lives of the english martyrs

435 Pages·2008·1.12 MB·English

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
COMPILED AND EDITED BY
DOM BEDE CAMM, O.S.B.
OF EDDINGTON ABBEY
VOLUME I.
MARTYRS UNDER HENRY VIII.
INSERVISSUIS
CONSOLABITURDEUS
Reissue
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
1914
All rights reserved1
1Thispreservesinformationfromtheoriginaltitlepage. Norightsareclaimed
by the transcriber over this work, which is in the public domain in the United
States.
i
.
Nihil Obstat:2
FR. JOANNES CHAPMAN, O.S.B.,
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
IMPRIMATUR:
FRANCIS ARCHIEPUS WESTMONAST
Die 29 Aprilis, 1904.
FirstpublishedbyMessrs.BurnsandOates,1904.
TransferredtoMessrs.
Longmans,GreenandCo.,Jan.,1914
2The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are for the original print edition. While
theintentofthiseditionistoreproducetheoriginalwithoutchangingthetext,
noecclesialapprovalisclaimedforit.
ii
A DEDICATION.
FISHER and More! in you the Church and State
Of England—England of the years gone by—
Her spiritual law, her civil equity,
Twins of one justice, for the last time sate
On equal thrones. ’Twas England’s day of fate:
Ye kenned the omens and stood up to die:
State-rule in Faith, ye knew, means heresy:
That truth ye wrote in blood, and closed debate
By act, not words. A blood as red, as pure,
They shed, that brave Carthusian brotherhood,
St. Bruno’s silent sons. Martyrs! be sure
That o’er the land, thus doubly dyed and dewed,
The Faith your death confessed, shall rise renewed—
A tree of peace for ever to endure.
Aubrey de Vere.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Page
§ I. Beatification......................................... vii
§ II. The History of the Persecution..................... xiii
(1) The Persecutor............................... xiv
(2) Divorce, the turning point.................. xvi
(3) Proceedings in the Divorce.................. xix
(4) Steps toward Schism........................ xxii
(5) Persecuting Statutes........................ xxiv
(6) The fall of the Old Church.................. xxv
(a) The crisis unforeseen................... xxv
(b) And seemed apparently temporary..... xxv
(c) Gallican principles abroad.............. xxvi
(d) Subservience to the Tudors............. xxvii
(7) Periods of Persecution....................... xxvii
(a) The great year of martyrdom........... xxvii
(b) Iconoclastic movement.................. xxix
(c) The acme of Tyranny.................... xxxi
§ III. The Writers of this work............................ xxxiii
§ IV. Authorities.......................................... xxxvi
(a) Original Sources......................... xxxvi
(b) Chronicles and Early Histories......... xxxviii
(c) Modern Histories........................ xxxix
The Decrees of 1886 and 1895 xli
iv
LIVES OF THE MARTYRS
Page
I. BB. John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, and Au-
gustine Webster, Carthusians
Tyburn, May 4, 1535... 1
II. B. John Haile, Secular Priest.
Tyburn, May 4, 1535... 11
III. B. Richard Reynolds, Bridgettine.
Tyburn, May 4, 1535... 18
IV. BB. Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew, and
Sebastian Newdigate, Carthusians.
Tyburn, June 19, 1535... 25
V. B.JohnFisher,BishopofRochesterandCardinal.
Tower Hill, June 19, 1535... 32
VI. B. Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England.
Tower Hill, June 22, 1535... 86
VII. BB. John Rochester and James Walworth, Car-
thusians.
York, May 11, 1537... 176
VIII. B. Thomas Johnson with eight companions and
the Blessed William Horne, Carthusians.
London, June-Sept., 1537, and August 4, 181
1540...
IX. B. John Stone, Augustinian Friar.
Canterbury, May 12, 1538... 189
X. B. John Forest, Observant Franciscan.
Smithfield, May 22, 1538... 193
v
XI. BB. Richard Whiting, Hugh Faringdon, John
Beche and four companions, Benedictines, Glas-
tonbury, Reading, and Colchester.
November 15 and December 1st, 1539... 231
XII. B. Adrian Fortescue, Knight of St. John.
Tower Hill, July 9, 1539... 290
XIII. BB. Thomas Abel, Edward Powell, and Richard
Fetherston, Secular Priests.
Smithfield, July 30, 1540... 324
XIV. B. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
East Smithfield, May 28, 1541... 354
XV. BB.JohnLarke,SecularPriest;andGermanGar-
diner, Layman.
Tyburn, March 7, 1545... 382
TABLE OF WRITERS IN THIS VOLUME
Ed. Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. Nos. II., VI., VIII.,
XI, XIV.
E.S.K. Father Edward S. Keogh, Nos. I., III., IV.,
Cong. Orat. VII., VIII.,
XIV.
J.M. Father John Morris, S.J. Nos. X., XII.
J.H.P. Father John H. Pollen, S.J. Nos. X., XIII.
R.S. Father Richard Stanton, Nos. II., V., IX., XV.
Cong. Orat.
vi
INTRODUCTION
Section I. Beatification.
xi
IN presenting the lives of these English Martyrs to the reader,
it will be useful to point out as briefly as may be, what is meant
by the title “Blessed” which is given to them, and how they came
to receive it.
The Catholic Church venerates the memory and invokes the
aid of those great servants of God who have passed within the
veil, leaving behind them a renown for remarkable sanctity, but
she does not show to them any public honours until their cultus
hasbeensolemnlyapprovedbytheHolySee;inotherwords,until
their reputed virtues and miracles have been subjected to a long
and rigorous examination and have passed through the ordeal
unscathed. Then by a solemn decree the Church proposes these
servants of God to her children as models of heroic virtue and as
powerful intercessors with Him. The process of canonization has
indeed differed at various stages of the Church’s history. In the
earliesttimesitremainedinthepoweroftheBishopsasOrdinar-
ies to pronounce on the cause of those who had lived within their xii
jurisdiction, but it was felt comparatively early that a tribunal
which could not be swayed by local feeling would be at once more
impartial and more authoritative, and from the tenth century we
find this investigation reserved as of right to the Roman Pontiffs.
Alexander III. in 1170 decreed that it was not lawful to honour
any person publicly as a Saint without the consent of the Holy
See.
But the most important legislation on this subject dates from
Urban VIII., who in the year 1634 issued a famous Bull in which
the process of canonization is minutely prescribed. It will be suf-
ficientheretoexplainthatthislongprocess,whichgenerallylasts
a century and more, may be divided into three principal stages.
In the first the Bishop of the diocese, where the servant of God is
honoured, collects evidence by what is called an “Informative” or
“OrdinaryProcess,” inordertosatisfytheHolySeethatthecause
is deserving of attention in the Pope’s own Court. If this is found
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satisfactory at Rome the Pope then issues a decree ordering the
cause of “the venerable servant of God” to be “introduced” before
the Sacred Congregation of Rites. From this point the servant of
God is described as “Venerable” and may be so invoked, but in
private only.
In the second stage, which passes at Rome, a long and strin-
gent examination takes place of the writings (if any exist), of the
virtues, and of the miracles ascribed to the Venerable Servant
xiii of God. The “Postulators” of the cause are those who are ap-
pointed to plead in his favour, the “Promoter of the Faith” (popu-
larly known as the “Devil’s Advocate”) is the official whose duty it
is to point out any flaws or weak points in the evidence adduced.
If the result is favourable the final step is to issue a decree of Be-
atification, which is solemnly promulgated on an appointed day
in the Basilica of St. Peter’s.
The Blessed Servant of God (or Beato) can now be publicly
venerated. But the veneration shown him is limited and partial;
that is to say, his cultus is permitted in a certain country or dio-
cese or religious order, but not throughout the Universal Church.
His picture and relics are allowed to be exposed (in a secondary
place) on the altars of the Church in those parts but not else-
where, and it is only within these limits that the recitation of his
Office and Mass is permitted. The cultus of a canonized saint, on
the other hand, belongs to the Universal Church, and churches
and altars can be freely erected in his honour in any part of the
world.
ForCanonizationfurtherinvestigationsarenecessary. Itmust
be proved that two more miracles have been worked through the
intercession of the Beato3 since the decree of Beatification. When
these have been submitted to a like searching investigation and
xiv declared to be proved, the splendid ceremony of Canonization
can take place, in which the Pope during his solemn Mass, de-
clares and ordains that the servant of God in question shall be
inscribed in the register of the Saints, and that his memory shall
3It will not be necessary that miracles should be worked at the intercession
of each of the 63 Beati. It will be sufficient, for the progress of the cause in
its present stage, if those who ask for graces, beg the intercession of “all the
BlessedandVenerableMartyrsofEngland.”
viii
be celebrated on a given day throughout the Church of God.
Such, in brief, is the process by which the Catholic Church
raises to her altars those who have glorified God by the splen-
dour of their sanctity, and on whose blessed lives and deaths the
seal of the Divine approval has been set by the manifestation of
miraculous signs.
It must not, however, be supposed that this process has been
gone through in the case of the 63 English Martyrs whose lives
form the subject of this work. Every rule has its exceptions, and
here is a case in point. When Urban VIII. completed the legisla-
tion of his predecessors by drawing up the elaborate rules which
have ever since formed the practice of the Church in the procla-
mation of the sanctity of her illustrious children, he made certain
significant and important exceptions. He declared “that he did
not wish to prejudice the case of those servants of God who were
the objects of a cultus arising out of the general consent of the
Church, oranimmemorialcustom, orthewritingsoftheFathers,
or the long and intentional tolerance of the Apostolic See, or the
Ordinary.”
In such cases the Holy See is wont to grant a decree of “equi-
pollent” or equivalent beatification, or as it is sometimes called,
per modum casus excepti; by which she recognizes that the cul-
tusoftheservantofGodinquestionhasalreadybeensufficiently xv
approved of, and that the honours due to a Beato may be freely
granted him.
Such was the procedure adopted in the case of our 63 Blessed
Martyrs.
At first, indeed, it seemed that no exception to rules of Urban
VIII. could be proved in their favour. After many such attempts
had failed, the zeal and perseverance of the late Father Morris,
S.J. (who may justly be called the Apostle of our Martyrs), tri-
umphed over the great difficulties in the way of beginning the
long Process in the usual form. In June, 1874, the late Cardi-
nal Manning, as Ordinary of the diocese of Westminster, formally
opened the Process, and the Court was held with all due formal-
ities, thanks mainly to the zealous co-operation of the Fathers of
the London Oratory. Witnesses as to the lives and fame of the
martyrs were heard, and their depositions, together with a duly
ix
certified copy of the acts of the court, were forwarded to Rome for
examination.
The original Process contained 353 names, and after a delay
of 12 years, the Promoter of the Faith finally assented to the in-
troduction of 309 of these. The remaining 44 are called dilati, as
the introduction of their cause was delayed for further proof as to
martyrdom. They are mainly confessors who died in prison, and
the ground of objection is generally that, though they died there,
it has not been proved that their death was caused by the rigours
of their imprisonment.
xvi While, however, the clients of our martyrs were resigning
themselves to a long and tedious process which promised to last
many years, an unexpected consolation was granted them in the
equipollent beatification of fifty-four of the number.
In the Pontificate of Gregory XIII. a series of frescoes repre-
senting English saints and martyrs were painted in the church
of the English College at Rome, at the expense of George Gilbert,
a gentleman who had been the devoted friend of the Blessed Ed-
mund Campion. To these pictures were added, by permission
of the Pope, others, representing the modern martyrs who suf-
fered under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth between the years 1555
and 1583. These frescoes were painted by Circiniani, the well-
known artist who also depicted the sufferings of the primitive
Christians in a most realistic manner on the walls of San Stefano
Rotondo. Our frescoes had indeed unfortunately perished at the
French Revolution, but happily a book of engravings of them was
brought out with the Pope’s privilege (cumprivilegioGregoriiXIII.),
and it is to this book that we owe the Beatification of Sir Thomas
More and his companions.
The fact that these martyrs were allowed to be represented
on the walls of a church together with canonized saints, was de-
clared to be equivalent to granting them an ecclesiastical cultus,
and to form one of the cases excepted from the decree of Urban
VIII. The title-page of the book speaks of them as “Holy martyrs
who for Christ’s sake and for professing the truth of the Catholic
xvii faith, have suffered death in England both in ancient and more
recent times.” Thus Pope Gregory XIII. had allowed these ser-
vants of God to be honoured as true martyrs for the faith, and
x