A Church Papist's Hidden Catholic Chapel? and Drops of Blood and Water

Author Francis Young posts on his blog a link to an article he co-authored with Brigitte Webster in The Catholic Herald (and the link seems to work now/not behind a pay-wall):

This month’s Catholic Herald contains an article by me and Brigitte Webster, the owner of Old Hall in Barnham Broom, Norfolk, about a 16th-century domestic chapel discovered inside the house earlier this century, but whose significance has only recently been realised. The chapel (which may date from the 1570s) features a distinctive pattern of black and white drops representing the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side, as well as an aumbry and the probable remains of a piscina. The decorative scheme quite closely resembles a well-known chapel at Harvington Hall in Worcestershire. Since the Chamberlain family who lived at Barnham Broom were never recorded as recusants, it is likely this is some of the first evidence of a domestic oratory used for Catholic worship by a family of church papists. If true, this is confirmation of the case advanced by Alexandra Walsham and other historians that church papists were every bit as committed to Catholicism and to their Catholic identity as recusants; church papists simply chose to express their Catholicism in a different way.

Church Papists outwardly conformed to avoid the fines for not attending Church of England services and the harassment and other penalties of being Catholic in Protestant England. Young is suggesting that this hidden chapel is evidence of their efforts to remain faithfully Catholic. The connection of the decoration of the chapel with the "distinctive pattern of black and white drops representing the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side" and that same decoration in the secret chapel at Harvington Hall is important, since the latter was the home of known recusants, who paid the fines and suffered the inconveniences of their faith.

In the article, Young and Webster make it clear that even being a Church Papist during Elizabeth I's reign was dangerous:

Because we usually have no evidence of legal proceedings against church papists (for the obvious reason that they stayed under the radar of the authorities), we have very little evidence for who these people were. However, in the 1560s and ’70s the gentry of East Anglia were notoriously sympathetic to Catholicism and both recusancy and church papistry were rife – so much so that, in 1578, Elizabeth came on progress to Norfolk and Suffolk as part of a crackdown on Catholics. The Queen deliberately visited Catholics, singled them out, humiliated them and arranged their trial and imprisonment.

Catholicism in East Anglia was never quite the same after the royal progress of 1578, which stamped out the widespread and semi-public crypto-Catholicism of earlier years and confined Catholicism to a core of the most committed families, such as the Bedingfields of Oxburgh. We cannot know whether the celebration of Mass in the secret chapel at Barnham Broom Old Hall survived this crackdown or not, but the chapel transports us back to a murky world where it was eminently possible for those who remained Catholic at heart to attend Protestant services in the parish church while also hearing Mass in private – sometimes celebrated by the same parish priest.

Here's a perfect example of how Elizabeth I "deliberately visited Catholics, singled them out, humiliated them and arranged their trial and imprisonment": Edward Rookwood of Euston Hall.

But since this is July, the month of devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ, shed during His Passion, in the Agony in the Garden, in the Scourging and Crowning with thorns, and on the Cross, it's appropriate to highlight those symbolic drops of blood and water representing the Blood and Water that flowed from His pierced Heart on the cross as described in St. John's Gospel ("But one of the soldiers with a spear opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it hath given testimony, and his testimony is true"). From the early days of the Church, Christians have meditated on the meaning of that Blood and Water, usually identifying the Blood with the Eucharist and the Water with Baptism. It's also appropriate to recall the great devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ in England before the Reformation. 

They may have been hiding it, but the Chamberlain family maintained their traditional devotion, and for a time at least, may have had a priest to celebrate Mass, consecrating bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday evening I was able to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church! A good start to the month, as will be the First Friday Mass at our Cathedral today! 

From the Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus:

Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in Agony, save us.
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging, save us.
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns, save us.
Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross, save us.
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, save us.

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.