Preview: Blessed Thomas Percy's Mementoes

After an hiatus on Monday the 14th as the Son Rise Morning Show prepared for the Solemnity of the Assumption on August 15th, we're back with our series of highlights from Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors, remembering Blessed Thomas Percy, an early Elizabethan martyr.

So on Monday, August 21, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

[This Thomas Percy is not to be confused with the Sir Thomas Percy, his father, who participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace during the reign of King Henry VIII, who has not been beatified by the Church. Note from the Catholic Encyclopedia: "When Thomas was eight years old his father was executed at Tyburn (2 June, 1537) for having taken a leading part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and he also is considered a martyr by many."*]

Father Bowden focuses on the time when Blessed Thomas Percy was imprisoned in Scotland under the title "Friday Abstinence" with verses from the Second Book of Maccabees (6:18-19): 

Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes . . . was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine's flesh. But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment.

Some background from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

On Elizabeth's accession the earl, whose steadfast loyalty to the Catholic Church was known, was kept in the North while the anti-Catholic measures of Elizabeth's first Parliament were passed. Elizabeth continued to show him favour, and in 1563 gave him the Order of the Garter. He had then resigned the wardenship and was living in the South. But the systematic persecution of the Catholics rendered their position most difficult, and in the autumn of 1569 the Catholic gentry in the North, stirred up by rumours of the approaching excommunication of Elizabeth, were planning to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and obtain liberty of worship. Earl Thomas with the Earl of Westmoreland wrote to the pope asking for advice, but before their letter reached Rome circumstances hurried them into action against their better judgment. After a brief success the rising failed, and Thomas fled to Scotland, where he was captured and, after three years, sold to the English Government. He was conducted to York and beheaded, refusing to save his life by abandoning his religion. He was beatified by Leo XIII on 13 May, 1895, and his festival was appointed to be observed in the Dioceses of Hexham and Newcastle on 14 November. His daughter Mary founded the Benedictine convent at Brussels from which nearly all the existing houses of Benedictine nuns in England are descended.

According to the website for the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, his feast is still celebrated on that designated date:

His feast day is celebrated in our Diocese on 14 November.

A Chapel at Langley Castle (completed in 1914) has stained glass windows featuring Blessed Thomas Percy (Blessed Thomas Percy was a descendent (sic) of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who originally owned Langley Castle).

(BTW: Langley Castle is now a hotel. Sic transit gloria mundi!) 

While he was a prisoner in Scotland in Lochleven Castle (where Mary, Queen of Scots was also held for a time in 1567-1568), Blessed Thomas Percy was besieged with loneliness and temptations to deny his Catholicism, including his fast and abstinence:

TORN from his friends and followers, from his wife and his four little girls, and betrayed into the hands of a declared enemy, Bl. Thomas in his captivity at Lochleven had indeed "sunk into deep waters among them that hated him" (Ps 68:15). But he found strength from above in his continual fasts and watchings and pious meditations, and proved himself a true champion of the faith. His Calvinist keeper, the Lord of Lochleven [William Douglas, the Sixth Earl of Morton], brought many of his sect to try and persuade him, by cunning argument and speeches or by threats and promises, to embrace their errors, but he could never be persuaded to depart in the smallest matter from the Communion of the Catholic Church. When, as often happened, meat was brought to him on days which Catholics observe as a fast, he contented himself with bread alone ; and by his example moved some of those attending on him to repent of their apostasy. The fortitude he thus acquired found a witness in Lord Hunsdon [Thomas Carey, Mary's Boleyn's son, Elizabeth I's cousin, and one of Shakespeare's patrons], who reported "that he is readier to talk of hawks and hounds than anything else, though very sorrowful and fearing for his life." (p. 269)

There are other entries for Blessed Thomas Percy, including one on August 13, p. 261, which recounts the seizure of Durham Cathedral during the Northern Rebellion and the celebration of Holy Mass for the first time after the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.

Blessed Thomas Percy was beheaded in York on August 22, 1572.

Blessed Thomas Percy, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of Blessed Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland (1528-1570, at full length, kneeling on a cushion, wearing a black doublet with a fur trimmed cloak, a white ruff and the Order of the Garter collar and garter, reading a prayer book.

*Since both father and son took part in rebellions, it might be asked why the son is beatified and not the father: Blessed Thomas Percy was offered his life if he renounced his illegal Catholic faith (punishable by fines at that time if he did not attend the government sanctioned Church of England services). During the reign of Henry VIII, his father was not offered such a choice.

And, just to add to the confusion of similar names, there is another Thomas Percy, a Gunpowder Plot conspirator, who died of gunshot wounds on November 8, 1605. His body was exhumed and beheaded during the repercussions of the failed, murderous plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

The Percy Family and Plots: Fathers, Sons, Uncles, and Brothers

Henry Percy, the Eighth Earl of Northumberland, Second Baron Percy, was found dead in his cell in the Tower of London on June 21, 1585.

His father Sir Thomas Percy had participated in Bigod's Rebellion led by Sir Francis Bigod in the after of the Pilgrimage of Grace, when Henry VIII was slow in keeping his promises. After the Bigod Rebellion was suppressed, Sir Thomas Percy was attainted and executed at Tyburn on 2 June 1537.

And one of the Eighth Earl's uncles, Sir Ingelram Percy, had also participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and had died in the Tower of London in 1538.

His brother, Thomas Percy, the Seventh Earl of Northumberland, First Baron Percy, had been executed on August  22, 1572 for his involvement in the Northern Rebellion. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on May 13, 1895 because before he was beheaded he had refused an offer to save his life by renouncing Catholicism.

The Seventh Earl had inherited the title from the Sixth Earl of Northumberland, also named Henry Percy. He is famous because he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn while serving in Thomas Cardinal Wolsey's household. When Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, the Sixth Earl was encouraged to deny they had ever been betrothed (which would have been an impediment to the King marrying her; when Henry VIII wanted to get rid of Anne Boleyn, the Sixth Earl was encouraged to affirm that they had been betrothed because that would have made the King's marriage to her invalid.

Because the Sixth Earl and his wife, the former Mary Talbot, had no surviving male heirs, first Thomas, the Seventh Earl and then Henry, the Eighth Earl, had inherited the title when the Sixth Earl died on June 29, 1537.

The Dictionary of National Biography attempts to explain what brought the Eighth Earl of Northumberland to the Tower:

During the northern rebellion, in which his elder brother was a chief actor (November-December 1569), Henry Percy remained loyal to the government, joined the royal forces, and vigorously attacked the rebels. Queen Elizabeth promised him favour and employment in return for his valuable services. When his brother was a prisoner in Scotland, Percy wrote urging him to confess his offences and appeal to the queen's mercy. In 1571 he was elected M.P. for Northumberland, and on his brother's execution at York in 1572 he assumed, by Queen Elizabeth's permission, the title of eighth earl of Northumberland, in accordance with the patents of creation. 'Simple Thomas,' it was said among his tenantry, had died to make way for 'cruel Henry.'

But the traditions attaching to his family had meanwhile overcome his loyalty. As soon as he had helped to crush his brother, he was seized by an impulse to follow his brother's example, and strike a blow in behalf of Queen Mary Stuart, who was in confinement at Tutbury. He opened communication with the Scottish queen's agent, the bishop of Ross, at Easter 1571, and offered to become Queen Mary's 'servant.' He would aid her to escape, or at any rate connive at her escape. The wary Sir Ralph Sadler suspected his intentions, and on 15 Nov. 1571 Percy was arrested while in London and sent to the Tower. On 23 Feb. 1571-2 he wrote, begging the queen to release him. After eighteen months' detention he was brought to trial on a charge of treason. Thereupon he flung himself on the queen's mercy, was fined five thousand marks, and was directed to confine himself to his house at Petworth. On 12 July 1573 he was permitted to come to London, and was soon afterwards set at liberty.

But he continued his plotting for the sake of Mary of Scotland:

On 8 Feb. 1575-6 he first took his seat in the House of Lords, and was one of the royal commissioners appointed to prorogue parliament in November. Just a year later he was nominated a commissioner to promote the breeding of war-horses in Sussex. But he had not abandoned his treacherous courses. In September 1582 he entertained the French agent, M. de Bex, and looked with a friendly eye on Throckmorton's plot to release Queen Mary. With Lord Henry Howard and Throckmorton he was arrested on suspicion of complicity late in the same year, and for a second time was sent to the Tower. He was, however, only detained a few weeks, and no legal proceedings were taken against him. . . . He was still sanguine of compassing the release of Queen Mary. In September 1583 he invited her agent, Charles Paget [q. v.], and Paget's brother, Lord Paget, to Petworth, and there he discussed the matter fully. The Duc de Guise was to aid the enterprise with French troops, and Northumberland offered advice respecting their landing. William Shelley, who was present at the interview, was arrested and racked next year, and related what took place. Northumberland's aim, he said, was not only to secure Queen Mary's liberty, but to extort from Elizabeth full toleration for the Roman catholics (sic).

So he went back to the Tower, where he died of the gunshot wound, ruled a suicide, although contested, as Sir Christopher Hatton, one of Elizabeth I's favorites, was accused of murdering him.

The Eighth Earl's son, the Ninth Earl, also named Henry Percy, inherited his father's title and became known as The Wizard Earl. Don't worry, the pattern of plots and rebellions and suspicion and/or proof of Percy guilt was not broken. He too spent time in the Tower of London, found guilty of misprision of treason--one of his cousins, Sir Thomas Percy, was a Gunpowder Plotter--and the Ninth Earl should have informed on him and disclosed the danger:

On 27 June 1606 he was tried in the court of Star-chamber for contempt and misprision of treason. It was stated that he had sought to become chief of the papists in England; that knowing Thomas Percy to be a recusant he had admitted him to be a gentleman pensioner without administering to him the oath of supremacy; that after the discovery of the plot he had written to friends in the north about securing his own moneys, but gave no orders for Percy's apprehension. He pleaded guilty to some of the facts set forth in the indictment, but indignantly repudiated the inferences placed upon them by his prosecutors. He was sentenced to pay a fine of 30,000l, to be removed from all offices and places, to be rendered incapable of holding any of them hereafter, and to be kept a prisoner in the Tower for life.

The Ninth Earl spent 16 years in the Tower of London; he was released in 1621 and died on November 5, 1632. His son, the Tenth Earl of Northumberland is not named either Henry nor Thomas: he was Algernon Sidney!

Happy Father's Day! (USA)

Image Credit (Public Domain): Oil painting on canvas, Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (posthumous)

February 25, 1570: Pope Pius V's Papal Bull

We included the famous or infamous Papal Bull of Pope St. Pius V excommunicating Elizabeth I in our series of anniversaries on the Son Rise Morning Show. Jack Scarisbrick, aka J.J. (John Joseph) Scarisbrick, biographer of Henry VIII--writes about it for The Catholic Herald because today, February 25, is the 450th anniversary of its issue/publication. Pope Pius V wanted some assurance that it was possible for an excommunication of Elizabeth I to have impact on her rule in England: that she would be deposed and replaced.

Thus the timing--the unfortunate mistiming--of Regnans in Excelsis:

Accordingly one Nicholas Morton, sometime canon of York who had fled his homeland and was now a protégé of Goldwell in Rome, was sent secretly to England to consult the likes of Thomas Percy to discover how the proposed excommunication would be received; that is, whether it would be accompanied by an uprising.

Morton reported that it would be widely welcomed. Indeed, he had been begged to get immediate papal support for a revolt that was already being planned.

Exactly what happened next is, once again, unclear.

Pius did not act promptly (perhaps because he was engrossed in so many other urgent issues). So the two earls (Northumberland and Westmorland) who were to lead the 1569 rising wrote to him on its very eve, begging for his blessing. Pius replied with astonishing speed, promising to provide financial and spiritual aid and to declare Elizabeth a heretic. . . .

The rebellion was soon under way. It swept across northern England. Mass was said once again in Durham Cathedral. Thousands were joining in. Had not Elizabeth’s chief captain held York – and, more importantly, had the promised papal excommunication arrived – the rebellion could have surged southwards and probably toppled Elizabeth.

But inexplicably Pius had not yet delivered his bull. Why? We do not know. Not until February 10, 1570 – to observe due process (and no doubt believing that the rebellion was still alive) – did he take final evidence from 10 English residents in Rome to confirm Elizabeth’s guilt. At last, on February 25, the bull was released. And to enable it to be circulated faster, the bull itself authorised production of notarially attested copies anywhere.

Scarisbrick adds some commentary about Mary, Queen of Scots, who had come under Elizabeth I's protection (control) in 1568. I think he makes an error: Mary was married three times: to Francis of France, Lord Darnley of England, and James Bothwell of Scotland. Scarisbrick comments, giving Mary a fourth husband:

But this most fatal of femmes fatales was also an embarrassment. Twice briefly married to a king (of France and then Scotland), she was implicated in an explosion of gunpowder which carried off her third husband, and she had subsequently “mislaid” a fourth.

Nevertheless, he does bring up an interesting question: did Pope Pius V not want Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne of England in place of Elizabeth I?

Please read the rest there.

An Early Elizabethan Era Martyr, Blessed John Felton

Dom Bede Camm wrote about the first group of Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation beatified by Pope Leo XIII. He discussed the offenses of four of the early Elizabethan martyrs (John Felton, John Storey, Father Thomas Woodhouse, and Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland), noting that each of them had offended Elizabeth I in connection with her temporal power:

Coming now to Felton, Storey, Woodhouse, Percy, whose deaths were connected in one way or another with the Rising or the excommunication, we see that their causes involve many more problems than the lives of the other martyrs do. One might, for instance, discuss their patriotism in so far as they championed the old order, which was being subverted by a monstrous exercise of royal tyranny. One might draw out parallels between them and others, such as Hampden, who are commonly belauded as champions of popular resistance to the encroachments of the Crown, and the comparison would be greatly in favour of the Catholics. But here we are only concerned with the precise question of their martyrdom. Were they executed out of the motive of hatred of the Faith? Were they persecuted for professing the Faith, or for performing some act intimately connected with that profession ? On these points, too, this group of martyrs is somewhat exceptional.

For, whereas all the other martyrs were conspicuous for their inoffensiveness, these four had annoyed the Queen or opposed her titles or temporal claims. If we take a partial view of their cases, and fix our eyes exclusively on their abnormal features, we may feel a doubt about their claim to the honours of martyrdom. But it is needless to say that such a way of looking at them would not only be quite unfair, it would misrepresent the facts. We cannot arrive at the truth without considering the cases in their surroundings ; we must consider these executions as parts of a cruel persecution?

Speaking of Blessed John Felton, Dom Camm comments:

In Felton's case, if we regard nothing but the fact of his having set up the Bull of Deposition, we might remain uncertain about his claim to martyrdom. It is not everyone who meets his death while executing the sentences of an ecclesiastical court who is a martyr, for such sentences may and do provoke many passions besides hatred of the Faith. Even Catholic princes who would on no account have tampered with the faith or discipline of the Church, have been known to execute Papal messengers who brought them notice of excommunication, and yet no one pretends that such messengers deserve to be canonized as martyrs. But if we enlarge our view, and regard the whole of the circumstances of Felton's case, we at once see how different his was from that just described. He was not executed by a Catholic unwilling to tamper with the liberties of the Church, but by a persecutor of the Church eager to extinguish every single one of its liberties. Nor did either side regard the exercise of Papal authority in question as an issue unconnected with the continuance of the old Faith in this country. It seemed to be the only remedy in that desperate struggle. Felton took what seemed the last chance "to secure that the Pope's Apostolic voice should be heard, and his Apostolic judgment made known among his English flock. Death endured for that cause was true martyrdom."

As the Dictionary of National Biography describes him, Felton was a

catholic (sic) layman, [and] was descended from an ancient family in Norfolk. He was a gentleman of large property, and resided at Bermondsey Abbey, near Southwark, Surrey. His wife had been maid of honour to Queen Mary, who just before her death recommended her to Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, Elizabeth held her in great respect, for they had been friends and companions in childhood, and on this account Mrs. Felton was favoured with a special grant to keep a priest in her house. When Pius V published the bull of excommunication and deprivation against Elizabeth, Felton obtained copies of it from the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, who immediately left the kingdom. Felton published the bull in this country by affixing a copy to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace between two and three o'clock of the morning of 15 May 1570. The government, surprised at and alarmed by this daring deed, at once ordered a general search to be made in all suspected places, and another copy of the bull was discovered in the chambers of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, when put to the rack, that he had received it from Felton. The next day the lord mayor, the lord chief justice, and the two sheriffs of London, with five hundred halberdiers, surrounded Bermondsey Abbey early in the morning. Felton, guessing their errand, opened the doors and gave himself into their custody, frankly admitting that he had set up the bull. He was conveyed to the Tower, where he was placed on the rack, but he resolutely refused to make any further confession.

He was arraigned at Guildhall on 4 Aug. 1570, and on the 8th of the same month was drawn on a sledge to St. Paul's churchyard, where he was hanged in front of the episcopal palace. He said that he gloried in the deed, and proclaimed himself a martyr to the papal supremacy. Though he gave the queen no other title than that of the Pretender, he asked her pardon if he had injured her; and in token that he bore her no malice, he sent her a present, by the Earl of Essex, of a diamond ring, worth 400l., which he drew from his finger. His body was beheaded and quartered, ‘and carried to Newgate to be parboiled, and so set up, as the other rebels were.’

Felton was low of stature, and of a black complexion; naturally of a warm temper, and almost ungovernable where the interest of his religion was concerned. His plate and jewels, valued at 33,000 pounds, were seized for the queen's use. He was beatified by decree of Pope Leo XIII, dated 29 Dec. 1886.

Blessed Thomas Palasor and Companions

Blessed Thomas Palasor, OFM is a Durham martyr and Valladolid alumnus, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

English martyr, born at Ellerton-upon-Swale, parish of Catterick, North Riding of Yorkshire; died at Durham 9 August, 1600. He arrived at Reims 24 July, 1592, whence he set out for Valladolid 24 August, 1592. There he was ordained priest in 1596. He was arrested in the house of John Norton, of Ravenswroth, nearly Lamesley, County Durham, who seems to have been the second son of Richard Norton, of Norton Conyers, attainted for his share in the Rebellion in 1569. Norton and his wife (if the above identification be correct, she was his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Christopher Redshaw of Owston) were arrested at the same time, and with them John Talbot, one of the Talbots of Thorton-le-Street, North Ridding of Yorkshire. All four were tried at Durham and condemned to death, Palasor for being a priest, and the others for assisting him. Another gentleman was condemned at the same time but saved his life by conforming, as they might have done. Mrs. Norton, being supposed to be with child, was reprieved. The others suffered together. Bishop Challoner tells how an attempt to poison Palasor and his companions made by the gaoler's wife resulted in the conversion of her maid-servant Mary Day.

Palasor, Norton, and Talbot were beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II, on the 22nd of November 1987.

Of Blessed John Norton's father, Richard, the Dictionary of National Biography states:

(1488?–1588), rebel, known in the time of the northern rebellion of 1569 as ‘Old Norton,’ is said to have been born in 1488. He was eldest son of John Norton of Norton Conyers, by his wife Anne, daughter of William or Miles Radclyffe of Rylleston. His grandfather, Sir John Norton of Norton Conyers, was grandson of Sir Richard Norton [q. v.], chief justice of the common pleas. Richard Norton took part in the pilgrimage of grace, but was pardoned (cf. Memorials of the Rebellion, pp. 284–5). In 1545 and in 1556 he was one of the council of the north. In 1555 and 1557 he was governor of Norham Castle, but apparently lost these offices on the accession of Elizabeth. He was, however, sheriff of Yorkshire, 1568–9. On the breaking out of the rebellion of 1569 he joined the insurgents, and is described as ‘an old gentleman with a reverend grey beard.’ His estates were confiscated, and he was attainted. When all was over he fled across the border, and was seen at Cavers by the traitor Constable, but resisted his suggestions of coming to England and asking for mercy. He soon went to Flanders, and, with others of his family, was pensioned by Philip of Spain, his own allowance being eighteen crowns a month. John Story was said to have conversed with him in Flanders in 1571 (‘Life,’ in Harl. Misc. vol. iii.) He afterwards seems to have lived in France, and Edmund Neville [q. v.] was accused of being in his house at Rouen. He died abroad, probably in Flanders, on 9 April 1588. In the ‘Estate of the English Fugitives,’ ‘old Norton’ is mentioned as one of those who are ‘onely for want of things necessarie, and of pure povertie, consumed and dead’ (Sadler State Papers, ii. 242).

So the Norton family resolutely remained Catholic and suffered for it. William Wordsworth wrote about the family's misfortunes in his narrative poem, The White Doe of Rylstone; or, The Fate of the Nortons. The painting above is by John William Inchbold. The doe in Wordsworth's poem visits one of the graves near the ruins of Bolton Abbey and the poem tells why.

A Martyr of the Northern Rebellion

Blessed Thomas Plumtree, formerly of Corpus Christi College at Oxford, served as chaplain to the Northern Rising of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. He officiated at the Mass in Durham Cathedral on December 4, at which clergy and people who had conformed to the new religion were reconciled to the old faith. With the establishment of the Church of England at the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign, Father Plumtree had been forced first from his rectorship at Stubton and then from his role as schoolmaster by the requirements of the Oath of Supremacy, etc. He was charged with having said Mass and offered freedom if he renounced his Catholicism, on the scaffold in the Durham Castle marketplace!--which he refused on January 4, 1570. With the sanction of Pope Gregory XII, the Blessed Thomas was represented on the walls of the ancient church of the English College in Rome and Pope Leo XIII declared him a martyr and beatified him in 1886 among a group of 54. The Catholic Church of St. Cuthbert in Durham mentions him in the history of their church and the Hexham and Newcastle Diocese lists him among the Northern Saints and Martyrs, celebrating a diocesan feast on July 25. Note that the crucial issue for his being declared a martyr is that he was given a chance to save his life by renouncing his faith and refused it.

For more information about the Northern Rebellion, see my review of a study of the rebellion.

Blessed Francis Ingleby and His Brother "The Fox"

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Blessed Francis Ingleby was an English martyr, born about 1551; suffered at York on Friday, 3 June, 1586 (old style).

According to an early but inaccurate calendar he suffered 1 June (Cath. Rec.Soc. V, 192). Fourth son of Sir William Ingleby, knight, of Ripley, Yorkshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir William Malory, knight, of Studley, he was probably a scholar of Brasenose College, Oxford, in and before 1565, and was a student of the Inner Temple in 1576.

On 18 August, 1582 he arrived at the English College, Reims, where he lived at his own expense. He was ordained subdeacon at Laon on Saturday, 28 May, deacon at Reims, Saturday, 24 September, and priest at Laon, Saturday 24 December, 1583 and left for England Thursday, 5 April 1584. (These four dates are all new style).

He laboured with great zeal in the neighbourhood of York, where he was arrested in the spring of 1586, and lodged in the castle. He was the one of the priests for harbouring whom the St. Margaret Clitherow was arraigned. At the prison door, while fetters were being fastened on his legs he smilingly said, "I fear me I shall be overproud of my boots." He was condemned under 27 Eliz. c. 2 for being a priest. When sentence was pronounced he exclaimed, "Credo videre bona Domini in terra viventium". [From Psalm 26: "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living", one of the Psalms in the Office of the Dead.]

Fr. Warford says he was short but well-made, fair-complexioned, with a chestnut beard, and a slight cast in his eyes.

Blessed Francis is one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Saint John Paul II in 1987. The Portal, the magazine published by the Ordinariate of Our Lady in Walsingham in England, has more about the martyr in their May 2012 issue.

Francis' brother David, with whom he joined the Northern Rebellion, was also devoutly Catholic and just as Francis risked death by returning to England as a Catholic priest, David risked death by aiding Catholic priests. According to the Ingleby family history website:

His brother David (1547-1600) became known as ‘the Fox’ for his ability to outrun his pursuers. He was the man who guided the seminary priests around the North of England, leading them from one safe house to another. He married Lady Ann Neville, daughter of the exiled earl of Westmoreland – and another staunch Catholic [Charles Neville, who led the Northern Rebellion with Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland]. David was heavily implicated as a co-conspirator of John Ballard in the Babington treason, a conspiracy to remove Elizabeth I from the throne and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. He and Francis were described as ‘the most dangerous papists in the North’. A huge manhunt was launched to find them: a secret priest’s hiding hole, built to conceal them and other visiting priests while they were at Ripley, was only discovered by accident in 1964. A set of instructions written out for a spy being sent to the royal court in Scotland listed numerous things that the spy should and should not do: it ended with a very simple warning ‘ beware of David Ingleby’. David died in exile in Belgium: Elizabeth I, taking pity on his by now impoverished widow, awarded her a pension provided she behaved herself. 

I presume that behaving herself meant not hiding priests or corresponding with other recusant families, and keeping quiet about being a Catholic!

Illustration: Ripley Castle from Wikipedia Commons (public domain).

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk Born

The surname Howard comes up often on this blog, and just like any other post on the Howard family, our challenge today is to keep all the people named Thomas, Henry, Elizabeth, Anne, Margaret, and Mary straight, not to mention the Earls, Dukes, and Lords so that the whole story makes sense and we can understand the impact of all these relationships and plots!

Here goes:

Today's Howard was born on March 10, 1536. He was the grandson of Thomas Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who was uncle to two of Henry VIII's consorts, Anne Boleyn (Elizabeth Howard married Thomas Boleyn) and Catherine Howard (Edmund Howard's daughter).

The 4th Duke of Norfolk's father was Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, who was executed just days before Henry VIII died. Thomas Howard the 4th thus succeeded to the family title when his grandfather died in 1554. His mother, by the way, was Frances de Vere of Oxford.

John Foxe, the great Protestant martyrologist and hagiographer, was a teacher of today's Thomas Howard. Howard and his brother Henry Howard, lst Earl of Northampton were under the care of their evangelical aunt, Mary Howard FitzRoy, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset, widow of Henry FitzRoy, Henry VIII's only recognized illegitimate son. Howard continued to patronize Foxe, but Howard also began to involve himself in political efforts to promote Catholicism in England. (His brother Henry would be known as a crypto-Catholic and fall out of Elizabeth's favor.) Note that when Thomas Howard the 3rd was released from the Tower of London at the beginning of Mary I's reign he told John Foxe to find new employment.

Thomas Howard the 4th married thrice and the fourth marriage he attempted got him into big trouble, to say the least. His first wife was Mary FitzAlan, heiress to the Arundell estates. Their son was Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundell and Catholic martyr/saint. (Mary died after his birth in 1557.)

His second wife was a widow-heiress, Margaret Audley (Lady Jane Grey's first cousin). Their eldest son, another Thomas Howard, later 1st Earl of Suffolk, was one of Queen Elizabeth's admirals in the battle against the Spanish Armada and survived to serve James I for many years. The younger son was William Howard, who would be imprisoned as a Catholic by Elizabeth I like his half-brother Philip.

His third wife was another widow, Elizabeth Leyburne Dacre, whose first husband was Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre. Elizabeth Leyburne's family were recusant Catholics. By her first marriage she had three daughters and Thomas Howard the 4th arranged marriages between her three daughters and his three sons after her death in 1567:

Anne Dacre married Philip Howard (their son was named Thomas)
Elizabeth Dacre married William Howard
Mary Dacre married Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk (and died soon after)

Thomas Howard the 4th's sister Jane was married to Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmoreland, a Catholic peer in the North of England. Neville joined Thomas Percy, the 7th Earl of Northumberland in the Northern Rebellion against Elizabeth I in 1569.

Jane Howard Neville encouraged her brother to marry the former Queen of Scotland who was now Elizabeth's prisoner or guest, having sought refuge in 1568, hoping for assistance in regaining her throne. But Elizabeth first wanted to find out if Mary was at all implicated in the murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. So by November of 1569, Mary's position was precarious--and this idea of the Earl Marshall of England marrying the Catholic threat to Elizabeth's throne, while the North of England was rebelling, led to Thomas Howard the 4th's imprisonment in the Tower of London.

At the same time, of course, Mary, the ertswhile Queen of Scot was still Elizabeth's most likely successor, since she had rejected the claims of the Grey family. Since Elizabeth was not married, and did not seem likely to be married, any discussion of or action that might influence the succession was very dangerous, as the surviving Grey sisters, Catherine and Mary, found out when they married without Elizabeth's approval.

In the meantime, of course, the Northern Rebellion had fallen apart; Percy and Neville had fled to Scotland and Elizabeth's retribution on the rebels was proceeding apace. Evidently, imprisonment in the Tower somehow led Thomas Howard the 4th to greater designs against Queen Elizabeth. Upon his release he became involved in the Ridolfi Plot of 1570 which aimed at executing the Queen and placing Mary, Queen of Scots (and her consort, Thomas I, King of England?) on the throne. The plot was discovered by Elizabeth's spy network and Thomas Howard the 4th was executed for treason on June 2, 1572. His lands and titles were forfeit to the throne, of course.

His son Philip Howard, however, would succeed to his maternal grandfather's title, the Earl of Arundel, when Henry FitzAlan died in 1580--but he ended up dying in the Tower of London, perhaps just because Elizabeth feared a Howard in exile, supported by the Pope and Catholic monarchs. Nevertheless, Elizabeth restored Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk to the blood in 1584 and he served her in various offices and efforts, including the trial of Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, but ended up leaving office under James I in some disgrace. Thomas Howard the 4th's youngest son, William Howard became a Catholic in 1584, lived in retirement and recusancy in Naworth Castle, Cumberland and died in 1640.