communion. 1
How sad to think that all this was but to last so
short a time !
The first High Mass, of which we find mention,
was sung in the Cathedral on St. Andrew's Day
(Wednesday, November the 3Oth), by Mr. Robert
Peirson, the choir consisting of the official singing-
men of the Cathedral, who (whatever their weakness
afterwards at the trials) seem at the time, at all
events, to have been troubled by no other scruple
than that they had not yet been " reconciled " to the
Church ; on which point, however, they were
reassured by the good priest, who told them "that
1 The following "Libel against hearers of Mass," Depositions
and Ecclesiastical Proceedings, &c. (p. 131), from the private book of
Swift, the Vicar-General, is instructive as showing the charges on
which those tried before that worthy in the ensuing April were
indicted : " That the said A.B., about St. Andrew last past, or before
fourteen day of December, 1569, by the instigation of the divell
. . . did unlawfullye erecte ... or cause to be erected . . . one
alter and holie-water stone, . . . and also in the same monthes and
yere came to Masse, Matens, Evensonge, procession, and like
idolatrous service, thereat knelling, bowing, knocking, and shewing
such like reverent gesture, used praying on beades, confession or
shriving to a prest, toke holy water and holye breade ; and did also
then and ther heare false and erroniouse doctrine against God and
the Churche of England preached by one W. Holmes in the pulpit,
and, subjecting himselve to the same doctryne and to the Pope, did,
among other like wicked people knowen to him, knell down and
receive absolution under Pope Pius name [St. Pius V.], in Latin,
false-terming this godly estate of England to be a schisme or
heresy."
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 147
all that were reconciled in heart " might take part
in the singing. 1 The " throng of people " on this
occasion is declared by one witness to have been
" so much that she could not see the Mass, and
so sat down in the low end of the same church and
said her prayers."
The crown was put to the work of Durham's
reconciliation to the Church by the public absolution
of the people from their censures, pronounced by
Mr. Holmes on December the 4th, which happened
that year to be the Second Sunday of Advent. On
that day Mr. Holmes mounted the Cathedral pulpit,
and after preaching on the state of heresy and schism
which the new religion had established in the
country, exhorted all his hearers to submit once
more to the Catholic Church, and to kneel down
whilst he gave them absolution; "affirming," as a
witness at the trials said, " that he had authority
to reconcile men to the Church of Rome : " and
" thereupon he openly reconciled and absolved in
the Pope's name all the hearers there." Then,,
making his way through the still kneeling crowd to
the high altar in the choir, he offered up the Holy
Sacrifice, with what feelings of joyful gratitude we
can well imagine. The day concluded with " Even-
songe in Latten," and the singing of the anthem,
Gaude Virgo Christipara, in honour of our Blessed
Lady.
On this self-same Sunday, at Bishop Auckland
(Pilkington's own place of residence), a similar con-
soling scene was enacted in St. Helen's Church by
1 Declaration of Thomas Wark. (Ibid. p. 153.)
148 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
a priest named George Whyte, who, " coming into
the church (at whose procurement the deponent
cannot say), went into the pulpit, where, when he
had preached against the state of religion established
in this realm, he willed them to revert to the Church
of Rome ; and thereupon read absolution in the
Pope's name to all the people, . . . and afterwards
. . . said Mass there." 1
How general the Catholic revival was throughout
the county would best be shown by a list of the
various places which figure in the depositions ; but
of these it seems enough to mention Sedgefield, Long
Newton, Lanchester, Chester-le-Street, Stockton,
and Monkwearmouth. How many souls were
strengthened by it to bear steadfastly the fearful
troubles which were so soon to come upon them,
can be known to God alone ; but that its effects did
not soon pass away is proved by the angry words,
already quoted, of Bishop Barnes Pilkington's
successor who (in writing to Lord Burghley six
years after its occurrence), says of the Church of
Durham that its " stinke is grievous in the nose of
God and men, and which to purge far passeth
Hercules' labours."
During the week which followed the public
*' reconciliation " of the people of Durham, Mr.
Holmes seems to have had the happiness of receiv-
ing back into the Church most of the Protestant
ministers yet remaining in the town. Amongst
these were no less than five of the Minor Canons
of the Cathedral, who, fortified with a commen-
1 Ibid. p. 181.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 149-
datory letter from Mr. John Peirson, their former
comrade, on Friday, December the gth, went out
all together to see Mr. Holmes at Staindrop " who,,
besides the letter of Sir John Pierson's, was heartily
moved upon their submission to reconcile them from
the schism ; every man acknowledging his state of
life for eleven years last past privately and secretly,
did promise that they would now turn off the same."
It would seem, however, that Mr. Holmes was not
satisfied with regard to their Orders, at all events as
far as the priesthood was concerned ; for he "was
content to admit them as deacons to minister in the
church, but not to celebrate." 1
Unhappily, most of these somewhat hastily
converted ministers seemed to have lacked either
the sincerity or the courage to stand the test of
persecution, and returned again to their old ways,
Still a brave profession of his Faith was made by
one of them, John Browne by name, who, in addition
to his minor canonry, held also the curacy of
Witton Gilbert. No less than three witnesses made
depositions afterwards that, in the chapel of Witton
Gilbert, on a Sunday or holiday in December last,
they " heard Sir John Browne, curate there, say
openly to his parishioners after this sort : ' I have
these eleven years taught you the wrong way in
such learning as is against my soul and yours both,
and I am sorry and ask God mercy therefor, and
you my parishioners; and do here renounce my
1 Depositions of William Smyth and William Blenkinsopp,
Minor Canons, who both, unfortunately, afterwards retracted.
(Ibid. pp. 138, 144.)
150 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
living before you all ; and wheresoever you meet me,
in town or field, take me as a stranger and none of
your curate.' " J
For a few days after his reception back again
into the one true fold, this brave man had the
consolation of ministering at the services in the
Cathedral, where he is once mentioned as serving
Mr. Holmes' Mass ; but his name was naturally
struck off from the list of the Cathedral clergy on
the suppression of the Rising, and most probably he
had to flee the country.
It is time for us to return to the Earl of
Northumberland and the Earl of Westmoreland, his
fellow-leader in the Rising. Unfortunately for the
ultimate success of their attempt, they had been
hurried into taking action without sufficient time
for preparation. They were, moreover, disappointed
both as to the co-operation of many of the gentry
from whom help had been expected, and also as to
assistance which had been looked for from abroad.
Thus, although they were enabled to carry all before
them for a little while, nevertheless the movement
could not sustain itself, and was soon forced to
collapse. Meanwhile, however, the Earl of Sussex,
the Queen's representative in the North, was so
doubtful of the fidelity of his own troops, of whose
Catholic sympathies he was well aware, that he
dared not stir from York against the insurgents till
reinforcements should reach him from the South ;
and his letters to Cecil betray his great anxiety.
1 Ibid. p. 174.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUM TREE 151
The uncompromising manner in which the
religious purpose of the Rising was put forward by
the two Earls, is well shown by the following procla-
mation which they issued a day or two after their
entry into Durham : " Thomas, Earl of Northumber-
land, and Charles, Earl of Westmoreland, the
Queen's true and faithful subjects, to all the same
of the old and Catholic Faith, . . . As divers
ill-disposed persons about her Majesty have by their
crafty dealing overthrown in this realm the true and
Catholic religion towards God, abused the Queen,
dishonoured the realm, and now seek to procure
the destruction of the nobility ; we have gathered
ourselves together to resist force by force, . . . and
to redress those things amiss, with the restoring of
all ancient customs and liberties to God and this
noble realm."
It is true that in a later manifesto, put forth
when they were beginning to retreat, the Earls
sought to disarm hostility and win fresh adherents
by speaking only of the need of fixing the succession
to the throne, without making any open reference to
religion. But the successor, whose claim they
wished to get acknowledged, was none other than
Mary Queen of Scots, through whom they hoped
eventually to obtain the restoration of the Catholic
religion. The idea, however, of placing her upon
the throne at once was not even mooted as we
know from the declaration of Northumberland
himself. He was guilty, therefore, of no hypocrisy
in calling himself in the above proclamation " a
true and faithful subject of Elizabeth."
152 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
On the day following their entry into Durham,
the Earls moved southwards, with the intention of
liberating, if possible, the Scottish Queen, who was
then confined at Tutbury, in Staffordshire. Nothing,
it would seem, could well exceed the enthusiasm
with which "the sturdy men of the North " flocked
to join them.
" No sooner," writes M. de Fonblanque, " had
they set up their standards in Durham, than men of
all classes, from nobles and knights, accompanied
by their tenants mounted and equipped for war,
down to unarmed labourers bringing only their
stout hearts and good-will, rallied round their
natural chiefs." They went on, continues the same
writer, " steadily increasing their numbers, till, . . .
on the 23rd of November, the force amounted to
6,000 men." 1
"All their force both of horse and foot," writes
Sir F. Leek to the Council, " wear red crosses, as
well the priests as others." 5 Their standard,
representing our Blessed Lord with Blood streaming
from His Wounds, was borne by old Mr. Richard
Norton, High Sheriff of Yorkshire in the previous
year, whose long grey hair and venerable bearing
excited the enthusiasm of the beholders.
The chief chaplain of their army appears to have
been none other than the Blessed Thomas Plumtree,
illustrious for his martyrdom at Durham after the
suppression of the Rising. In an old ballad of the
time he is called " the preacher of the Rebels ; " and
1 Annals of the House of Percy, ii. pp. 51, 57.
z Domestic Calendar, Addenda, December 3, 1569.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 153
the same title is given him in Lord Scroop's list of
the prisoners whom he sent to Durham : " Thomas
Plomtree, a priest and their preacher; 5>1 and as, in
the report of the trials held at Durham, he is only
mentioned once as having there said Mass, it seems
probable that he accompanied the two Earls on their
march southwards, and only returned to Durham
with them. As to this holy man's earlier life, we
unfortunately know little. He seems to have been
a native of the diocese of Lincoln, and to have been
a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in
1543. He took the degree of B.A. in 1546, and
in the same year was made Rector of Stubton,
in Lincolnshire. He resigned this benefice at the
change of religion under Elizabeth, and became
master of a school at Lincoln, which position he
also had to give up later on account of his
religion. 2 A despatch of Fenelon, the French Ambas-
sador, described Blessed Thomas Plumtree, a few
days after his martyrdom, as estime home fort sqavant
et de bonne me?
Staindrop and Darlington seem to have been the
Earls' first stopping-places after leaving Brancepeth,
and at each, as at Durham, they proclaimed the
1 Among manye newes reported of late,
As touching the Rebelles their wicked estate,
Yet Syr Thomas Plomtrie, their preacher they saie,
Hath made the north countrie to crie well a daye,
Well a daye, well a daye, well a daye, woe is mee,
Syr Thomas Plomtrie is hanged on a tree.
(Sharpe, pp. 123, 383.) In a summary of those executed (p. 140),
Sharpe, by an evident mistake, calls him William Plumtree.
2 Bridgewater's Concertatio, fol. 405. See Foster, Alumni Oxonienses.
3 January 21, 1570. Quoted by Sharpe, p. 188.
154 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
re-establishment of Catholic worship. Leaving
Darlington on November the 17th, after assisting
publicly at the Holy Sacrifice, offered up most
probably by Blessed Thomas Plumtree, they passed
into Yorkshire, continually receiving fresh adherents
and nowhere meeting an opponent, and proceeded
through Richmond and Northallerton to Ripon,
where the Holy Mass was once more celebrated
in St. Wilfrid's stately Minster. Thence advancing
still further south, they encamped on November the
23rd on Clifford Moor, near Wetherby. So far
everything had gone favourably. " They had suc-
ceeded in dispersing the levies in course of forma-
tion for the Queen's service, had captured a body of
300 horse at Tadcaster, and cut off communication
with York, where Sussex lay with a garrison not
exceeding 2,000 men, ' whereof not past 300
horsemen.' A vigorous assault would have placed
him and the city at their mercy." 1
At this point however, the unfortunate failure of
supplies and money, as also differences of opinion
amongst the leaders, put a stop to further progress,
and necessitated their return into the bishopric of
Durham. Marching, therefore, again northwards, they
succeeded in capturing, first the port of Hartlepool,
through which they hoped to receive succour from
abroad, and a little later Barnard Castle, where seems
to have occurred almost the only righting, and to
which they laid a formal siege. The sympathy felt
by a large portion of the garrison for the undertaking
of the Earls, was shown by some hundreds of them
1 De Fonblanque, ii. p. 58.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 155
leaping from the walls to join them ; and, at the end
of ten days, Sir George Bowes, the royalist com-
mander of the castle, found it necessary to capitulate,
and was allowed to march out with such troops as
remained faithful to him, and proceed to York.
Whilst the siege was still continuing, the Earl
of Northumberland, in consequence of the rumoured
approach of hostile troops from Berwick, had returned
with five hundred horse to Durham ; it was thus
he was present in the Cathedral on December the
4th, when Mr. Holmes publicly absolved the people. 1
Also along with him and as chaplain to his
soldiers, the Blessed Thomas Plumtree seems to
have returned, for he appears to have been the
celebrant of the Mass said on that memorable day
immediately before Mr. Holmes' sermon. Amongst
the citizens of Durham tried afterwards for having
been present at the services held in the Cathedral,
one, Ralph Stevenson, admitted that "he was at
Plomtre's Masse in the Collidge Church and was at
Holmes' preichinge. ... He toke absolucion of the
said preicher, emongst the resydew of the people." 2
Meanwhile, the approach of his long expected
reinforcements had set Sussex free to commence a
movement northwards, other troops to join him
having been gathered at Newcastle. The hope-
lessness of any ultimate success to be obtained by
1 Depositions and Ecclesiastical Proceedings, &c.
2 Ibid. p. 181. The Close, occupied by the Prebendaries' houses
on the south side of the Cathedral, is still called " the College."
Probably the Cathedral came to be spoken of as the "College
Church," from the erection in it of a College of Canons in place of
the former monks.
156 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
the insurgents was thus made daily more apparent.
They held their last council of war at Durham on
December the i6th, when Lord Westmoreland seems
to have been in favour of still standing out, but
the gentle and more timorous Northumberland, afraid
of causing useless bloodshed, and anxious still, as
far as might be possible, to avoid resistance to his
Sovereign, was desirous that they should cease
hostilities. 1 Opinions being thus divided, no course
but flight was open to them. On the same night,
accordingly, dismissing their poorer followers to their
own homes, the two Earls, with the chief part of the
gentry that had joined them, rode off to Hexham.
A few days later they made their way across the
Scottish frontier, trusting to find safety for a while
amongst the half independent clans dwelling on
the borders ; and thence, not long afterwards,
Lord Westmoreland and many others succeeded in
escaping to the Continent.
The whole North was now at the mercy of the
Earl of Sussex, whom the Queen had especially
charged to execute on the offenders the full severity
of martial law. " The most repulsive feature," writes
the author of the Percy Annals, "in the retaliatory
measures now adopted by Elizabeth and her agents,
is the cold-blooded, calculating spirit in which whole-
1 Reports (perhaps exaggerated) of the Earl's hesitation had
already reached his enemies. On the previous November 24,
Lord Hunsdon wrote from York to Cecil : " The other [Northum-
berland] is very timorous, and has meant twice or thrice to submit ;
but his wife encourages him to persevere, and rides up and down
with their army, so that the grey mare is the better horse."
(Domestic Calendar, Addenda (15661579), p. 124.)
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 157
sale executions were inflicted upon the ' meaner sort,'
while those were spared who were able to ransom
their lives. The gentlemen and substantial yeomen
who fell into the hands of the authorities were
allowed to escape the penalty of their offences by a
money payment ; while the poor peasants . . . were
consigned to the gallows by hundreds. ... A report,
drawn up in October, 1573, by Lord Huntingdon,
put the number of rebels actually executed at ' seven
hundred and odd, . . . wholly of the meanest of the
people, except the aldermen of Durham, Plomtree,
their preacher, the constables, and fifty serving-
men.'" 1 "In the county of Durham alone," says
Lingard, "more than three hundred individuals
suffered death ; nor was there between Newcastle
and Wetherby, a district of sixty miles in length
and forty in breadth, a town or village in which
some of the inhabitants did not expire on the
gibbet." 2
Blessed Thomas Plumtree was taken in his flight
together with some three hundred others, and con-
ducted to Carlisle. Thence, a few days later, he was
sent back by Lord Scroop to Durham along with
some thirty landed gentlemen, whose estates were
marked for confiscation, and committed to the
custody of Sir George Bowes, the late opponent of
the Earls at Barnard Castle, who was now installed
in Durham Castle as Marshal for the keeping of the
"prisoners rebels." In pursuance, probably, of the
following suggestions, found in a memorial of Cecil's
1 De Fonblanque, ii. pp. 76 and 80.
2 History of England, vol. vi. p. 217.
i 5 8 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
" For some terror . . . particular examples are to
be made at Durham, where the Bibles and Common
Prayers were misused. . . . Some notable example
is to be made of the priests that have offended in
this rebellion" 1 Thomas Plumtree was singled out
amongst the very first for special punishment, in
hatred of his priestly character.
The Earl of Sussex came himself to Durham to
preside in person at the executions, which began on
January the 4th. On that day the blessed martyr
was led out from the Castle, in full sight of the old
Cathedral in which he had so lately offered up the
Holy Sacrifice, and conducted down the winding
street which leads to the market-place, where his
gibbet was erected. Dr. Nicholas Sander, writing
within a year and a half of the occurrence, relates
that, " on his arriving at the place of execu-
tion (Jam ad mortem ducto), his life was offered to
him, if he would but renounce the Catholic Faith
and embrace the heresy ; " to which the martyr
nobly answered, "that he had no desire so to
continue living in the world, as meantime to die to
God. Wherefore, having fearlessly confessed his
Faith, by God's grace he suffered death in this world,
that he might merit to receive from Christ eternal
life." 2
Surtees 3 quotes the register of St. Nicholas' (the
church in the market-place where the martyr
suffered) as recording, on January the i4th, the
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, p. 172.
2 De Visibili Monarchia Ecclesia, Louvain, 1571, p. 732.
3 History of Durham, iv. p. 51.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 159
burial of " Maistre Plumbetre." In the English
College pictures Blessed Thomas Plumtrce is repre-
sented as being cut in pieces, after hanging, as were
most of the other martyrs ; and from his burial
having taken place ten days after his martyrdom,
it seems that his quarters must have been left
hanging on the gibbet, " for some terror," for the
space of ten whole days. The ancient cemetery, in
which he seems to have been laid, is now covered by
the pavement of the market-place.
The remainder of the priests who had worked so
zealously at Durham, during the brief restoration of
the Catholic religion, seem to have succeeded in
escaping ; although of few of them, except William
Holmes, " the Patriarch," is it possible to find
further actual mention. There seems, however, to
be good reason for identifying the John Peirson,
spoken of amongst them, with " a venerable old
priest " named John Pearson, who "was imprisoned"
.(says Father Christopher Grene, SJ.) " for many
years at Durham, for refusing to attend heretical
services;" and who from the order in which Father
Grene makes mention of him appears to have
died not later than the year 1585, "from his cruel
treatment in a dungeon into which he was thrust,
when in a burning fever, among a set of thieves." ]
Against Mr. Holmes, who had escaped to Scotland,
a special indictment had been made out at Durham,
and more than one allusion to him is found in the
State Papers of the time. Thus, on the I5th of
February, 1570, Lord Hunsdon writes from Berwick
1 Father Morris, Troubles, Hi. p. 315.
160 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
to the Privy Council, that " Lord Home is the
principal receiver of the Queen's rebels, and has
Mass in his house ; for the Patriarch, who was at
Durham with the Earls, is now at Fast Castle,"
near Dunbar. A little later (March the lyth), he
writes again to say that he has received information
that " the Patriarch and other rebels have prepared
a ship to pass into Flanders," and that he hopes to
intercept them, as " Mr. Randolph [then Eliza-
beth's Postmaster General] has practised with the
master of the ship." Lord Hunsdon's hopes in
this respect were, however, doomed to disappoint-
ment ; and on the following April the ist he was
obliged to inform Cecil that, by the contrivance of
Lord Home, who had received warning of his plot,
Mr. Holmes and his companions had been sent to
Orkney, to be conveyed by that circuitous route to
Flanders. 1 There, amongst the English exiles for
the Faith, "William Holmes, priest," is named in
Sander's De Visibili Monarchia.
This section may be concluded with the following
beautiful letter, written by Mr. Holmes from Louvain,
in the September of 1571, to one of his fellow-
fugitives of the Rising George Smythe, of Esh
Hall, Durham who had not yet succeeded in
escaping to the Continent, being kept a prisoner by
Lord Lindsay :
" I am sorry to seem to neglect you in not
writing ; but I have to write when I should sleep.
I have prayed for your spiritual comfort, and am
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, and Sharpe, p. 72.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 161
glad to hear of your courage in God's cause. You
may rejoice that you are thought worthy to suffer
for His sake. Walking on the seas tried Peter's love,
but he was not suffered to drown. Drink the cup of
persecution willingly, though bitter in taste, and your
reward shall be everlasting life." 1
This letter, intercepted by the spies of Cecil, can
never have been seen by him for whose encourage-
ment it was written.
None of God's saints have won the crowns they
now wear in Heaven, without going through much
suffering here on earth. It seems indeed a necessary
condition for the acquiring of sanctity in any high
degree to have first passed through the school of
suffering, since there is no way of becoming like to
our Blessed Lord without taking up the Cross.
It could not be otherwise with Blessed Thomas
Percy ; and we have now reached a period in his
life at which began for him a long course of tribu-
lations, destined in God's providence to fit him for
his final triumph.
The brave Countess of Northumberland had
clung faithfully to her husband throughout the
campaign, riding everywhere with him and his
army. On passing into Scotland after the flight
from Durham, they both took refuge for a little
while in the cottage of a Liddesdale outlaw, known
upon the Borders as John of the Side. It was
only for a few days, however, that the Earl's
enemies allowed him to enjoy even the poor shelter
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, Sept. 3 (or 13), 1571.
L II.
162 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
which Sussex, in writing to the Queen, described as
"not to be compared to any dog-kennel in England."
Acting in agreement with the Ministers of Eliza-
beth, the Scotch Regent, Murray, had already made
a proclamation, in which he warned his subjects
that "the rebellious people of England intend to
enter Scotland in a warlike manner, and set up again
the Papistical idolatry and abominable Mass; " and,
on hearing of the arrival of the fugitives amongst
the Border clans, he succeeded, by the free use of
threats and promises to the men of Liddesdale, in
procuring their expulsion. 1 On being driven thence,
Northumberland, thinking that his late rough hosts
would at least respect his wife, and not wishing
to expose her to further unknown perils, left her
amongst them, and set out to seek protection from
the neighbouring clan of Armstrongs. No sooner
had he gone, however, than the poor Countess found
herself robbed of all her personal effects, including
her money and her jewels, whilst her horse and
those of her attendants were seized by the outlaws
for their own use. Happily she was not left very
long in this miserable state, but was rescued by the
friendly Laird of Fernihurst, who conducted her a
few days later to Fast Castle, on the sea-coast, where,
with many of the other fugitives, she was protected
by Lord Home.
Meanwhile the Earl himself had been betrayed
into a snare laid for him by the Regent, through
the treachery of a certain Hector Armstrong, whom,
when a fugitive in England, he had himself formerly
1 Foreign Calendar, December 18 and 22, 1569.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 163
protected. By this man he was entrapped into a
conference with an envoy from the Regent ; and
whilst talking with the latter was suddenly sur-
rounded by a troop of horsemen. These succeeded
in conveying him to Hawick, in spite of the brave
resistance of his followers, who gave pursuit and
contrived to kill the leader of the capturing party. 1
The betrayal of the Earl to the Regent, in the
manner just related, took place on the Christmas
Eve of 1569, but eight days after his flight from
Durham. 2 Torn away, as he was, thus suddenly
from all his friends and followers, and committed
to the mercy of a declared and faithless enemy,
it is not easy to imagine a much more forlorn
condition : and his " great distress and misery,
clean without apparel or money ; " and still more
his anxiety of mind as to the condition of " his
friends, his men, and those that were with him,"
and, above all, of " his children " four little girls
(of whom the eldest was no more than ten), now
bereft of both their parents, and left behind in
England is feelingly described in a letter, which
was addressed on the Earl's behalf a few days later
to his brother, Sir Henry Percy, 3 who, throughout
the Rising, had taken open part against him, but who
now began to show some willingness to help him.
The news of Northumberland's capture by the
Scottish Regent was communicated to the Queen
on the day after its occurrence by Lord Sussex,
who had at once received information of it. Nothing
1 De Fonblanque, ii. p. 68.
2 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, December 25, 1569.
3 De Fonblanque, ii. p. 71.
164 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
else, however, would content Elizabeth but that
the Earl should be handed over to herself; and
she, with this object, immediately commenced
negotiating in spite of the warning sent to her by
Lord Hunsdon, that he found "the nobility and
the commonalty of Scotland bent wholly to the
contrary," and that " if his spies did not much fail,
most of the nobility thought it a great reproach to
the country to deliver any banished man to the
slaughter." l
The only effect this message had upon Elizabeth
is shown by a letter, in which she seeks to rouse the
bigotry of the Scottish Regent, telling him that " as
the rebels, besides their treason against her, have
purposed the alteration of the common religion,
she cannot think that any godly wise councillor
will either maintain them or impeach their delivery." 2
This acknowledgment of the religious purpose of the
Rising, made by Elizabeth herself, is worth noting.
In the end, rinding it impossible otherwise to
obtain possession of her victim, Elizabeth was not
ashamed to bargain with the successor of Murray
as to the price of the Earl's surrender ; and at last,
in spite of her known avarice, agreed to pay for him
2,000 possibly worth 16,000 to 20,000 in the
present value of money. Thus the Blessed Thomas
Percy had, like our Lord, the glory of being sold for
money to his enemies ; and what added to the
infamy of the transaction was the fact that the Scots
were at the same time treating for his ransom with
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, January 13, 1570.
2 Foreign Calendar, January 24, 1570.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 165
the Countess, whose offer they would have accepted
had not Elizabeth outbidden her. Meanwhile, the
Earl himself had been placed by the Regent in
strict confinement at Lochleven, in the castle
famous for having been a short time previously
the prison of Queen Mary. There he was left to
languish for two years and a half.
We are indebted for a reliable account of the
captivity and martyrdom of Blessed Thomas Percy
(from which I shall not scruple to quote freely) to
the pen of Dr. Nicholas Sander, 1 the much calum-
niated historian of the Anglican schism, who was
for some time in Flanders with the Countess of
Northumberland, besides being in actual correspond-
ence with the Earl.
After speaking of the wonderful gentleness and
patience with which the saintly man bore his
captivity at Lochleven, and of the continual fasts
and watchings and pious meditations, by means of
which he strove to win that " crown of glory, which
the just judge now has rendered to him," this
writer goes on to relate that, although the Calvinist
Laird of Lochleven, who had the Earl in keeping,
" often brought thither a number of persons of his
1 Martyrium sanctissimi viri Thames Percei, Comitis N orthumbria .
It was published, after Sander's death, in Bridgewater's Concertatio,
Treves, 1589. So far as I know, it has not yet been translated.
Unfortunately I have not been able to consult the MS. at Florence
which Mr. Turnbull found among the Medici Archives there. He
says it contains an account of the execution sent to the Grand Duke
of Tuscany by one of his residents in England, and that it records
"the speech and even the prayers uttered by the Earl at the solemn
moment." (W. Turnbull, Letters of Mary Stuart, p. 67, note.)
166 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
sect, who tried to draw the Earl away from the
Catholic faith into their new errors ; these men,
nevertheless, were never able, either by cunning
arguments and speeches, or by any kind of threats
or promises, to prevail on him to depart even in
the smallest matter from the communion of the
Catholic Church ; and yet, if he would have but
yielded somewhat to their heresy, there were not
wanting persons quite prepared to promise to him,
not merely his release from prison, but also his old
rank and honours. If, as often happened, meat was
brought to him on days on which Catholics observe
a fast, he contented himself with bread alone ; and
by his example he moved some of those attending
on him to repent of their apostasy. Sometimes he
spent whole days upon his knees, . . . and prayer,
to which he had been devoted all his life, was now
more than ever his delight." " I myself," continues
Sander, " have seen a fair sized book, elegantly
written and illuminated by his own hand, into
which he had brought together a quantity of prayers
gathered out of various works."
The above account of the promises made to the
Earl at this time, if he would but renounce his
Faith, is confirmed by the following passage taken
from an intercepted letter, which was addressed, in
the May of 1570, to the Duchess of Feria in Spain,
by Sir Francis Englefield, then living in exile for
the Faith at Antwerp. After mentioning the Earl's
imprisonment at Lochleven, the writer of this letter
says : " Hunsdon has offered Northumberland con-
ditions of pardon ; but he has refused them without
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 167
liberty (be given) to the Catholics to live as
such." 1
The unselfishness with which, at the cost of all
manner of sacrifices to herself, Lady Northumberland
laboured for her husband's liberation could not be
surpassed ; and at one time it really seemed as if
her efforts were about to be successful. With the
Earl's keeper, William Douglas, of Lochleven, she
contrived to come to an agreement as to the sum
which would be accepted, and the raising of the
money seemed to be the only further thing required.
For this purpose, seeing no hope of obtaining it as
long as she remained where she was, and afraid lest
her own liberty should sooner or later be interfered
with, about the June of 1570 she moved northwards
to Aberdeen, with the view of making her way
thence to the Continent. In this she received much
help from Lord Seton, who, after entertaining her
for some time "in old Aberdeen in the Chancellor's
house " where " it is said," wrote Randolph, " she
hears Mass daily " himself set sail with her for the
Low Countries in the following August. 2
In Flanders, the Countess received a kind
welcome from the Duke of Alva, who undertook to
interest the King of Spain on her behalf; and from
that monarch (though only after several months'
delay) she received a promise of 6,000 crowns,
which fell far short of the sum demanded by
Lochleven. Nothing, however, could daunt her
zeal, and at last, in the January of 1572, she was
able to send word to her husband that, thanks to
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, May 7, 1570. 2 Sharpe, p. 346.
168 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
a further promise of 4,000 crowns from Pope
St. Pius V., the sum required for his ransom was
obtained ; and that nothing was now left but to
take the necessary measures for securing his safe
passage to the Continent. 1
How high the hopes of the Earl's many friends
abroad had risen, may be gathered from the
following letter written from Louvain, in the month
just mentioned, to the prisoner of Lochleven by
none other than the Dr. Sander I have quoted. It
was intercepted by the agents of Elizabeth, and
so was never suffered to convey the consolation
intended by its writer. We see from it that
Dr. Sander was then on the point of setting out for
Rome, whither St. Pius V. had summoned him ;
and it contains a very pleasing reference to that
Pope's affection for the imprisoned nobleman.
" Amongst my other fortunes, I account it not
the best that I am forced to leave this country,
when you, as we hear, are drawing near to it ; for
1 The Countess' long and touching letter conveying the above
intelligence is given in the Annals of the House of Percy , ii.pp.g6 101.
In speaking of persons likely to be able to assist her husband, she
describes Dr. Allen (afterwards Cardinal) as "the most singular
man in my opinion, next to Mr. Sanders, on this side the seas. If
he might be had (to help you), I think you could not have the
choice of the like, whensoever God should send you hither." The
following shows the anxiety both of the Earl and herself for their
children, who had been separated from them, and were apparently
in the hands of Protestants. " For your children, the best means
that I can imagine to have them transmitted hither were a suit to
be made to have them licensed to come to see you. . . . The eldest
of all I wish the rather, because her age is fittest to receive
instruction, and most ready to take knowledge now of the
virtuous examples, which here she could see and learn, and there
doth want altogether."
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 169
now I depart to Italy, being called for to Rome ;
and yet amongst my adversities, I accept it the
least that I go not hence before I see you in some
towardness to come hither. What travail my Lady
has taken for your deliver}', not only do I know who
was a part of it, but all men see ; because she was
no longer able to work by private means, but was
forced to follow the Court, and to press upon the
Duke's grace even against his will. God saw her
tears and heard her prayers. But what say I, hers ?
He saw and heard yours, which were so earnest
that they also appeared in her. I shall long to hear
from you, being at Rome ; and, much more, to hear
of your delivery, and to deliver your letter of thanks
to him that there loves you ; and truly if he loves
you, as he has given good evidence, then God loves
you. For these three hundred years there was no
such man in that See, albeit many excellent men
have sat there. But you have a more proper token
of God's love your imprisonment, affliction, trouble,
and tedious oppression. That do you embrace, and
you have conquered the world. As you have borne
yourself well in adversity, so take care not to forget
the goodness of God if He send you prosperity, as
I beseech Him to do." 1
The activity of the spies employed by Cecil (now
Lord Burghley) on the Continent, is proved by the
quantity of letters such as the above, which they
found means of intercepting, and which are now
calendared in the volumes published by the Master
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, January 8, 1572.
170 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
of the Rolls, together with the letters of the spies
that sent them. It was through the agency of one
of these spies a man named John Lee, who, by
his pretended zeal for the Catholic Faith, and his
feigned ardour in the cause of Mary Queen of Scots,
had contrived to worm himself into the confidence
of the poor Countess and the other exiles (we hear
more of this rascal in the life of Blessed John
Storey) that the Ministers of Elizabeth received
prompt and full information of each step taken by
the unfortunate lady for her husband's liberation.
On learning, therefore, that a final agreement
was on the point of being come to between the
Countess and Douglas of Lochleven, Elizabeth
determined at once to push on her negotiations
with the Scottish Regent to the conclusion on
which she had set her mind. The shameful bargain
for the Earl's surrender was accordingly arranged
on the i6th of April, 1572, as is shown by a letter
from the Queen herself to Lord Hunsdon, the
Governor of Berwick, in which she signifies her
willingness to pay the 2,000 demanded. Its actual
payment seems, however, only to have been extorted
from her by the repeated assurances of Lord
Hunsdon, that the Scots " would not deliver up
the Earl without the money." 1
It is true that the Scottish Regent strove to
veil the infamy of his own part in the proceeding
by accompanying his surrender of the Earl with
a hypocritical request that his life might be spared ;
but it seems impossible that he should have had
1 State Papers, Scotland, April 16, May i, 2, and 7, 1572.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 171
any doubt as to Elizabeth's intention in demanding
him. The delivery of the Earl to Lord Hunsdon
took place at Eyemouth, near to Coldingham, on
May the 2gth, and thence on the same day he was
conveyed to Berwick. Sander relates that his
heartless keeper at Lochleven, in placing him upon
the vessel which was to carry him to Coldingham,
had treacherously endeavoured to persuade him that
he was about to be set free, and conveyed across
the sea to Flanders ; and that the meek confessor
of Christ, although suspecting some deceit, had
bestowed a parting kiss on his betrayer, in imitation
of his Master.
Hunsdon, who had probably expected to find his
prisoner either querulous or sullen, and who was
hardly likely to understand aright the calmness, even
in the midst of danger and of sorrow, of one who
had given up all earthly things for God, remarks
with something of a sneer, in announcing the Earl's
surrender to Lord Burghley, that "he is readier to
talk of hawks and hounds than anything else, though
very sorrowful and fearing for his life." 1 He did
not see that he had no right to expect a prisoner to
discuss with his captor the things which really lay
deepest in his heart. Still, that Lord Hunsdon was
not without some sense of the disgraceful nature of
the transaction to which he was a party, appears from
-the remark, which Sander says he made on paying
down the price of the Earl's blood to the Scotch
lord who surrendered him : " You have got your
money, but you have sold your faith and honour! "
1 State Papers, Scotland, May 29, 1572.
172 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
As soon as Elizabeth heard that the Earl had been
actually surrendered, she wrote herself to Hunsdon,
giving instructions with reference to his confinement,
and enclosing a long list of questions, drawn up by
Burghley, to which a written answer was to be re-
quired from him. " You may use speeches," wrote
the Queen, "to terrify him with the extremity of
punishment if he shall conceal anything. As you
see cause, you may also comfort him with hope, so
as it be not in our name, if he will utter the truth of
every person. . . . We like not any chargeable
entertainment of him in his diet, considering him as
a person attainted." 1
Reference has been already several times made
to the Earl's full and careful answers to these
questions, which have been published, with all their
quaintness both of phrase and spelling, by Sir
Cuthbert Sharpe. 2 Surely it is impossible to read
them without being struck by the singleness of
purpose and scrupulous regard to conscience which
characterized his whole conduct with reference to
the Rising.
" Entertainment," such as accorded with the
instructions of the Queen, seems to have been found
for him in the house of Sir Valentine Browne, the
Treasurer of Berwick, whose report of him to
Lord Burghley, as " nothing altered from his old
mummish opinions, which he would persuade to be
taken as the cause of the rebellion," 3 is a fresh
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, June 5, 1572.
2 Memorials of the Rebellion, pp. 189, seq.
3 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, June 8, 1572.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 173
testimony, if one were wanted, to the confessor's
fidelity to his religion. In the same letter, dated
June the 8th, his keeper speaks of him as " standing
in great hope of Her Majesty's mercy," which seems
to show that Hunsdon had acted on Elizabeth's
insidious permission to " comfort him with hope "
intended by her never to receive fulfilment.
News of the Queen's orders did not reach
Berwick till July the nth, on which day Lord
Hunsdon received instructions to convey the Earl to
York for execution. A further delay of some six
weeks, however, followed, occasioned partly by the
real or pretended hesitation of the Queen, partly by
Hunsdon's blunt refusal to undertake the charge of
being the Earl's " carrier . . to execution into a
place where he had nothing to do," though at the
same time he declared himself quite willing to
" deliver him at Alnwick, but no further." 1
It seems to have been during this latter portion
of his stay at Berwick that Blessed Thomas had a
violent and dangerous attack of fever, in which his
one anxiety, as Sander tells us, was his fear that it
might rob him of the martyr's crown.
The disagreeable task of conducting him to the
place where he was to be martyred was entrusted,
at the suggestion of Lord Hunsdon, to Sir John
Forster, on whom the revenues of a large part of
the attainted nobleman's estates had been bestowed,
together with the use of Alnwick Castle. It was an
undertaking not altogether free from risk, and it is
evident that those that had to carry it out were not
1 Ibid. July u.
174 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
without anxiety. Not only did the route from
Berwick lead necessarily through Northumberland,
the actual earldom of their victim where, as
Hunsdon himself had previously written to the Privy
Council, people " knew no other prince but a Percy,"
and loved in particular the good and virtuous Earl
Thomas "better than they did the Queen" 1 but
Durham and a great part of Yorkshire, the chief
scene of the recent Rising, had also to be traversed.
Accordingly, with the duplicity which from the first
had characterized the proceedings of the Earl's
enemies, they diligently spread the report that he
was about to be reinstated in his former honours ;
and even he himself seems to have been kept in
ignorance of the orders which the Queen had given,
though he can hardly have been really doubtful as to
the ultimate result.
Arrived at Alnwick, his own feudal castle, he
was handed over to Sir John Forster on August the
1 8th, and there the following night was spent. The
journey thence to York was broken both at New-
castle and Darlington, and thus occupied three
days; and in consequence, as it would seem, of the
weakness left by his late illness, the Earl was
conveyed in a carriage surrounded by a strong guard
of horsemen. 2 Friends came in numbers to greet
him as he passed, and his cheerful and intrepid
expression rilled them with admiration. When they
1 Foreign Calendar, December 31, 1569; and Domestic Calendar,
Addenda, January 13, 1570.
2 The strength of the force employed is shown by Forster's
charge of 154 us. 4d. for his journey from Alnwick to York and
back. (Sharpe, pp. 333, 334.)
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 175
offered him good wishes for his life and honour,
Sander says that he replied : " That life would be
more pleasing to my flesh than death not so much
on account of myself, as of my wife, my children,
and my friends I neither can nor will deny,
provided that my conscience be not injured. For,
rather than that should suffer, let death come and
life depart."
York was reached on the afternoon of August the
2ist, a mid-day halt having been made at Topcliffe,
which had been the Earl's last place of residence
before the Rising. Here it seems possible he may
still have found his children, and have been allowed
to say farewell to them. We are not told where he
was lodged on the one night he spent in York, but
we may presume he would be taken to the Castle.
This presumption falls in with what Sander tells us
of his farewell interview with Sir Thomas Metham,
a venerable sufferer for the Faith, who, together
with his lady, had been several years detained as
prisoners in York Castle, on account of their refusal
to attend service, or receive Communion in the
Protestant Church. 1 " He had formerly," says
Sander, " been united in close intimacy and friend-
ship with the Earl, and was desirous to see him
enduring imprisonment for our Lord, in order that
his own constancy in his holy resolution might be
1 A letter addressed to Cecil (Domestic Calendar, Addenda), dated
York, February 6, 1570, describes Sir Thomas Metham as a " most
wilful Papist. ... He does much hurt here, and is reverenced by
Papists as a pillar of their faith. . . . I caused him to be committed
to the Castle, where he remains and does harm, yet would have
done more if he had remained at large."
1 76 BE. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
strengthened by the spectacle." Having obtained
the permission of his keeper, " he saw him and held
converse with him, and bade him a last adieu.
Then returning to his own place of confinement, he
gave up his soul to God a few days afterwards, so
that having loved each other in life, in death they
were not divided."
At York a last attempt was made to draw the
prisoner, if possible, from the Catholic Faith ; and
his life (whether with the Queen's authority or not)
was offered him if he would but abandon his
religion. Of this fact, Sander says, 1 he had received
most certain information ; and the self-same thing
is affirmed by Cardinal Allen. 2
It is hardly necessary to say that Blessed
Thomas refused to listen to an offer of his life made
dependent on such a condition ; and at last, about
nine o'clock on the same evening (August the 2ist),
Sir John Forster, seeing that he could not induce
him to alter his determination, announced to him
that he was to prepare to suffer execution about two
o'clock on the afternoon of the next day.
The Earl received the announcement with a joy
1 It seems necessary to caution readers against a most strange
mistake made by Tierney (in a note to Dodd's History, iii. 13) with
reference to this offer of life made to the Earl. Through want of
attention to the text of the passage from which he is quoting, he
makes Sander " mention it only as auditum quendam incertum et
praterea nihil." Due care in reading Sander would have shown him
that the words, " auditum quendam," &c., refer, not to the offer of life
made to the Earl, if he would apostatize (which fact Sander says
he has ab auctoribus certissima fdei), but solely to a ridiculous report
that the Earl had been called on to adore an image of Elizabeth.
2 Responsio ad Persecutores. Published by Bridgewater, fol. 316.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 177
which impressed even his enemies, and then set
himself, as was his wont, to prayer. It was not
long, however, before he was interrupted by the
return of Forster, in company with the Protestant
Dean of York, and a minister named Palmer, who
had come to argue with him. His success in repel-
ling their attacks extorted even Forster's admiration,
who was heard to exclaim next day: "I have known
the Earl of Northumberland for many years, but
never have I seen in him such wisdom, eloquence,
and modest firmness as he displayed last night."
Finding themselves overcome in argument, the two
ministers requested that he would at least join with
them in prayer ; but this too he refused, saying that
"he knew they were not members of the true Church
of God."
On their departure he again applied himself with
great joy to prayer, and, though urged by his faithful
attendant, named John Clerk, to take some rest, he
replied : " If Christ chid His disciples for not
watching one hour with Him, do you wish me, who
have so little of life left, to sleep for an hour ? " and
thus he continued in this holy exercise all through
the night, except for some portion of an hour, when
through simple weariness he fell asleep : nor would
he allow himself to break his fast, except by tasting
a few plums. When the hour appointed for his
death drew near, making the sign of the Cross upon
his forehead as he came forth bareheaded from his
cell, he surrendered himself with a calm and steady
countenance into the hands of those who were to
conduct him to the broad open place in York, known
M ii.
178 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
as the Pavement, where the scaffold had been set up
for his execution, and where an immense crowd had
gathered.
I must tell the story of his martyrdom in the
words of Sander, merely omitting things which seem
unnecessary. " On arriving at the place of execution
the Earl took off his cloak, and again making the
sign of the Cross, not only on his forehead, but also
on the steps, he mounted cheerfully to the platform,
where Palmer, the same Protestant minister who
had visited him the night before, began to urge him
to acknowledge his crime against the Queen in the
presence of the assembled crowd.
" On this the Earl, turning towards the people,
said : ' I should have been content to meet my
death in silence, were it not that I see it is the
custom for those who undergo this kind of punish-
ment to address some words to the bystanders as to
the cause of their being put to death. Know, there-
for^, that, from my earliest years down to this
present day, I have held the Faith of that Church
which, throughout the whole Christian world, is
knit and bound together ; and that in this same
Faith I am about to end this unhappy life. But, as
for this new Church of England, I do not acknow-
ledge it.'
" Here Palmer, interrupting him, cried out in a
loud voice : ' I see that you are dying an obstinate
Papist ; a member, not of the Catholic, but of the
Roman Church.'
" To this the Earl replied : 'That which you call
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUM TREE 179
the Roman Church is the Catholic Church, which
has been founded on the teaching of the Apostles,
Jesus Christ Himself being its corner-stone, strength-
ened by the blood of Martyrs, honoured by the
recognition of the holy Fathers; and it continues
always the same, being the Church against which,
as Christ our Saviour said, the gates of Hell shall
not prevail.'
" When Palmer tried a second time to interrupt
him, the Earl said : ' Cease, pray, to further trouble
me, for of this truth my mind and conscience are
most thoroughly convinced.' And when Palmer
still would not be silent, the Earl, turning to the
people, said : ' Beware, beloved brothers, of these
ravening wolves, who come to you in the clothing
of sheep, whilst, meantime, they are the men that
devour your souls.' At this, rushing straight down
from the platform, as though he had received a
blow, Palmer left the Earl free to finish his address^
" ' To me it has been a grievous sorrow,' he
continued, ' that, in consequence of an occasion
furnished in a manner by myself, so many of the
common people have been put to a violent death
for the zeal with which they strove to further God's
religion, and clung also personally to myself. Would
that by my own death I might have saved their
lives ! and yet I have no fear but that their souls
have obtained the glory of Heaven.'
" 'As to other matters brought against me, they
are already fully explained in my answers to the
questions set me by the Privy Council ; but I know
that in them there is no room for mercy, and
i8o BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
therefore from them I expect none : but from Him
alone, whom I know to be the author of all mercy,
who will, as I truly believe, grant mercy to me.'
" After commending to his brother's care his
children, his servants, and some small debts, 1 he
begged all present to forgive him, declaring that he
on his part forgave all from his heart. Then
kneeling down he finished his prayers.
" Then, after kissing a cross, which he traced
upon the ladder of the scaffold, with his arms so
folded on his breast as to form a cross, he stretched
himself upon the block ; and as soon as he had said,
* Lord, receive my soul ! ' the executioner struck off
his head. At that same instant, a great groan, which
sounded like a roll of thunder, burst from the
weeping spectators, as with one voice they called
on God to receive his soul into eternal rest.
" It was thought very wonderful that, from the
moment of his laying himself upon the block, he
gave not even the smallest sign of fear, and made no
movement whatsoever, either of head or body.
" The people gathered up the martyr's blood so
diligently with handkerchiefs and linen cloths, that
not even a straw stained with it was suffered to
remain without their carrying it home to be treasured
1 His brother, Sir Henry Percy, who succeeded him in the
earldom, was at this time a prisoner in the Tower, on a charge of
conspiracy to free the Queen of Scots. His return to the Faith
seems to have dated from about this time, and he incurred in conse-
quence the severe displeasure of Elizabeth. After being long
restricted as to his place of residence, and continually watched by
spies, he was again thrown into the Tower, on no definite accusa-
tion ; and at length was murdered there, in 1585 on account, as
Catholics believed, of his religion.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 181
as a sacred relic. For throughout his life," Sander
concludes, " he was beyond measure dear to the
whole people."
Thus, at the comparatively early age of forty-
four, did Blessed Thomas Percy win his crown in
the year 1572, on August the 22nd, the octave-day
of the Assumption of our Lady, and, as it happened,
on a Friday. A despatch, sent a few days later to
Lord Burghley, 1 informs us that the actual hour of
his death was three o'clock* He thus had the
privilege of expiring at the same hour as our Blessed
Lord, for whom he laid down his life.
Drake's History of York 2 supplies the following
particulars with reference to his burial : " His head
was set up on a high pole on Micklegate Bar, where
it continued for two years, but was afterwards stolen
from thence. The body was buried in Crux Church
by two of his servants, where it now lies without
any memorial."
Since Drake wrote, the Church of Holy Crux,
which stood at one end of the Pavement, has been
pulled down, and the site built over. 3 All exact
traces of the tomb of Blessed Thomas Percy seem
thus unfortunately to be lost at present. At Stony-
hurst College there is preserved one of the Thorns
from the Crown of our Blessed Lord, which had
been given to the martyred Earl by Mary Queen of
1 Domestic Calendar, Addenda, September 2.
z Tom. i. p. 143. Edition of 1788.
3 This was done in 1887, through the influence of Archbishop
Thompson, and in spite of the protests of Earl Percy (now Duke
of Northumberland) and of archaeologists in general.
1 82 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
Scots, as a proof of her grateful appreciation of his
services. "The Earl," writes M. de Fonblanque,
" had worn it, mounted in a golden cross, around his
neck to the day of his death, when he bequeathed
it to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth ; " who " in her
turn gave, or bequeathed it, to the Jesuit Father
Gerard." The golden casket, in which it is now
enclosed, bears, says the same writer, the following
inscription : " Hasc spina de Corona Domini sancta
fuit primo Mariae Reginae Scotiae, Martyris, et ab ea
data Comiti Northumbriae, Martyri, qui in morte
misit illam filiae suae, Elizabethan, quae dedit
Societati." 1 The Countess of Northumberland sur-
vived her husband's martyrdom for more than
twenty years. She bore with edifying patience the
sufferings and privations of her exile till her death,
which took place at Namur in 1596. Her youngest
daughter, the Lady Mary Percy, who seems to have
been born during the Earl's imprisonment at
Lochleven, 2 became the foundress in 1598 of a
community of Benedictine Nuns at Brussels, since
removed to the Abbey of St. Mary at East Bergholt,
where it still flourishes. Amongst these good
Religious, who playfully speak of the martyred
father of their foundress as their "grandfather,"
the memory of the Blessed Thomas Percy has been
ever held in special veneration.
1 Annals of the House of Percy, ii. 121, 122.
2 A MS., quoted in the Catholic Magazine of August, 1838, gives
June ii, 1570, as the date of Lady Mary Percy's birth, which would
thus seem to have occurred during her mother's residence at Old
Aberdeen.
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 183
APPENDIX.
Mention has been made in the foregoing pages
of a book of prayers, which Sander tells us the
martyred Earl wrote with his own hand, partly
during his earlier years, partly during his imprison-
ment at Lochleven. The following are Sander's
words, in speaking of the latter period.
" Sometimes he spent whole days till even late
at night upon his knees. And in this holy exercise
so great was his delight, not only in his previous
life, but more than ever then ; that when, through
bodily weakness, he could neither go on kneeling,
nor recite prayers walking up and down, he would
betake himself to writing, and yet wrote nothing
else but holy prayers. I myself have seen a fair
sized book, elegantly written and illuminated by his
own hand, into which he had brought together a
quantity of prayers gathered out of various works.
Of which labour this seemed to me the most
abundant fruit, that when he himself could pray
no longer, his handwriting still continued ever
pleading for him." l
Happily the book itself, thus spoken of by Sander,
is still in existence; and, thanks to the kindness
of its present owner, Mr. George Browne, of Trout-
beck, Kendal, in entrusting it for a brief space to
the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, I am able
here to give some account of it. That the existing
volume was once at least the property of Blessed
1 Martyrium, &c., Bridgewater, fol. 46.
1 84 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
Thomas Percy is shown by internal evidence
which will not admit of question. In several of
the prayers his name is introduced : " Me, thy
unworthy servant Thomas Percy," and the first
five pages display coats of arms belonging to his
family. The first three quarters of the book are
elaborately written and decorated, and contain the
date (fol. 15) 1555. One of the prayers is a "General
Confession" in English, and is especially noteworthy
because the Blessed Martyr (who seems to have
taken it from some primer published during the
schism) has carefully corrected some erroneous or ill-
sounding expressions which occur in it. Thus the
prayer runs : " Graunt nowe that . . . we may be
faithfull true and obedient unto the quene our
soveraigne ladie and supreme hed /\ immediatly
under Christe." After the word " hed " the Blessed
Martyr has inserted in the margin " in temporall
matters" It is thus a witness to his fervent
orthodoxy.
The second part of the book differs greatly in
its style of execution from the first, and was evidently
written at a late period of his life. At the head of
the first page stands his name " Northumberland."
The writing seems to be that of a man made pre-
maturely old by suffering, and no longer thoughtful
of appearances. This part of the book apparently
contains the prayers which the Earl wrote, as
Sander tells us, during his confinement in Lochleven
Castle, 1570 1572. Among the more striking of
these prayers are those to his Guardian Angel,
St. George, and All Saints. They occur in Latin
BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE 185
in the primer of 1517, and were evidently favourites
with our forefathers. They take the form of a
" Memorial " or " Commemoration," i.e., they consist
of antiphon, versicle and response, and collect.
In the spirit of humble penitence which is so
remarkable throughout, the book concludes with
prayers for Confession, and a long and minute form
of examination of conscience.
G. E. P.
AUTHORITIES. The fullest accounts yet published of
Blessed Thomas Percy, the yth Earl of Northumberland,
seem to be those given in De Fonblanque's Annals of the
House of Percy, 1887, vol. ii. pp. 3 125 ; and in Collins's Peerage
of England, 1779, vol. ii. p. 386, in an article on the Dukes of
Northumberland by Thomas Percy, Protestant Bishop of
Dromore.
For the Rising of the North the authorities chiefly followed
have been the various Calendars of State Papers of the period,
particularly Domestic, Addenda, 1566 1579; Sir Cuthbert
Sharpe's Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569, 1840, in which a
number of the Bowes Papers are published ; and Lingard's
History of England.
The account of what was done in Durham, during the
brief restoration of the Catholic religion, is taken from the
volume of the Surtees Society for 1845, Depositions and
Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham.
The account of the Earl's martyrdom is from Sander's
Martyrium sanctissimi viri Thames Percei, Comitis Northumbrice,
published after its author's death, in Bridgewater's Concertatio,
1589.
W. Turnbull, in his Letters of Mary Queen of Scots (p. 67),
says that he found among the Medici archives at Florence
a letter written to the Grand Duke of Tuscany by his
Resident in England, giving a minute description of the
martyrdom. A careful search at Florence has failed to bring
to light any such document, and it seems clear that Turnbull
confused the Earl with Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, of
i86 BB. THOMAS PERCY AND THOMAS PLUMTREE
whose execution in the reign of Queen Mary there is an
account among these papers.
PORTRAITS of B. Thomas Percy are published by De Fon-
blanque, from a painting at Alnwick Castle ; and by Sir
C. Sharpe, from a painting at Petworth made in 1566, when
the Earl was in his thirty-eighth year.
What is known of B. Thomas Plumtree is gathered from
the same sources, and from a brief notice of his martyrdom
in Sander's De Visibili Monarchia, 1571.
IV.
THE BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE.
London, 13 June, 1573.
IN the spring of 1561 a new phase of the
religious persecution began. Up to that time there
had been but little violence shown, for little had
been needed. The Catholic Church had not fallen
without some struggle. So long as they remained
free, the churchmen had most unequivocally pro-
claimed their faith in the ancient Church, and
Elizabeth did not at first dare to show that she
meant to lead the realm into heresy. She gave
herself out as a Catholic, though leaving herself
free to make reforms. Then she prohibited preach-
ing, pretending that it would lead to disturbances.
By imprisoning a few Bishops she enabled her
party to obtain the votes in Parliament necessary to
give her Supremacy Bill the semblance of legality,
and after that, by depriving the more courageous
of the clergy, she forced her new liturgy upon the
country. Unfortunately the amount of violence
necessary was but small, for the subservience of
England to the tyranny of the Tudors was lament-
able. But this country was not then as insular
as it was soon to become, and the Catholics
i88 BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
still hoped that the influence of the Pope and of
their co-religionists on the Continent might win
them relief. On his side the Pope twice tried to
send envoys to Elizabeth, but in vain. Excuses
were made for refusing them admission into
England, and on the second occasion Sir William
Cecil frightened the Queen by affecting to have
discovered a plot against her amongst the Catholics,
though when the charges were formulated the real
offence was found to be that they had celebrated
or attended Mass. 1 Amongst those apprehended
was Blessed Thomas Woodhouse, who was com-
mitted on the i4th of May, 1561, to the Fleet Prison,
where he was admitted as a " pore priest " who
could not pay for his keep, but lived on precarious
charity. 2
For the chief facts which we are able to relate
of this noble servant of Christ we are indebted to
a narrative written and forwarded to Rome by
Father Henry Garnet, S.J., and first printed in the
second volume of the Catholic Spectator, in the year
Sir Thomas Woodhouse, as he was styled
1 A short account of the missions of Parpaglia and Martinengo
will be found in The Month for January, 1902.
2 Richard Simpson in the Rambler, vol. x. p. 20.
3 Brother Foley, S.J., who re-edits Father Garnet's Relation, in
the seventh volume of his Records of the English Province of the Society
of Jesus, from the Stonyhurst MSS. vol. i. n. 3. does not seem to
be aware that it had been published sixty years earlier. The late
Mr. Simpson was certainly unaware of its existence when he wrote
the article in the Rambler to which we have referred. An earlier
but shorter narrative, dated 1574, exists in the Archives of the
Society, of which Foley gives an abstract in Records, vii. p. 1257.
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 189
according to the ancient usage, had been ordained
priest towards the end of Queen Mary's reign. He
was made Rector of a Lincolnshire parish, but had
held it less than a year when the persecuting laws
of Elizabeth obliged him to leave the place. He
took refuge, in 1560, in the house of a gentleman
in Wales, and taught his sons, but was unable to
remain there long. It was the next year that while
at the altar, in the act of saying Mass, he was seized
and thrown into prison.
He was a prisoner for our Lord during twelve
years, and all this time gave the example of a very
holy life. The details that have come down to us
show in him a strong individuality of character, in
which great simplicity, boldness, and a gentle zeal
were the chief features.
During the plague which raged in London in
1563, Tyrrel, the warder of Fleet Prison, was allowed
to remove all prisoners for the Faith to his own
house in Cambridgeshire. Here Blessed Thomas,
knowing him to be a Catholic at heart, publicly
reproved him for eating meat in Lent, and declared
if he continued to do so he would not stay in the
house. The warder laughed good-humouredly, think-
ing his prisoner could not get away if he would. But
the martyr was as good as his word, and one day he
was missing. Tyrrel sent in alarm to have search
made for him in London, when it was found that
he had gone quietly back to his old prison in the
Fleet. He was equally sturdy in refusing to
uncover when heretics said grace at table. On
one occasion where this was complained of, he was
i go BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
set in the stocks. But for all his uncompromising
ways he won general confidence and affection, and
was allowed a good deal of liberty. He had the
freedom of the prison, and was even able to make
secret excursions to his friends in the day.
He was fearless in all that concerned God's
service. He not only recited his Office regularly,
but said Mass daily in his room in the prison, and
was unmoved by the more timid or prudent counsels
given him by fellow-prisoners. Once, when some
of the heretics, who had got scent of what was
going on, hammered at the door with repeated
blows, he turned to those who were with him, just
before the Consecration, and promised them they
should not be taken ; and so it was, for the intruders
went away. In the same undaunted spirit he made
use of every opportunity to make converts, entirely
disregarding the peril. Having received a Mr.
Gascoigne, a prisoner for debt, the fact was reported
by some of the Protestants. Gascoigne asked him
what he should answer if he was questioned as to
who had received him, "for I," he said, "will never
deny that I am reconciled." Blessed Thomas in
reply urged him to say without hesitation that he
had reconciled him, for he was ready to avouch it
with his blood.
His perfect freedom from fear was not ordinary
courage ; it came from a veritable longing for
martyrdom. One day people came to tell the
Catholic prisoners that a new Act had been passed
by Parliament the day before, which would bring
all Catholics to the gallows ; upon which he knelt
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 191
down, and with bared head prayed to God that he
might be the first. When Blessed John Storey was
sentenced to death, Woodhouse conceived the simple
idea that he might by some means or other make
interest with the Council to let him take his place
and suffer death for him, and "with many fair
words, some gift in hand and large promises," tried
to get his keeper to enter into his scheme and help
him to carry it out.
It was with the same mingled simplicity, zeal,
and fearlessness that in the twelfth year of his
captivity he wrote to Lord Treasurer Burghley a
letter which led to his martyrdom. 1 It bears date
the igth of November, 1572, and runs thus :
"JESUS.
" Your lordship will peradventure marvel at my
boldness that dare presume to interpell your wisdom,
being occupied about so great and weighty affairs
touching the state of the whole realm. Howbeit I
have conceived that opinion of your Lordship's
humanity, that ye will not condemn any man's
good-will, how simple or mean soever he be ; which
maketh me bold at this present to communicate my
poor advice, what is very requisite and best for your
Lordship to do in so great and ponderous affairs.
1 Father Garnet and the author of the Relation of 1574, knew
something of this letter, perhaps from a draft or duplicate preserved
by the martyr. Mr. Simpson had the good fortune to find the
original amongst the Burghley Papers in the British Museum,
" classed with a series of madmen's letters, such as we suppose all
public men are used to receive now and then." Mr. Simpson pub-
lished it in the Rambler article already referred to.
i 9 2 BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
Forasmuch therefore as our Lord and God, Jesus
Christ, hath given supreme authority unto His
blessed Apostle St. Peter, and in him to his suc-
cessors the Bishops of Rome, to feed, rule and
govern His sheep, that is to say all Christians, at such
time as He said unto the same His Apostle thrice,
* Feed My lambs, feed My sheep,' my poor advice is
that ye humbly and unfeignedly even from the very
bottom of your heart, acknowledge and confess
your great iniquity and offence against Almighty
God, especially in disobeying that supreme authority
and power of the See Apostolic, so ordained and
established by the King of kings and Lord of lords,
Jesus Christ ; and that in all dutiful manner and
apparent fruits of penance ye seek to be reconciled
unto that your supreme prince and pastor here in
earth, appointed and assigned unto you by your
Lord God and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Likewise
that ye earnestly persuade the Lady Elizabeth,
who for her own great disobedience is most justly
deposed, to submit. herself unto her spiritual prince
and father, the Pope's Holiness, and with all
humility to reconcile herself unto him, that she
may be the child of salvation. Now your Lordship
hath heard my poor advice, which if your wisdom
shall not disdain to follow, I hope it shall turn
through the mercy of God to the preservation of
our dear country, and to a most flourishing and
happy state in the Christian Commonwealth, and
shall also redound unto your eternal salvation,
honour and glory. But if, which God forbid, ye
shall contemn or neglect the same, I fear it will be
BLESSED THOMAS V/OODHOUSE 193
to the great desolation and ruin of our beloved
country and people, and to the utter subversion and
perishing of you and yours for ever in hell ; where
is the gnawing worm, where is the unquenchable
fire, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Dixi.
" My lord, for this my poor advice I require no
other thing of your Lordship but that ye will not
molest by any means this bearer, who is wholly
ignorant of the contents and a hot Protestant ; nor
yet the guardian, nor yet the gaolers, who are
likewise ignorant of my doings ; for they lock me
up more closely than I think your honour would
they should, and suppose I have neither pen, nor
ink, nor messenger.
" Your honour's humble and daily beadsman,
"THOMAS WOODDUS."
The third or fourth day after the despatch of
this characteristic letter, 1 the holy priest was
1 Apparently the washerwoman of the Fleet was the bearer;
one day after Mass the martyr gave her the letter to deliver
to one of Lord Burghley's servants, which done, she was to return
without having said a word. The last lines of an imperfect Latin
account of the martyr in flowing hexameters will serve as a
specimen of the whole :
Cum sic intrantem Christi fortissimus heros
Lotricem alloquitur, sacris de more peractis,
" I mea, dixit, anus, Burlceo hac scripta Baroni,
Aut uni e famuli s Domino tradenda relinque.
Nee tibi languenti pvce liming crede morandum,
Nee verbis opus esse puta, sese indice prodent
Scripta suo, tu lenta retro vestigia torque.' 1
Excipit ilia sinu venturi ignara tabellas.
Nee mora, linteolis, et rebus onusta lavandis
Custodem, tortis scripto latitante capillis
Decipit, atque audax ad nota palatia tendit.
N II.
194 BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
summoned to the Lord Treasurer's presence. He
went in his "priest's gown and cornered cap." The
interview must be related verbatim from Father
Garnet's account.
Mr. Treasurer " seeing him such a silly [simple]
little body as he was, seemed to despise him, saying,
' Sirrah, was it you that wrote me a letter the other
day ? ' ' Yes, sir,' saith Mr. Woodhouse, approach-
ing as near his nose as he could, and casting up his
head to look him in the face. ' That it was, even I,
if your name be Cecil ; ' whereat the Treasurer
staying awhile, said more coldly than before,
' Why, sir, will ye acknowledge me none other
name nor title than Mr. Cecil?' 'No, sir,' saith
Mr. Woodhouse. 'And why so ? ' saith the Treasurer.
'Because,' saith Woodhouse, 'she that gave you
those names and titles had no authority so to do.'
* And why so?' saith the Treasurer. 'Because,'
saith Woodhouse, ' our holy Father the Pope hath
deposed her.' ' Thou art a traitor,' saith the
Treasurer. ' Non est discipulus super Magistnun,'
saith Mr. Woodhouse. Then the Treasurer paused
awhile, and after, said unto him, ' In the super-
scription of thy letter thou callest me Lord Burghley,
High Treasurer of England.' ' I did so,' saith
Woodhouse, ' for that otherwise I knew my letter
would not come to your hands.' Then the Treasurer
began to dispute with him against the Pope's
authority, and the other did defend it and heated
the Treasurer a little. At last he grew cold again
and asked Mr. Woodhouse if he would be his
chaplain, and he said, ' Yea.' ' And wilt thou say
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 195
Mass in my house?' 'Yea, that I will,' saith
Mr. Woodhouse. ' And shall I come to it ? ' saith
the Treasurer. 'No,' saith Woodhouse, 'that ye
shall not, unless ye will be reconciled to the Catholic
Church.' And so he was sent back again to the
Fleet, where he was separate from his companions
and put in a chamber by himself."
But his zeal still found means to communicate
with the outer world. Father Garnet in a report
to the Father General says he " wrote divers papers,
persuading men to the true faith and obedience,
which he signed with his name, tied to stones, and
threw them out of the prison window into the
street." 1
Within a week all England was talking of
Mr. Woodhouse's bearding of the great Lord
Treasurer. The Protestants said he was mad,
many Catholics reproached him with rashness.
Those who knew his holy life would not join in
such judgments. The Council would have been
glad to favour the idea of his being mad, and sum-
moned him before them with this view. He " made
a short courtesy, as he would have done to so many
gentlemen of worship." They told him to kneel,
but he refused and " stood still upright." " Oh, poor
fool," said one of the Council, "the Pope hath nothing
to do in this realm." He answered, " Christ said
unto Peter, Pasce oves meas, pasce agnos meos, and I
say that if Christ have in England either sheep or
lambs, the Pope who is Peter's successor, hath to
1 Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus*
vol. vii. p. 967.
i g6 BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
do in this realm." Another said, "This is thy dream."
" No," he answered, " it is not my invention but the
opinion of St. Augustine and other Doctors of the
Church." And the attempt to make him out mad
was given up as hopeless.
He was repeatedly examined both publicly and
privately. Once when he had denied the Queen's
title before the Recorder of London and other com-
missioners, some one said, " If you saw her Majesty,
you would not say so, for her Majesty is great."
" But the majesty of God is greater," he answered.
At length in April, 1573, he was arraigned at the
Guildhall. He denied the authority of the judges,
saying " they were not his judges, nor for his judges
would he ever take them, being heretics and pre-
tending authority from her that could not give it
them." He also protested against the competency
of secular judges to try priests and spiritual causes,
as the earlier Relation tells us, and was treated with
the greatest indignity and contumely and held for a
fool. He was found guilty of high treason and
sentenced accordingly, but two months elapsed
before his execution.
Before as after his condemnation he ever kept
up the same bright, sweet demeanour, the same
intrepidity, the same eager desire to suffer for his
Master. When first a smith came to rivet irons on
him he rewarded him with two shillings. When
the same man afterwards came, on some occasion,
to take them off, he stood waiting, cap in hand,
after his work, hoping for a present, and at last said,
" Sir, this day seven-night when I burdened you
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 197
with irons, you rewarded me with two shillings :
now that I have taken them away, for your more
ease, I trust your worship will reward me much
better." "No," said the martyr, "then I gave thee
wages for laying irons on me, because I was sure to
have my wages for bearing them ; now, thou must
have patience if thou lose thy wages, since thou
hast with taking away mine irons taken also away
those wages I have for carrying them. But come
when you will to load me with irons, and if I have
money thou shalt not go home with an empty purse."
When some one told him he was to be removed
to the Tower to be racked, " No," said he, " I cannot
believe that; but notwithstanding bring me true
news here that it is so and thou shalt have a crown
of gold for thy pains." From this answer it may be
gathered that he had light from God about what
was to happen to him : and so, again, the next day
a servant brought him word it was reported through
all London he should be put to death the next week,
" No," he answered, " I shall not die these two
months and more." And so it happened.
After his sentence he was not taken back to his
old prison, but was committed to Newgate. On his
way to the prison he was much ill-treated, " being
tugged and lugged hither and thither, weak and sore
laden with irons ; insomuch as going up the stairs
at Newgate, he fell down divers times on the stairs ;
and to one that seemed by his words to pity him, he
answered with a smiling countenance that these
troubles were sweet to him." Some one in the
crowd gave him a blow on the face. " Would God,"
ig8 BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
he said turning to him, " I might suffer ten times
as much that thou might go free for the blow thou
hast given me. I forgive thee and pray to God to
forgive thee even as I would be forgiven."
At Newgate he was put into the place conse-
crated by the martyrdom of the Blessed Carthusian
Fathers who had been starved to death five-and-
thirty years before. The author of the " Relation of
1574" says it was the part of the prison appropriated
to robbers, and a most dismal place. But after a
time he was removed to another chamber, where a
number of ministers were allowed access to him
and disputed with him. Some of them he confuted,
surprising those present by his learning ; but when
the Dean of St. Paul's came he severely rebuked
him, and ended with the words, " Begone, Satan."
His martyrdom was consummated on Friday,
the I3th of June, 1573. He was drawn in the usual
way to the place of execution. Hearing him pray
in Latin, some of the crowd wanted him to pray in
English so that all might join with him. He
answered that with the Catholics he would willingly,
but as for the others he would neither pray with
them nor have them pray with him or for him ;
though he would willingly pray for them. The
Sheriff was impatient at what he called his obsti-
nacy, and cried out, " Away with him, executioner,
strip him of his garments, put the rope about his
neck and do it quickly." Then he called to the
martyr to ask pardon of God, the Queen, and the
country, but Blessed Thomas answered, " Nay,
I on the part of God, demand of you and of the
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 199
Queen, that ye ask pardon of God and of holy
Mother Church, because contrary to the truth ye
have resisted Christ the Lord, and the Pope, His
Vicar upon earth." These bold words drew shouts
from the ever-fickle crowd of " Hang him, hang
him, this man is worse than Storey." He was cut
down alive, so that "he went between two from
the gallows to the fire, near which he was spoiled,
and came perfectly to himself before the hangman
began to bowel him ; inasmuch as some have said
he spoke when the hangman had his hand in his
body seeking for his heart to pull it .out."
He is described as of middle stature, " with rosy
and fair face," the " latter part of his chin adorned
by a blackish beard," full eyes, a joyful expression
which he retained to the last, and a robust body.
A few words must be added on the admission of
the Blessed Martyr into the Society of Jesus while
he was still in prison. As might be expected, the
writers who describe his death briefly, do not
mention this at all, and it is very probable that
they did not know anything about it. Even Father
Henry More, S.J., though he was aware of the fact
from Father Thomas Stephenson's Life of Thomas
Pound, seems to have been unable to find further
evidence, and gave up the inquiry as " somewhat
obscure and uncertain." 1 Of late years, however,
a good deal more information has been discovered.
i. In the " Relation of 1574," to which reference
has already been made, the following passage occurs.
" He was inflamed with so great a love for the
1 H. More, Historia Provincice Anglicans, p. 33.
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
Society of Jesus and desire of entering it, that he
wrote to the Superior in Paris, earnestly entreating
him to deign to admit him, unable indeed to be
present in person, though he was so in heart ; and
begging that he might be honoured by at least the
name of the Society, and that he might be admitted
to participate in its merits and indulgences, as far
as the Constitutions of the Society permitted it."
Towards the end of the same Relation, this sentence
occurs. " He was so studious of humility, that
when he had obtained from the Fathers of the
Society of Jesus the favour that he had asked for,
he would not tell it to his friends but only to his
confessor." l
2. Brother Foley in his Records, has printed a
translation of a letter from Father Henry Garnet,
then Superior in England, to the Father General,
dated London, the nth of March, 1601, in which
the following passage occurs. " In the year 1572
or 1573, a priest was martyred, who was the proto-
martyr of all the priests, and the first of all in the
time of this Queen, except Felton and Storey, who
were laymen. His history has come to my hands,
which I will immediately send to Father Robert
[Persons]. 2 He was called Thomas Woodhouse.
I write this now because I happened to be in
London 3 at the time of his martyrdom, and I have
heard it said by Catholics elsewhere, that when in
1 Foley, Records S.J. vii. p. 1267. His summary, however, is
far from complete.
2 This is presumably the long Relation in Foley, vii. 967.
3 He was then a young layman. He entered the Jesuit Novitiate
at the age of twenty, in 1575.
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
prison he was received into the Society by the
Provincial of Paris, and it will be well to make
inquiry into the matter, because it will afford no
little consolation to all our members. He died
directly through the confession of a private indi-
vidual, and a little while after the appearance of
the Bull of Pius V. He was so animated by the
news of his reception to the Society, as the
Catholics said at the time, that he sat down and
wrote to Cecil exhorting him to persuade the Queen
to submit herself to the Pope. Your Paternity shall
see this letter." 1
The letter just mentioned has been already
quoted from the original, which is preserved among
the Burghley Papers. Father Garnet must have
had access to some draft or duplicate preserved by
the martyr's friends. The next document may be
connected with the Father General's answer to
Garnet's letter.
3. In the same volume which contains the
" Relation of 1574," and just before it, there is
bound up a single leaf of paper on which have been
jotted down some notes in an early seventeenth
century hand, presumably by some librarian or
secretary, from documents then in the Archives of
the Society, but which are no longer forthcoming.
They begin,
" I 573- Gulielmus (sic) Wuddus, in carcere
Londinensi detentus, potest admitti in Societatem.
" Carmina ab eodem scripta in carcere."
1 Foley, Records S.J. vol. vii. p. 967.
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE
After this page is bound the Latin life of the
martyr, which has been called the " Relation of
1574," written in a hand of that date, and then come
some three hundred lines of Latin heroics by the
same writer dating from London. Of these a few
have been quoted already. Perhaps the rough note
"Verses by, &c.," should read "Verses about the
Martyr."
One is tempted to conjecture that the above
note was made with a view to answer some such
inquirer as Father Garnet. It runs in the form
one would expect to find in an official register, and
its evidence appears to bring us very near to the
original record of our martyr's admission to the
Society.
Such are the facts on this subject as at present
known. It will be noted that several of them were
not published before the drawing up of the Decree
of 1886, and this accounts for the Decree itself
describing the martyr as a Secular Priest, and it is
in any case clear that the honour of having formed
and trained this hero of Christ belongs to the
Secular Clergy. Later on, when the time came for
drawing up Offices and Masses, the Postulators of
the Society of Jesus asked to have Blessed Thomas's
name, with that of Blessed John Nelson, inserted
among the titulars of their special feast (December
the ist), with a special eulogium in their Martyrology,
and commemorations in their Lessons, and this
petition was at once granted by the Sacred Congre-
gation of Rites.
E. S. K.
J. H. P.
BLESSED THOMAS WOODHOUSE 203
P.S. Since the above was in print I have noticed
the following reference to our martyr in Dr. Sander's
Report to Cardinal Moroni (Catholic Record Society,
1904), written in May, 1562. " Thomas Woddus,
Reginae Marias capellanus, in ipso actu privationis
populum obtestatus est ut ab haeresi et schismate
caveret." Whether this deprivation refers to his
chaplaincy, or to the rectorate in Lincoln, does not
appear. Elizabeth's visitors were ejecting Catholics
in the autumn of 1559, but Mr. Gee's Elizabethan
Clergy, pp. 98, 129, 266, 269, 279, makes no mention
of Thomas Woodhouse. In any case we have here
another instance of the martyr's unusual courage
and vigour in resisting the encroachments of heresy.
J.H.P.
AUTHORITIES. The original texts of all the Latin papers
quoted in the text from the Stonyhurst Papers, and from the
volume in the Archives of the Society of Jesus, which is entitled
Anglia, Necrologia, are still unpublished, but Foley's Records
(vol. vii. 967 and 1267) contain copious extracts in English.
The translations from the Stonyhurst Papers in the Catholic
Spectator, vol. ii. 1824, are presumably from the pen of
Dr. George Oliver. Mr. Richard Simpson's article in the
Rambler (vol. x.) contains the State Papers from the British
Museum and Record Office printed in full.
V.
THE BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE,
PROTO-MARTYR OF THE SEMINARY PRIESTS.
Launceston, 29 November, 1577.
FOUR years passed after the martyrdom of Blessed
Thomas Woodhouse before another martyr shed
his blood. But the pressure of the persecution went
on increasing. The statutes of 1559 and 1563 were
found insufficient. Elizabeth and her Ministers
had hoped, perhaps, that a few years of such
repression would extinguish the Faith in England,
as it had been extinguished in Sweden, Denmark,
and Norway. There were no bishops, except in
prison ; there were no churches ; there were no
monasteries ; there were no Catholic institutions of
charity or education. Catholic worship, the preach-
ing of the word of God, existed no longer save in
holes and corners ; and heavy fines and weary
imprisonment must by degrees crush out the
constancy of many and terrify the rest of the
afflicted Catholics. And yet the Government made
little way, and on the contrary from about 1561 a
considerable reaction had set in, many who had
fallen were reconciled, many gave up the too
common temporizing attendance at the heretical
worship. Two causes, in this state of things,
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 205
incited the Government to fresh severities. The
one was the Bull of Excommunication and Deposition
in February, 1570. The other was the foundation
of the Seminary at Douay.
There were still, scattered up and down the
country, some good and zealous priests who in
danger and difficulty ministered as they might to the
needs of the faithful. As late as 1596 no fewer than
forty or fifty of these ancient priests are said to have
been labouring in England. 1 But in the absence of
any means of recruitment their numbers must yearly
diminish, and they were doomed within a few
years to inevitable extinction. Divine Providence,
however, provided a remedy. Dr. William Allen
had been successively Fellow of Oriel College,
Oxford, Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Proctor of the
University, Canon of York, when in 1561 he was
obliged to leave the country. He returned to labour
for three years with immense fruit in England,
finally left the country in 1565, and on Michaelmas
day, 1568, laid the foundations of his great work,
the Seminary of Douay for the training of priests
who should perpetuate the Faith in England. A
select band of able men soon gathered round him
to aid in the work, Marshall, Bristow, Stapleton,
Dorman, Gregory Martin, and others. Students
then began to join the College. The first ordi-
nations took place in the year of Blessed Thomas
Woodhouse's martyrdom. The next year, 1574, the
first three missionary priests left the College gates
for England. In the course of another six years it
1 Knox, Douay Diaries, Historical Introduction, p. Ixii.
2 o6 BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
sent a hundred such labourers into the English
vineyard. The tide was stemmed ; it was soon
turned in the other direction. A continuous stream
of youths for education, converts to be instructed
and received, candidates for the priesthood to be
prepared and ordained, set in to Douay ; the stream
was fed by a ceaseless drain of members from the
Universities. By 1578 the Seminary had instructed
more than five hundred men in the knowledge of
religion. Ten or eleven would sometimes arrive in
a single day from England. The studies were of a
high order, piety and union reigned, the young
missionaries were filled with zeal, and even longed
for martyrdom. Cecil and Elizabeth herself were
far too clear-sighted not to understand how vast a
change the establishment of the College wrought in
the situation. Every effort was made to bring about
its destruction, and failing that, to harass and impede
its work.
A new penal statute, added to the code of
persecution in 1571, made it high treason to obtain,
publish, or put in use any Bull, writing, or instrument
from the Pope, whatever it might contain, or in
virtue of any such instrument to absolve or reconcile
any person, or to be absolved or reconciled. The
same statute enacted the penalties of pramunire,
imprisonment and forfeiture for bringing into the
country, giving to any one to use, or receiving for
use or wear, any object, Agnus Dei, beads, crosses
or pictures, which had been blessed either by the
Pope or in virtue of faculties from him.
Still God's work went on. The new missionaries
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 207
were themselves amazed at their success. Henry
Shaw, one of the first three sent, wrote after a year's
work to Allen, "The number of Catholics increases
so abundantly on all sides that he, who almost alone
holds the rudder of the State, has privately admitted
to one of his friends, that for one staunch Catholic at
the beginning of the reign there were now, he knew
for certain, ten." 1 In 1577, Allen wrote that "the
number of those who were daily restored to the
Catholic Church almost surpassed belief," and that
" one of the younger priests lately sent on the
mission had reconciled no fewer than eighty persons
in one day." 2
The blood of martyrs was not long wanting to
water this new harvest. It was the fifteenth of the
missionaries sent from Douay who was chosen by
God to be the first martyr of the Seminary. Cuthbert
Mayne 3 was himself a convert. He was born in
1544, at Youlston, an estate in the parish of
Sherwell, 4 near Barnstaple, in Devonshire, and
1 Douay Diaries, p. 98. z Ibid. Ixiii.
3 The account of the Blessed Cuthbert Mayne, which follows,
is chiefly taken from an ancient MS. in the Archives of the see of
Westminster (vol. ii. 49), which is by far the fullest in detail of the
early relations, and appears to have been very carefully drawn up.
It is a quarto MS. of fourteen pages, very closely and neatly written
in an Elizabethan or Jacobean hand. Tierney-Dodd and Challoner
have used it for their histories of the martyr. It differs from
Champney and the Briefe historic of the glorious martyrdom of xii.
Reverend Priests (1582), p. 145, as to the date of his trial, which it
places at the June Assizes, whilst they defer it to Michaelmas.
4 He was baptized in the old square Norman font in SherwelT
Church, March 20, 1544. His baptismal register is still extant
there. It runs : " Cuthbert Mayne the sonne of William Maine,
was baptised the xx daie of March, ano p'dto." The day of his
baptism being St. Cuthbert's feast, will account for his Christian,
name, which is unusual in the south of England.
208 BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
brought up as a Protestant by an old uncle, a priest
who had joined the heretical religion and had a
good benefice, which he wanted his nephew to hold
after him. When Cuthbert came to the age of
eighteen or nineteen his uncle got him ordained
a minister. He used afterwards to speak of this
with great sorrow, and declared that at the time
"he knew neither what ministry nor religion meant."
He had been educated at Barnstaple Grammar
School, and now went to Oxford, where, after
studying for his Bachelor's degree at St. Alban's
Hall, he became chaplain at the newly-established
College of St. John, 1 and there became the
friend and companion of Gregory Martin and
of Blessed Edmund Campion, the latter, like
himself, at that time a Protestant. His lovable
character quickly endeared him both to heretics
and Catholics. Some of the latter becoming
intimate with him, the result was that before long
he confessed himself convinced of the truth of the
Catholic faith. 2 But he dreaded the poverty he
would have to face if he threw up his appointment
1 Maine or Mayn Cuthbert, sup. for B.A., March 26, 1566 ; adm.
April 6 ; det. 1567 ; sup. for M.A., 10 February, 1569-70 ; He.
April 8, 1570, inc. July 10. (Fasti, p. 185; Boase, Register of the
University of Oxford, i. 260, and Courtenay's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis,
PP- 343- 757. 778. 1278.) One Jasper Mayne, D.D. (16041672).
is mentioned by Prince, Worthies of Devon (pp. 461-3), who says
that the martyr was in all probability near akin to him. The
family still exists in Devonshire. There is a good Mayne monument,
with coats of arms, in the Church of St. Petrock, Exeter.
2 He only administered the Lord's Supper on one occasion
while at the College, but "every Sunday gave them a dry Com-
munion." (Briefe Historic.)
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 209
as chaplain to the College, and shrank from the
loss of his friends ; and so he remained as he was,
all the while grieving for the error in which he had
lived, groaning at the " profane " office he still
filled, and yearning to enter the bosom of Holy
Church. Meantime, Gregory Martin and Blessed
Edmund Campion had given up friends, country,
and worldly prospects, and were studying at Douay,
whence they wrote entreaties to their old com-
panion to break away courageously and follow them.
One of these letters fell into the hands of the
Bishop of London, and was at length the means
of bursting asunder Blessed Cuthbert's bonds.
The Bishop, on making his discovery of the state
of mind of the chaplain of St. John's and others
named in the letter, sent to have them all arrested.
The others were seized and thrown into prison.
Cuthbert was fortunately absent, and was at once
warned of his danger by a friend at Oxford, Thomas
Ford, a fellow of Trinity College, and afterwards
also a martyr. This cannot have been later than
1570, 1 for in that year Blessed Thomas Ford was
admitted into the Seminary at Douay. Whether
Blessed Cuthbert found difficulty in leaving the
country or remained uncertain as to his future
course, does not appear ; but after an interval of
two or three years, he made his way at last from
the Cornish coast to the Continent, and in 1573 his
arrival at Douay is registered in the College Diaries.
He was at once admitted into the Seminary, and
1 Nor earlier, for on July 10, 1570, Cuthbert Mayne took his
Master's degree at Oxford, as we have seen.
O II.
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
there applied his whole energy to the double task
of the study of theology and of holiness. In the
course of 1575 he was considered to have made
such strides in both that Dr. Allen had him ordained.
He was especially admired for his diligence and his
humility. Short as the time of his preparation
had been, his friend and biographer says it seemed
long to him from the greatness of his desire to
labour for souls in England and to atone for his old
infame ministerium by the exercise of the holy
priesthood. On April the 24th of next year (1576)
he started, with the blessing of his Superior and the
prayers of his companions, for England, together
with the Blessed John Payne. At the coast they
were delayed by stormy weather and reports of
danger at the English ports ; but at length they got
safely into the country, and then taking an affec-
tionate farewell, went their several ways, to meet
again only when they had won the martyr's palm.
A few weeks 1 after their departure from Douay a
letter came from Henry Shaw, one of the first three
missioners, entreating that Blessed Cuthbert might
be sent to England without delay. He must have
learned to appreciate the future martyr while they
were together at the Seminary. Two items of news
about them reached the Seminary a little later on
June the 28th. One was that a spirit of great exas-
peration had been excited among the heretics by
the numerous conversions, and that all kinds of
tortures were threatened, in particular, against
Henry Shaw, Blessed Cuthbert, and Blessed John
1 May 2, 1576. (Knox, Douay Diaries, p. 104.)
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
Payne, whenever they should be caught; the other was
that the carefully collected theological notes of the
last two, with their store of books, pictures, rosaries,
Agnus Dei, and other pious objects, had all been
seized, but had been cleverly recovered again by
a Mr. Richard Evingham, a pious young Catholic
who had been at Douay, and whose father had paid
the forfeit of his son's devotion, being thrown into
prison, while the son himself was eagerly sought
for by the persecutors. 1 After many adventures and
escapes, young Evingham succeeded in reaching
Douay on the 5th of October, 1576.
After a short visit to his native Devonshire,
Blessed Cuthbert went to live in the house of
Mr. Francis Tregian, at Golden, about five miles
from Truro, in Cornwall. 2 Mr. Tregian was a man
of large fortune, exceedingly hospitable and a
fervent Catholic. The missionaries usually sought
shelter for a longer or shorter period, first in one,
then in another such influential family, amongst
whose large household they could live unnoticed,
whilst they were enabled to say Mass, preach, and
administer the Sacraments to the neighbouring
Catholics, and also find many opportunities of
meeting Protestants whose conversion was thought
hopeful. No details of Blessed Cuthbert's ministry
1 Douay Diaries, p. 106.
The name Tregian should be pronounced Trudgeon. In this
form it is still not uncommon in Cornwall. The estate in St. Ewe,
from which the family took its name, is so called from the British
words Tre and Udgian (oxen town). The priest's hiding-place
(where Blessed Cuthbert may sometimes have been concealed)
still exists at Golden ; which is in the parish of St. Probus.
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
are recorded, except that he passed as Mr. Tregian's
steward, and that it was noted afterwards that not
one of those whom he gained to God ever fell away.
Conceal himself as carefully as he might, however,
vague rumours gradually spread about, and before a
year had passed, the storm, which was unusually
violent at the time in many parts of the country,
broke over Mr. Tregian's house.
The Bishop of Exeter was making a visitation
at Truro the Protestant Bishops were usually the
hottest persecutors and it was determined between
him and the High Sheriff, Richard Grenville l of
Stowe, to search the house at Golden. The High
Sheriff presented himself on the 8th of June, 1577,
with the Bishop's Chancellor, and nine or ten
Justices of the Peace, accompanied by their servants,
a party of about a hundred men. Mr. Tregian met
them at the threshold. " We are come," said the
High Sheriff, " to search your house for a certain
Bourne who has committed an offence in London
and fled to this neighbourhood, and indeed is said to
have taken refuge here." Tregian declared no such
person was in his house, nor had he any idea where
he might be, and protested against the indignity of
searching a gentleman's house without any warrant
1 In the Briefe Historic it is given as Greenfield, but see J. Morris,
Troubles, i. p. 65. He was at this time simply Mr. Sheriff Grenville,
being knighted later as a reward for his share in Blessed Cuthbert's
martyrdom. This is the hero so glorified in Kingsley's Westward Ho!
though even Kingsley is forced to admit that Sir Richard " was subject
at moments to such fearful fits of rage that he had been seen to
snatch the glasses from the table, grind them to pieces with his
teeth, and swallow them."
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 213
from the Queen. But resistance to such a force
was impossible, and the Sheriff with drawn dagger
and threats of violence forced his way into the
house with his followers.
The blessed martyr was completely unaware of
what was going on, and coming into his room by
the garden entrance and hearing the battering at
his other door, which was locked, opened it, and
found himself face to face with the High Sheriff.
" What art thou ? " said the latter. " I am a man,"
answered the martyr but as the High Sheriff put
his question he grasped the Blessed Cuthbert by the
bosom and in doing so his hand struck against
metal, so, asking if he wore a coat of mail, he tore
open his clothes and made the discovery of an
Agnus Dei, which the holy priest wore suspended
from his neck in a case of silver and crystal. This
was enough to make him a criminal by the Act of
1571, and calling him every opprobrious name, they
at once carried him off, with his books and papers,
to the Bishop at Truro. Tregian, who was also
arrested, was liberated for a time on bail, but
the martyr, after a long examination of himself and
his papers, was committed to the custody of the
Sheriff, who carried him from one gentleman's house
to another, with every kind of ignominious treatment,
until they came to Launceston. Here he was very
cruelly used, confined to a filthy and dark under-
ground prison, loaded with heavy irons, chained to
his bedposts, allowed no books or writing materials,
indeed there was no light to use them and not
permitted to see any one except in presence of a
214 BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
gaoler. The capture was regarded as so important
a service to the Crown that the Sheriff was knighted
for it. 1
Eight days later, on June the i6th, 2 the Assizes
commenced at Launceston, the Earl of Bedford
among others being present, and Blessed Cuthbert
was brought to trial, together with several gentle-
men and servants, 3 who were accused of aiding and
abetting his offence.
In order to throw the more contempt on them,
they were stripped of their upper garments, and
made to appear at the bar in their doublets and
hose.
An elaborate indictment had been prepared
against the martyr, containing the following heads
of accusation.
" i. That he had on a stated day traitorously
obtained from the Roman See a printed faculty
containing matter of absolution of sundry subjects
of the kingdom.
" 2. That on a day named he had traitorously
published the said document at Golden.
" 3. That on another day he had at Launceston
maliciously and with evil intent taught and defended
1 The examination of Blessed Cuthbert, " first taken not long
before his execution at Launceston," will be found in the Record
Office, Domestic, Elizabeth, cxviii. 46.
2 Tregian's Life says September the i6th.
3 Mr. Richard Tremayne, Mr. John Kempe, Mr. Richard Hore,
Mr. Thomas Harris, Mr. John Williams, M.A., and three servants.
Mr. Tregian himself was brought to London to be dealt with by
the Council.
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 215
in express words, the ecclesiastical power of a foreign
Bishop, to wit, the Bishop of Rome, heretofore
usurped in this kingdom.
" 4. That on a certain day he had brought into
this kingdom a vain and superstitious thing, com-
monly called an Agnus Dei, blessed, as they say, by
the said Bishop of Rome, and had delivered the
same to Mr. Francis Tregian.
" 5. That on a day named he had publicly said
Mass and administered the Lord's Supper according
to the Popish rite, and all these things contrary to
statutes made in the ist and I3th years of our
sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth and against her
peace, crown, and dignity." l
Very full details of the trial are recorded in the
manuscript from which these particulars are taken.
It is difficult at the present day to realize that such
a perversion of the forms and authority of law can
ever have been possible in England. The most
elementary principles of evidence, of argument, of
justice were violated. The martyr urged that the
" Bull " did not come from Rome, that it was a
printed copy printed at Douay, where he had
bought it of the announcement of the Jubilee of
1575, having no force or application of any kind
after that year, and that of course he had never
published it at Golden or anywhere else, 2 that no
1 J. Morris, Troubles, i. pp. 71 77.
2 Mr. Froude (History of England, vol. xi. p. 54) says that
Mayne "was discovered in Cornwall in November, 1578, having
about him copies of the Bull of Pope Pius," meaning, of course, the
Bull of Excommunication. " This and similar executions are now
2 i6 BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
evidence had been offered of the alleged publication,
or that the Agnus Dei had been brought from Rome,
or that he had brought it into England or delivered
it to Mr. Tregian. The finding of a missal, chalice
and vestments in his room, to which the High
Sheriff testified, was also far from proving that he
had said Mass. And in answer to three illiterate
witnesses who said that in a secret conversation
with them in prison he had denied the Queen to
be supreme head of the Church, he declared he had
not made to them any positive assertion or denial.
One of the judges, Judge Manwood, instructed
the jury that where plain proofs were wanting,
strong presumptions ought to be considered suffi-
cient, and directed them to convict the prisoner
accordingly. The jury, after deliberating some
time, were still undecided, in spite of the strongly
prejudiced charge, when the High Sheriff in the
sight of the court went amongst them and held
a long consultation with them, an act as illegal
and scandalous then as it would be now ; after
which being called on for their verdict they pro-
nounced the blessed martyr guilty of high treason
and the others of felony. The next day they
were all brought up for judgment. The sentence
of death was pronounced on Blessed Cuthbert and
held to have been needless cruelties." Here Mr. Froude seems to
have thought he had made too great an admission and he is not
ashamed to add, " But were a Brahmin to be found in the quarters
of a Sepoy Regiment, scattering incendiary addresses from Nana
Sahib, he would be hanged also " ! " He was tried for treason and
hanged at Launceston, without any charge against him except his
religion," says Hallam. (Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 145.)
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 217
that of perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture on
the rest. On hearing the sentence the martyr raised
his eyes and hands to heaven, and with a calm
voice and joyful face cried aloud, Deo gratias. He
was taken back to his wretched prison, handcuffed,
and loaded with fetters. Here he remained over five
months amongst criminals of the lowest class.
The delay was due to the fact that the two
Judges of Assize had differed. Judge Jeffries had
allowed himself to be overborne at the moment
by Manwood, but subsequently forwarded to the
Council a report of the trial and his reasons for
not concurring in the sentence. By order of the
Council the case was discussed by all the judges
together, but they were as little agreed as the first
two, though the older judges and those of greater
authority took the side of Jeffries. The Government,
however, well aware of the stream of missionaries
pouring into the country, and stung by the abundant
fruits of their apostolate, were unwilling to forego
the opportunity of making an example, and an order
was sent to the High Sheriff, signed by eight or nine
of the Privy Council, to proceed with the execution.
When a servant told the holy priest to be pre-
pared, for he was to die in three days, he heartily
thanked him and said he would most gladly have
rewarded him, had he anything to give, since he
had been the first to bring him such joyful news ;
and from that moment he gave himself up to more
intimate prayer and preparation for his passion.
During the second night of this preparation, the
chamber was filled with a bright supernatural light,
218 BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
and the other prisoners in amazement called to him
to know what it was. He answered that it was
nothing in which they were concerned, and begged
them to be silent.
The day before his martyrdom he was brought
out of his prison to a conference with a number of
justices and other gentlemen who had come with
two ministers to see him. From eight o'clock in
the morning till nightfall, ironed as he was, and
weakened with ill-treatment, he kept the field,
meeting all they had to say with complete success,
as some who were present had the honesty to
confess, though the ministers and their patrons
spread the report that he had been unable to answer
them. But what was much more than success in
argument was the victory of his faith and constancy;
for the justices present assured him they could
answer for his life and liberty if he would affirm on
oath that the Queen was the supreme head of the
Church of England. The martyr asked for a Bible,
and perhaps for an instant they thought that terror
of death and desire for life had prevailed, but in
another moment he had taken the Holy Scriptures
into his hand, made the sign of the Cross, and
kissed the sacred volume, and the words came
clear and firm, " The Queen never was, nor is, nor
ever shall be, the head of the Church of England."
The next day was the eve of St. Andrew, an
auspicious day for a martyr's death. The place
was not less so, for its ancient name was Fanum
Sancti Stephani " the Church of St. Stephen." With
such happy auguries Blessed Cuthbert set out for
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE 219
the market-place, where the execution was to take
place. When he was laid on the sledge some of
the justices wanted him to be placed so that his
head should hang over the framework, and thus be
more cruelly bruised by the stones ; he made no
objection himself, but the deputy of the High Sheriff
was humane enough to forbid it. 1 At the place of
execution, after kneeling in prayer for some time,
he went up the ladder, and began to explain to the
people the cause of his death and to make an
exhortation to them, but he was soon stopped, and
one of the justices told the hangman to attach the
rope, adding as the ladder was going to be turned,
" Now let him preach if he will." At the same
moment another called out, " Now, villain and
traitor, you are at the moment of death ; tell us then
truly whether Mr. Tregian and Sir John Arundell 2
knew of the things you are going to die for."
" I know nothing about them," answered the
martyr, " except that they are good and pious men ;
and as to the things laid to my charge, no one but
myself has any knowledge." Then he was thrown
off so suddenly that he had not time to finish the
verse In manus tuas, which, striking his breast, he
had begun. He was almost instantly cut down, 3 but
1 The contemporary author of the Imprisonment of Francis Tregian,
says " he was uneasily laid on a hurdle, and so spitefully drawn,
receiving some knocks on his face and his fingers with a girdle,
unto the market-place," &c. (See J. Morris, Troubles, i. p. 98.)
2 Mr. Tregian's brother-in-law.
3 The Briefe Historic, however, says: "Some of the gentlemen
would have had him cut down straightway that they might have
had him quartered alive, but the Sheriff's deputy would not, but
let him hang until he was dead."
BLESSED CUTHBERT MAYNE
the malice of the persecutors was baulked of part of
its satisfaction, for as he fell from the gibbet, which
was unusually high, his head struck with great force
against an angle of the scaffold. One of his eyes
was put out by the blow, and so he was nearly
insensible while the usual butchery was gone
through.
When the quarters of the holy martyr were
distributed, his head was stuck upon a pole at
Wadebridge. 1 In some way it came into the
reverent hands of Catholics and is now preserved
as a most precious relic of the first martyr of the
seminaries, at the Carmelite Convent, Lanherne.
The words of a saint about a saint are ever of
special interest. Blessed Edmund Campion heard
of his old friend's happy end for the first time more
than a year afterwards, when he learned the par-
ticulars from Gregory Martin. In his answer, dated
August, 1579, from Prague, he says, " We all thank
you much for your account of Cuthbert's martyrdom.
It gave many of us a real religious joy. Wretch
that I am, how has that novice distanced me ! May
he be favourable to his old friend and tutor ! I
shall now boast of these titles more than ever."
Mr. Francis Tregian, after various imprisonments
and sufferings, in which his mother, his wife and
children were involved, was condemned to the
penalties of prcemunire. His property, forfeited to
the Crown, was given by Elizabeth to Sir George
1 The quarters were distributed as follows: One to Bodmin,
another to Barnstaple (near the martyr's birthplace), a third to
Tregony (about a mile from Mr. Tregian's house), and the fourth to
Launceston. In the Briefe Historie St. Probus is given for Tregony.
BLESSED CUT H BERT MAYNE
Carey, created by her Lord Hunsdon in 1559.
He himself remained a prisoner for thirty years,
chiefly in the Fleet Prison, but was at length set at
liberty and died at an advanced age on the 25th of
September, 1608. His body was found absolutely
incorrupt seventeen years after his death, and his
son-in-law, Francis Plunket, in his Life of him,
relates several miracles wrought by his relics. 1
E. S. K.
AUTHORITIES. These are already sufficiently referred to
in the notes. We may add, however, the following.
Estcourt, Question of Anglican Ordinations, p. 138, App. p. Ixii. ;
Simpson's Campion (1867), pp. 49, 73, 93 ; Frere, A History of
the English Church in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.
pp. 210 213 ; Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,
Series I. pp. 65 140, for the life and sufferings of Mr.Tregian;
and W. Meyer Griffith, Blessed Cttthbert Mayne, Proto-Martyr
of the Seminaries (London, 1903), a tiny booklet which has the
merit of being the first to clear up the question as to the
martyr's birthplace. It contains a sketch of the font at
Sherwell Church, and a facsimile of the martyr's baptismal
register. Prince, Danmonii Orientates Illustres, or, The Worthies
of Devon (1701), gives (p. 461) the Mayne family arms, gules,
a fess argent between four hands or.
PORTRAIT. A rude sketch of the martyr's features exists.
It was possibly the work of his gaoler, or of some visitor to
1 J. Morris, Troubles, i. p. 62. If Mr. Tregian would have gone
to the Protestant service he might not only have secured full
immunity for himself and his servants, but also the life of Blessed
Cuthbert. " But no persuasions or offers whatsoever could once
induce him to agree thereto, always preferring Christianity before
his own immunity or his servants' liberty. And concerning the life
of Cuthbert Mayne, always alleging that he would not hazard
his own soul unto Hell to withhold his man's from Heaven." (Ibid.
P- 97-)
222 BLESSED CUT H BERT MAYNE
his prison. A copy will be found in Portraits of the English
Martyrs (Art and Book Co., 1895).
RELICS. The skull of Blessed Cuthbert is, as we said r
reverently preserved at the Carmelite Convent, Lanherne,
Cornwall. The hole through the top shows the shape of the
spike on which it was exposed. There are projections on
the sides of the hole, showing that there must have been a
raised edge on the spike. The following memorandum is
preserved in the Convent. " Richard Raine, Esq., made a
present to our Community, in the year 1807, of the skull of
Mr. Cuthbert Mayne, who was put to death for his faith, in
Cornwall, in the year 1577." Many fragments have been
detached from this relic (which is the upper part only of the
skull), and the nuns have been only too generous in distri-
buting particles. It is now, however, sealed up in a beautiful
reliquary, presented by the late Mr. Charles Weld of
Chideock.
A portion of the relic is at the Catholic Church, Laun-
ceston, others are at Bruges, Erdington, Durham, Harrow
(Visitation Convent), Parkminster, Roehampton, Ushaw, and
elsewhere.
In the splendid old mansion of Sutton Place, Guildford,.
the seat of the Westons, and afterwards of the Salvins, there
was found, some years ago, in a cupboard in an old lumber-
room, together with other relics, enclosed in a magnificent
Gothic reliquary of the fourteenth century, a large part of
the skull of Blessed Cuthbert Mayne, being the part under
the right ear. (This seems never to have been at Lanherne.)
It is not known how these relics came into the possession of
the family.
VI.
THE BLESSED JOHN NELSON,
JESUIT.
Tyburn, 3 February, 1577-8.
Two days after the martyrdom of Blessed Cuthbert
Mayne, another capture was made, this time in
London ; that of the Blessed John Nelson.
John Nelson was born of an honourable York-
shire family, at "Skelton, within two miles of York,
being the ancient house of the Nelsons, being
knights of good worth." l His life had been exactly
coextensive with the duration of the schism, for he
was born in the fatal year 1534. He was from his
earliest years a man of great faith and a loving zeal
for God's cause, and Dr. Bridgwater says he had
a vehement detestation for the error of many
Catholics who in the early years of Elizabeth's
reign thought it lawful to go to the Protestant
worship. He used to declare it a great grace of
God to him, that he had been able to withdraw
a good many from this error, and had the consola-
tion of seeing them imitate the courage and con-
stancy of the Catholic Bishops and other holy
1 An old MS. in the Archives of the see of Westminster, vol. ii.
p. 65.
224 BLESSED JOHN NELSON
confessors who were suffering the loss of goods
and liberty in Elizabeth's prisons for this cause.
His intimate friends related after his death how he
had long been accustomed to say that the Catholic
religion would never be restored in England until
many should shed their blood for confession and
testimony of the same ; and whatever hopes people
might found on other means, he never wavered in
this opinion. 1 Moreover, both when at Douay and
for years before, he was firmly persuaded that he
himself would shed his blood for the Faith. To
such a man Douay offered an irresistible attraction ;
and in 1573, at the mature age of forty, he left
England and betook himself to the Seminary. Of
his four brothers two followed his example. Martin,
the next in age to himself, arrived in 1574, and was
ordained and sent on the mission the same year ;
Thomas followed in 1575, and was ordained and
sent to England in I577- 2
It is difficult in middle age to fall into a life of
regular discipline ; but John was remarked as being
always most prompt in his obedience to every order
of his Superiors. His great longing for the holy
priesthood is also spoken of. His desire was
accomplished on the nth of June, 1576, when he
was ordained at Bynche, by the Archbishop of
1 F. Watford's Relation of Martyrs. (Stonyhurst MS. Collectanea
M. fol. 131 143. Printed in Pollen's Acts of English Martyrs,
p. 250.)
2 Both brothers lived till the year 1625, Martin dying at Sutton,
in Herefordshire, on December 4, and Thomas at Antwerp, in
June. Christopher was the owner of Skelton. The fifth brother
apostatized from the Faith and became a minister.
BLESSED JOHN NELSON 225
Cambrai. He left Douay for England on November
the yth of the same year, with four companions
who had been ordained with him, and a young
relation of his own name, whom he was afraid to
leave in the troubled state of the country, from
which many of the English were flying.
His ministry lasted but one year. The Douay
Diary l says he " had laboured much," but no par-
ticulars have been preserved of his work unless an
act related in the Diaries be rightly attributed
to him. A certain woman in London led the life
of an anchoress, enclosed in some open space, where
she passed several years without ever leaving it,
to the general wonder. But, as is thought, from
an ignorance which heresy had made very common,
she never had a thought of reconciliation to the
Church or of the holy sacraments. This poor
woman was at the point of death and was sur-
rounded by a great number of the neighbours, when
"one of ours," says the diarist, "rather than allow
a soul so religious in life to pass away without the
sacraments, disguised himself so that he might not
be at once seized as a priest, and then boldly
entering the place, bade the bystanders to withdraw
a little, and, as if he were engaged in some other
business with her, reconciled her to the Church,
and that done she expired." In the margin of this
entry a contemporary hand had written " Nels.,"
and it is highly probable that the priest was no
other than the blessed martyr. 2
1 Knox, Douay Diaries (Diarium Secundum), February 15, 1578, p. 133.
2 Ibid. June i, 1577, P- I22 -
P II.
226 BLESSED JOHN NELSON
It was just a year after his arrival in England
that he was called upon to exorcise a possessed
person. The evil spirit was forced to leave his
victim, but before doing so threatened the holy
priest that he would have him taken up in a week,
and that it should cost him his life. 1 And, in fact,
on Sunday, December the ist, late in the evening,
as he was saying the Matins of the next day's
Office, he was seized and at once committed to
Newgate Prison on suspicion of " Papistry."
A few days elapsed and then he was summoned
for examination before the Queen's High Com-
missioners. There was no accusation against him,
but the Commissioners began by tendering the
Oath of Supremacy, which of course he refused to
take. The simple refusal did not of itself bring him
within any of the penal statutes, inasmuch as he
was not known or proved to be included in any of
the classes of persons who could be obliged to take
it ; on the other hand, to maintain expressly the
authority of the Pope was highly penal for any one,
and the second offence incurred the punishment
of high treason. According to the just and humane
practice of our day, the worst criminal is carefully
warned against incriminating himself; but it was
far otherwise in Elizabeth's time, and the Com-
missioners at once went on to draw from the martyr
matter for his condemnation. " Why would he not
take the oath?" he was asked. "Because I never
heard or read," he answered, " that any lay prince
could have that pre-eminence." "Who, then,
1 Yepes, Historia particular (1599), lib. ii. c. 13, p. 97.
BLESSED JOHN NELSON 227
according to your opinion, is the head of the
Church?" He answered boldly, "The Roman
Pontiff, as being Christ's vicar and the lawful
successor of St. Peter." They next asked him what
he thought of the religion now practised in England,
to which he replied that it was schismatical and
heretical. Required to define schism, he said it was
a voluntary departure from the unity of the Catholic
Roman faith. Upon this they asked whether the
Queen, then, was a schismatic. To answer this
question in the affirmative was, by the Act of 1571,
at once high treason, so the martyr tried to evade
it. He answered that he could not tell, because
he did not know her mind and intention as to the
promulgation and support of Protestantism. But
the Commissioners would not let him escape. They
answered that the Queen unquestionably did pro-
mulgate and support it, and pressed him to declare
whether that being the case, she was a schismatic
or a heretic. The martyr paused. He knew life
was at stake. Was it possible to escape offending
against the cruel law of his earthly sovereign without
offending against God and his own conscience ?
Then, seeing that there was no escape, " If she be,"
quoth he, " the setter forth and defender of this
religion now practised in England, then is she
a schismatic and a heretic." Having thus got
from him matter for a capital charge, they ordered
him back to prison.
For nearly seven weeks he remained in peace.
Towards the end of this time a special providence
secured to him the grace of saying Mass and
228 BLESSED JOHN NELSON
nourishing himself with the Bread of the Strong. A
priest and some other friends, who came to see him
and knew his desire to say Mass, were very anxious
to assist at the Sacrifice and receive Holy Com-
munion from his hands. They proposed the feast of
the Purification, but on consultation they all agreed
that it would be a dangerous day, as such a festival
would be likely to excite suspicion. They then
proposed the day after, but whether warned by a
Divine light or guided by Providence, Blessed John
preferred the Thursday before. Had the other day
been chosen he would have had to go through his
martyrdom without the Holy Viaticum, for on the
very next day after his Mass he was told he was to
be brought to trial on the morrow, which would be
the eve of the Purification. He was warned at the
same time that his condemnation was certain unless
he retracted the answers he had given at his first
examination.
Accordingly on Saturday, the ist of February,
1577-8, he was tried on the charge, as Stow testifies,
of " denying the Queen's Supremacy and such other
traitorous words against her Majesty." The
evidence of his previous examination was clear,
and confirmed by his answers in court, so that the
verdict was a matter of course, and sentence was
passed accordingly, at which it was remarked that
he did not the least change countenance, or betray
any sign of emotion.
For the next two days his martyrdom was fixed
for the third he was confined, his biographer says,
""in a most filthy underground dungeon." It was no
BLESSED JOHN NELSON 229^
doubt the same afterwards described by Father
Henry Garnet : " We have here a Limbo," he says,
" the place where they ordinarily confine all those
who have been already condemned to death ; and
all Catholics under sentence of death have to go to
that prison before execution, unless exempted by a
particular favour. ... It is a place underground,
full of horrors, without light, and swarming with
vermin and creeping things. It is impossible to see
there without candles continually burning, and there
is neither bed nor chair, unless the persons provide
for themselves. One of our holy martyrs, a priest
(Father Southwell), was there some years ago after
being sentenced to death, and whilst sleeping some
poisonous insect entered his body causing intense
suffering, until he was transferred to the repose of
the saints and just ones of God." 1
From the moment of his condemnation the
servant of God gave himself up entirely to prepara-
tion for his martyrdom. He would take no other
food than bread and a little weak beer. The gaoler's
wife when he came back from the court, offered him
some wine out of compassion, thinking he must be
dejected by his sentence. But he refused it. He
said he would prefer water, or rather vinegar and
gall, so that he might more closely follow his Lord,
and wished to give no indulgence to his body
which was so soon to die. He spent the time
chiefly in prayer, and when he had occasion to
speak, his words were almost exclusively of eternal
1 Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus,
vol. vii. p. 1361.
230 BLESSED JOHN NELSON
things. A friend who came to see him advised him
to fortify his courage by reading the Acts of the
Martyrs. He answered "that he had enough to
occupy his mind withal, and to meditate upon full
well." His friend went on to remind him of all
the torments the martyrs had borne, and of the
heroic constancy with which they had been able to
endure them. "Yes," he answered, "these thoughts
have long been familiar to my mind and have filled
me with such sweetness that I doubt nothing but
that I shall find and feel the grace of God's conso-
lation in the midst of my agony."
Early on the day of his martyrdom, Monday,
February the 3rd, he was transferred to a better
part of the prison, where two of his near relations
came to take leave of him. Very likely they may
have been his brothers. Dodd says of Thomas
Nelson, then a priest, that he had the satisfaction
of visiting his brother before his death. They found
him absorbed in prayer, his hands joined and lifted
up. They were overcome with tears, but the martyr,
unmoved, said they ought to console him and not
need his consolation ; and that they would do better
to shed their tears over their sins than over him ;
for whom all things, by God's goodness, were
falling out according to his desire. They were
going to bid him good-bye, when they were over-
powered with a fresh burst of grief; on which the
servant of God, feeling that he was beginning to be
overcome, and fearing the weakness of nature, very
lovingly sent them away. Hardly were they gone
when " two proud ministers of Satan " burst in and
BLESSED JOHN NELSON 231
began to torment his last moments with controversy,
but he would not so much as enter into conversation
with them, and finding him obstinately silent they
at last gave up the attempt.
When he was brought out of the prison and laid
on the hurdle, some of the officers called on him to
beg pardon of the Queen for his great offences
against her. " I will ask no pardon of her," he
answered, "for I have never offended her." The
hostile crowd broke into cries of "Traitor," and
threats. " Well," said he, " God's will be done, I
perceive I must die, and surely I am ready to die
with a good will ; for better it is to abide all punish-
ment here, be it never so grievous, than to suffer the
eternal torments of hell fire."
He said, In manus tuas Domine, as he was lifted
from the sledge at Tyburn, and begged all Catholics
who were present to say with him a Pater, Ave, and
Credo, which he recited aloud in Latin, and after
which he added the Confiteor, Miserere, and De
proftmdis. He then addressed all present, saying,
" I beg you to bear me witness that I die in the
unity of the Catholic Church, and for that unity do
now most willingly suffer my blood to be shed ; and
I earnestly beseech of God, through His infinite
mercy, to make you all true Catholic men, and both
to live and die in the unity of the Roman and
Catholic Faith." From the crowd there were cries
of "Away with thee and thy Catholic Romish Faith,"
but the martyr was not to be cowed, and repeated
his prayer again. He went on to ask pardon of all
whom he had ever offended and to declare his
232 BLESSED JOHN NELSON
forgiveness of his enemies and persecutors, and to
pray for God's forgiveness for them. Being urged
again to ask the Queen's forgiveness, he repeated
that he could not do so, never having offended her.
But after a pause he added that he would ask pardon
of her also and of all the world for any offence he
had ever given, as on his part he forgave all.
The hangman being told to hasten, the martyr
once more recommended himself to the prayers of
the Catholics, that Christ our Lord by the merits
of His bitter Passion would receive his soul into
eternal joys, and as they drove away the cart and
left him hanging, many voices were heard to cry
out, " Lord, receive his soul." He was cut down
immediately, and was fully conscious while the usual
cruelties were inflicted ; and when the executioner
had his hand on his heart, he raised himself a little
and, like another St. Stephen, in the very agony of
death said, " I forgive the Queen and all the authors
of my death." 1
A friend who was present, as he rode away
immediately to the north of England, said to his
companion, " It is now come to pass that John
Nelson foretold me seven years since, that he
should die for the Catholic Faith.'' The Briefe
Historic before referred to, and published but four
years later, records that there was then a credible
fame of miraculous cures wrought by the martyr's
relics.
i The author of the Briefe Historie says, " Some that stood near
report this, . . . but I, though I saw his lips move, yet heard not
so much." He adds, "The hangman had three or four blows at
his head before he could strike it off."
BLESSED JOHN NELSON 233
Blessed John Nelson, like Thomas Woodhouse,
Thomas Pound, Thomas Metham and others,
was an admirer of the Society of Jesus before its
missioners had appeared in England, and like them
he applied abroad for leave to be admitted in this
country, which under the circumstances he could
never expect to quit, and his" prayer like theirs
was granted. Though we do not know to which
Provincial he addressed himself, nor what was the
date of his application, Father Stephenson has
recorded the fact of his admission, 1 and the Fathers
of the Society keep his feast with that of their other
Martyrs in England.
" God be blessed for him, and blessed be the
memory of this his martyrdom amongst men in all
our posterity. Amen."
E.S. K.
AUTHORITIES. The earliest printed biography seems to
be that included in A brief e Historic of the Glorious Martyrdom
of xii Reverend Priests [? Rheims], 1582, unpaged. See also
Concertatio, fol. 49 A 50 B, Yepes, pp. 304 307. Champney's
Annals, p. 793. Challoner, i. pp. 20 23.
1 H. More, Historia Provincice Anglicans, 1660, p. 35.
VII.
THE BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD,
LAYMAN.
Tyburn, 7 February, 1577-8.
ONLY four days after Blessed John Nelson's martyr-
dom, Tyburn was the scene of another like tragedy
and another like triumph.
Some three months earlier, in the first half of
November, 1577, a noble-looking youth was walking
in the streets of London, when a cry was heard,
" Stop the traitor, stop the traitor ! " on which the
young man was seized by the passers-by and carried
off to the nearest justice of the peace. The
prisoner's name was Thomas Sherwood, his age
twenty-seven years.
Blessed Thomas Sherwood was the son of pious
Catholic parents. We have a beautiful account
both of him and his family written by one of his
brothers, which has been preserved among the
Stonyhurst manuscripts. 1 From this we learn that
his father, Henry Sherwood, was born in Not-
tingham, and was brought up as a singing-boy in
the chapel of the Earl of Northumberland. He was
1 Printed in Pollen's Acts of English Martyrs, pp. 2 8.
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 235
afterwards sent to Oxford by the Earl, in the reign
of Henry VIII., where he continued six or seven
years, but was unable to take his degree, as that
involved subscribing to the Oath of Supremacy.
On leaving the University he entered the employ-
ment of a Watling Street merchant tailor, and
acted for some time as his factor in Spain. On his
return he adopted the trade of a woollen draper,
and married a virtuous maid called Elizabeth
Tregian, 1 by whom he had fourteen children, most
of whom lived to man's estate, and were all brought
up in the Catholic religion.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, Henry
Sherwood retired for a time to Belgium and lived
for a year at Mechlin, where the nuns of Syon
had also found a refuge. Shortly after his return to
England he and his wife were taken at Mass in
London, and were brought before the High Com-
missioners. His wife made a very brave confession,
and put Dr. Cox, the Bishop of Ely, to shame by
her trenchant replies to his calumnies against
Catholics.
Her husband was committed to prison, where he
remained six months, being released at last through
the intercession of the Spanish Ambassador. He
then went with his wife and younger children to
live at Nottingham, where after some years, being
called in question for not coming to church, they
went to stay with one of their sons, who was married,
in Dorsetshire. That son being molested for the
1 Sister to Mr. Francis Tregian, the noble confessor, in whose
house Blessed Cuthbert Mayne was taken.
236 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
same cause, they all went to London, where the
old man lived a life of strict retirement, attending
only to his devotions and never leaving his lodging.
It was shortly after their coming to London that
Thomas was apprehended.
The Blessed Thomas had been born in London
and had been brought up for some years at school.
But at the age of fifteen he was taken from school
to serve his father in the trade of a draper, which
he did for several years.
" Afterwards," writes his brother, " being more
devoted to a religious course of life than to a
worldly, he obtained from his parents leave to pass
the seas and come to Douay, where, having con-
ferred with certain venerable Fathers, by them he
was encouraged to fall again to study ; and deter-
mining upon that course, it was thought fit he
should first return into England, as well to adjustate
his accounts with his father, having the best part
of his substance in his hands and charge, as also
to procure some competent means to maintain him
for some time at his study.
" Upon which occasion he returned back, and
whiles he travailed in the despatch of his business
he was met one morning in Chancery Lane by one
George Martin, 1 son to the Lady Tregonwell, in
Dorsetshire, which George had seen him divers
times at his mother's house in the company of one
Mr. Stampe, a priest ; and so meeting him and
calling for the constable, caused him to be appre-
hended."
1 " Martine Tregonian." (Briefe Historic.)
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 237
Father Persons, 1 in his De Persecutione Anglicana,
calls the Lady " Tregony," and Challoner says the
martyr was wont to frequent her house in London.
She was a good and virtuous Catholic, but her son
was widely different from his mother both in faith
and morals. 2 " This young spark suspected that
Mass was sometimes privately said in his mother's
house ; and this, as he imagined, by the means of
Mr. Sherwood, which was the occasion of his
conceiving an implacable hatred against him." 3
1 In Bridgwater's Concertatio, fol. 283.
2 The Tregonwells lived at Milton Abbas, near Blandford,
Dorset. The Sherwoods probably made the lady's acquaintance
when they were living in Dorsetshire. She was no doubt the widow
of Sir John Tregonwell, and had been his second wife. She was by
birth a New. Sir John Tregonwell had been one of the Royal
Commissioners for the dissolution of the monasteries under
Henry VIII. and had obtained Milton Abbey as his share of the
spoil. His tomb is still to be seen in the desecrated church, with
his effigy in brass. He is kneeling, clad in armour, with surcoat
bearing the Tregonwell arms, and the inscription runs : " Here
lyeth buried Sir John Tregonwell, Knyght, doctor of the cyvill
lawes, and one of the maisters of the Chauncerye, who dyed the
xiiith day of January, in the yere of our lorde 1565, of whose soul
God have mercy."
It should be added, that Bishop Challoner was mistaken when
he writes of our martyr, " He went over to the English College of
Douay, in Flanders, where I find him, in the diary of the house,
a student, in 1576." The only Sherwood who appears in the Diary
at that date is a priest. (Douay Diaries, pp. 102, 259.) Father
Persons, however, is also mistaken when he asserts (Philopater, 1593,
p. 186) that Sherwood had never been out of England. In a list of
martyrs of the Seminaries of Douay and Rome, drawn up by
Dr. Barrett, in 1593, Sherwood's name appears as a student of
Douay College, and the statement has been copied by later writers.
Though he never actually studied there, it will be seen from the
text, that there was some justification for this claim.
3 Challoner, i. p. 23.
238 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
The result was the cruel and cowardly denunciation
of his mother's friend to the persecuting instincts
of the London crowd.
When however they arrived before the Justice,
who was none other than Mr. Recorder Fleetwood,
one of the bitterest enemies of Catholics, the young
man had no charge to bring against Blessed Thomas.
All he could say was that he suspected him to be a
Papist, that he was much in the company of priests,
and had been across the seas and had no doubt
conferred with traitors there. But he had rightly
gauged the present administration of law and justice.
In default of an offence the magistrate set to work
to create one, as the High Commissioners did
shortly after with the Blessed John Nelson. He put
a string of questions about the Queen and the
Pope's Supremacy, the heretical or schismatical
character of the new religion, and whether the
Queen were a heretic or not. It required but little
skill to entrap the ingenuous youth, who made no
attempt to evade the questions, but answered plainly
according to his conscience. He preserved none
the less a modest and respectful manner, " being of
his nature," says his brother, " very meek and
gentle." He was pressed by the Justice as to what
he thought of the Bull of Pius V., and whether, if
the Pope had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, she
were then lawful Queen or no. He answered that he
knew nothing of the Bull, but if the Pope had indeed
excommunicated the Queen, he thought she could
not be lawful Queen.
This was of course quite sufficient for the
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 239
purpose of his enemies, and the martyr was at once
committed to the Gatehouse at Westminster, while
Fleetwood made haste to acquaint her Majesty's
Council of his important capture. The Attorney-
General, Gilbert Gerard, was thereupon ordered to
go to the prison and receive his examination. He
did so on November the 2oth, and there obtained
again from the martyr the statement as to the
excommunication of the Queen, which Fleetwood
had already got from him. According to the
iniquity of the times the utterance so obtained was
treated as an act of high treason, and for it he finally
suffered. As, however, he would not confess the
names of any other Catholics, he was sent to the
Tower, where his examination was continued under
torture. 1
The Council Book contains two entries on the
iyth of November, 1577, which shall be here
inserted.
" Windsor, I7th November, 1577.
" A letter to Mr. Attorney-General, signifying
unto him that he shall receive the examination of
one Thomas Sherwood, lately committed by the High
Commissioners, for hearing of a Mass, and since
examined by Mr. Recorder of London : which exami-
nation containing matter of high treason against
her Majesty's person, their Lordships have thought
good to send unto him and require him, after he
shall have substantially considered thereof, to
acquaint the Lord Chief Justice therewith, and
1 " Being the first that was racked for mere matter of faith in
our memories." (Brief e Historic.)
240
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
presently to give order that the said Sherwood be
this term arraigned and proceeded against according
to the laws of this realm in that behalf provided ;
but before they proceed to his arraignment, to take
some pains further to examine him both upon the
points of his confession, and also to see if he can
discover any others of his knowledge to be of his
opinion ; and where, and of whom, he hath gathered
the substance of his arguments gained in his
said confession, wherein perchance he may bolt
out some other matters or persons worthy to be
known."
At the same time they sent
" A letter to the Lieutenant of the Tower requir-
ing him to receive into his hands, of Mr. Recorder of
London, the person of Thomas Sherwood, and to
retain him close prisoner, and from conference with
any person, until such time as he shall receive order
from Mr. Attorney-General, who is appointed to
examine him upon such matters as he is to be
charged withal : and showing this their Lordships'
letter to Mr. Recorder, which shall be his sufficient
warrant for the delivery of him.
" He is required in a postscript that if the said
Sherwood shall not willingly confess such things as
shall be demanded of him, he is then required to
commit him to the dungeon amongst the rats." 1
1 A Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England,
by David Jardine, Appendix, p. 79. The substance of the letters
is printed by Father Pollen (Acts of English Martyrs, pp. n and 12),
and the full text in Dasent's Acts of the Privy Council.
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 241
This last direction would have seemed incredible
were it not found in the Council books themselves.
According to Mr. Jardine, this dungeon " is
described as a cell below high water mark and
totally dark. As the tide flowed, innumerable rats,
which infest the muddy banks of the Thames, were
driven through the orifices of the walls into the
dungeon. The alarm excited by the irruption of
these loathsome creatures in the dark was the least
part of the torture which the unfortunate captives
had to undergo ; instances are related, which
humanity would gladly believe to be the exaggera-
tions of Catholic partisans, where the flesh has
been torn from the arms and legs of prisoners
during sleep by the well-known voracity of these
animals." :
Here then our brave young martyr was thrown,
and here he lay for well-nigh three winter months,
only leaving the horrible place for the still more
terrible torture-chamber hard by. He suffered from
"cold, stench, and hunger," and it was evidently
intended by the rigour of his suffering to force
him to give information as to where he had heard
Mass and what priests had said it. It was no doubt
because they failed in the attempt that recourse was
had to still more cruel means. Three times the
martyr was most sorely racked in the vaulted
chamber near which he had been confined. This
torture he bore with a supernatural fortitude
not unequal to that of the early martyrs, and
strengthened by God he persisted in refusing any
1 Op. cit. p. 26.
Q II.
242 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
information which could have betrayed others or
brought them into danger. And here again, the
Council Book corroborates the Martyr's Acts.
"Sherwood's courage and constancy," says Mr.
Jardine, " overcame the horrors of this dungeon ;
and continuing his resolution, a warrant was issued
from the Board, on the 4th of December, 1577,
authorizing the Lieutenant, the Attorney and
Solicitor-General, and the Recorder ' to assay him
at the rack.' This also appears to have failed,
for he made no discoveries of importance." 1 The
warrant is printed in Mr. Jardine's Appendix, and
directs that the commissioners are to " assay him
at the rack upon such articles as they shall think
meet to minister unto him for the discovering either
of the persons or of further matter."
We may now continue our narrative from a
contemporary document by an anonymous writer,
which though undated must have been written
before 1582, as it is quoted by Father Persons in his
De Persecutions Anglicana, which was printed in that
year.
" The brave youth was sent to the Tower, . . .
and meantime the chamber he had in the city was
ransacked (according to the custom of those harpies)
and all his goods removed, together with about
ninety pieces of gold belonging to other persons,
which were owing to his needy and afflicted father,
1 Jardine, p. 27.
2 Ibid. p. 8r. It is also given in Pollen's Acts of English Martyrs,
pp. 13, 14.
243
as if the pieces themselves were guilty of high
treason and denial of the Supremacy. In the
prison Sherwood suffered very grievous things with
a constancy worthy of all praise. . . . To begin
with, the holy youth was harassed by repeated
torturings, in order that overcome with pain, he
might confess where he had heard Mass, to the
intent that any he might name, might be punished
with like plunder of goods and bodily injury. But
he was brave beyond his years, no racking, no cross-
examination could make him name any one. Thus
baulked, his barbarous torturers changed their
proceedings and cast the martyr, who had now lost
the use of his limbs, into a very dark and fetid
dungeon. Here he was left without necessary
clothing, in order that the terrors of darkness, the
stench, and most of all, the shameful nakedness,
might break his resolution, which no torture could
move. As to food, it is easy to conjecture of what
sort it was, seeing that he was not allowed to buy
anything to sustain life nay, more, what calls for
the utmost commiseration is that when a certain
good man, 1 touched by the report of the extreme
hunger which the blessed youth was suffering, sent
him some money, and by means of a prisoner con-
veyed it to Sherwood's own keeper (this everyone in
the Tower has), the keeper returned it next day,
because the Lieutenant would not allow him to have
1 Father Persons has added in a note: " Mr. Roper, son-in-law
to Thomas More." William Roper died January 4, 1577-8, not in
1573, as Cresacre More, Life of Sir Thomas More, p. 119, Edition
of 1725, erroneously says.
244 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
the benefit of any alms. The martyr's friend asked
whether the keeper himself would not expend it for
his benefit, but he was told it was impossible. All
that the most earnest prayers could effect was to
induce him to take sixpence to buy straw for the
youth to lie on, so great was the inhumanity of the
Lieutenant towards his starving prisoner."
Blessed Thomas's brother gives us some more
precious details.
" He was of small learning, scarcely understand-
ing the Latin tongue, but had much read books of
controversies and devotion, and had used much to
converse among Catholic priests, and by reason
thereof, having a good wit and judgment, and
withal being very devout and religious, he was
able to give good counsel, as he did to many of
the more ignorant sort, being much esteemed for
his virtuous life and humble and modest behaviour :
besides God did give a special grace in his [con-
versation] , whereby together with his good example
of life, he much moved and edified others. He was
a man of little stature of body, yet of a healthful
and good constitution, and very temperate in his
diet.
" After his first racking in the Tower (which was
said to be rigorous), being visited by a Catholic
gentlewoman, he showed himself of that joyful and
comfortable spirit as she was astonished thereat.
As also his keeper with compassion giving him
warning that he was to be racked again, he was
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 245
so little moved therewith, as merrily and with a
cheerful countenance he said these words : ' I am
very little, and you are very tall ; you may hide me
in your great hose and so they shall not find me ; '
which the keeper did afterwards report to divers,
much marvelling at his great fortitude and courage.
He was about the age of twenty-seven years when
he was martyred." 1
Our martyr was brought to trial on Saturday,
the ist of February, 1577-8. The official record of
his trial still exists. 2 It took place in the Court of
the Queen's Bench at Westminster. The martyr
1 Hallam states that the Blessed Thomas was only fourteen
years of age, and the mistake has been repeated by more than one
recent writer. Hallam makes the statement on the authority of
Ribadeneyra (Continuatio Sanderi et Rishtoni, chap, xxvi.), writing
many years later. The brother's witness conclusively shows that
Ribadeneyra was mistaken. The following conjecture is offered to
the reader as a possible explanation of the error. The Philopater
of Father Persons appeared at Lyons in 1592 ; Ribadeneyra's
Appendix, or Continuation of Sander and Rishton, which refers to the
former work, was published probably with an edition of the History
of the English Schism in 1594 (Dodd says 1595). Whoever will
compare the passage of Ribadeneyra about Blessed Thomas
Sherwood (chap, xxvi.) with that of Persons (sect. iv. 266) will
see that the former is taken almost textually from the latter. Now
Persons begins his passage with the words, Quid . . . causes fuit
cur annis abliinc quatuordecim,juvenempr<zclarum, &c. Ribadeneyra (in
the Latin translation of 1610), Adolescens, imo puer quatuordecim
annorum, liberalis admodum forma, &c. Is it fanciful to suppose that
from an imperfect recollection of Persons' book, or badly written
notes, he mistook the passage from Philopater for annos natum quatuor-
decim ? It may be added that he probably was boyish-looking and
young for his age as well as small of stature, as all the authorities
dwell so much on his youth.
'^ Coram Rege Roll. (20 Elizabeth, rot. 3.)
246 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
was accused in the indictment of having on
November the 2Oth last " diabolically, maliciously,
and traitorously ... of his own perverse and
treacherous mind and imagination, ... in the
presence and hearing of divers faithful subjects of
the said Lady our Queen " uttered, answered,
published, and said "these false traitorous English
words following, . . . falsely, maliciously, advisedly,
directly, and treacherously to wit, ' that for so much
as our Queen Elizabeth . . . doth expressly disassent
in Religion from the Catholic faith, of which Catholic
faith, he sayeth that the Pope Gregory the thirteenth that
now is, is conserver, because he is God's General Vicar
in earth : and therefore he affirmeth by express words
that our said Queen Elizabeth . . . is a schismatic and
an heretic:' to the very great scandal and deroga-
tion of the person of our said Lady the Queen,
and the subversion of the state of this realm of
England," &c.
The other words of which he was accused (for
we may spare the reader any more of the redundant
adjectives and adverbs which besprinkle the report
so lavishly), were those which we have already
quoted as having been extorted from him by
Fleetwood, and again by the Attorney-General, as to
the excommunication of the Queen.
The martyr having pleaded not guilty, the trial
was fixed for the following Monday, "the morrow of
the Purification of Blessed Mary the Virgin," on which
day he was speedily found guilty and condemned
to death in the usual form, i.e., " that the aforesaid
Thomas Sherwood be led by the aforesaid Lieutenant
BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD 247
unto the Tower of London, and thence be dragged
through the midst of the city of London, directly
unto the gallows of Tyburn, and upon the gallows
there be hanged, and thrown living to the earth,
and that his bowels be taken from his belly, and
whilst he is alive be burnt, and that his head be
cut off, and that his body be divided into four
parts, and that his head and quarters be placed
where our Lady the Queen shall please to assign
them."
There is no account preserved of the martyrdom.
It took place on Friday, February the 7th, at
Tyburn ; l and the Acts expressly mention that after
the hanging, the other barbarous details of the
execution were inflicted on him while still alive and
conscious.
Three weeks later one who arrived at Douay
from England brought the news that " for the
profession of the Catholic faith a certain youth
named Thomas Sherwood had endured not prisons
only but even death : and that in all his torments
his cry had been, ' Lord Jesus, I am not worthy to
suffer these things for Thee, much less to receive
those rewards which Thou hast promised to such as
confess Thee.' "
Can we conclude this sketch of the life and
sufferings of this bright and heroic soul better than
1 The writs to the Lieutenant of the Tower to deliver up
Sherwood to the Sheriffs, and that to the Sheriffs of London to
conduct him to execution, are in the Controlment Roll (20 Elizabeth,
rot. 29). See Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, p. 19. Stow records
the execution in his Chronicle.
248 BLESSED THOMAS SHERWOOD
in the words of his ancient biographer ? " Farewell,
most holy martyr, and help with your patronage
me, a most unworthy sinner, who am labouring to
increase your honour here on earth. Amen."
ED.
AUTHORITIES. Briefe Historic, p. 158. Concertatio (1589),
if. 79 B 80 A. Yepes, pp. 360, 361. Raissius, Catalogus
Sacerdotum Anglo- Duacenorum. Champney's Annals (in West-
minster Archives), p. 740. Challoner (1874), i. pp. 23, 24.
Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, pp. i 20. Dasent, Acts of the
Privy Council.
VIII.
THE BLESSED EVERARD HANSE,
SECULAR PRIEST.
Tyburn, 31 July, 1581.
Two opposite currents were becoming stronger day
by day in England. On the one hand, the labours
of the new missionaries, in spite of the heat of
persecution, brought a great many into the Church.
But on the other hand, among large numbers, there
was a cruel and growing eagerness, fostered and
rewarded by the Government, and stimulated by
every art of calumny and misrepresentation, to
track down the devoted priests and hunt them to
death as if they were a natural prey. It was thus
that the Blessed Everard Hanse obtained the crown
of martyrdom. He was visiting some prisoners for
the Faith in the Marshalsea Prison, an every-day
event in the prison discipline of the day, when the
gaoler noticed the foreign make of his boots. This
was enough to awaken suspicion in the excitement
of the time, roused, as it was, to the highest pitch
by the search for Father Campion, and his capture
which had just been effected. Hanse was at once
brought before a magistrate and required to give
250 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
an account of himself. He made no attempt to
evade the inquiry, but with fearless openness declared
that he was a priest, and was immediately com-
mitted to Newgate, and as if he were a most
dangerous and degraded criminal, heavily ironed
and placed amongst the felons there.
He was born in Northamptonshire. His father
and mother were both followers of the new religion,
and Everard was sent to Cambridge. His abilities
attracted attention, and having received heretical
Orders he was presented to a rich living. His MS.
Acts 1 speak of him as surrounded by an admiring
crowd when he preached, and as much carried away
by his success. Meantime his elder brother, William,
had obeyed the call of divine grace and left England
to prepare himself for the priesthood. The Seminary
had been shortly before obliged to leave Douay,
largely owing to the intrigues of Elizabeth against
it, and in March, 1578, had found a refuge at Rheims
under the protection of the Cardinal Archbishop,
Louis of Guise. William Hanse arrived there on
November the nth following the transfer, and in
the course of the next spring was ordained, said his
first Mass on April the 28th, and was sent on the
perilous English Mission on the 23rd of May, 1579.
The two brothers had many discussions about
religion, but Everard remained unmoved. God's
mercy, however, had singled him out not only for
the grace of conversion, but for the glory of martyr-
dom. In the midst of his prosperity he was struck
down by a dangerous illness. As he lay long in
1 Westminster Archives, vol. ii. p. 175.
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 251
extreme suffering, hovering between life and death,
things began to appear to him in a new aspect, and
God completed His work by some supernatural
light, the nature of which his Acts do not specify.
He did not delay. His brother was summoned to
his sick-bed, and had the consolation of instructing
him in the Faith, and receiving him into the unity
of the Church.
Everard did not give himself to God by halves.
As soon as he was recovered and had resigned his
living, he set out for Rheims, with the desire of
becoming a teacher of the truth amongst his
countrymen to whom he had been a preacher of
error. He was admitted to the Seminary on the
nth of June, 1580, just four days after the Blessed
Edmund Campion and Father Persons had left for
England.
At this time the College was more than ever
like a busy hive, priests or students were con-
tinually arriving from or setting out for England,
Rome and Paris; the lectures in Theology, Philo-
sophy, Scripture, the Classics, and Hebrew, were in
full activity ; the version of the New Testament
was nearing completion, and controversial works
succeeded each other rapidly. So far from the
migration to Rheims having injured its work, there
were this year no fewer than one hundred and twelve
members in residence, besides others living in the
town, and joining in the studies. Such was the life
in which the new convert found himself. He lost
no time in applying himself with his whole energy
to theology, especially moral theology, and the
252 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
practical duties of a missionary priest, and rapidly
acquired a sufficient knowledge to warrant his
Superiors in presenting him for ordination. The
English fields were ripe for the harvest, labourers
were urgently needed, and no time was to be lost.
Besides all this, our martyr, we are told, was
filled with an " unspeakable desire to gain others,
but especially some of his dearest friends into the
unity of the Church." On the 2ist of the February
following his arrival, he was ordained subdeacon,
and on Holy Saturday, which in 1581 was March
the 25th, he was raised to the priesthood in the
Church of our Blessed Lady at Rheims, by the
Bishop of Chalons, being one of thirteen, of whom
four besides himself were afterwards martyrs. He
said his first Mass on April the 4th, and on the 24th
set out for England, with three other priests.
During the latter months of his residence at
Rheims, the College diaries record again and again
harrowing accounts of the seizures, imprisonments,
and torturings of the missionaries of which the
news reached the Seminary from England. 1
But so far from being terrified by these horrors
or hesitating in their purpose, the students were
only more eager for the combat. Two years later
(the i4th of April, 1583), Dr. Barrett wrote 2 from
Rheims to Father Agazzari :
" There is among all a great fervour of charity,
and an exceeding desire to aid our country. They
1 Knox, Douay Diaries (Diarium Secundum), September 18,
October 9, December 22, 1580; January 25, January 31, 1581.
2 Ibid. Introduction, p. Ixxxii.
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 253
seem to me like men striving with all their might
to put out a conflagration. They cannot in any
way be kept back from England."
Allen wrote of the very period under discussion : l
"These late terrors (thanks be to God)
trouble them so little, that divers straight upon the
arrival here in Rheims of the late proclamation of
January (1581), came to their Superiors to desire
leave to go in ; and being answered that the times
were not seasonable, they said it was no God-a-
mercy for a priest to enter in at other times, but
that they were brought up and made specially for
such days, and nineteen persons the same week
following took Holy Orders."
That ordination would seem by the Diary 2 to
have been the very one in which Blessed Everard
Hanse was made subdeacon. We may well suppose
that he returned to England, anticipating, even
by the light of common sense, but a short
apostolate. He took the precaution of adopting a
feigned name, and passed as Evans Duckett. From
this time the practice was usually adopted by the
missionaries. It was unfortunately only a slight
protection against the ubiquitous spies of Cecil
1 Allen, Apology for the English Seminaries (Mounts in Renault,
1581), f. 85 v.
2 Knox, Douay Diaries (Diarium Secundum), February 21, 1581.
This entry follows immediately that of February 12, which records
the news of the January Proclamation
254 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
and Walsingham, who penetrated even into the
seminaries and supplied their employers with
minute particulars of the names, appearance, and
movements of the priests and students.
And in fact Blessed Everard had laboured but
three months in the vineyard when he was seized, as
we have seen. He had gone to give alms and con-
solation to the prisoners for Jesus Christ ; and he
received at once the recompense of being made a
prisoner for Jesus Christ himself.
From a paper in the Ambrosian library at Milan,
consisting of extracts from the correspondence of
Allen and others in the following month, we learn
that various efforts were made to prevail on him to
acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, and also that he
was beaten, and for a long time hung up by his
feet. This must have been immediately after his
committal ; for the Newgate gaol delivery took
place a few days after the holy priest's committal,
and he was accordingly brought to trial on Friday,
July the 28th, at the Old Bailey, before the Recorder
of London, Fleetwood, a bitter enemy of Catholics.
As in the case of the Blessed John Nelson and the
Blessed Thomas Sherwood, there was literally no
offence to charge him with, for though he had
declared himself a priest, the famous statute by
which it was made high treason for a priest
ordained abroad to be in England was not as yet
passed. The judge had therefore first to make his
victim commit a capital offence before he could
charge him. This did not, however, require much
skill, for the martyr answered all his questions with
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 255
as much readiness and frankness as if they were on
indifferent topics instead of involving his life.
The Recorder first asked him where he was
ordained and for what purpose he had come into
England. He answered that he was ordained at
Rheims and that he had come back in order to gain
erring souls to the unity of the Christian Church.
Recorder. "Then you are subject to the Pope?"
Blessed Everard. " So I am, Sir."
Recorder. "Then the Pope has some authority
over you ? "
Blessed Everard. " The most just authority."
Recorder. " What ! now in England ? "
Blessed Everard. " Most assuredly. He hath
as much authority and right in spiritual government
in this realm as ever he had, and as much as he
hath in any other country, or in Rome itself."
The judge now proceeded to extract from him
matter against another statute. He was asked
whether he thought the Pope could err. He
answered as any Catholic would answer now,
that in his own life and conduct he was liable to
error, or even in his writings as a private doctor,
but not in his "judicial definitions of controverted
questions."
They were warily bringing him nearer to the
snare, a most needless ingenuity and asked
whether Pius V. had not acted judicially in the
Bull of Excommunication against the Queen, and
then reading out the part in which she is declared
to be a heretic and a supporter of heretics, and
therefore deprived of her royal crown and dignity,
256 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
required the prisoner to say if the Pope had not
erred in this. He answered, " I hope not," using
this expression because the act of the Pope was not
a doctrinal definition but a question of fact and of
discipline.
This answer served to bring him within the reach
of the statute of 1571, which made it high treason
to declare the Queen a heretic or schismatic. But
Fleetwood seems to have had an artistic sense of
completeness in judicial persecution, and went on
to secure against his prisoner an accusation under
a new statute passed this very year, 1581, which
extended the ever-widening embrace of high treason
to the act (among many others) of persuading any
subject of the Queen to leave the established religion
for that of the Catholic Church. So as a final
question he asked, " Have you given the answers
we have heard with a design to persuade those
who are present to embrace the same opinions ? "
"I know not," said the open-hearted priest,
"what you mean by the word persuade, but I would
fain that all believed the Catholic Faith from their
hearts as I do."
The offence had now been obtained, and a lawyer
in the court was directed then and there to draw up
the indictment, the charge being to this effect : that
Everard Hanse, a scholar of the Pope, and made
priest beyond the seas, had come back into England
to withdraw the Queen's subjects from their
obedience ; that he had asserted that the Pope was
his Superior, and had in England the same
authority as heretofore ; and likewise that he had
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 257
declared that he hoped Pius V. had not erred in
pronouncing the Queen a heretic and depriving her
of her kingdom, and that he had said these things
to persuade others to follow his opinions.
The indictment having been read out, the martyr
was ordered to hold up his hand, as is usual when
pleading, on which the judge took the opportunity
to browbeat him, because his right hand being
occupied in holding up his heavy chains, he had held
up the left. When asked if he was guilty of what
was charged against him, he answered with his
usual frankness that though the indictment was not
xact in every particular, yet he quite acknowledged
its substantial truth. And upon this, sentence of
death was pronounced as in cases of high treason.
Such was the degradation of English justice under
Elizabeth, at least where Catholics were concerned.
Such a sentence would have been iniquitous and
illegal, even apart from the cruelty and injustice of
the statutes it professed to apply.
The account of the martyr's trial which has been
given from his Acts is briefly confirmed by the
honest Stow. " Everard Hanse," he writes, "a
seminary priest, was in the Sessions Hall in the Old
Bailey, arraigned ; where he affirmed that he was
subject to the Pope in ecclesiastical causes, and that
the Pope had now the same authority here in
England that he had a hundred years past ; with
other traitorous speeches ; for which he was
condemned and executed." 1
1 Stow's Chronicle (1581). The heretics declared he was as
foolish as he was false ; and that it was impossible he could have
R II.
258 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
Blessed Everard's martyrdom was consummated
three days after his sentence, on the 3ist of July,
1581, at Tyburn, "about eight of the clock in the
morning." On the day before, he wrote from his
prison a letter to his brother which has happily
been preserved. 1 It is as follows :
" Brother,
" I pray you be careful for my parents ;
see them instructed in the way of truth ; so that
you be careful for your own state also. What you
shall take in hand that way, think no other but that
God will send good success. My prayers shall
not be wanting to aid you by God's grace. Give
thanks to God for all that He hath sent. Cast not
yourself into dangers wilfully, but pray to God when
occasion is offered you may take it with patience.
" The comforts at the present instant are
unspeakable ; the dignity too high for a sinner ; but
God is merciful. Bestow my things you find
ungiven away upon my poor kinsfolk. A pair of
pantofBes I leave with M. N. for my mother.
Twenty shillings I would have you bestow on them
from me, if you can make so much conveniently ;
some I have left with M. N. I owe ten shillings
and two shillings ; I pray you see it paid ; M. N.
will let you understand how and to whom. If you
want money to discharge it, send to my friends, you
got enough learning in two years to be fit to be ordained priest,
which as the writer of the Briefe Historic remarks was a strange
thing for them to say, as they had thought him learned enough
to be one of their own ministers four or five years before.
1 It is printed in the Briefe Historie.
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 259
know where, in my name. Summa Conciliorum, I
pray you restore to M. B[lackwell ?] ; the other
books you know to whom.
" Have me commended to my friends : let them
think I will not forget them. The day and hour of my
birth is at hand, and my Master saith ' Tolle crucem
tuam et sequere Me.' Vale in Domino.
" Yours,
" EVERARD HANSE.
" Pridie obitus."
Beneath the gallows he appeared with the same
bright, frank, untroubled manner which had always
been the faithful expression of his character. He
told the people he was a Catholic priest, and was
most glad to die in testimony of his faith. He then
went on to speak of the misrepresentations which
had been industriously circulated of his answers
at his trial. It had been given out that he main-
tained that the Pope could not sin ; that princes
had no sovereignty of their own, the Pope being
supreme in their realms even in civil things : and
that treason to the Queen was no sin before God.
(These calumnies were even put out in print. 1 )
He denied them in a few words, and protested that
he had never said or meant anything except that
1 See Appendix for an account of this pamphlet. The martyr
cannot have mentioned the fact of these calumnies being printed, as
they did not appear till after his death. The sentence I have put
in parenthesis is evidently an addition of the writers of the Acts.
Father Persons (De Persecutione Anglicana, ap. Concertatio, fol. 31 B)
indignantly relates how Crowley, the minister, had twisted and
misinterpreted the martyr's words.
260 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
the various so-called treasons, which were nothing
but the confession of the Catholic Faith, were no
offences against God. When asked whether he
acknowledged the Queen for his Sovereign, he
answered that he did acknowledge her as his
Queen, and that he had never offended her
Majesty otherwise than in matters of his con-
science, which their new-made statutes had made
matters of treason.
The ministers asked him to pray with them, but
he answered that it was not lawful for him to pray
with heretics ; but he humbly begged all Catholics
to pray for him and with him. He was praying
earnestly when the cart was drawn from under him.
About a month later the account of his martyrdom
reached the Seminary, and is recorded in the Diary. 1
" For a moment or two, scarcely to be counted, he
was left hanging, and then alive and fully conscious,"
the other cruelties were inflicted ; " when his bowels
had been torn out and his heart, still palpitating,
was in the hand of the executioner, he is said to
have pronounced the words : ' O happy day ! '
Moreover, the concurrent testimony of several
witnesses has come to us that when his heart was
thrown into the fire, it leaped up out of the flames
with great violence, and being again flung in and
covered with a faggot of wood, a second time it
leaped up with such force as to lift the faggot out
of its place and hold it for a time quivering in the
smoke." "As if," adds the writer of his Acts, "God
would manifest the victorious constancy of His
1 Donay Diaries (Diarium Secunduin), August 27, 1581.
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 261
martyr by the miraculous impetuous movement of
his heart." 1
" Two nights after," writes Mendoza to Philip II.,
" there was not a particle of earth which his blood
had stained that had not been carried off as a relic,
and infinite sums were given for his shirt and other
clothes." Thus was God glorified in His saints.
E. S. K.
AUTHORITIES. Brief "e Historie, p. 140. Concertatio, fol. 78 A
79 B. Yepes, pp. 356 360. Champney, p. 756. Challoner,
i. pp. 2528.
RELICS. The only relic remaining of Blessed Everard
Hanse seems to be a little piece of linen stained with his
blood, which is preserved in the private chapel of the
Archbishop of Westminster.
At St. Scholastica's Abbey, Teignmouth, is preserved
a dried heart, which the immemorial tradition of the com-
munity describes as " the heart of an English Martyr which
leaped out of the fire." It may very possibly be that of
Blessed Everard Hanse.
APPENDIX,
There is a pamphlet in the British Museum
entitled *!" A true report, of the A \ raignement and
execution \ of the late Popishe Traitoiir, \ Euerard
Haunce, executed at Ty \ borne, with reformation of
the | errors of a former u \ ntrue \ booke published \
cocerning the \ same. Printed at London, by j
Henrie Bynneman, | Anno 1581.
This work professes to correct the " untrue
1 Raissius, Catalogus Christi Sacerdotum, pp. 14, 15.
262 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
reportes," of "a pamphlet lately published as
gathered by MS., and printed by Charlewoode
and White, touching ... a wilfull and obstinate
traitor named Everard Ducket alias Haunce," &c.
We glean some facts from this scurrilous libel
(which is said to be the work of Anthony Munday),
e.g., the names of the martyr's judges. They were,
besides Recorder Fleetwood, Sir John Branch, Lord
Mayor ; Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower;
Sir William Damsell, Knight ; Master Sekford,
Master of Requests to her Majesty, &c.
The indictment was framed " with the advice of
a learned Councillor, Master James Dalton, one of
the Council of the City and of her Majesty's Com-
mission there." It ran thus :
" That Everard Haunce, late of London, clerk,
otherwise called Everard Ducket, late of London,
clerk, the xxviii day of July, in the year of the reign
of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of
God of England, France, and Ireland, Queen,
defender of the Faith, &c. At London, that is to
say, in the Parish of St. Sepulchre, in the ward of
Faringdon Without of London aforesaid, maliciously
intending to withdraw the subjects of our said
Sovereign Lady the Queen from their natural
obedience toward our said Sovereign Lady the
Queen, and from the religion by her Majesty's
authority within her dominions established, to the
Romish religion, in full and open sessions then
and there holden, before the Justices of our said
Sovereign Lady the Queen of gaol delivery of her
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 263
gaol of Newgate of London aforesaid, then and
there judicially sitting, did say and utter these false
malicious and slanderous words, that is to say,
that he (meaning himself), the said Everard, being
in England, is subject to the Pope in ecclesiastical
things. And that the Pope hath now the same
authority here of England over the Church that he
had a hundred years past, and which he now hath
at Rome. And that the Pope hath the Holy Spirit
of God given unto him and cannot err. And that
the Pope in publishing that he hath authority to
depose kings and princes, hath delivered true doctrine.
And where the Pope by his sentence hath declared
the Queen (meaning our said Sovereign Lady the
Queen) an heretic, and deprived her of her crown of
this realm of England and her subjects discharged
of their allegiance, he hopeth that the Pope therein
hath not erred. And that he (meaning himself, the
said Everard) is a priest, and so made at Rheims
beyond the seas, and that he came over to win souls,
and wished the Queen's subjects to believe him in
all these things. And that, that which he hath spoken
before, he spake it with purpose and to that intent
that the Queen's subjects should believe him and be
of the same opinion.
" And further that the said Everard, by the words
aforesaid, by him uttered maliciously and traitor-
ously, then and there did put in practice to withdraw
the subjects of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen
from the religion now by her Majesty's authority
established within her dominions, to the Romish
religion, with intent to withdraw the same subjects
264 BLESSED EVERARD HANSE
of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen from their
natural obedience to our said Lady the Queen,
against the peace of our said Lady the Queen, her
crown and dignity, and against the form of the
statute in such case lately made and provided."
The foreman of the jury was one Anthony Hall.
The only witness was the councillor who drew up
the indictment. The jury very quickly returned
their verdict, whereupon the Recorder and Master
Sekford made learned speeches against the Papal
authority, and the Recorder passed sentence of
death.
The martyr having been sent back to Newgate,
a minister named Crowley, " a grave preacher," was
sent to him by the Bench, but he soon returned,
saying he could make nothing of the prisoner, who
was unwilling to listen to him, and further, produced
a paper signed by himself and fifteen others, in which
he declared that the martyr had said, " amongst
other traitorous blasphemies, these words following :
Treason against the Prince is no sin against God."
This was the calumny which the martyr protested
against at his death. It is easy to see how perfectly
innocent words might be perverted in this way.
The martyr was condemned for treason against the
Prince "Yes," he may have said, "but my so-
called treason is no offence against God." And this
is what actually passed, according to Father Persons*
In any case, the "godly minister" having devised this
calumny, urged on the strength of it that the martyr
should be executed the very next day, lest the
BLESSED EVERARD HANSE 265
Papists should get access to him before his death,
and the truth being divulged, he might have an
opportunity of refuting the lie at his execution.
The writer adds that unfortunately this advice was
not taken, so that Hanse took occasion " to qualify
his speech touching treason against the Queen to be
no sin." The execution was delayed, "not for any
hope of doing good with him, which was of all men
holden desperate," but in order to know the pleasure
of her Majesty's Council, who might order him to
be further examined.
His death is thus described. " And so continu-
ing in the obstinate profession of his false Romish
faith, and requiring the prayers of those of his sect,
and refusing all other intercession to God for him,
he suffered due pains of death and execution, as in
cases of high treason is due and accustomed by the
laws of this realm, to the great dread of God's judg-
ments to himself, a terrible example to others."
We fools esteemed their life madness and their end
without honour. Behold how they are numbered among
the children of God, and their lot is among the saints. 1
ED.
1 Wisdom v. 4, 5.
IX.
THE BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION,
JESUIT.
Tyburn, i December, 1581.
ON the 3rd of August, 1553, the good citizens
of London were gladdened by the sight of a
brilliant state pageant, the solemn entry of the first
Queen Regnant of England, Mary Tudor, through
Aldgate, which was festooned and draped with
banners, while the whole route was lined by the
various crafts in their gayest attire. First came the
Lords three and three, with their knights and
gentlemen ; the foreign Ambassadors, each with a
retinue of his own countrymen ; the officers of the
household ; the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas White ;
the Earl of Arundel, bearing the sword of state ; the
ladies of the household, and then her Majesty in " a
long-sleeved robe of crimson velvet, embroidered with
pearls," mounted on a white palfrey whose harness
was fringed with gold. Following the Queen came
her sister, the Princess Elizabeth, and one hundred
and sixty other noble dames according to prece-
dence, the Queen's horse, eight thousand strong, and
the Aldermen, while the city guard with bows and
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 267
javelins brought up the rear. From the roofs and
windows eager and loyal spectators shouted " God
save Queen Mary." Minute guns were fired from
the Tower, and at various points choirs of school
children sang the praises of the Sovereign. The
triumph was not an empty show. The rule of
violence under Henry and Edward was over, the
revolution in what most Englishmen still held to be
sacred seemed to have spent itself. The old order
was once more triumphant.
Opposite St. Paul's the procession halted, and
a bluecoat-boy, thirteen years old, approached her
Majesty to make, in behalf of the London scholars,
an oration in her honour. The boy thus already
conspicuous for his learning, eloquence, and modest
grace was Edmund Campion. Well assured did
his youthful predictions seem that day, of the reign
of justice, mercy, and religion, with which England
was now to be blessed. Yet only twenty-eight
years later, from the same Tower which Mary now
entered in triumph the Blessed Edmund was to
be led out as a traitor and felon, to receive the
martyr's crown.
The year in which this boy was born was marked
by great events, which both for good and evil were
to exercise a dominant influence over his life. Father
Robert Persons, his companion in later years and
his first biographer, thus writes of them :
" His birth happened [on January the 25th]
in about the year of God 1540, and the thirtieth
of King Henry VIII., which was the year wherein
268 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
the said King pulled down and destroyed the greatest
religious houses in England and persecuted most
violently the Catholic faith, for defence whereof
Father Campion was afterwards by God's holy
providence to shed his blood ; as it was also the
year wherein the Religious Order, the Society of
Jesus, was founded and confirmed in Rome by the
See Apostolic, of which Order the said Father was
to be so worthy a member, as afterwards he proved.
And by this account it falleth out in like manner that
when Father Campion so freely and willingly
offered himself to suffer death for the Catholic
religion, in his own native country and city, he was
in the very flower of his age, to wit, between one or
two and forty years old, which is a remarkable
circumstance, both for merit before God and honour
in the sight of man."
His father, by name also Edmund, was a citizen
and bookseller of London. His parents were
Catholics, not only at the time of Edmund's birth,
but also during the reign of Mary, though afterwards
they would seem to have yielded to the times. The
martyr could only hope that they died in the Faith.
The family consisted of three boys and one girl. Of
the boys Edmund and another took to learning, the
third to military service.
When Edmund was about nine -or ten years of
age his parents wished to apprentice him to a
merchant, but a member of the Grocers' Company,
seeing his sharp and pregnant wit, induced the guild
to undertake the boy's education, and he was sent
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 269
first to a preparatory school, and then to Christ-
church, Newgate, founded by Edward VI. out of
confiscated Church property, as a salve to the
conscience of the people. Young Campion carried
off prize after prize, not only in his school, but in the
general competition which was held between the
various Grammar Schools of London. When, there-
fore, he was still a boy, probably in 1555, the Grocers'
Company had no scruple in applying to Sir Thomas
White, already mentioned, to give Campion a
scholarship in his new foundation of St. John's
College, Oxford. With this Sir Thomas most
willingly complied " after he was informed of the
youth's rare towardliness in learning and virtue."
The Company further gave him an exhibition for his
maintenance.
In 1557 Campion, though only seventeen years
of age, was already famous for his eloquence and
his various gifts, and the charm of his character had
so endeared him to Sir Thomas that he made him
Junior Fellow of his College. Sir Thomas was a
staunch Catholic. His firmness and loyalty in the
Wyatt rising had done much to secure Mary her
throne, and he had founded the College of St. John
as a place of safety for Catholics in the great English
heresy. His endowments were, however, too soon
turned to other purposes. Anglicanism was pro-
claimed the only legal religion of the land. The
enforcement of the law was of course a work of
time, but the Royal Commissioners, on whom the
task was laid, did their work skilfully. In 1559 or
1560, by their order, the Catholic President of
2 yo BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
St. John's, Dr. Alexander Belsize, on account of his
religion was deprived of his office, and all the
crucifixes, vestments, and holy vessels given to the
chapel by Sir Thomas White were taken away.
The oath of the Queen's spiritual supremacy was
not, however, generally tendered to the members
of the University. It was considered more prudent
not to drive men to extremities, but to be content
with their external acquiescence in the new order
of things.
Five years elapsed without any formal test being
demanded of Campion, but during this period
he was exposed to influences which tended to
weaken the strength of his convictions. A number
of admiring friends, a large circle of disciples,
" Campionists " as much because of their love for
the man as for their admiration of his scholarship
and of his eloquence, gathered round him. This
tended to deaden the voice of conscience, and to
persuade him that as a humanist and a layman he
need not trouble himself with vexed questions of
theology, or with disputes on the Pope's Supremacy.
His obligations to his college and to his pulpit were
clear, the rest but doubtful, and so in the year 1564
he took the oath, and acknowledged the spiritual
headship of the Queen. Thus gradually was the
great change effected in Campion's surroundings.
Though he remained a Catholic at heart, he had
given up the practice of his religion, and had, at
least externally, admitted the determining principle
of the English Reformation.
Campion's position in the University and his
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 271
pre-eminence as a speaker may be appreciated by
some account of his chief oratorical displays. The
first was at the reburial of poor Amy Robsart,
when her body, under pressure of public opinion, was
removed from Cumnor to Oxford for honourable
sepulture. The next was a panegyric, composed in
idiomatic and eloquent Latin, on Sir Thomas White.
Campion enumerates his charities, the thirty towns
which he had enriched, the foundation of Merchant
Taylors' School, the restoration of Gloucester Hall,
and the foundation of St. John's College. "This
he had founded when literature was enslaved,
imprisoned, in poverty, in despair, half dead with
sorrow, washed out with tears ; he has beaten all
of us students, with our holy ways, our sacred
teaching, our pious talk, and our sacrilegious life.
In this man's tongue, manner, gait, there was
nothing polished, dressed up, painted, affected or
false, all was open, pure, sincere, chaste, undefiled.
He begged that we would not pray for his recovery,
but for faith and patience in his last moments, and
nothing annoyed him so much as wishes for a
renewal of health."
His next rhetorical triumph was prompted by an
event of a very different character the state visit
of Queen Elizabeth to Oxford in 1566, after she had
witnessed the pageants at Kenilworth. Thirteen
years before, Campion had welcomed Queen Mary to
London. He was now to greet with all the fire
of his eloquence the entry of her sister to the
University. Sir William Cecil and the Queen's
advisers were careful to prohibit the introduction
272 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
of any dangerous or theological matter. Campion
was to discourse on "the effect of the moon upon
the tides," and of the "higher and lower heavenly
bodies." On the 3rd of September, 1573, he
defended his thesis before the Queen and her
favourite, Lord Robert Dudley, the Chancellor of
the University, over whose victim, Amy Robsart,
he had, as we have said, but six years previously,
delivered a funeral oration. His academic oppo-
nent was a dear friend, Richard Bristow, who
afterwards became a Catholic, one of the founders
of Douay College, and the author of the celebrated
Motives. In his preamble Campion declares himself
only reconciled to his unequal contest against " four
pugnacious youths, by the thought that he is
speaking in the name of Philosophy, the princess
of letters, before Elizabeth, a lettered Princess,
whose blessed ancestors were adepts in science,
who set her the example of visiting the poor
scholars." Then he addresses " the magnificent
Chancellor, whose godly and deathless benefactions
to the University he could not deny if he would,
and ought not to conceal if he could." Campion's
compliments and eloquence went home, and the
dispute concluded, the Queen specially recom-
mended him to Dudley, who willingly undertook to
further the orator's career. Himself the secret
friend of Papists, till policy persuaded him to
embrace the Puritan cause, Leicester sent for
Campion, and bade him ask what he would, as
the Queen and himself would provide for his
future. Campion modestly replied that the friend-
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 273
ship of the Chancellor was worth more than all
gifts.
Four years later, however, in dedicating to him
his History of Ireland, he gratefully acknowledges
the kindness he had received from the Earl of
Leicester, as Dudley was now called. " How
often," he says, "at Oxford, how often at the
Court, how often at Rycot, and at Windsor, by
letters, and by reports, have you not furthered with
your advice, and countenance, with your authority,
my hopes and expectations, mere student though
I was." Campion has never known Leicester, with
all his power, harm any man, or enrich himself at
other's cost, or act from any unworthy motive.
Such in substance is Campion's opinion of Leicester.
It may seem surprising that he should think so well
of a man whom we now know to have been worth-
less, and on many occasions wicked. But Campion's
mind was naturally deferential, one that thinks no
evil of those placed in exalted positions. He lived
amongst Dudley's friends, who would not have
talked about his misdeeds, while they would have
insisted upon the evidence for the better side of his
character. And again this would have been thrown
into relief from being ignored or decried by rivals
no better than he.
But to return to Campion's oratorical displays
at Oxford. Father Persons thus describes the sequel
to the disputation last mentioned.
" When by chance one day the Ambassador of
Spain, then resident with the Queen, accompanying
s n.
2 7 4 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
her in this her progress, whose name was Don
Diego de Guzman, Canon of Toledo, was asked by
the said Queen and her Council how he liked the
exercises of learning which he had heard in that
University of Oxford, he answered : ' Very well,' but
that he marvelled not thereat considering the variety
of good wits and talents which then were discovered,
and presupposing (as he did) that such, as had done
any exercise before her Majesty, did come very well
prepared before for the same ; wherefore he desired
to hear somewhat done extempore and without
preparation.
" Whereupon certain chosen men were called
presently to Martin College, there to dispute upon
the sudden, and upon the questions and themes that
the said Ambassador should propose unto them.
" And so they did, there being present with the
Ambassador, the Earl of Leicester, Sir William
Cecil, then Secretary but afterwards Great Treasurer
of England, and one of the chief persecutors of
Father Campion. There were also divers others
of the Council and the nobility of England present,
together with learned men of that University. And
among others that were called to do this exercise
upon the sudden, Mr. Campion was one, and he
that bare away that day most praise from that place
for his excellent doings, as he also did a little after
for a certain rare oration that he was forced to make
upon the sudden in the Queen's house of Woodstock,
some eight miles from Oxford, before the said
Queen, in which he confessed afterward that he
was like to have lost himself utterly at the begin-
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 275
ning, partly by the hastiness of the time, and partly
by the sudden great pomp wherein the Queen came
forth to hear him, until after a space (as he was
wont to tell) he remembered that she was but a
woman and he a man, which was the better sex, and
that all that splendour and pomp that glittered in
his eyes, was but transitory vanity and had no
substance in it, by which cogitations and other the
like he was emboldened to g'o through with his
speech, as he did to the great contentation of the
Queen and others of the Court, and to his own
high commendation.
" Sir William Cecil himself, then present at these
exercises, who was afterwards made Lord Treasurer
of England, as hath been said, and came to be one
of Father Campion's judges for his execution about
fifteen years afterwards, when this servant of God
stood condemned to be martyred, this man, I say,
was the chief and principal praiser of Mr. Campion
at that time, who with his voice in Council
persuaded his death, when others of his fellow-
councillors were of contrary opinion, which I have
been told by one that heard with his own ears the
consultation about that matter, but yet when he was
in Oxford he gave singular praises to Mr. Campion
above all the rest for his rare learning and talents,
and invited him with many hopes and promises to
follow that course. And when about some four
years after this Mr. Campion was departed out of
the realm and gone over the sea to Douay, the
said Cecil said to a certain especial friend of
Mr. Campion's, named Richard Stanihurst, gentle-
-276 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
man of Ireland, . . . Cecil, that old fox, affirmed
that it was very great pity to see so notable a man
as Campion was to leave his country, for that indeed
(said he) he was one of the diamonds of England."
With all this success, Campion's mind was not
at rest. Persons, who had been through similar
mental struggles, writes of them as follows.
"The good man had a wonderful fight and
combat with himself what to resolve and what
course it were best for him to follow. For on the
one side there spurred him forward to follow the
world all those flattering hopes and allurements
which before I have signified, together with youth,
ambition, desire to satisfy the expectation of his
friends, and emulation to see others of his equals
and inferiors to pass on and be advanced : but on
the other side held him back and terrified him
greatly, his judgment, the remorse of his conscience,
fear of death, Hell, and the like, for that he could
not persuade his own understanding but that the
Catholic religion only was true, and consequently
that all the doctrine, life, and whole course of the
Protestants was false and damnable, and yet he
desired to follow it for a time. So as on the one side
was his will and affection, or at leastwise a most
vehement inclination of ambition to follow the
Protestants, and on the other side was his judgment
and conscience, which caused a most strong and
dangerous combat within himself for a good time,
and what to resolve he knew not, and so much the
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 277
less for that he wanted all or most of those helps
which the Catholic Church is wont to assign for
men to fly unto in such like cases of doubtful
deliberations concerning the soul, to wit, the holy
sacraments and the spiritual counsels of a good
ghostly father, or of some other godly learned man.
Yet did Mr. Campion heartily by prayer commend
himself to Almighty God, but still hearkened to
both parts inwardly to see whether he could hear
or find any sufficient reasons to satisfy his judgment,
and to appease his mind to follow that which love
of the world for the present did invite him unto."
In 1564, having completed his studies of Aristotle
and natural theology, he was compelled by the
statutes of his College to take up the Fathers, and
then Catholicism . stared him in the face. Let us
hear his friend Persons again.
" One thing there was among all the rest that
did greatly hold his deliberation in suspense, which
was the reading of the works of certain ancient
Fathers of the primitive Church ; for that whatso-
ever one of us had heard or conceived in the whole
day for pulling out of the thorn of conscience, or
for smoothing the way to be Protestant, either by
good-fellowship and conversation with Protestants
themselves, or by hearing their sermons, or reading
their books or the like, all this was dashed soon
after again by one hour's reading of some book or
treatise of the old holy Doctors, and the wound of
our conscience was made again so green and grievous
278 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
as ever before by that which in every leaf and page
almost we should find to be spoken by those holy
men, either of virtue or austerity of life, or of
questions and matters of controversies, and that so
directly for the Catholic religion, and most perspicu-
ously against all that the Protestants did either
teach or practise, as if these ancient Fathers had
lived and seen their dealings, and had been their
open adversaries in these our days."
Still the hour of grace had not struck. If long
formed convictions, the voice of conscience, the
testimony of Holy Scripture and tradition all called
him to abjure the Queen's new religion "the sugared
words of great folk, the pregnant hopes of speedy
and great preferment," bade him linger, for a while
at least, where he was. At this crisis too he had
found a friend, who supplied him with what pro-
fessed to be a conscientious motive for not making
the dreaded sacrifice. This was Richard Cheney,
Bishop of Gloucester. Alone of the Elizabethan
hierarchy, he detested in his heart the doctrines of
the Establishment, but had persuaded himself that
he might lawfully adhere to it externally, if in his
heart he held and promulgated as far as possible
the teaching of the primitive Church. To this course
also he persuaded Campion, and prevailed on him
in spite of his reluctance to be ordained deacon, so
as to be able to preach and carry on Cheney's
work. No sooner, however, was the step taken
than Campion's conscience stung him anew and he
loathed the heretical Orders he had received.
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 279
In 1568, matters were brought to a crisis. The
Grocers' Company, whose exhibition he still held,
suspecting him of secret Popery, summoned him
under pain of losing his scholarship to prove his
orthodoxy by preaching at Paul's Cross. Campion,
who was then Proctor, obtained a temporary post-
ponement, and after further correspondence, in which
the demands of the Company were explicitly formu-
lated, he resigned his exhibition. At this same time,
1569, when his hold on Oxford was being thus
loosened, he was receiving letters from his old
college friend, Gregory Martin, calling him to
Rome. Martin was a man of mark, " the Hebraist,
the Grecian, the poet, the honour and glory of
St. John's." He had been tutor to the Venerable
Philip Howard, but in this year, when the Duke
of Norfolk and his household, on account of his
connection with Mary Queen of Scots, were sum-
moned to attend Common Prayer and sermons,
Martin fled abroad and became a Catholic. Before
he left, however, he wrote to Campion warning him
against the perils of ambition, offering him a home,
and reminding him " that if their money failed one
thing was left Qui seminant in lacrimis, in exultations
metent ' They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.' '
Thus urged alike by conscience within and by
hostile pressure without, Campion finally left Oxford
at the completion of his Proctorship, on the ist of
August, 1569.
From Oxford, Campion turned his steps towards
Dublin, where a project was on foot for rebuilding the
old University founded by Pope John XXL, which
280 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
had perished with the suppression of the monasteries.
The chief promoters of the undertaking were James
Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin, Speaker of the House
of Commons, the father of Richard, Campion's pupil,
and a zealous Catholic, and Sir Henry Sidney, the
Lord Deputy, with whom also Campion was on
terms of intimacy. But the Protestant opposition
was too strong. The work lapsed into the hands of
Elizabeth, who founded Trinity College twenty-five
years later.
The University scheme having failed, Campion,
who was in March, 1571, the guest of Stanihurst,
devoted some ten weeks to compiling a short history
of Ireland. As a specimen of his style a short
quotation may be interesting. It must be remem-
bered that all the other writings of the martyr
which we shall have occasion to cite were written
in Latin. This is his description of the country.
"The soil is low and waterish, and includeth
divers little islands environed with bogs and
marishes : highest hills have standing pools in
their top. The air is wholesome, not altogether so
clear and subtle as ours of England. Of bees good
store, turf and sea coal is their most fuel. It is
stored of kine ; of excellent horses and hawks ;
of fish and fowl. They are not without wolves, and
greyhounds to hunt them, bigger of bone and limb
than a colt. . . . Sheep few, and those bearing
coarse fleeces, whereof they spin notable rug
mantle [frieze]. . . . Eagles are well known to breed
here. Horses they have of pace easy, in running
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 281
wonderful swift. Therefore they make them of great
store. ... I heard it verified by honourable to
honourable, that a nobleman offered and was refused
for one such horse, an hundred kine, five pounds
lands, and an eyrie of hawks yearly during seven
years. . . . The people are thus inclined : religious,
frank, amorous, ireful, sufferable of pains infinite,
very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen,
delighted with wars, great almsgivers, passing in
hospitality."
Campion was delighted with his stay in Ireland,
adopted its chief Saint as his patron, and when
circumstances made him think of disguising himself,
his predilection was to adopt the semblance and
speech of an Irishman, and he is said to have acted
the part admirably. 1
Before his History was finished Campion's troubles
thickened. He was now considered a Catholic by
all, and openly lived as such. But the times were
disastrous for the followers of the old Faith. The
rising in the North had failed. The Bull of
St. Pius V. had been posted by Felton on the
Bishop of London's gates on the feast of Corpus
Christi, 1570. Elizabeth's Government was resolved
on restraining all persons of note supposed to favour
the Catholic side, and to apprehend Campion among
others. At first he remained concealed in Stani-
hurst's house. On March the igth he was at
Turvey, then back again in Dublin, and a few weeks
later at Drogheda.
1 See Blessed Ralph Sherwin's letter of June 4, 1580, quoted
below.
282 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
All this time the pursuivants were at his heels,
but Campion remained ever brave and cheerful, and
found time to continue his learned researches, and
in his hours of retirement to lay deeper foundations
of his spiritual life. After many shifts he finally
embarked from Tredah, a port about twenty miles
from Dublin, disguised under the name of Mr. Patrick,
as servant to Melchior Hussey, the steward to the
Earl of Kildare. On the 26th of May, 1571, he was
present at Dr. Storey's trial in Westminster Hall,
and then took ship to Douay. In mid-Channel his
vessel was overhauled by the Hare, an English
frigate cruising there. As Campion had no pass-
port the captain impounded his money and baggage,
and landed him as a prisoner at Dover, intending
to take him under his own charge to London.
Campion, however, perceived that his captor's main
object was secured by the appropriation of his
effects, and with the captain's tacit consent, effected
his escape. Having obtained a fresh supply of
money from some friends in Kent, he made his way
to Calais and finally reached Douay.
This noble College, the nursery of so many
martyrs, which had been founded by Dr. Allen
four years previously, as yet numbered only fifteen
or sixteen members, among whom were eight or
nine doctors or licentiates in theology. The
students were for the most part converts, and
naturally corresponded with their Protestant friends
who were at all inclined to the Church, in the
hopes of effecting their conversion. It was thus
that Gregory Martin had written to Campion and
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 283
thus that Campion himself wrote to several, who
at his invitation left all and followed him to
Douay. We still possess one such letter, addressed
to the Anglican Bishop Cheney, and dated the
ist of November, 1571. It is for us the first-
fruit of his reconciliation to the Church. We do
not know the exact date of that event, nor how far
he had advanced towards it when he was planning
and writing his History of Ireland. Here both the
suggestion and inspiration are evidently due to his
reception. Father Persons calls the letter " a
vehement epistle," and doubtless the ardour with
which he addresses his correspondent, and the
motives he sets before him, show us the fervour
and the reasons with which he himself had been
actuated at that crisis in his life.
" It is not now as of old the dash of youth, or
facility of pen, nor any punctilious care of regularity
in correspondence, that makes me write to you.
I used to write from the mere abundance of my
heart : a greater necessity has forced me to write
this letter. We have already been too long sub-
servient to popular report, to the times, to reputation.
At length let us say something for the salvation of
our souls. I beg you, by your own natural good-
ness, by my tears, even by the pierced side of
Christ and the wounds of the Crucified, to listen
to me.
" There is no end nor measure to my thinking
of you ; and I never think of you without being
horribly ashamed, praying silently, and repeating
284 BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION
the text of the Psalm, Ab alienis, Domine, parce
servo tuo. ' From the sins of others, O Lord, spare
Thy servant.' What have I done ? It is written :
Videbas furem et currebas cum eo ; and Laudatur
peccator in desideriis suis, et impius benedicitur. ' Thou
didst see the thief, and didst run with him. The
sinner is praised in his desires, and the impious
is blest.'
" So often was I with you at Gloucester, so often
in your private chamber, so many hours have I
spent in your study and library, with no one near
us when I could have done this business, and I did
it not; and what is worse, I have added flames to
the fever by assenting and assisting. And though
you were superior to me in your counterfeited
dignity, in wealth, age, and learning ; and although
I was not bound to look after the physicking or
dieting of your soul, yet since you were of so easy
and sweet a temper, as in spite of your grey hairs
to admit me, young as I was, to a familiar inter-
course with you, to say whatever I chose in all
security and secrecy, while you imparted to me your
sorrows and all the calumnies of the other heretics
against you. Like a father, you exhorted me to
walk straight and upright in the royal road, to
follow the steps of the Church, the Councils and
Fathers, and to believe that, where there was a
consensus of these, there could be no stain of false-
hood. This now makes me very angry with myself
for my false modesty or culpable negligence, because
I made no use of so fair an opportunity of recom-
mending the Faith, and applied no bold incentive to
BLESSED EDMUND CAMPION 285
one who was so near to the Kingdom of God, but,
while I enjoyed your favour and renown, I promoted
rather the shadowy notion of my own honour than
your eternal good.
" But as I have no longer the occasion that
I had of persuading you face to face, it remains
that I should send my words to you to witness to
my regard, my care, my anxiety known to Him to
whom I make my daily prayer for your salvation.
Listen, I beseech you, listen to a few words. You
are sixty years old more or less, of uncertain health,
of weakened body, the hatred of heretics, the shame
of Catholics, the talk of the people, the sorrow of
your friends, the laughing-stock of your enemies.
Against your conscience you falsely usu 
