Preview: "Those Boots are made for Martyrdom": Blessed Everard Hanse

I know that's a pun that not even Scott Hahn should get away with, but in my defense, Father Henry Sebastian Bowden makes a pair of boots the center of his memento of Blessed Everard Hanse, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered on July 31, 1581 at Tyburn Tree. With the title, "Shod for the Gospel", and the verse, "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15) Father Bowden emphasizes that Hanse's foreign made boots led to his imprisonment, trial, and martyrdom.

So on Monday, July 31, we'll discuss the mementoes of Blessed Everard Hanse on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on the air at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here!

Blessed Everard Hanse was born in an Anglican family in Northamptonshire, attended Cambridge University, and was ordained as a Church of England minister with a good living. His brother William had become a Catholic priest in Rheims and returned to England in 1579, hoping to bring Everard to the Catholic Church. As Father Bowden remarks, his brother's arguments weren't as persuasive as an illness Everard suffered: it "placed all things in a new light, and William had the consolation of receiving his brother into the Church." (p. 247)

Everard left England for Rheims, the seminary, and ordination and returned to England in 1581 as a missionary priest. Fatefully, only three months after returning to England, he visited some prisoners in the Marshalsea "when the jailer noticed the foreign make of his boots, and took him before a magistrate."

Father Hanse admitted that he was a Catholic priest and was imprisoned in Newgate. 

In 1581, it was not yet treasonous for an Englishman just to be a Catholic priest in England, so the authorities had to find him guilty of a serious crime to sentence him to death. They did so at his trial, interpreting his statements that the pope had spiritual supremacy over him in England (denying Queen Elizabeth I's spiritual authority over him) and that he wished "all believed the Catholic Faith, as he did himself" (seen as his intention to persuade others to deny the Queen's supremacy and authority in religion) as proof of his treason. So he was sentenced to death and suffered at Tyburn on July 31, 1581.

Father Bowden adds the detail that when Blessed Everard Hanse's heart, cut out of his chest, was cast into the fire, "it leapt repeatedly, as if marking God's approval of his constancy." Bishop Challoner notes that the martyr's last words were "O happy day!"

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on December 29, 1886.

Blessed Everard Hanse, pray for us!

Image Credit (Stained glass from St Edmund's College Ware, used by permission).

The Last Late July Martyr: Blessed Everald Hanse (1581)

Blessed Everald Hanse was born in Northamptonshire; executed 31 July 1581. He was educated at Cambridge, and was soon presented to a good living. His brother William, who had become a priest in April 1579 tried to convert him, but in vain until a sharp attack of illness made him enter into himself. He then went over to Reims in northern France (1580–1581), was ordained and returned but his ministry was very short.

In July he was visiting in disguise some Catholic prisoners in the Marshalsea, when the keeper noticed that his shoes were of a foreign make. He was closely examined, and his priesthood was discovered. As yet there was no law against priests, and to satisfy the hypocritical professions of the persecutors, it was necessary to find some treason of which he was guilty. He was asked in court at the Newgate Sessions, what he thought of the pope's authority, and on his admitting that he believed him "to have the same authority now as he had a hundred years before", he was further asked whether the pope had not erred (i.e. sinned) in declaring queen Elizabeth I Tudor excommunicated, to which he answered, "I hope not." His words were at once written down as his indictment, and when he was further asked whether he wished others to believe as he did, he said "I would have all to believe the Catholic faith as I do." A second count was then added that he desired to make others also traitors like himself. He was at once found guilty of "persuasion" which was high treason by Elizabeth. He was therefore in due course sentenced and executed at Tyburn.

The trial is noteworthy as one of the most extreme cases of verbal treason on record, and it was so badly received that the Government had afterwards to change their methods of obtaining sentences. The martyr's last words were "O happy day!" and his constancy throughout "was a matter of great edification to the good". The Spanish ambassador wrote: "Two nights after his death, there was not a particle of earth on which his blood had been shed, which had not been carried off as a relic."

He was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. As you might recall, Elizabeth I's Parliament did not create the statutes that made the presence of a Catholic priest in England a matter of treason until 1585. When her government came to try St. Edmund Campion and his companions later in 1581, the court had to find them guilty of some conspiracy or another, because the kind of verbal twisting and interpretation they had to do to find Father Hanse guilty did not look good.

Blessed Everald Hanse: Twisted Words

Blessed Everald Hanse was born in Northamptonshire; executed 31 July 1581. He was educated at Cambridge, and was soon presented to a good living. His brother William, who had become a priest in April 1579 tried to convert him, but in vain until a sharp attack of illness made him enter into himself. He then went over to Reims in northern France (1580–1581), was ordained and returned but his ministry was very short.

In July he was visiting in disguise some Catholic prisoners in the Marshalsea, when the keeper noticed that his shoes were of a foreign make. He was closely examined, and his priesthood was discovered. As yet there was no law against priests, and to satisfy the hypocritical professions of the persecutors, it was necessary to find some treason of which he was guilty. He was asked in court at the Newgate Sessions, what he thought of the pope's authority, and on his admitting that he believed him "to have the same authority now as he had a hundred years before", he was further asked whether the pope had not erred (i.e. sinned) in declaring queen Elizabeth I Tudor excommunicated, to which he answered, "I hope not." His words were at once written down as his indictment, and when he was further asked whether he wished others to believe as he did, he said "I would have all to believe the Catholic faith as I do." A second count was then added that he desired to make others also traitors like himself. He was at once found guilty of "persuasion" which was high treason by Elizabeth. He was therefore in due course sentenced and executed at Tyburn.

The trial is noteworthy as one of the most extreme cases of verbal treason on record, and it was so badly received that the Government had afterwards to change their methods of obtaining sentences. The martyr's last words were "O happy day!" and his constancy throughout "was a matter of great edification to the good". The Spanish ambassador wrote: "Two nights after his death, there was not a particle of earth on which his blood had been shed, which had not been carried off as a relic."

He was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. As you might recall, Elizabeth I's Parliament did not create the statutes that made the presence of a Catholic priest in England a matter of treason until 1585. When her government came to try St. Edmund Campion and his companions later in 1581, the court had to find them guilty of some conspiracy or another, because the kind of verbal twisting and interpretation they had to do to find Father Hanse guilty did not look good.