Preview: A Royal Confessor and an Observant Martyr

We'll continue our series on Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's book, Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day in the Year on the Son Rise Morning Show next Monday, May 8 at a little after 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or find the podcast later that day here.

This time we'll feature an exchange of letters between one whom Father Henry Sebastian Bowden terms a Confessor, one who suffered for the faith during the English Reformation but was neither martyred nor considered for canonization, and a martyr, both from the reign of Henry VIII.

The Confessor, who writes to her priestly confessor, is Catherine of Aragon, and the Martyr is Blessed John Forest, her "venerated Father" who would suffer a unique martyrdom. On page 159, in "A Royal Penitent", Queen Catherine writes to the Observant Franciscan Father John Forest because she thinks he will be executed soon for his early and lasting opposition to Henry VIII's plans to have the marriage between himself and Catherine dissolved so he may marry Anne Boleyn. (You might recall that the Observant Franciscans at Greenwich, so associated with the royal family, supported the validity of that marriage from the very beginning of the King's Great Matter. The couple was married at the Observant's chapel at the Royal Palace on June 22, 1509, after all.) 

Queen Catherine had been exiled from Court since 1531 and after Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury had declared her marriage to Henry VIII null and void in May 1533, the king would not allow her any other title than Dowager Princess of Wales, although she continued to refer to herself as the Queen (she had been anointed and crowned Queen of England and Wales on June 24, 1509)! Cranmer also had to declare Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, which had been celebrated before that annulment, was valid.

The dates of this correspondence, which Bowden might have accessed through Don Bede Camm's The Lives of the English Martyrs, are not certain. Bowden does include Camm's work as one of his sources in his Introduction (p. 7). Father John Morris, SJ, who wrote Forest's entry in Camm's book, dates it to sometime in 1534 when Forest was in prison because of his opposition to Henry's actions.

So, perhaps in 1534, by then in Cambridgeshire at either Buckton Towers* or Kimbolton Castle, Queen Catherine of England and Wales wrote her confessor, lamenting that he will die before her, leaving her without his counsel for he was "the man who had taught me the most in divine things." She says she would be willing to suffer "a thousand torments than follow you after a time." She asks for his prayers, for him to "commend me always to God, now and from your place in heaven" and call herself his "most sorrowful daughter." The verse for her entry is Ruth 1:16: "whither thou goest . . ."

Father John Forest answers her from prison that he "was filled with incredible joy" because he "saw how great is your constancy in the faith." He begs her prayers and commends her to Saint Francis of Assisi and especially Saint Catherine of Siena (whose feast we just celebrated at the end of April); especially "when you hear of my execution, I heartily beg of you to pray for me to her. I send to you my rosary, as I have but three days to live." Father Bowden gives his memento the title "One Only Gospel" with the verse from Galatians 1:18 as Forest reminds her to reject any doctrine of "heretics" and remain true to the Church's teaching.

What Bowden does not tell us is that Queen Catherine of England and Wales died before Blessed John Forest after a long illness and much distress that she could not see her daughter Mary before she died (unless she accepted her Dowager title and Mary's illegitimacy), on January 7, 1536 at age 50. She was buried in Peterborough Cathedral on January 29. Her tomb bears the title "Katharine Queen of England", courtesy of Queen Mary of Teck, King George V's consort. The Cathedral holds a festival every January in her honor, with a Catholic Mass celebrated.

According to Camm's book, Forest was released from prison for a time to the Grey Friar Franciscan house near Smithfield until he was finally brought to trial for heresy and burned at the stake on May 22, 1538 at Smithfield. On page 171, on the anniversary of his martyrdom, Bowden remembers him with the title "A Living Holocaust". According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia:

On 22 May following he was taken to Smithfield to be burned. The statue of Saint Derfel which had been brought from the church of Llanderfel in Wales, was thrown on the pile of firewood; and thus, according to popular belief, was fulfilled an old prophecy, that this holy image would set a forest on fire. The holy man's martyrdom lasted two hours, at the end of which the executioners threw him, together with the gibbet on which he hung, into the fire. 

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886.

Blessed John Forest, pray for us! and may the Soul of Queen Catherine of England, rest in peace.

*I think of Catherine of Aragon would be pleased that Buckton Towers is now The Claret Centre, a retreat and conference center, run by the Claretians, with the Church of Saint Hugh of Lincoln on the grounds, and two chapels, one dedicated to Our Lady and the other to Saint Anthony Claret! (She might not be thrilled with the plainness of the church and chapels, however--not quite what she was used to in her era!)