Saint Thomas de Cantilupe and the Pope Who Canonized Him

Today is the feast of St. Thomas de Cantilupe or St. Thomas of Hereford. The Once I Was a Clever Boy blog has an excellent post on his life and on the veneration of his shrine in the Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Ethelbert the King (dating from the 11th to 13th centuries), and of course the destruction of his shrine during the English Reformation. From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica comes this biography:

(c. 1218–1282), English saint and prelate, was a son of William de Cantilupe, the 2nd baron (d. 1251), one of King John’s ministers, and a nephew of Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester. He was educated at Paris and Orleans, afterwards becoming a teacher of canon law at Oxford and chancellor of the university in 1262. During the Barons’ War Thomas favoured Simon de Montfort and the baronial party. He represented the barons before St Louis of France at Amiens in 1264; he was made chancellor of England in February 1265, but was deprived of this office after Montfort’s death at Evesham, and lived out of England for some time. Returning to England, he was again chancellor of Oxford University, lectured on theology, and held several ecclesiastical appointments. In 1274 he attended the second council of Lyons, and in 1275 he was appointed bishop of Hereford. Cantilupe was now a trusted adviser of Edward I.; he attended the royal councils, and even when differing from the king did not forfeit his favour. The archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby, was also his friend; but after Kilwardby’s death in 1279 a series of disputes arose between the bishop and the new archbishop, John Peckham, and this was probably the cause which drove Cantilupe to visit Italy. He died at Orvieto, on the 25th of August 1282, and he was canonized in 1330. Cantilupe appears to have been an exemplary bishop both in spiritual and secular affairs. His charities were large and his private life blameless; he was constantly visiting his diocese, correcting offenders and discharging other episcopal duties; and he compelled neighbouring landholders to restore estates which rightly belonged to the see of Hereford. In 1905 the Cantilupe Society was founded to publish the episcopal registers of Hereford, of which Cantilupe’s is the first in existence.

But what piqued my interest was the name of the pope who canonized him on April 17, 1320: Pope John XXII (Jacques Duèze or d'Euse), an Avignon pope. According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, he was:

Born at Cahors in 1249; enthroned, 5 September, 1316; died at Avignon, 4 December, 1334. He received his early education from the Dominicans in his native town, and later studied theology and law at Montpellier and Paris. He then taught both canon and civil law at Toulouse and Cahors, came into close relations with Charles II of Naples, and on his recommendation was made Bishop of Frejus in 1300. In 1309 he was appointed chancellor of Charles II, and in 1310 was transferred to the See of Avignon. He delivered legal opinions favourable to the suppression of the Templars, but he also defended Boniface VIII and the Bull "Unam Sanctam". On 23 December, 1312, Clement V made him Cardinal-Bishop of Porto. After the death of Clement V (20 April, 1314) the Holy See was vacant for two years and three and a half months. The cardinals assembled in Carpentras for the election of a pope were divided into two violent factions, and could come to no agreement. The electoral college was composed of eight Italian cardinals, ten from Gascony, three from Provence, and three from other parts of France. After many weeks of unprofitable discussion as to where the conclave should be held, the electoral assembly was entirely dissolved. Ineffectual were the efforts of several princes to induce the cardinals to undertake an election: neither party would yield. After his coronation Philip V of France was finally able to assemble a conclave of twenty-three cardinals in the Dominican monastery at Lyons on 26 June, 1316, and on 7 August, Jacques, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto, was chosen pope. After his coronation at Lyons on 5 September as John XXII, the pope set out for Avignon, where he fixed his residence.

The reason Pope John XXII's reign interests me is because there is a connection to the English Reformation. When Pope John XXII suppressed the Franciscan Spirituals or Fraticelli the Franciscan philosopher William of Ockham protested against what he thought was Papal tyranny. As this website explains:

During the thirteenth century several popes had intervened in these controversies [about poverty and property], generally to support the Franciscans against their critics. Pope John XXII, however, intervened drastically on the other side. In several decretals issued between 1322 and 1324 he decreed that the Franciscans must themselves become the legal owners of the property they used and appeared to condemn as heresy the Franciscan doctrine that Christ and the Apostles had owned no property. Initially, Ockham steered away from active involvement in this conflict. But when ordered to read the relevant documents by his superiors in the Order, brother William came to the reluctant yet firm conclusion that John XXII had himself become a heretic. Most members of the Franciscan Order submitted to the Pope's decrees, but in 1328 the head of the Order (Michael of Cesena) and several others including William of Ockham broke with John XXII and eventually sought the protection of the "Roman Emperor", Ludwig of Bavaria, who was already in dispute with John XXII. (The pope claimed that no one could become Roman Emperor without the pope's approval and had excommunicated Ludwig for exercising imperial powers without approval; Ludwig had been elected by a majority of the Electors of the Empire and had defeated the other candidate in battle.) For most of the rest of his life Ockham lived in Munich (Ludwig's city), out of the pope's reach. There he produced various writings against John XXII and Benedict XII, including:

• The Work of Ninety Days, a large work (about 600 pages in the modern edition) in which Ockham reports the answers made by the dissident Franciscans to John XXII's answer to Michael of Cesena's criticisms of John's decrees relating to the Franciscan life. (translation: electronic edition, printed edition).
  
• A Letter to the Friars Minor, addressed to the 1334 general meeting of the Franciscan Order (i.e. of those who had submitted to the pope), explaining why he was not with them.
  
• Against Benedict, against the pope who succeeded John XXII when he died.
  
• Eight Questions on the Power of the Pope, reporting and comparing various opinions on the powers of the pope in relation to the Roman Empire.
  
• A short discourse on the tyrannical government over things divine and human, but especially over the Empire and those subject to the Empire, usurped by some who are called Highest Pontiffs [i.e. Popes].
  
• On the Power of Emperors and Pontiffs. This little treatise, written in the final months of Ockham's life, was a kind of "apologia" for his religious and political anti-papal activism.

So what's the connection to the English Reformation? About six years ago, a collection of William of Ockham's works was found in the library at Lanhydrock in Cornwall, and researchers found annotations in the book that referenced texts that supported Henry VIII's efforts to establish his own authority over spiritual matters in England over the the pope's (at that time Clement VII). As this post on the Discover Britain website describes the discovery in 2015:

Dated 1495, the book is a summary of works by philosopher and theologian William of Ockham who was a major figure in medieval intellectual and political thought.

To help Henry VIII to gather evidence to support an annulment to his marriage, his agents scoured the country for texts such as Ockham’s which questioned the authority of the Pope and argued for the independence of the monarch.

The book at Lanhydrock contains marginal notes and marks which were made by Henry VIII’s secretarial staff to draw his attention to relevant passages.

The book has been at Lanhydrock for many years, but its direct connection to the Royal library was not known until Professor James Carley, an expert on the libraries of Henry VIII, was invited to examine some of the volumes in Lanhydrock’s collection.

Because William of Ockham thought that Pope John XXII (and his successor) had interfered in the Franciscan order and Ockham had appealed to Ludwig of Bavaria, Henry VIII's advisors found support for their monarch's authority in Ockham's works against the pope in the matter of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Saint Thomas of Hereford, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): 1656 drawing by William Dugdale of ancient (13th. century?) stained glass windows then existing in the Church of St James the Great, Snitterfield, Warwickshire, showing a standing figure of Saint Thomas de Cantilupe (1220-1282), Bishop of Hereford

Image Credit (Public Domain): Unknown century 13th - Archives iconographiques du palais du Roure à Avignon

This Morning: Saints Jones and Wall

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss Saints John Jones and John Wall.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

And please note that next Monday we'll be taking a day off for Labor Day! We'll continue the series on September 14.

Although Saints Jones and Wall are the only Franciscans among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, there are several Blessed Franciscan martyrs: Blessed John Forest during the reign of Henry VIII, Blessed Thomas Palaser during Elizabeth I's reign, and Blesseds Thomas Bullaker, Henry Heath, Francis Bell and John Woodcock in the Commonwealth Interregnum of 1642 to 1646. As the Order of Friars Minor in Great Britain website reminds us: "Several other Friars died in prison and many more suffered periods of imprisonment in serving the Catholic population of England during the penal years."

Preview: Two Franciscan Martyrs of the Forty

We've been going through the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales chronologically in our series on the Son Rise Morning Show but on Monday, August 31, we'll deviate a little from that order because these two Franciscan martyrs are honored together on their order's sanctoral calendar each July 12 (with several blessed martyrs and other confessors of the order in England). In the list of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, they are known by their aliases as missionaries in England: Saints John Jones and John Wall. Among Franciscans, they are also known as Saint Godfrey or Geoffrey Maurice Jones and Saint Joachim of St Anna. (Anna Mitchell ought to appreciate that!)

You'll have to remember that the religious orders in England were suppressed by Henry VIII, some briefly restored during Mary I's reign, and those suppressed again by Elizabeth I.

The first of these two saints, Godfrey Maurice Jones (alias John Jones) began his religious life as a Franciscan during Mary I's reign and was martyred during Elizabeth I's. Born in Wales (thus one of the six Welsh martyrs among the 40), he joined the Franciscans in England during the reign of Mary I, then went into exile, completed his novitiate, was ordained and returned to England as a missionary priest:

Towards 1590 John was sent to the friary of Ara Coeli in Rome, the general headquarters of the Order. From there he wished to return to England to take part in the mission to care for faithful Catholics, who risked their livelihoods and often their lives to sustain their missionary priests. The priests themselves were subject to the gruesome death of hanging, drawing and quartering as traitors for the simple fact of exercising their priesthood. John begged an audience with the Pope and Clement VIII embraced him, gave him a solemn blessing and told him: “Go, because I believe you to be a true son of Saint Francis. Pray to God for me and for his holy Church."

In England John Jones exercised an heroic hidden ministry, animating the Catholic faith among recusants and prudently seeking to reconcile those who had submitted to Elizabeth's Church of England. The existence of a missionary priest in England was one of frequent moves, constant vigilance and continued flight from Elizabeth's vigilant secret services, supervised by William Cecil and Francis Walsingham.

And here's that man again, Richard Topcliffe:

Despite his care, John Jones was caught in late 1595 or early 1596 by Richard Topcliffe, who nurtured a cruel hatred for the Catholic faith and was sanctioned by the Queen to maintain a private torture chamber in his house for the Catholic priests he apprehended. John Jones was accused of being a spy and sent to the notorious Clink prison, from which we derive the expression “being in clink”. There he languished for nigh on two years awaiting trial. In prison Jones continued his ministry and converted many, including Saint John Rigby, who was himself martyred two years after John Jones (on 21st June 1600).

On 3rd July 1598 John Jones was finally brought to trial for having exercised his ministry as a Catholic priest in England. He was sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering at Saint Thomas Watering, but was meanwhile imprisoned at Marshalsea prison. The Jesuit Henry Garnet recounts in a letter that on 12th July 1598 John was tied to a trellis and dragged to the place of his torment. He was held there for an hour before execution during which time Topcliffe harangued the crowd with his supposed crimes. Garnet recounts that the crowd was touched more by John's prayers than by the calumnies of his torturer and executioner. His remains were hung up on the road between Newington and Lambeth.

He shares his feast with a Popish Plot Martyr, St. John Wall. This website (Roman Catholic Saints) uses his name in religion (and St. John Jones's) to tell his story:

John Wall, in religion Father Joachim of St Anna, was the fourth son of Anthony Wall of Chingle (Singleton) Hall, Lancashire. He was born in 1620, and when very young, was sent to the English College at Douai. From there he proceeded to Rome, where he was raised to the priesthood in 1648. Several years later he returned to Douai and was clothed in the habit of St Francis in the convent of St Bonaventure. He made his solemn profession on January 1, 1652. So great was the estimation in which he was held by his brethren, that within a few months he was elected vicar of the convent, and soon after, master of novices.

In 1656 Father Joachim of St Anna joined the English mission, and for 12 years he labored on Worcestershire under the names of Francis Johnson or Webb, winning souls even more by his example than by his words. At Harvington to this day the memory of Blessed Father Johnson is cherished, and stories of his heroic zeal are recounted by the descendants of those who were privileged to know and love the glorious martyr.

Some of the charges raised against Father Wall when he was captured, were that he had said Mass, heard confessions, and received converts into the Church. He was accidentally found, in December 1678, at the house of a friend, Mr Finch of Rushock, and carried off by the sheriff's officer. He was committed to Worchester (sic) jail, and lay captive for five months, enduring patiently all the loneliness, suffering, and horrors of prison life, which at that time were scarcely less dreadful than death itself.

The Franciscan website makes his entanglement with the Popish Plot clear:

He remained there for 22 years ministering to the Catholics of the area. In 1678 he went to London to meet the Jesuit Claude de la Colombière, and the two spoke together of their desire for martyrdom. The context of this meeting was the renewed persecution that was unleashed in the wake of the incriminating lies of Titus Oates and his invented Catholic plot against King Charles II. 

Returning from this encounter, John was staying with a friend in Rushock Court. There he was mistaken for one of the so-called plotters, Francis Johnson, and arrested. . . . .

Back to the Roman Catholic Saints website:

One of Father Wall's brethren in religion, Father William Levison, has the privilege of seeing the martyr for the space of four or five hours on the day before his execution. Father William tells us:

"I heard his confession and communicated him, to his great joy and satisfaction. While in prison he carried himself like a true servant of his crucified Master, thirsting after nothing more than the shedding of his blood for the love of his God, which he performed with a courage and cheerfulness becoming a valiant soldier of Christ, to the great edification of all the Catholics, and admiration of all the Protestants."

Father Wall's martyrdom took place on Red Hill, overlooking the city of Worcester, on August 22, 1679. His head was kept in the convent at Douai until the French Revolution broke out and the community fled to England. What became of it, then, is not known.

Saint John Jones, pray for us!

Saint John Wall, pray for us!

Top image credit: Used by permission of the webmaster: A stained glass depiction of Franciscan Saints above the high altar [at the former Chilworth Friary of the Holy Ghost]: at the extreme left is Blessed John Jones, at the extreme right Blessed John Wall (also known as Joachim of St Anne), both of whom are now canonised Saints.

An OFM Martyr in 1643

From the website of the OFM (Order of Friars Minor aka Franciscans) in Great Britain:

Henry Heath was born to Anglican parents in Peterborough. He undertook university studies in Cambridge where he was noted for his piety and perspicacity in religious matters. After gaining his degree he was appointed University Librarian which gave him the opportunity to read Catholic and Protestant authors on the matters of greatest concern to his faith. His reading of the Church Fathers led him to seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

He then moved to London and on to Douai in Flanders. There he met the friars of the Province of England who had opened St. Bonaventure College and Friary there in 1618. He asked to join the friars. The founder of the college and Provincial Commissary John Gennings, was understandably wary about accepting him. Henry was a recent convert and the English secret service was apt to use pretend converts to gain information on those training for the mission. Henry convinced Gennings of the authenticity of his faith and so was admitted to the novitiate in 1623 or 1624 at the age of 24. He was given the name Paul of St. Magadelene. His penitential life of fasting and extended contemplation gained him the respect of his confreres and he was known for his devotion to the crucified Jesus and his holy Mother. He was ordained a priest and became in turn Guardian, Novice Master, a lecturer in theology known for his Scotism, then Provincial Commissary of Flanders where he promoted the Recollect reform.

When persecution broke out once more in England, after the defeat of Charles I in the English Civil War, he asked to return home to support his suffering brothers and compatriots. At London he was mistaken for a criminal and arrested but when it was discovered that he was a priest he was condemned to death and confined in Newgate prison. There he continued to give consolation to his Catholic compatriots and heard confessions until on 17th April 1643 he was led to Tyburn and hanged. As he was led to the scaffold the prayer heard on his lips was: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”.

This website has an additional detail (and is also the source of the portrait above):

There is a beautiful story relating to the martyrdom of Blessed Henry Heath. Several years previously, his aged father, John, visited him in Douai. So impressed was he that he not only converted to Catholicism but decided to remain at Douai as a lay brother. On the day of his son’s martyrdom, he saw a brilliant light ascending to Heaven and he knew at that moment that his son had paid the ultimate price. His premonition was proved some time later when the reports reached Douai of Heath’s death.

Henry Heath was beatified along with 84 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II. Read even more here about this brave martyr.

The Mendicant Orders and Italian Art in Nashville

Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy will be on exhibition at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee until January 25, 2015:

Beginning in the early thirteenth century, Italy was transformed by two innovative new religious orders known as the Dominicans, founded by Saint Dominic of Caleruega (1170–1221; canonized 1234), and the Franciscans, founded by Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226; canonized 1228). Whereas earlier religious orders, such as the Benedictines, had cloistered themselves in rural monasteries and lived off income from their property, the Dominicans and Franciscans settled in Italy’s growing cities and lived as mendicants, or beggars, who preached to laymen and women. When Francis and Dominic met in Rome in 1216, they recognized one another as brothers and embraced.

Both orders took a vow of poverty, but soon after the deaths of their founders they were building churches that rivaled cathedrals in size and splendor throughout Italy. With financial assistance from city governments, popes, and the laity, Dominican and Franciscan churches were constructed and filled with altarpieces, crucifixes, fresco cycles, illuminated manuscripts, and liturgical objects. Art became integral to the missions of these orders. Many works are narrative scenes focusing on the Dominican and Franciscan saints whose miracles sanctified contemporary Italian life.

This exhibition is the first to highlight the significant role played by the two major mendicant orders in the great flowering of art in Italy in the period 1200 to 1550. With works drawn from libraries and museums in the United States and the Vatican, it compares and contrasts ways the Dominicans and Franciscans employed art as propaganda and as didactic tools for themselves and their lay followers.

The book accompanying the exhibition is available here.

Shakespeare's Friars

Ken Colston writes about Shakespeare's Franciscan Friars in Homiletic & Pastoral Review:

Like the present Holy Father, William Shakespeare channeled an “inner Franciscan.” Despite Elizabethan persecution of Roman Catholics, the dramatic genius—who, according to Harold Bloom, invented the human personality—gave several pivotal roles to characters from an order that had virtually disappeared from England several generations earlier during Henry VIII’s first dissolution of the monasteries. These characters, while not leading protagonists, were much more than bit parts. Shakespeare took a political risk in overtly portraying them in their traditional garb onstage, where the royal censor, the Master of the Revels, might well have objected, demanded their removal, and even prosecuted the playwright’s company. What reasons, dramaturgical, political, or religious, might have led Shakespeare to take such a risk to his livelihood and person?

Using the example of Friar Laurence from Romeo and Juliet, Colston states:

Shakespeare may have had not just traditional Catholic leanings, but also personal memories behind his portrayal of Friar Laurence. Heinrich Mutschmann and Karl Wentersdorf suggest that Fr. Frist, the Roman Catholic priest of Temple Grafton (the likely venue of Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway), was the biographical model for Friar Laurence. Frist was also interested in medicine and healing, and the famously rushed marriage that he would have performed for the Warwickshire couple was by license rather than by the usual banns. A second personal Catholic association may also loom in Shakespeare’s memory in forming the Church regular. In Shakespeare’s home county of Warwickshire, a religious community, called the Guild of St. Anne, flourished prior to the Reformation. Its registry contains 16 brothers and sisters named Shakespeare, one of which was an abbess, Isabella, who bears the name of the Poor Clare heroine of Measure for Measure. Isabella Shakespeare may have been an aunt of William, the poet.

After discussing other Franciscan friars in Shakespeare's plays Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, Colston asks a couple of questions and draws some conclusions:

What can we conclude from Shakespeare’s use of these 10 followers of the via Franciscana?  First, he departs from the satirical tradition, both Catholic and Reformed, with universally sympathetic portrayals of Franciscans. He associates the Poor Clares with austerity, the friars with prudence and cunning. In fact, the friars operate somewhat in the reputed manner of Jesuits with their shadowy access to powerful aristocratic families, their confessional exactitude, and their deceptive tactics.  Second, in all three plays in which they have major roles, they take extraordinary means to move couples, and indeed, the entire small world of the drama, toward holy matrimony, which is seen as a means of reconciling conflicts, both between families and within the hearts of characters. Marriage resolves social enmities and the inner war between flesh and spirit. Third, the friars are instruments of moderation, wisdom, and peace; they know canon law with respect to marriage and confession; they move far more freely onstage than they did in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, where they were banned, persecuted, and pursued. Fourth, since they are the only order of regulars specifically depicted in the Shakespearean canon, and, except for the churchmen in the history plays, the only identifiable Roman Catholic characters, they are a strong clue to Shakespeare’s friendly feelings toward that bane of Elizabethan-Jacobean political rule, Roman Catholicism. He is unique among playwrights of the time in presenting in a positive light, and in the daylight exposure of a universally recognized habit, the dread enemy of the realm, the whore of Babylon, in a dangerous, even suspect, public space.  

So, why, then, Franciscans, and why such positive roles, on a stage where Catholic clergy would be so suspect, even threatening to the court?  First, dramaturgically, a Franciscan would be quickly, easily, and inexpensively identified by his simple habit. Second, popular respect for Franciscans as close followers of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience must have persisted in the popular imagination despite the centuries-old anti-fraternal tradition—obedience to moral authority, not power, being the emphasis. Third, as an order quasi-independent of the hierarchy, the Franciscans would not have been necessarily associated with the hypocrisy, corruption, venality, and thirst for power of the papacy feared and hated by the English court.  Fourth, Shakespeare, the consummate dramatist, sensed that the serious, even sacral theme of marriage as an instrument of peace could be reinforced by a highly visible “objective correlative,” to use T.S. Eliot’s term, of characters in religious habit independent enough of the hierarchical Church to not threaten Protestants and, yet, also representative of the best in traditional Catholicism. Dominicans were also associated with Spain and the Inquisition; Jesuits, also having a Spanish founder, also implicated in treason; the other orders, too obscure. While Franciscans come ready made in Shakespeare’s source material, he probably saw them immediately as robed crowd pleasers, even as Cardinal Bergoglio intuited their popularity on the anti-clerical world stage.

Read the rest here.

St. John Jones in "The Catholic Herald"

The Catholic Herald features St John Jones, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, in their latest issue. And he was from Wales, a Franciscan Friar who began his vocation during the reign of Mary I at Greenwich, went to the Continent and returned as a missionary priest:

John arrived in London towards the end of 1592 and laboured in different parts of the country. His brother Franciscans elected him their minister provincial.

In 1596 a spy told the priest-catcher Richard Topcliffe that John had visited two Catholics and celebrated Mass in their home. Although it was later revealed that the two Catholics were in prison at the time the Mass was alleged to have been celebrated, John was arrested, scourged and tortured. He was then imprisoned for two years.

On July 3 1598, John was tried on the charge of “going over the seas in the first year of Her Majesty’s reign [1558] and there being made a priest by the authority from Rome and then returning to England contrary to statute”. He was convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

His execution was delayed by an hour because his executioner forgot to bring the rope. He used the spare time to preach to the crowd and answer their questions. He was executed on what is now the Old Kent Road in south-east London. His dismembered body parts were fixed on top of poles on roads leading to Newington and Lambeth.

While he was imprisoned for two years, St. John Jones was able to help sustain the faith of St. John Rigby, a layman who had, while representing the daughter of his employer, confessed his own Catholic faith to authorities. Rigby was executed at St. Thomas Waterings, on the Old Kent Road (on the way to Canterbury) on June 21, 1600. The Franciscans of the Province in England remember several other martyrs on this date: St. John Wall, Blessed Thomas Bullaker, Blessed Henry Heath, Blessed Arthur Bell, Blessed John Woodcock, and Blessed Charles Meehan-Mahoney.

Image credit: Used by permission of the webmaster: A stained glass depiction of Franciscan Saints above the high altar [at the former Chilworth Friary of the Holy Ghost]: at the extreme left is Blessed John Jones, at the extreme right Blessed John Wall (also known as Joachim of St Anne), both of whom are now canonised Saints.

From the Cambridge Lessons and Carols Yesterday

After the Annunciation reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke, the Choir of King's College Cambridge sang this happy hymn:

1. Angelus ad virginem
Subintrans in conclave.
Virginis formidinum
Demulcens inquit "Ave."
Ave regina virginum,
Coeliteraeque dominum
Concipies
Et paries
Intacta,
Salutem hominum.
Tu porta coeli facta
Medella criminum.

2. Quomodo conciperem,
quae virum non cognovi?
Qualiter infringerem,
quae firma mente vovi?
'Spiritus sancti gratia
Perficiet haec omnia;
Ne timaes,
sed gaudeas,
secura,
quod castimonia
Manebit in te pura
Dei potentia.'

3. Ad haec virgo nobilis
Respondens inquit ei;
Ancilla sum humilis
Omnipotentis Dei.
Tibi coelesti nuntio,
Tanta secreti conscio,
Consentiens
Et cupiens
Videre
factum quod audio,
Parata sum parere
Dei consilio.

4. Angelus disparuit
Etstatim puellaris
Uterus intumuit
Vi partus salutaris.
Qui, circumdatus utero
Novem mensium numero,
Hinc Exiit
Et iniit
Conflictum,
Affigens humero
Crucem, qua dedit ictum
Hosti mortifero.

5. Eia Mater Domini,
Quae pacem reddidisti
Angelis et homini,
Cum Christum genuisti;
Tuem exora filium
Ut se nobis propitium
Exhibeat,
Et deleat
Peccata;
Praestans auxilium
Vita frui beta
Post hoc exsilium.

This site gives some background:

The cheerfully sounding song about the Annunciation, Angelus ad Virginem or, in its English form, Gabriel, From Heven King Was To The Maide Sende, was a popular Medieval carol that is still popular today. The text of this song is a poetic version of Hail Mary, full of dramatic tension and theological profundity.

It appeared in an Dublin Troper (c. 1361, a music book for use at Mass) and was found in a Sequentiale (Vellum manuscript, 13th or 14th century), possibly connected with the Church of Addle, Yorks. This lyric also appears in the works of John Audelay, in a group of four Marian poems. Audelay may have been a priest; he spent the last years of his life at Haghmond, an Augustinian abbey, and wrote for the monks there.

It is said to have originally consisted of 27 stanzas, with each following stanza beginning with the consecutive letter of the alphabet.

Chaucer mentions it in his Miller's Tale, where poor scholar Nicholas sang it in Latin to the accompaniment of his psaltery:

And over all there lay a psaltery
Whereon he made an evening's melody,
Playing so sweetly that the chamber rang;
And Angelus ad virginem he sang;
And after that he warbled the King's Note:
Often in good voice was his merry throat.

Both the Oxford Book of Carols and, especially, the New Oxford Book of Carols contain musical settings and additional historical notes.

In addition to the translations provided, there is the translation by John Macleod Campbell Crum, 1932, which is reproduced as #547 in Hymn Ancient & Modern, Revised.

The site also notes:

The carol was probably Franciscan in original and brought to Britain by French friars in the 13th century. There is a 14th Irish source for the latin version and, from the same period, a middle-English version which begins:

Gabriel fram Heven-King / Sent to the Maide sweete,
Broute hir blisful tiding / And fair he gan hir greete:
'Heil be thu, ful of grace aright! / For Godes Son, this Heven Light,
For mannes love / Will man bicome /And take / Fles of thee,
Maide bright, / Manken free for to make / Of sen and devles might.'

July 12: Martyrs, A Wedding, and Battles in Ireland

July 12 offers three themes for this blog:

Martyrs:

The Franciscans honor their martyrs during the English Reformation: St. John Jones and St. John Wall, and Blesseds Arthur Bell, John Woodcock, and Charles Meehan-Mahoney--their Franciscan memorial date determined by St. John Jones' date of execution in 1598. (And although his memorial is on May 22, I can't leave out Blessed John Forest from this honor roll). Just like the Benedictines yesterday, the Franciscans have martyrs from all three eras: Supremacy, Recusant, and Popish Plot.

A Wedding:

On July 12, 1543, Henry VIII married for the sixth and last time--and his bride was Catherine Parr. This was her third of four marriages, as she married Thomas Seymour after Henry's death in 1547. She had previously been married to Edward Borough and John Neville, Lord Latimer. While married to John Neville she was held hostage in Yorkshire during the Pilgrimage of Grace. His death left her a wealthy widow. Henry VIII noticed her in the household of his daughter Mary. Although she was interested in wedding Thomas Seymour, she thought it prudent to accept the king's proposal!

Battles in Ireland:

While the dates have been under contention, because of the rivalry between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars in the Protestant and Catholic countries of Europe, the Orange Army in on the march today with their annual parades, celebrating the Battle of the Boyne and the Battle at Aughrim and the defeat of James II by William (of William and Mary).

After these decisive victories in Ireland, and the Jacobite surrender of the seige of Limerick, more punitive Penal Laws were passed against Irish Catholics, including, but limited to:

~Exclusion of Catholics from most public offices (since 1607)
~Ban on intermarriage with Protestants; repealed 1778
~Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces (rescinded by Militia Act of 1793)
~Exclusion from the legal professions and the judiciary; repealed (respectively) 1793 and 1829.
~Education Act 1695 – ban on foreign education; repealed 1782.
~Bar to Catholics entering Trinity College Dublin; repealed 1793.
~On a death by a Catholic, his legatee could benefit by conversion to the Church of Ireland;
~Popery Act – Catholic inheritances of land were to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons with the exception that if the eldest son and heir converted to Protestantism that he would become the one and only tenant of estate and portions for other children not to exceed one third of the estate. This "Gavelkind" system had previously been abolished by 1600.
~Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism on pain of Praemunire: forfeiting all property estates and legacy to the monarch of the time and remaining in prison at the monarch's pleasure. In addition, forfeiting the monarch's protection. No injury however atrocious could have any action brought against it or any reparation for such.
~Ban on Catholics buying land under a lease of more than 31 years; repealed 1778.
~Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics on pain of 500 pounds that was to be donated to the Blue Coat hospital in Dublin.
~Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land
~Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority's hands)
~Roman Catholic lay priests had to register to preach under the Registration Act 1704, but seminary priests and Bishops were not able to do so until 1778
~When allowed, new Catholic churches were to be built from wood, not stone, and away from main roads. [Easier to burn down?]
~'No person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm' upon pain of twenty pounds fine and three months in prison for every such offence. Repealed in 1782.
~Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.

A Popish Plot Franciscan Martyr: St. John Wall

The Francisan Province of Great Britain celebrates all their martyrs on July 12 (the date of St. John Jones' martyrdom), but St. John Wall was martyred on August 22, 1679--at the center of the "Popish Plot" even though he was not a Jesuit, Oates' main targets:

John Wall was born in 1620, probably at Chingle Hall, near Preston in Lancashire. As a young man he entered the English College in Douai where he was taught by the famous Dr. Kellison. In 1641 he transferred to the English College in Rome, where he was ordained a priest in 1645. After a brief spell as a missionary in England he returned to Douai and asked to enter the Franciscan College of St. Bonaventure which John Gennings had erected there in his restoration of the Franciscan Province of England. In January 1651 he was accepted into the Order and took the name Joachim of St. Anne. Five friars from that friary had already been martyred.

John Joachim, although only 6 months professed was appointed Guardian of the college and later Master of Novices. In 1656 he assumed the false name Francis Webb and re-entered England as a missionary in Worcestershire. He remained there for 22 years ministering to the Catholics of the area. In 1678 he went to London to meet the Jesuit Claude de la Colombière, and the two spoke together of their desire for martyrdom. The context of this meeting was the renewed persecution that was unleashed in the wake of the murderous lies of Titus Oates and his invented Catholic plot against King Charles II.

Returning from this encounter, John was staying with a friend in Rushock Court. There he was mistaken for one of the so-called plotters, Francis Johnson, and arrested. When he refused to swear to the religious supremacy of the King, he was imprisoned for five months of dreadful suffering. At the end of this time, on 25th April 1679, he was condemned to death for high treason, since he was a priest who had been ordained abroad and returned to exercise his ministry in contravention to the Elizabethan anti-Catholic laws. He argued in vain that Charles II's amnesty of 1660 should have covered him, as indeed it should. Instead he was sent to London to be interrogated by Oates, Bedloe, Dugdale and Pranse. He was found innocent of the accusation of complicity in the “Papist Plot” but because of his priestly ordination and ministry, his death sentence was nevertheless confirmed and he was sent back to Worcester, where he was hanged on 22nd August 1679.

His fellow friar William Leveson, whose own brother Francis Leveson would himself be martyred at the age of 34 in 1680, looked after John Wall in his last days in prison. He recounted the condemnation and death of the martyr in a letter. John Wall's body was buried in the cemetery of the church of St. Oswald in Worcester, and his head returned to Douai, where it was venerated as a holy relic.

Along with John Jones and 38 other English martyrs John Wall was beatified by Pius XI on 15th December 1929 and canonised by Paul VI on 25th October 1970.

According to this website, St. John Wall used Harvington Hall as a base of operations.The Hall, parts of which are open to the public (owned by the Archdiocese of Birmingham), is well known for the "priest hides" built there by Saint Nicholas Owen, Jesuit lay brother and martyr.

Three Lancashire Martyrs under the Commonwealth

Blessed John (Martin) Woodcock (1603 – 1646):  John Woodcock was born to a “Church Papist” Anglican Father in 1603 at Woodcock Hall in Lancashire. He was sent to Saint Omer to study with the Jesuits there and after finishing his humanities studies he was sent to Rome to complete his theological formation. There he no doubt met the Irish Franciscans who took over at the College of St. Isidore in the same year. He asked to enter the Capuchins but was dismissed from their novitiate after a few months, perhaps because of precarious health. He wandered around Europe aimlessly for three years until he arrived in Douai. There his desire to be a Franciscan was realised when he entered the novitiate of the Friars Minor in 1631. He was given the name Martin of St. Felix and made great progress both in his studies and in sanctity. He was ordained a priest just four years later in 1635. he went to England on the mission but, after a few years, was forced to return on account of his ill health.
His medics sent him to the baths at Spa to recuperate and he there met the Observant General Commissary. He begged permission to return to England where his co-religionists were suffering renewed persecution in the Puritan-led Commonwealth. The Commissary gave him permission and John set out, landing in Newcastle in 1644. He went to his paternal home, but his father, scared for the safety of his son since many would have known that he had spent years abroad and studied for the priesthood, sent him away. The soldiers of the local garrison had, however, already been informed of his arrival and he was arrested immediately and imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, where he lived for two years. He was martyred on 7th August 1646, hanged at Bomber-Bridge while he exhorted the crowd to understand why he had been condemned. John Woodcock was beatified along with 129 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22^nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.

The other two who suffered on August 7 were alumni of the College and Seminary at Valladolid, Spain: BLESSED Thomas WHITAKER (alias STARKIE) was born , the son of a schoolmaster in Burnley, Lancashire. He studied for the priesthood as St. Omer and VALLADOLID, where he was ordained priest in 1638.

For 5 years he worked on the Mission in Lancashire. He was finaly arrested and jailed for 2 years during the Civil War. He was condemned to death for being a priest.

BLESSED Edward BAMBER (alias HELMES, REDING) was born in Carleton, near Blackpool in the County of Lancashire. He was a seminarian in St. Omer, and at the English College of St. Gregory in SEVILLE, where he was ordained a priest the year 1626. Upon returning to England, he disembarking in the port of Plymouth, he was stopped and incarcerated, but immediately released. For sixteen years he served the Catholic Mission, mainly in Lancashire. Imprisoned again between 1643 and1646, he was condemned for being priest. He and Father Whitaker were included with Father Woodcock among the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II.

St. John Jones, Franciscan English Catholic Martyr

Saint John (Godfrey) Jones 1530? - 1598: John Jones was born to a Catholic family in Clymag Faur in the county of Canaervon in Wales around the year 1530. In his youth Queen Mary Tudor accomplished the restoration of the Catholic Church after the brief reign of Edward VI had taken the Church of England into the Calvinist fold. Mary's accession had allowed the English friars who had fled into exile to Flanders and Scotland to return and in April 1555 the friary at Greenwich, in which Mary and Elizabeth had been baptised, was reopened. John joined the friary and took the name Godfrey Maurice, becoming known for his piety. At Mary's untimely death in 1558, however, her half-sister Elizabeth assumed the throne and it was not long before Catholics were once more persecuted in England. John Jones, although still a novice was forced to flee to France. The English Observant Franciscans fled to a friary in Pontoise where John was professed and trained. He was probably ordained a priest at Rheims, where there was another friary of the exiled English Province.

Towards 1590 John was sent to the friary of Ara Coeli in Rome, the General headquarters of the Order. From there he wished to return to England to take part in the mission to care for faithful Catholics, who risked their livelihoods and often their lives to sustain their missionary priests. The priests themselves were subject to the dreadful death of hanging, drawing and quartering as traitors for the simple fact of exercising their priesthood. John begged an audience with the Pope and Clement VIII embraced him, gave him a solemn blessing and told him: “Go, because I believe you to be a true son of Saint Francis. Pray to God for me and for his holy Church."

In England John Jones exercised an heroic hidden ministry, animating the Catholic faith among recusants and prudently seeking to reconcile those who had submitted to Elizabeth's Church of England. The existence of a missionary priest in England was one of frequent moves, constant vigilance and continued flight from Elizabeth's vigilant secret services, supervised by William Cecil and Francis Walsingham.

Despite his care, John Jones was caught in late 1595 or early 1596 by Richard Topcliffe, who nurtured a cruel hatred for the Catholic faith and was sanctioned by the Queen to maintain a private torture chamber in his house for the Catholic priests he apprehended. John Jones was accused of being a spy and sent to the notorious Clink prison, from which we derive the expression “being in clink”. There he languished for nigh on two years awaiting trial. In prison Jones continued his ministry and converted many, including Saint John Rigby, who was himself martyred two years after John Jones (on 21st June 1600). On 3rd July 1598 John Jones was finally brought to trial for having exercised his ministry as a Catholic priest in England. He was sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering at Saint Thomas Watering, but was meanwhile imprisoned at Marshalsea prison. The Jesuit Henry Garnet recounts in a letter that on 12th July 1598 John was tied to a trellis and dragged to the place of his torment. [The executioner had forgotten to bring ropes, so there was a delay.] He was held there for an hour before execution during which time Topcliffe harangued the crowd with his supposed crimes. Garnet recounts that the crowd was touched more by John's prayers than by the calumnies of his torturer and executioner. His remains were hung up on the road between Newington and Lambeth.

With 39 other English martyrs, John Jones was beatified by Pius XI on 15th December 1929 and canonised by Paul VI on 25th October 1970. The Franciscans in England remember all their martyrs, Supremacy (Henry VIII), Recusant (Elizabeth I to Charles I) and Popish Plot (Charles II) on the 12th of July--St. John Jones is pictured above with St. John Wall, a Popish Plot martyr of 1679.

Blesssed Henry Heath, OFM

Henry Heath was born to Anglican parents in Peterborough. He undertook university studies in Cambridge where he was noted for his piety and perspicacity in religious matters. After gaining his degree he was appointed University Librarian which gave him the opportunity to read Catholic and Protestant authors on the matters of greatest concern to his faith. His reading of the Church Fathers led him to seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

He then moved to London and on to Douai in Flanders. There he met the friars of the Province of England who had opened St. Bonaventure College and Friary there in 1618. He asked to join the friars. The founder of the college and Provincial Commissary John Gennings, was understandably wary about accepting him. Henry was a recent convert and the English secret service was apt to use pretend converts to gain information on those training for the mission. Henry convinced Gennings of the authenticity of his faith and so was admitted to the novitiate in 1623 or 1624 at the age of 24. He was given the name Paul of St. Magadelene. His penitential life of fasting and extended contemplation gained him the respect of his confreres and he was known for his devotion to the crucified Jesus and his holy Mother. He was ordained a priest and became in turn Guardian, Novice Master, a lecturer in theology known for his Scotism, then Provincial Commissary of Flanders where he promoted the Recollect reform.

When persecution broke out once more in England, after the defeat of Charles I in the English Civil War, he asked to return home to support his suffering brothers and compatriots. At London he was mistaken for a criminal and arrested but when it was discovered that he was a priest he was condemned to death and confined in Newgate prison. There he continued to give consolation to his Catholic compatriots and heard confessions until on 17th April 1643 he was led to Tyburn and hanged. As he was led to the scaffold the prayer heard on his lips was: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”.

Henry Heath was beatified along with 84 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.

Some Great Info on the Medieval Franciscans at Oxford

From Once I Was a Clever Boy comes this great post on the Franciscans at the University of Oxford during the middle ages:

An early morning meeting at Christ Church last Friday took me on a slightly different route into the centre of Oxford and through the site of the medieval Oxford Greyfriars.

The buildings had been largely demolished by the time Ralph Agas drew his pictorial map of the city in 1578, but excavations in 1971 and 1972 revealed the plan of the church and some of the conventual buildings - the foundations had been largely robbed out. The church had a very unusual extended north transept to accommodate more altars, and was cut into the city wall. Part of the site of the choir is still visible as a grass plot in Old Greyfriars Street, whilst the multi-storey car to the south covers the site of the domestic ranges.

The founding Prior, Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, is buried there. The house, along with the whole Franciscan mission in England, attracted the support of the diocesan bishop, Robert Grosseteste, who held the see of Lincoln from 1235 until his death in 1253. The Oxford friary had his library and relics such as his sanctuary slippers until the dissolution. I strongly suspect that "my bishop" Richard Fleming used the library in his own time as a student and Regent Master in Oxford. Grosseteste's close friend Adam Marsh was trained and lectured at the friary.

Of course, all those great foundations, including the library, were destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. More here from the Greyfriars Centre for Franciscan Studies in Oxford:

The old Greyfriars began as a Hall of the University of Oxford. It may not have been among the grandest and most well-known, but it was one of its kind, a true gem, with a meaningful story and a lesson to impart, a place the ethos of which was precisely what Oxford has always stood for. The Hall was first founded in 1230 and its first Principal Lecturer, Robert Grosseteste, became Chancellor of the University. Among its former fellows and students were Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, William of Occam and Pope Alexander V.

Not many people know that, at the beginning of the 13th century, with Grosseteste’s collection bequeathed to the Franciscans in Oxford, Greyfriars was one of the first libraries in the University. In 1290 the college acquired another substantial collection, that of commentaries on the Bible. The bulk of Grosseteste's books are documented to have been still in place in 1317. By that time, the Franciscans had two libraries at Oxford, one for the friars, the other specifically for the students, the latter considered the finest in the University at that time. Tragically, these unique libraries are now lost. In 1538, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the Hall was disbanded and with it, all the priceless books and manuscripts were scattered. Nobody knows where. Small chance of ever finding any of them again.

Many centuries later, the Franciscans came back to Oxofrd, establishing Greyfrirars friary which, in 1957, was granted a licence to become a Permanent Private Hall. This was possible due the relentless energy of amazing scholarly friars. They and the help conferred by very generous and important bequests put Greyfriars back on the map of Oxford University where it belonged. The status of Permanent Private Hall conferred upon Greyfriars by the University in 1957 was surrendered in 2008.

Blessed Arthur Bell, OFM

According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia:

Friar Minor and English martyr, b. at Temple-Broughton near Worcester, 13 January, 1590; d. at London, 11 December, 1643. When Arthur was eight his father died and his mother gave him in charge of her brother Francis Daniel, a man of wealth, learning and piety, who sent him at the age of twenty-four to the English college at St.-Omer; thence he went to Spain to continue and complete his studies. Having been ordained priest, he received the habit of the Franciscan Order at Segovia, 8 August, 1618, and shortly after the completion of his novitiate was called from Spain to labour in the restoration of the English province. He was one of the first members of the Franciscan community at Douai, where he subsequently fulfilled the offices of guardian and professor of Hebrew. In 1632 Bell was sent to Scotland as first provincial of the Franciscan province there; but his efforts to restore the order in Scotland were unsuccessful and in 1637 he returned to England, where he laboured until November, 1643, when he was apprehended as a spy by the parliamentary troops at Stevenage in Hertfordshire and committed to Newgate prison.

The circumstances of his trial show Bell's singular devotedness to the cause of religion and his desire to suffer for the Faith. When condemned to be drawn and quartered it is said that he broke forth into a solemn Te Deum and thanked his judges profusely for the favour they were thus conferring upon him in allowing him to die for Christ. The cause of his beatification was introduced at Rome in 1900. He wrote "The History, Life, and Miracles of Joane of the Cross" (St.-Omer, 1625). He also translated from the Spanish of Andrew a Soto "A brief Instruction how we ought to hear Mass" (Brussels, 1624).

He was beatified in 1987 by Blessed John Paul II after being declared Venerable (through a decree of martyrdom) in 1986. He is remembered particularly at the shrine church of Our Lady of Consolation at West Grinstead in West Sussex, where Hilaire Belloc is buried.

Blessed Thomas Bullaker, OFM

These are the bare outlines of Blesssed Thomas Bullaker's life:
Born the only son of a pious, well-to-do physician c.1603 in Midhurst, Sussex, England. Studied at the English College in Saint-Omer, France. Studied at the Royal English College at Valladolid, Spain. Joined the Franciscans in 1622, taking the name John Baptist. Ordained in Valladolid c.1627. He returned to England where he ministered to covert Catholics for twelve years. Arrested twice, he was sentenced to death for the crime of being a priest. hanged, drawn, and quartered on 12 October 1642 at Tyburn, London England. Beatified 22 November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.

Nearly all the priests martyred during the recusant or penal era of English history followed that pattern. They left home and family, studied abroad, returned and worked, suffered, and died. As you keep seeing that pattern you could become too used to it and not stop to think about all those bare facts.

Thomas's father, a pious and successful physician and his mother, the wife of a pious and successful physician, might yet deeply have regretted their son leaving home and becoming a priest, especially a missionary priest. It could be a danger to them; James I passed laws that penalized the families of England emigrants to Catholic colleges abroad. They might have had a prominent position in town; his father's medical practice may have suffered. They would have been concerned about him, so far from home and even more concerned about him when he came home, although they may never have seen him again.--I don't think I'm making up details that are too outside the realm of possibility.

He studied at St. Omer and at Valladolid, Spain: again, leaving England to study secretly on the Continent was illegal--the whole enterprise of traveling across country to a port and crossing the England Channel was difficult and dangerous. And then studying at the English colleges meant poverty and hard work. Father Robert Parsons, SJ had to find help from French and Spanish nobles and royalty to pay for housing, food, books, etc. This was not just a matter of attending college out of state!

Twelve years a missionary and arrested twice: Remember this meant life on the run, always in disguise, in danger all the time. Even if being arrested and imprisoned did not include torture, there was always discomfort, illness, and mistreatment to deal with. And finally, the trial and execution: being hung, drawn, and quartered, enduring a horrible death.

Blessed Thomas Bullaker, pray for us!

The Franciscans in England: Intellectuals and Martyrs

An image of Bl. Agnellus of Pisa (1195 - 1236), appointed by St Francis to be the first Minister Provincial of England (from the Franciscan Province of Great Britain website)

On this feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who is probably one of the most popular saints inside and outside of the Catholic Church, some background on the Franciscans in England. According to this site:

In 1224 Francis decided to send some friars to England and appointed Agnellus of Pisa to lead a small expedition. On Tuesday, 10 September of the same year, a small boat landed near Dover and nine roughly-dressed figures disembarked, and so the Franciscan Order was implanted in England. The nine friars were led by an Italian, Agnellus of Pisa, who had previously been Custos in Paris. It included three Englishmen who had joined the Order, probably in Paris where many Englishmen of the time went to study, five Italians and one Frenchman. Within seven weeks of arrival they had established friaries in Canterbury, London and Oxford, the ecclesiastical, political and intellectual capitals of England.

Dom David Knowles described the early life of the Franciscans in his book Saints and Scholars when describing the life of Thomas of Eccleston. Those first groups demonstrated St. Francis's radical poverty and became very popular because of it, after the initial misunderstanding.

The order grew and grew in England, Wales and Scotland, and its members contributed greatly to intellectual developments:

Of all the activities of the Friars in England perhaps it is the Intellectual Tradition which most stands out in the Order. One German historian, Hilarin Felder, said that, apart from St. Bonaventure, all the major contributors to the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition were from the Province of England. The friary at Oxford was founded in 1224 and the friary at Cambridge in 1226. Agnellus of Pisa arranged for Robert Grosseteste (1168-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, to be the first teacher of theology to the Friars. Grosseteste was one of the leading thinkers of his day. The Franciscan involvement at Oxford would change the intellectual face of Europe. The Franciscan Oxford tradition is a veritable Who’s Who of intellectual giants, not just in the Order, but in the history of Western Thought: Adam Marsh (d. 1259), Thomas of York (d. 1260), first Franciscan lecturer at Cambridge, Richard Rufus of Cornwall, (d. c.1260-61), Roger Marston (1235-1303), William of Ware (who may have taught Duns Scotus) (f. 1270-1300), Roger Bacon (1214-1294), John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), William of Ockham (1285-1349), John of Peckham (1240-1292), who would later become Archbishop of Canterbury and is entombed within the magnificent splendour of Canterbury Cathedral.

Then, of course, came the English Reformation:

The Observants were staunch defenders of Henry's marriage to Catherine and of the Supremacy of the Pope over the entire Church. One of the friars, Elstow, even preached against Henry's divorce in the presence of the King, showing great courage and gaining a spell in prison for his pains. Consequently the Observants were the first religious to be attacked by Henry and, when they refused to be cowed, the first to be suppressed in 1534. Some were imprisoned, Bl. John Forest was martyred and many Observants went into exile to Pontoise, Paris. In 1555-1559, the friary at Greenwich was restored under Queen Mary, who remembered the friars' loyalty to her mother, but this friary was suppressed again only four years later in 1559 by Elizabeth I. In 1559 the Observants scattered to Scotland, Pontoise and the Low Countries, although there were always those who remained in hiding in England to minister to the Catholic faithful in the years of persecution.

And the other Franciscan martyrs:

This missionary spirit was watered by the blood of the Province's martyrs. There has never been any period since 1224 when there have not been Franciscans in Britain, even throughout the times of persecution. The Province has given martyrs to the Church and many confessors who were imprisoned and persecuted for their faith. Bl. John Forest was martyred under Henry VIII, St. John Jones (1559-1598) died at St. Thomas’ Waterings, South London, on July 12th 1598 during the reign of Elizabeth I. In the time of the Commonwealth between 1642 and 1646 Bl. Thomas Bullaker, Henry Heath, Francis Bell and John Woodcock were hanged, drawn and quartered. St. John Wall was martyred in 1679 during the hysteria occasioned by the perjuries of Titus Oates. Several other friars died in prison and many more suffered periods of imprisonment in serving the Catholic population of England during the penal years.

The order expanded in the nineteenth century after 1850, and

At present there are friaries in: Canterbury, Clevedon, Cold Ash, Edinburgh (Craigmillar), Glasgow, Nottingham, Stratford and Woodford. Most of these friaries minister to parish communities and reach out from there to the wider Church in collaboration with the lay people of the parishes as well as the members of the wider Franciscan family. At Canterbury the friars run a Study Centre with an international reputation that continues the intellectual tradition of the Province.

Two Popish Plot Martyrs

St. John Kemble was found guilty of being a priest in England, though not of conspiring against King Charles II in the non-existent Popish Plot and executed on August 22, 1679 in Herefordshire. Herefordshire is not too far from the border of Wales.

St. John Wall, OFM, was executed on August 22, 1679 in Worcester under the same circumstances. Worcestershire is northwest of London.

St. John Kemble was butchered by another incompetent executioner (see the story of Blessed Hugh Green) in Hereford after serving Catholics in Monmouthshire for more that 50--fifty!--years. The Anglicans in the area respected him and he had dwelt unmolested in his brother's castle (Pembridge). He was betrayed by the husband of one of his parishioners.

He was taken to London, where nothing could be proved against him in connection with the Popish Plot (since Titus Oates had made the whole thing up and had perjured himself before Parliament!). Therefore, he was found guilty of the old Elizabethan statute against the presence of Catholic priests in England. (He was born near the end of Elizabeth's reign in 1599 of a recusant family and ordained in 1625, so he was certainly guilty and had been for a long time).

On August 22, 1679 he suffered, forgiving his enemies and proclaiming that he died for the religion that had made England Christian! Before his death, he asked for time to finish his prayers and smoke his last pipe and imbibe a last cup of wine, shared by the undersheriff (who after all had not arrested him for the last fifty years!) . Evidently, this is still remembered in Herefordshire in the sayings "a Kemble pipe" and "a Kemble cup". He had to encourage the executioner to do his work, because he was ready.

The famous stage family, including Sarah (Kemble) Siddons, are related to this great priest and martyr. He is buried in an Anglican churchyard and area Catholics make a pilgrimage to his grave each August 22nd. His left hand is preserved in the Catholic church in Hereford, St. Francis Xavier.

St. John Wall was born in Lanchasire in 1620. He served the people of Worcestershire for more than twenty years. He was arrested in 1678. When he refused to swear to the religious supremacy of the King, he was imprisoned for five months of dreadful suffering. At the end of this time, on 25th April 1679, he was condemned to death for high treason, since he was a priest who had been ordained abroad and returned to exercise his ministry in contravention to the Elizabethan anti-Catholic laws. He argued in vain that Charles II's amnesty of 1660 should have covered him, as indeed it should. Instead he was sent to London to be interrogated by Oates, Bedloe, Dugdale and Pranse. He was found innocent of the accusation of complicity in the “Papist Plot” but because of his priestly ordination and ministry, his death sentence was nevertheless confirmed and he was sent back to Worcester, where he was hanged on 22nd August 1679.

PLEASE NOTE: I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show at 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central to discuss these two martyrs with Brian Patrick! I hope you know that it's "a better way to start your day!" (the Son Rise Morning Show, that is!).

More Franciscan Martyrs of the Recusant And Popish Plot Era

The blesseds honored on the Franciscan calendar today are:

Blessed Arthur (Francis) Bell (1590 – 1643): Arthur Bell was born at Temple Broughton in Worcestershire on 13th August 1590 and brought up in a Catholic family. After beginning his education at his mother Dorothy's knee, he was sent for its continuation to his maternal uncle, a gentleman in Suffolk. At the age of 24 he went to Saint Omer to study with the Jesuits who then sent him on to Valladolid in Spain. There he was ordained a priest on 14th April 1618.
He discovered the Franciscans through a friend from Oxford who had joined the friars. Inspired by his life of penitence and simplicity, Arthur sought entry to the Franciscans and on 9th August 1618 was vested with the Franciscan habit, given the name Francis and sent to the newly erected College of St. Bonaventure in Douai to join his compatriots. There he became Guardian and later a Provincial Definitor. In 1632 he became Minister Provincial and attended the Toledo General Chapter in 1633, where the German and Belgian Provinces, including the newly restored Province of England, passed the strict General Constitutions that would govern them until the late 19th Century.
He returned to England in 1634 and spent nine years working to consolidate the presence of the friars and sustain the faith of his fellow Catholics. He was captured on 7th November 1643 in Hertford. He was tried before Parliament in a trial that lasted from 22nd November to the 8th December. Condemned, he was imprisoned in Newgate prison from where he was taken for execution at Tyburn just three days later. The serenity with which Arthur faced his death convinced his executioner to abjure his Anglicanism and reconcile to the Catholic Church.
Arthur Bell was beatified along with 129 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.

Blessed John (Martin) Woodcock (1603 – 1646): John Woodcock was born to a “Church Papist” Anglican Father in 1603 at Woodcock Hall in Lancashire. He was sent to Saint Omer to study with the Jesuits there and after finishing his humanities studies he was sent to Rome to complete his theological formation. There he no doubt met the Irish Franciscans who took over at the College of St. Isidore in the same year. He asked to enter the Capuchins but was dismissed from their novitiate after a few months, perhaps because of precarious health. He wandered around Europe aimlessly for three years until he arrived in Douai. There his desire to be a Franciscan was realised when he entered the novitiate of the Friars Minor in 1631. He was given the name Martin of St. Felix and made great progress both in his studies and in sanctity. He was ordained a priest just four years later in 1635. he went to England on the mission but, after a few years, was forced to return on account of his ill health.
His medics sent him to the baths at Spa to recuperate and he there met the Observant General Commissary. He begged permission to return to England where his co-religionists were suffering renewed persecution in the Puritan-led Commonwealth. The Commissary gave him permission and John set out, landing in Newcastle in 1644. He went to his paternal home, but his father, scared for the safety of his son since many would have known that he had spent years abroad and studied for the priesthood, sent him away. The soldiers of the local garrison had, however, already been informed of his arrival and he was arrested immediately and imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, where he lived for two years. He was martyred on 7th August 1646, hanged at Bomber-Bridge while he exhorted the crowd to understand why he had been condemned. John Woodcock was beatified along with 129 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.

Blessed Charles Meehan-Mahoney (1639 – 1679): Charles was born in Ireland between 1639 and 1640. It is not known when he joined the Irish Province but, like several other Irish friars of the time, he completed his formation with the English friars in their college at Douai. In 1679 he was aboard a ship bound for Ireland which was forced to put into port in Wales. He came ashore at precisely the wrong time, since England and Wales were engulfed in the anti-Catholic hysteria aroused by Titus Oates's invented Papist Plot. Charles searched for a passage to Ireland, but, suspected of being a Catholic and a priest, he was arrested and in June 1678, imprisoned in Denbigh gaol. He was tried in Spring 1679 and was condemned to be killed at Ruthin. The sentence was carried out on 12th August. He died saying: “Since God has pleased to give me the grace of martyrdom, blessed be his Holy Name.”
Charles Meehan was beatified along with 129 other martyrs of England and Wales on 22nd November 1987 by Pope John Paul II.