This Morning: Saints Polydore Plasden and Edmund Gennings

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. Matt Swaim and I will discuss Saints Polydore Plasden and Edmund Gennings, executed on December 10, 1591 for being priests in England not willing to swear the Oath of Supremacy.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here. 

Both men had left England to study for the priesthood on the Continent, both studying at the English College in Rheims. Father Plasden was ordained in 1586; Father Gennings in 1590. Father Plasden returned to England in 1588; Father Gennings immediately after his ordination. So Father Plasden served in the mission for about three years; Gennings for one.

Details of St. Edmund Gennings' life include that he was a convert to Catholicism, following the example of his mentor Richard Sherwood, whom he served as a page. When Father Gennings returned to England he sought out his family and found his brother John in London. Their meeting did not go well: John believed Edmund to be a traitor because of his conversion. John knew about his brother's execution on December 10, 1591 and rejoiced that Edmund would not be able to persuade him to convert to Catholicism, which would have been an act of treason for both of them. There must have been something in his brother that made him concerned that Edmund could persuade him!

But thinking about his brother's life in contrast to his own, John began to realize that he had nothing to live for except pleasure while Edmund had had something to live and to die for, and he resolved to learn more about the Catholic faith. As the older Dictionary of National Biography explains, John Gennings' life changed drastically, as he left England, became a Catholic and studied for the priesthood becoming a Franciscan Friar and priest--and a missionary to England like his brother, during the reign of King James I:

He entered the English College at Douay, was ordained priest in 1607, and was sent on the mission in the following year. In 1614 or 1615 he was admitted into the order of St. Francis. In 1616, in his capacity of vicar and custos of England, he assembled at Gravelines about six of his brethren, including novices, and within three years he succeeded in establishing at Douay the monastery of St. Bonaventure, of which he was the first vicar and guardian. In 1621, with the assistance of Father Christopher Davenport he founded the convent of St. Elizabeth at Brussels for English nuns of the third order of St. Francis. On the restoration of the English province of his order he was appointed its first provincial, in a chapter held at Brussels on 1 Dec. 1630. He was re-elected provincial in the second chapter held at Greenwich on 15 Jan. 1633–4, for another triennium, and again in the fourth chapter at London on 19 April 1640. He died at Douay on 2 Nov. (O.S.) 1660.

This just demonstrates again the impact of these English and Welsh martyrs on those who witnessed or heard of their sacrificial love. 

Perhaps those of us who have family members who have left the Catholic Church and her Sacraments should choose Saint Edmund Gennings as an intercessor for their return!

Saint Polydore Plasden, pray for us!

Saint Edmund Gennings, pray for us!

Preview: Two More on Gray's Inn Road

On Monday, August 10, Matt Swaim and I will discuss two more of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, Saint Edmund Gennings (portrait on the right) and Polydore Plasden on the Son Rise Morning Show (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central) broadcast on Sacred Heart Radio from Cincinnati, Ohio.

The execution of two priests and three laymen at a specially built gallows at Gray's Inn Road on December 10, 1591 drew a crowd and some special spectators: Richard Topcliffe was there, as was Sir Walter Raleigh, one of Elizabeth I's favorite courtiers.

These priests were being execution simply because they were English subjects who had gone to the Continent to study and be ordained and had returned to England. Parliament had passed a new law in 1584, 27 Elizabeth Cap 2 (Act Against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Disobedient Subjects). Unless these returning priests were willing to leave England within 40 days of arrival or accept the queen's supremacy over the Church in England, they were considered traitors. Anyone who harbored these recusant priests, the "other such disobedient subjects", were guilty of a felony: thus Saint Swithun Wells, and the Blesseds John Mason and Sidney Hodgson were hanged to death as felons that day.

But the presence of Richard Topcliffe (as demonstrated by his dialogue with Saint Swithun Wells described last week) and Sir Walter Raleigh also made these executions notable. Their presence also made a difference in the way the two priests suffered their executions.

St. Polydore Plasden and Sir Walter Raleigh (portrait on the left), according to the "Relation of Fr. James Young" included in Father Philip Caraman SJ's The Other Face: Catholic Life Under Elizabeth I discussed the priest's prayers for the queen. Raleigh was willing to have Plasden's execution stayed when he swore that he would defend Elizabeth's life against any threat of assassination. But then Topcliffe intervened and asked if Father Plasden would fight to assist Philip II of Spain in reasserting Catholicism in England. He said as a priest he could not, but that he would argue against any attack on the queen in such a cause. But Topcliffe pressed the argument further and Plasden said he would not counsel anyone else not to fight to reestablish the Catholic Church in England (in other words that he would support military action if necessary to replace the Church of England with the Catholic Church)--and Raleigh agreed that he was indeed a traitor to England because of his loyalty to the Catholic Church. Father Plasden said that he could not deny his faith in Christ and His Church. "O Christ" saith he, looking up to heaven and kissing the rope. "I will never deny thee for a thousand lives." And so he was hanged--but Raleigh ordered that he be allowed to hang until dead, so that he didn't suffer the agonies that followed.

He was 28 years old.

Father Gennings was not so fortunate in his conversation with Topcliffe. As the website of the Dominicans in England and Scotland recounts:

“If to return to England a Priest, or to say Mass be a Popish treason, then I confess I am a traitor. But I think not so. And therefore I acknowledge myself guilty of those things, not with repentance, but with an open protestation of inward joy.” Topcliffe, the notorious priest-hunter, was enraged with the attitude of St Edmund Gennings. He then ordered that Edmund be hanged and immediately cut down. When the hangman began his butchery, St Edmund was still alive when his heart was ripped from his chest. With his last breath he cried out, Saint Gregory: Pray for me. The hangman swore, “Zounds! See, his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth. O egregious Papist!”. 

Caraman's entry for Gennings in The Other Face supplies the detail that he was cut down so quickly from the gallows that he was standing up and had to be toppled down by the hangman to begin the torture. 

He was 24 years old.

Saint Edmund Gennings, pray for us.

Saint Polydore Plasden, pray for us.

This Morning: St. Swithun Wells on the Son Rise Morning Show

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 Saint Swithun Wells, a recusant Catholic known to authorities who was executed on December 10, 1591 for NOT attending Mass in his home on All Saints Day.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here. 

His execution by hanging, with two other laymen, and two priests, who were meted out the full agony of hanging, drawing, and quartering, must have been remarkable scene. On Friday this week I'll preview the stories of the two priests who suffered with him that day on Gray's Inn Road. As remarkable at Saint Swithun's interaction with Topcliffe was, Saints Edmund Gennings and Polydore Plasden had even more extraordinary conversations with Sir Walter Raleigh and Topcliffe--all while preparing themselves to suffer excruciating executions!

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

Preview: St. Swithun Wells, Recusant Layman

On Monday, August 3, Anna Mitchell and I will talk about Saint Swithun Wells in our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central on Sacred Heart Radio).

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

The layman Saint Swithun Wells was hanged to death on December 10, 1591--a bloody day in the history of Catholic Recusancy in Elizabethan England. Seven English Catholics suffered brutal execution on December 10, 1591: three priests and four laymen, including Wells. One of the priests, Saint Eustace White and a layman, Blessed Brian Lacey were executed at Tyburn Tree. The other five suffered near Gray's Inn.

Wells was known to authorities as a recusant and they were probably watching his London house. According to the Oxford Reference website, Wells was

Born at Bambridge (Hants.) of a wealthy country family, Swithun Wells, a well-educated and travelled man, who was also poet, musician, and sportsman, lived a quiet country life until middle age. At one time he was tutor to the household of the earl of Southampton, later he married and then founded his own school at Monkton Farleigh (Wilts.). In 1582 he came under suspicion for his popish sympathies and gave up his school. He actively supported priests, organizing their often dangerous journeys from one safe and friendly house to another. He and his wife, though impoverished, moved to Gray's Inn Fields in 1586 and made their house a centre of hospitality to recusants. Wells was twice arrested and interrogated, but released for lack of evidence.

The Catholic Encyclopedia adds some details about his previous arrests:

On 4 July, 1586, he was discharged from Newgate on bail given by his nephew, Francis Parkins of "Weton", Berkshire. On 9 August, 1586, he was examined for supposed complicity in the Babington plot, and on 30 November, 1586, he was discharged from the Fleet prison. He was again examined 5 March, 1587, and on this occasion speaks of the well known recusant, George Cotton of Warblington, Hampshire, as his cousin.

He was indeed fortunate to have survived being questioned about the Babington Plot in 1586. The first executions of those convicted in that plot to replace Elizabeth I with Mary, Queen of Scots (who was her prisoner) were so brutal that authorities toned down the cruel gore the next day. 

In 1591, however, St. Swithun Wells was hanged for NOT attending a Catholic Mass in Elizabethan England. His wife Alice attended the Mass held in his house near Gray's Inn in London on November 1, 1591 (All Saints Day!), but he wasn't there when the priest hunters burst in during the Mass celebrated by Father Edmund Gennings. Those attending held the pursuivants off. His wife, Fathers Gennings and Polydore Plasden, and two other laymen, John Mason and Sidney Hodgson were arrested at the end of the Mass. Swithun was arrested when he came home. At his trial, he said he wished he could have attended that Mass and that was enough for the Elizabethan authorities. All of those arrested on November 1 were found guilty under 27 Elizabeth Cap 2 (Act Against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Disobedient Subjects) and sentenced to death. Authorities then built a scaffold right outside his house for the executions.

Gray's Inn, at the intersection of High Holborn and Gray's Inn Road, by the way, is one of the four Inns of Court in London, where future barristers studied and trained. Recusant Catholics secretly studied there, so the Well's house was well situated for helping priests and hosting Mass. The scaffold outside his house and the presence of dignitaries at his execution and that of the two priests and two other laymen--more about that next week--would have been a powerful warning to the recusants in the area. We're watching you and we will punish you.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Wells was an admirer and follower of Saint Thomas More, and he displayed some of that saint's sense of humor on the way to the scaffold and as he contended with Richard Topcliffe and a Church of England minister:

As he was led to the scaffold, Wells saw an old friend in the crowd and called out to him: "Farewell, dear friend, farewell to all hawking, hunting, and old pastimes. I am now going a better way"!" After he had climbed the ladder, Topcliffe called for a minister, who attempted to persuade Wells to confess to following false doctrine and traitorous priests. Wells turned and responded, "although I heard you say somewhat, yet it is but one doctor's opinion, and he also a very young one." The young minister was so daunted that he had no reply. Topcliffe then baited Wells, saying that "Dog-bolt Papists! you follow the Pope and his Bulls; believe me, I think some bulls begot you".Wells responded in kind: "if we have bulls to our fathers, thou hast a cow to thy mother".  He then immediately begged pardon and asked Topcliffe not to provoke him when he was trying to focus on other matters, hoping that this persecutor and torturer of Catholics would convert. He said, "I pray God make you a Paul of a Saul, of a bloody persecutor one of the Catholic Church's children."

John Hungerford Pollen's book Acts of English Martyrs Hitherto Unpublished, is the source of this dialogue. More and Wells must have "met merrily in heaven"!

St. Swithun's wife Alice received a reprieve from her death sentence, but died in prison in 1602.

Saint Swithun Wells, pray for us!

Image Credit: Statue of Saint Swithun Wells in Saint Etheldreda's, Ely Place in London.