Preview: Two Martyrs from Campion's Class of 1581-1582

On Monday, May 22, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time to discuss Father Henry Bowden's "Mementoes" of two martyrs executed on May 28, 1582. Blesseds John Shert and Thomas Ford were among the 20 priests, including St. Edmund Campion, accused of conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I in the fictitious "Rome and Reims" plot.

Please listen live here at about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, or check out the podcast later here.

In 1581, it was not yet Treasonous for an Englishman to return to his native land as a Catholic priest: the 1585 Act Against the Jesuits and the Seminary Priests made it easier to condemn him to death. So when 20 (twenty) priests were arrested in 1581, they had to be charged under existing treason laws. So they were accused of conspiracy, one they'd developed in meetings held in Rome and Reims. Except they hadn't formed any conspiracy, and they testified at trial that they were in England when they were supposed to be in Rome or Reims. Since the guilty verdicts were a foregone conclusion, even after Campion and others had been questioned and tortured, that didn't matter.

On page 175 of  Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors, Father Henry Sebastian Bowden recounts Blessed John Shert's last words at Tyburn on May 28, 1582, with the title "Praise and Thanksgiving" and the verse "Offer to God the Sacrifice of Praise and pay thy vows to the Most High" (Psalm 49:14). Blessed Thomas Ford, who had been captured with Campion at Lyford Grange in Berkshire, was still hanging from Tyburn Tree and Shert exclaimed:

"O happy Thomas! Happy art thou that didst run the happy race! O benedicta anima! O blessed soul, thou art in a good case! Thou blessed soul, pray for me."

When he was rebuked for "praying to the dead", he continued:

"O Blessed Lady, Mother of God, pray for me, and the saints of heaven, pray for me."

Then he made an Act of Thanksgiving:

"O Blessed Lord, to Thee be all honor and praise" and rejoiced that he would die "so happy a death for Thy Sake"!

Then he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. 

As for Blessed Thomas Ford, Bowden provides some insight into the traps the authorities tried to catch him in--to prove the conspiracy--in an entry titled "The Snares of the Pharisees" with the verse "And the Pharisees watched . . . that they might find an accusation against Him " (Luke 6:7) on page 177. 

They wanted him to say that he was in England to enforce Pope Pius V's Bull Regnans in Excelsis and further the efforts of the Northern Rebellion. He answered them:

. . .  He could not reply as to the legality of the bull of Pius V against Elizabeth, as he was not privy to its circumstances . . .

. . . As to the pope's authorization of the Northern Rebellion, being a private subject, he cannot answer . . .

As Bowden notes, this questioning "was a mere pretext, and Fr. Ford saw through the device . . ."

He, like Saint John Henry Newman centuries later, was a graduate of Trinity College at the University of Oxford. As Bowden notes, Ford began to express "Catholic sympathies," and he "abjured Protestantism and went to Douay" in 1570, and returned to England in 1576. Blessed John Shert was also an Oxford man, earning his degree from Brasenose College. The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this brief outline:

Successively schoolmaster in London, and servant to Dr. Thomas Stapleton at Douai, he entered the seminary in 1576, and was ordained subdeacon. He was ordained priest from the English College, Rome, of which he was the senior of the first six scholars. He left Reims for England 27 August, 1579, and was sent to the Tower 14 July 1581.

Along with Blessed John Shert and Thomas Ford, Blessed Robert Johnson was also executed at Tyburn on May 28. 1582. Father Bowden provides a memento of his martyrdom on page 169: Father Johnson began to pray in Latin and was admonished to "Pray as Christ taught." He replied, "Do you think Christ taught in English?"

The spirit of the martyrs! Keeping their wits about them and being witty too!

Blessed John Shert, pray for us!

Blessed Thomas Ford, pray for us!

Blessed Robert Johnson, pray for us!

Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of Blessed Thomas Ford in The English Convent in Bruges (NB: the long wound on his chest and the knife protruding, signifying that he was disemboweled at his execution.)