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 vii 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