Suppression of the Observant Friars, 1534

The Observant Friars of Greenwich were the parish priests for Henry VIII's family: their church was the site of his baptism (perhaps), his wedding to Catherine of Aragon in 1509, and both Mary and Elizabeth were baptized there. Before his Great Matter dominated their relationship, Henry VIII admired the Observant Franciscans of Greenwich. According to British History Online:

Henry VIII, in 1513, wrote from his palace of Greenwich to Leo X that he could not sufficiently commend the Observant Friars' strict adherence to poverty, their sincerity, charity and devotion. No Order battled more assiduously against vice, and none were more active in keeping Christ's fold.

From the beginning, however, the Friars sided with Catherine of Aragon in opposing Henry VIII's attempts to have his marriage to her declared null. They were vocal in their opposition, using the pulpit at Sunday Mass, even, to descry Henry's marital ambitions to replace their queen (who might have been a third order Franciscan) with Anne Boleyn. In 1534, things came to a head:

Henry probably hoped to bend the friars to his will at this time. He gave them an alms of 10 marks; (fn. 47) the Princess Elizabeth was christened in the church with great pomp 10 September, (fn. 48) and the minister, warden, and friars of Greenwich begged for the king's pardon 21 December. [1533](fn. 49) But on 13 April, 1534, a royal commission was issued to the provincial priors of the Austin and Black Friars to visit all the friars' houses and bind every friar by oath to acknowledge the king as supreme head of the church and repudiate the pope's authority. (fn. 50) On 14 June Roland Lee and Thomas Bedyll, acting on instructions from the commissioners, visited Richmond, and induced the friars there to entrust their case to four ' discreets' or representatives, who should attend the visitors the next day at Greenwich. On 15 June the visitors tried to induce the Greenwich friars to adopt the same procedure, 'specially to the intent that if the discreets should refuse to consent, it were better after our minds to strain a few than a multitude.' The friars, however, 'stiffly affirmed that where the matter concerned particularly every one of their souls, they would answer particularly every man for himself.' After further discussion, the visitors were compelled to examine each friar separately, and each refused to accept the articles, especially that which denied the papal authority. In answer to all the arguments of the visitors they declared that 'they had professed St. Francis' religion, and in the observance thereof they would live and die.' (fn. 51)

On 17 June two cart-loads of friars drove through London to the Tower, (fn. 52) and it is possible that some of the Greenwich Observants were among them. On or before 11 August the friars were expelled from their convent (fn. 53) (though they seem to have made some kind of submission (fn. 54) ) and distributed in different places, generally in houses of the Grey Friars, where, wrote Chapuys to Charles V, 'they were locked up in chains and treated worse than they could be in prison.' (fn. 55) Some, such as John Forest, were actually in prison in London. (fn. 56) Two of them, inclosed in a poor lodging at the Grey Friars, Stamford, and treated as prisoners, were 'in meetly good case as the world at this time requireth,' and sent to London for their little belongings, including a new Psalter, a pair of socks, a penner and inkhorn. (fn. 57) But the severity of their treatment is shown by the fact that out of 140 Observant Friars thirty-one soon died, (fn. 58) and this does not account for all the deaths. Thomas Bourchier, who was a member of the Greenwich friary in the reign of Mary, gives details of several martyrdoms which probably belong to this time, though the writer assigns them to 1537. (fn. 59) On 19 July Anthony Brookby, formerly of Magdalen College, Oxford, a distinguished scholar, who had been imprisoned and tortured to such an extent that ' for twenty-five days he could not turn in bed or lift his hands to his mouth,' was strangled with his own cord. (fn. 60) On 27 July Thomas Cortt, who had been imprisoned for a sermon against the king in the church of St. Lawrence, London, died in Newgate. (fn. 61) On 3 August Thomas Belchiam, a young priest, who had composed a book against the king, one copy of which he left in the hands of his brethren at Greenwich, died of starvation in Newgate. (fn. 62) No mention of these three friars occurs in extant contemporary authorities, but Bourchier's account representing the tradition of the Order is probably substantially correct, though the names may be misspelt.

It's always sad to read about the religious orders acting against each other--those who were willing to take the oaths and conform to Henry VIII's demands were willing to do his bidding against those were ready to stand against him.--and then it's ironic when you recognize that their compliance did nothing to save their orders in England after 1536. More about the Franciscans in England here.

The Execution Bill of a Supremacy Martyr: St. John Stone of Canterbury

St. John Stone was an Augustinian Canon, who refused to acknowledge Henry VIII's title as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England, and thus I call him a "Supremacy" martyr:

Almost nothing is known of John's early years or of his life and activities as an Augustinian.

The Parliament of England in 1534 approved a law known as the Act of Supremacy. This Act proclaimed King Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church in England.

Four years later, an official of the King arrived in Canterbury to close all the monasteries and to obtain the written assent of every single Friar to the provisions of the Act of Supremacy. The official first went to the monasteries of several other Orders. Then they went to Austin Friars, the Augustinian house where John was a member. All the other Augustinian Friars signed the document, but John refused.

John was arrested and thrown into prison in the Tower of London. He remained firm in his refusal to accept the King as head of the Church. While in jail, he spent many hours in prayer. One day, God spoke to him, encouraging him to be of good heart and to remain steadfast in his belief, even if it meant death. From this point on, John felt great strength.

John was tried and convicted of treason in 1539. Right after Christmas of that year, a slow procession passed through the streets of Cangerbury. The prisoner John was being taken through the city to a hill outside the city walls. There he was hanged, drawn and quartered. Because he was considered a traitor, his head and body were put on display at the entrance to the city.

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified him and he is among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. The Catholic Society at the University of Kent has chosen St. John Stone as their patron.

It's sad to note that the official of the king who visited the Austin Friars was actually the Bishop of Dover, Richard Ingworth, a former Dominican prior who had been promoted by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell after the suppression of the Langley priory, according to the British History on-line site:

The bishop of Dover, who came to Canterbury on 13 December, 1538, to negotiate the surrender of the friaries, found the Austin Friars specially in great poverty. (fn. 37) Their debts were £40, and their implements not worth £6, except a little plate weighing 126 oz. He reports to Cromwell that at the Austin Friars on 14 December, 'one friar very rudely and traitorously used himself,' and declared he was ready to die for it that the king might not be the head of the Church, but it must be a spiritual father appointed by God. This was probably Friar Stone . . .

St. John Stone had long opposed Henry; he had spoken against Henry's effort to have his first marriage nullified to remarry--it is no surprise that he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy! His last words were: "Behold I close my apostolate in my blood, In my death I shall find life, for I die for a holy cause, the defence of the Church of God, infallible and immaculate." He alone of his friary stood up against Henry VIII; the rest of them would be pensioned off a few years later when the friary was suppressed. 

According to that the British History site entry on the Austin Friars of Canterbury, the city records contain these details for what it cost to execute Friar John Stone: 

"Paid for half a ton of timber to make a pair of gallows to hang Friar Stone, 2s. 6d.; to a labourer that digged the holes, 3d.; to four men that helped set up the gallows for drink to them, for carriage of the timber from Stablegate to Dongeon (i.e. Dane John), 1s.; for a hurdle, 6d.; for a load of wood and for a horse to draw him to the Dongeon, 2s. 3d.; paid two men that set the kettle and parboiled him, 1s.; to two men that carried his quarters to the gates and set them up, 1s.; for halters to hang him and Sandwich cord and for straw, 1s.; to a woman that scoured the kettle, 2d.; to him that did the execution, 3s. 8d." 

Those are rather horrible details: sharing 1s. for parboiling the quarters of a friar; sharing 1s. for hanging his quarters to the gates of Canterbury! He was drawn to the hill of Dane John overlooking Canterbury and would have seen his suppressed friary below before he died the death of a traitor. The date of his execution is not certain, but I chose today's date as it is also the Feast of St. John the Beloved Apostle in the Octave of Christmas. 

This Augustinian Friar website supports my choice of the date because Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, visited Canterbury on Saturday, December 27, 1539, 475 years ago today:

Usually such a sentence was carried out without delay but in this instance an extraordinary event complicated matters. Anne of Cleves, who was coming to England to be the fourth wife of King Henry VIII, was due to arrive on Sunday, 7th December 1539, and would be stopping at Canterbury overnight on her way to London.

Her arrival, however, was delayed by bad weather. Her visit and John Stone’s execution probably happened on Saturday, 27th December 1539. As bizarre as it sounds, John Stone's execution was timed to be part of the reception festivities arranged for Anne of Cleves, despite the shortness of her stay.

This conclusion is deduced from the extraordinary expenses for the execution and from the fact that the paraphernalia needed for it were removed only after her departure. Even so, the historian, Rev Dr Michael Benedict Hackett O.S.A., who was an expert on John Stone and died in April 2005, questioned whether the execution occurred during Anne of Cleves' time in Canterbury.

The bill for the execution amounted to £15.9.11d (fifteen pounds, nine shillings and eleven pence). This was a great sum when compared to a previous execution which had cost only six pence.

Coming from overseas in Anne's company was also the apostate English Augustinian, Dr Robert Barnes, then at the height of his power. He probably witnessed Stone’s execution. In Barnes and Stone the worst and the best of the Order in England in 1539 confronted each other. Paradoxically, also by order of Henry VIII Barnes himself was burned to death at the stake in London just six months later.

St. John Stone, pray for us!

Image credit: Saints.SQPN.com

Catholic Martyr's Shrine in Leicester

Holy Cross Priory in Leicester cites an interesting history on its website:

The Dominican friars reached Leicester around 1247. At that time the Augustinian canons at Leicester Abbey (of Our Lady of the Meadows) cared for all the parishes within the walls of medieval Leicester. Through a highly unusual arrangement, the canons gave the friars the church of St Clement, a poor parish between two arms of the river Soar. Through the benefaction of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester (the son of St Dominic's friend, the homonymous 5th earl) and King Henry III, the friars built their priory around this parish church of St Clement's. It became known as “The Blak Frears in the Ashes”, presumably because of the many ash trees in its grounds. In its medieval heyday the priory numbered thirty-three friars, and hosted three provincial chapters. On 10th November 1538 the priory was surrendered to the king's agents. Those friars of our province who did not apostasize fled to Flanders.

The first Dominicans to return to Leicester after the Reformation came from Holy Cross Priory, Bornhem, founded in 1657 in what was then the Spanish Netherlands. The founder was Philip Thomas Howard, born in 1629, a member of the family of the Dukes of Norfolk, whose title had been in abeyance since the reign of Elizabeth. He was brought up in the household of his grandfather the Earl of Arundel, known as the 'Collector Earl' because of his patronage of the fine arts (the 'Arundel Marbles' are to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford). The Earl, being a Royalist, settled on the Continent during the Civil Wars. In 1645, at Cremona, the young Philip took the habit of the Order, much to the displeasure of the Earl. His purpose was to restore the English Province, and it was for this reason that he eventually persuaded the Master of the Order and the General Chapter to allow him to seek a patron, the Count of Bornhem near Ghent, to make the first foundation of the English Dominicans since the Reformation. Howard returned to England as Almoner to Charles II's Queen in 1660, but eventually had to leave England due to anti-Catholic sentiment. He was created Cardinal in 1675 and died in Rome in 1694. He was Cardinal Protector of England and Scotland, did much to restore the English College in Rome, and gave his unheeded advice to the headstrong James II. His tomb is in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

At Bornhem, a school for English Catholic boys and a novitiate and study house of the Order (a foundation was also made at Louvain) thrived until the arrival of the French Revolutionary army in 1794.The brethren and the Dominican nuns of Brussels, also founded by Howard, escaped to England. With them was Benedict Caestryck, born in 1762 at Poperinghe, a Fleming who had joined the Order at Ypres in 1784. It was he who founded the permanent mission of Holy Cross, Leicester, buying land there on which in 1817 he began to build the church, opened in 1819, and a presbytery, 1824. The parish and later the Priory took the name of Holy Cross, the dedication of the Priory and church at Bornhem. The relic of the true Cross which came from Bornhem is venerated at Holy Cross, Leicester, to this day. Benedict Caestryck died in 1844. His portrait hangs in the cloister at Leicester.

Holy Cross was established as a priory in 1882. During this period the brethren opened Mass centres around the city; thus all the parishes in Leicester arose from Dominican foundations. By 1929 the first Holy Cross church proved to be too small for the congregation. So the famous preacher and author, fr Vincent McNabb OP, started to raise money for a larger church. Its foundation stone was laid in 1929 and the choir and transepts opened and the high altar consecrated in 1931. The church was finally completed and consecrated on 14 May 1958.

The church's shrine to the English Catholic Martyrs was consecrated in December 2010, so it is still pretty new. Find a nice picture of it here and a good description of it here.