This Morning: Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ

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 Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ.

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).

You may have noticed that in my preview I emphasized that we were already moving on to another reign. There were just four martyrs among the 40 Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales who suffered during the reign of King James I--there are also several beatified martyrs--while half of the 40 canonized martyrs suffered execution (or in one case, death in prison under sentence of death) during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Why did Elizabeth I's regime condemn more Catholics--clerics and laity--to death for their religious beliefs? Why did James I's regime condemn fewer Catholic priests and even fewer Catholic laymen  (and no Catholic laywomen) to death for their religious beliefs? Why did the same pattern hold during the reign of Charles I?

Both monarchs feared plots against their reigns and their lives, but James I sought conciliation and peace with England's enemies, Spain, France, the Holy Roman Empire, while Elizabeth I, although she eschewed outright war most of the time because it was too expensive, maintained a combative posture against them and reached out more to the Protestant leadership on the Continent.

King James I negotiated marriage treaties for his son Charles with both Spain and France, and promised some leniency to Catholics in those treaties. He thought that making martyrs, using prison, torture, and execution to punish religious dissidents, was a sign of a weak and ineffective church. (He also maintained relationships with Protestant rulers and nations, marrying his eldest Elizabeth to Frederick V Elector Palatine, leader of the Protestant Union among the electors of the Holy Roman Emperor.)

You might say that Elizabeth I was more insular, emphasizing and even trying to extend the distance between England and the Continent, while James I wanted to reach out to the Continent and bring England and Scotland back in the European community--but both were seeking security and safety for their kingdoms and their reigns.

And Charles I, not only being married to a Catholic queen but loving her and wanting her happiness, was also reluctant to make Catholic martyrs. Today's martyr, Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ, was arrested, tried, and convicted far away from London--not transported across England to be questioned and tortured and then brought back to Lancaster for execution. 

The monarchy during the reign of Charles I--and the Stuart doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings--may have been in more danger from Parliament than it was from the Catholic Church and her allies in Europe. 

Throughout all three reigns, however, the common issue was the role of the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. As European rulers in the sixteenth and seventeenth century seemed to agree, that left no room for religious dissent and secular loyalty.

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, pray for us!

Image Credit: Elizabeth receiving Dutch ambassadors, 1560s, attributed to Levina Teerlinc (public domain)
Image Credit: Henrietta Maria and King Charles I with Charles, Prince of Wales, and Princess Mary, painted by Anthony van Dyck, 1633. The greyhound symbolises the marital fidelity between Charles and Henrietta Maria (public domain)

Preview: Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ

After two segments featuring martyrs during the reign of King James I of England, we're already moving on in our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show to the reign of Charles I, who succeeded his father in 1625. Matt Swaim and I will discuss the life and death of St. Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ, a martyr from Lancashire on Monday, October 5.

Arrowsmith suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering on August 28, 1628 in Lancaster. His feast is celebrated in the Diocese of Lancaster and his mission in southern Lancashire is well documented, with sites of his last Mass, his capture, imprisonment, etc. A family has maintained the house in which he said that last Mass for two generations. He is certainly a saint whose memory has remained alive through the centuries.

Baptized Bryan Edmund Arrowsmith, he was born during the reign of Elizabeth I in 1585. His parents and their families were faithful Catholic recusants. His mother Margery (nee Gerard) was related to Father John Gerard, SJ and Blessed Miles Gerard, who was executed during Elizabeth's reign in 1590 and beatified in 1929. His parents, Robert and Margery, were arrested for recusancy when he was child. Bryan used his middle name Edmund because he had an uncle who trained men for the priesthood at Douai.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

He entered Douai College in 1605, but ill-health compelled him to interrupt his studies; he was, however, ordained priest in 1612. Lancashire was the scene of his missionary labours and he was eminent for "fervour, zeal and ready wit." Apprehended, probably in 1622, he was brought before Bridgeman, Protestant Bishop of Chester, and had a lively discussion with him and his ministers. Regaining his liberty he entered the Society of Jesus in 1623, and made his noviceship on the Mission, retiring to Essex for a spiritual retreat. He was eventually betrayed by false brethren, tried at Lancaster in 1628, and was found guilty of high treason for being a Jesuit priest and a seducer in religion. His fellow-prisoner, Father John Southworth, afterwards a martyr, absolved him as he went forth to undergo the usual butchery.

The old Dictionary of National Biography offers these details about his execution:

He was drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, and after having been hanged, his body was cut down, dismembered, embowelled, and quartered. His head was also cut off, and with the quarters boiled in the cauldron; the blood, mixed with sand and earth, was scraped up and cast into the fire. Lastly, his head, as the sentence directed, was set up upon a pole amongst the pinnacles of Lancaster castle, and the quarters were hung on four several quarters of the building.

In spite of all those efforts to prevent any gathering of relics from his execution (mixing his blood with sand and earth, etc.), someone managed to cut off one of his hands which has been kept as a relic called "The Holy Hand" and is venerated at the Church of St. Oswald and St. Edmund Arrowsmith.

In 1630 an anonymous pamphlet describing Arrowsmith's arrest, trial, and execution, along with that of Blessed Richard Hurst, a lay recusant martyr, was published: A True and Exact Relation of the Death of Two Catholicks, who suffered for their religion at the Summer Assizes, held at Lancaster in 1628 and it is the source of much of the information we know of this saint.

Dom Bede Camm in his Forgotten Shrines told the story of Saint Edmund Arrowsmith with many photos. The Catholic Truth Society has published a booklet on his life, drawing upon these resources.

The Catholic Church of St. Oswald and St. Edmund Arrowsmith honored him on Sunday, August 30 this year, celebrating the Baptisms, Confirmations, and First Holy Communions that should have occurred on the Easter Vigil, postponed because of COVID-19. 

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, pray for us!