Arma Christi Rolls: Medieval Meditations on the Passion of Christ

As we prepare for Lent--the Byzantine Catholic Church (and the Orthodox Church) is marking its approach with Meat Fare and Cheese Fare Sundays and the Anglican Ordinariate and the 1962 Roman Missal with the season of Septuagesima, celebrating Mass on Sundays without the Gloria or the Alleluia, buried after the First Vespers of Septuagesima Sunday--our thoughts turn to what we will do or not do during Lent. One theme of Lent is meditations on Our Lord's Passion with Stations of the Cross, for example, prayed in parish churches each Friday.

A medieval English method of meditation on the instruments of Our Lord's Passion (the pillar at which He was scourged, the nails, the spear, the Cross, the Crown of Thorns, etc) was illustrated "Arma Christi" rolls, one of which was just discovered in the archives of the Bar Convent in York:

A rare medieval illuminated manuscript has been uncovered in a York convent's archive.
Dr Hannah Thomas discovered the 15th-Century Arma Christi at Bar Convent while cataloguing the religious order's collection, calling it "one of the best-preserved examples ever found".
The rolled document is one of only 11 copies known to have survived, the convent said, and featured the prayer poem "O Vernicle" with response texts written after each verse.
Dr Thomas said the responses, written in red, suggested it was used in communal worship as well as private prayer.
"With hand-drawn figures and beautiful calligraphy it's a medieval work of art in its own right," she said.
The manuscript, thought to date from about 1475, was found in a shoebox containing leaflets from the 1980s. 

Leaflets from the 1980s!!!!!!

Here's an image of an Arma Christi roll at the Morgan Library in NYC.

There's a scholarly ($$$$$$$$) book on the subject, inspired by one of the editors discovering an Arma Christi roll in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Andrea Denny-Brown writes about that discovery in 2002 here.

The BBC article cited above notes this reaction from the mother superior of the Bar Convent:

There are no records of when this Arma Christi was passed into the order's care, according to Bar Convent, with the item due to go on public display in April.
Sister Ann Stafford, mother superior, said the responses written on the scroll would now be used in a service at the convent's chapel.
"We're delighted that presiding at the service will be the Bishop of Middlesbrough and the Archbishop of York," she said.
"We plan to livestream the service so that the world can share in its discovery."

I'll try to watch for more information on the Bar Convent website.

I often pray Saint John Henry Newman's translation of the Anima Christi, another prayer that meditates on the Passion of Christ:

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ’s side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In thy wounds I fain would hide,
Ne’er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Christ as Man of Sorrows between Four Angels, engraving by Master E. S., c. 1460

Two New Oratories in England

Last weekend at the Spiritual Life Center I mentioned how the Oratory movement that St. John Henry Newman had brought to England was flourishing as a new Oratory, in Manchester, had just been approved by Pope Francis. The Catholic Herald provided this update:

Less than a month after the canonisation of St John Henry Newman, England is to get its fourth oratory.

Pope Francis signed a decree on November 1, the Solemnity of All Saints, formally erecting the Manchester Oratory at St Chad’s parish in the Diocese of Salford.

The Oratorian community, which has been in formation in Manchester since 1992, will also oversee a prison and a hospital chaplaincy, as well as a Catholic primary school.

So that was the fourth Oratory. Please note that the fathers and brothers of the Manchester Oratory appear to have the assistance of Norfolk Terrier and a Border Terrier (scroll down to see the third picture on this post)!

Not long after that Oratory of St. Philip Neri was approved, another announcement, this time from York, on November 19:

It was announced today in Rome that our Holy Father Pope Francis has erected the Oratory-in-Formation in York as an independent Oratory of St Philip Neri. The decree of foundation is dated 9th November 2019, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.

The York Oratory is the second Oratory to be founded in England in the last month with news of the Manchester Oratory coming at the beginning of November. There are now five Oratories in England, at Birmingham, London, Oxford, Manchester and York. There are Oratories-in-Formation in Cardiff and Bournemouth.

This news comes only a little more than a month since Pope Francis canonised St John Henry Newman who brought the Oratory of St Philip from Rome to Birmingham and London in 1848.

The York Oratory will also care for the shrine of St. Margaret Clitherow in York.

The website for the Oratory in Cincinnati, Ohio provides some information about why Pope Francis approved the formation of these new oratories:

The Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri is a “society of Apostolic life” founded under the guidance of the Confederation of the Oratory (based in Rome) and with the permission of the local Ordinary. The definitive foundation of an Oratorian Congregation is actually done by the Roman Pontiff directly, which makes a Congregation what is called a “Pontifical Right” foundation. An Oratory provides an opportunity for priests to live their vocation in a more structured community than what is typically experienced by diocesan priests, but with more flexibility than a religious order. Above all, it is a community of charity in the spirit of St. Philip Neri, the “Joyful Saint”.

The Oratorian resides in an Oratory community of his choosing and is permanently stable, i.e., he is not subject to transfer to other Oratories or communities. Nor does he take the vows of poverty, chastity or obedience, though the Oratorian seeks these perfections through voluntary observance.

The Oratorian vocation allows greater flexibility in pastoral work than a religious order and allows the priest to live in the same community without being periodically transferred by the local bishop. It is possible for an Oratorian to take up additional apostolates, or change his apostolate, at his own initiative and the discretion of the Oratory community, always guided by the local Ordinary. Oratorians are involved in ministries as diverse as schools, hospitals, prisons, university chaplaincies, seminary teaching, and work in curial offices in Rome. They also serve in traditional parish ministries.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!*

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us!**

Saint Chad, pray for us!

Saint Wilfrid, pray for us!

Saint Margaret Clitherow, pray for us!

*The London/Brompton Oratory is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

**The Oxford Oratory, having previously been a Jesuit parish, is dedicated to St. Aloysius

July 4 Martyrs: Priests and Laymen

Eight martyrs suffered on July 4: four each in 1594 and 1597. These executions are examples of a pattern that only existed during Elizabeth I's reign, when laymen were executed because of the assistance they offered to priests. (James I did not follow this policy of punishing the laity, even though the laws that made such assistance a felony were still "on the books".)

Blessed John Cornelius, SJ priest and martyr
Blessed Thomas Bosgrave, martyr
Blessed John Carey, martyr
Blessed Patrick Salmon, martyr 

John, Thomas, John and Patrick were executed together at Dorchester on July 4, 1594. All of them were from Ireland:

John Cornelius (1557-1594) pronounced Jesuit vows in prison days before he was hanged, drawn and quartered. He met Jesuits while he was studying theology in Rome in 1580 and had asked to enter the Society of Jesus, but was not able to leave the people he served to go to Flanders for the novitiate, which was the normal policy at the time. Before he was able to get to the novitiate, he was arrested in the Dorsetshire castle of the family who had sheltered him for years and sentenced to die for high treason- celebrating Mass and converting people back to Catholicism.

The son of Irish parents living in Cornwall, the priest's true name was John Conor O'Mahony, but used his middle name in a Latinized form. He was expelled from Exeter College, Oxford, for being Catholic and left for the Continent to study. After he was ordained a priest in Rome, he returned to England and made the home of Sir John Arundell his base of operations. He placed himself under the direction of Father Henry Garnet, the superior of the English mission, while he waited for permission to make his novitiate, but was captured before he received an answer. One of the family servants betrayed him to the authorities, and he was arrested April 14, 1594, while hiding in a priest-hole in the Arundell family castle in Dorset. Prison officials in London tortured him in a vain attempt to learn the identities of the families who had sheltered him or those who had attended the Catholic services. Aware that his death was near, he pronounced the vows of the Society before a Jesuit and two lay people as witnesses. 

Bosgrave, Carey and Salmon were pronounced guilty of the felony of aiding and abetting Father John. All that Bosgrave had done was lend Father Cornelius his hat after he'd been arrested! The sentence was the same for all: hanging, drawing, and quartering. 

After the court had published its judgment, it offered all four men a reprieve if they would give up their Catholic faith. All four refused. 

The execution took place at Dorchester two days later. The three laymen were hanged first. Each made a Catholic profession of faith before the trap was sprung. Carey kissed the noose and called it a “precious collar”. Father John then kissed the feet of his hanging companions.  He prayed St. Andrew's prayer, "O good Cross, made beautiful by the body of the Lord: long have I desired you, ardently have I loved you, unceasingly have I sought you out; and now you are ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that he, who, by means of you, in dying redeemed me, may receive me. Amen."

He was not allowed to make any formal statement; but he did manage to state that he had been lately admitted into the Jesuits, and would have been en route to the Jesuit novitiate in Flanders had he not been arrested. After praying for his executioners and for the welfare of the queen, John Cornelius also was executed. The body was taken down and quartered, his head was nailed to the gibbet, but soon removed. These martyrs are honored at the Catholic parish in Chideock.

Note that Sir John Arundell of Lanherne also suffered for his Catholicism:

In 1569 he refused to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity and in the following year he was obliged to enter a recognizance for his ‘good behaviour’, but it was not until 1577 that his Catholicism came to be looked upon as a source of danger to the realm. On 29 Nov. in that year Cuthbert Maine [St. Cuthbert Mayne], the seminary priest, was hanged at Launceston; in his speech from the scaffold he described Arundell as a ‘good and godly’ gentleman with the result that two weeks later Arundell, whose refusal to attend church had been noted, was placed under arrest. On his release he was required to live near London and took up residence in Clerkenwell. During his absence from Cornwall his house was searched and subsequently charges against him were laid before the Council in September 1579. In 1585 Arundell was lodged in the Tower, allegedly because of his association with his wife’s cousin, Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel. At the same time he was fined 1,000 marks in the Star Chamber for contempt of the proclamation regarding recusants. Released from the Tower in 1586, he went to live at Muswell Hill and remained there until the early months of 1590, when he was imprisoned at Ely. He was set free in the summer and settled in Isleworth, where he died on the following 17 Nov. His body was carried with great pomp to Cornwall and buried beside those of his ancestors at St. Columb Major, where a monument was later erected to his memory.

Blessed William Andleby, priest and martyr 
Blessed Henry Abbot, martyr
Blessed Thomas Warcop, martyr
Blessed Edward Fulthorp, martyr

Fr Andleby served in Yorkshire, and Henry, Thomas and Edward were three laymen who assisted and sheltered him; they were executed together at York on July 4 in 1597 under Elizabeth I. Blessed William Andleby was a convert--he had thought to argue Doctor William Allen out of his Catholic faith and instead found himself argued into it:

He was born at Etton in Yorkshire of a well-known gentle family. At twenty-five he went abroad to take part in the religious wars in the Spanish Netherlands, and called at Douai to interview Dr. Allen, whom he attempted to confute in argument. Next day he recognized that Allen was right, was converted, and eventually became a priest. Mention is found of his having served at Mr. Tyrwhitt's, in Lincolnshire, and also of his having succoured the Catholic prisoners in Hull blockhouse. "His zeal for souls was such as to spare no pains and to fear no dangers. For the first four years of his mission he travelled always on foot, meanly attired, and carrying with him usually in a bag his vestments and other things for saying Mass; for his labours lay chiefly among the poor, who were not shocked with such things. Afterwards, humbly yielding to the advice of his brethren, he used a horse and went somewhat better clad. Wonderful was the austerity of his life in frequent watchings, fastings, and continual prayer, his soul so absorbed in God that he often took no notice of those he met; by which means he was sometimes exposed to suspicions and dangers from the enemies of his faith, into whose hands he at last fell after twenty years' labour in the vineyard of the Lord." (Challoner). He was condemned for his priestly character, and suffered with three laymen, John Abbot, Thomas Warcop, and Edward Fulthrop--Abbot and Fulthrop were also converts to Catholicism from the Church of England.

All of these martyrs were beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Blessed martyrs of England, pray for us!

Blessed Edward Osbaldeston

Another November martyr, Blessed Edward Osbaldeston; according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was born

about 1560; hanged, drawn, and quartered at York, 16 November, 1594. Son of Thomas Osbaldeston, and nephew of Edward Osbaldeston, of Osbaldeston Hall, Blackburn, Lancashire, he went to the English College of Douai, then at Reims, where he was ordained deacon in December, 1583, and priest 21 September, 1585. He was sent on the mission 27 April, 1589, and was apprehended at night through the instrumentality of an apostate priest named Thomas Clark at an inn at Tollerton, Yorkshire, upon St. Jerome's day, 30 September, 1594. He had said his first Mass on the feast day of St. Jerome, and in consequence had a great devotion to the saint. The day following his arrest he was taken to York, where he was tried at the next assizes and attainted of high treason for being a priest. Bishop Challoner prints the greater part of a letter addressed by the martyr to his fellow-prisoners in York Castle, the full text of which is still extant, and which reveals the great humility and serene trust in God with which he anticipated his death.

In that letter cited by Bishop Challoner, Osbaldeston notes that he knew the former priest Thomas Clark when he saw him the night before his arrest. He hoped that Mr. Clark did not recognize him but soon found out that Clark had. Since he was arrested on the feast of St. Jerome, his patron, he rejoiced!

Edward Osbaldeston was among the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.

June 15, 1598 in York

Peter Snow, of Ripon, England, was ordained a priest in Soissons, France in 1591. After returning to England, he served for seven years in Yorkshire, ministering to his fellow Catholics persecuted under Queen Elizabeth I. In the spring of 1598, he received assistance in his travels from a Yorkshire native, Ralph Grimston, a married layman from Nidd. Ralph had previously suffered imprisonment for opening his home to Catholic priests. On or around May 1, 1598, Father Snow and Ralph were captured while journeying together to York. Father Snow was condemned to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering for being a priest. Ralph was condemned to death by hanging for having assisted Father Snow and for having attempted to prevent the priest’s arrest when they were caught. They suffered martyrdom together on June 15 at York.

The Catholic Cathedral at Leeds, dedicated to St. Anne, has their skulls as relics, and the University of Dundee reconstructed their faces based on their skulls (just like they do on Bones and all the other forensic cop shows on television!). It's rather heartbreaking to imagine the young Father Peter Snow enduring the tortures of being hung and eviscerated during his execution--unlike the stylized portraits of the sixteenth century or the idealized images of the martyrs, the picture of him on the left is more realistic (if we believe the reconstruction). Mr. Grimston seems stalwart and, I guess, normal, balding and wrinkled. I can imagine him taking a swing at the pursuivants on the road to York, trying to fight them off to give Father Show a chance. They were beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1987, among the Eighty-Five Martyrs of England and Wales.

When he beatified this group of priests and laymen, the pope described their unity in service, worship, doctrine, and prayer, which certainly describes the partnership between Blessed Peter Snow and Blessed Ralph Grimston:

Among these eighty-five martyrs we find priests and laymen, scholars and craftsmen. The oldest was in his eighties, and the youngest no more than twenty-four. There were among them a printer, a bartender, a stable-hand, a tailor. What unites them all is the sacrifice of their lives in the service of Christ their Lord.

The priests among them wished only to feed their people with the Bread of Life and with the Word of the Gospel. To do so meant risking their lives. But for them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The twenty-two laymen in this group of martyrs shared to the full the same love of the Eucharist. They, too, repeatedly risked their lives, working together with their priests, assisting, protecting and sheltering them. Laymen and priests worked together; together they stood on the scaffold and together welcomed death. Many women, too, not included today in this group of martyrs, suffered for their faith and died in prison. They have earned our undying admiration and remembrance.

These martyrs gave their lives for their loyalty to the authority of the Successor of Peter, who alone is Pastor of the whole flock. They also gave their lives for the unity of the Church, since they shared the Church’s fait, unaltered down the ages, that the Successor of Peter has been given the task of serving and ensuring "the unity of the flock of Christ". He has been given by Christ the particular role of confirming the faith of his brethren.

The martyrs grasped the importance of that Petrine ministry. They gave their lives rather than deny this truth of their faith. Over the centuries the Church in England, Wales and Scotland has drawn inspiration from these martyrs and continues in love of the Mass and in faithful adherence to the Bishop of Rome. The same loyalty and faithfulness to the Pope is demonstrated today whenever the work of renewal in the Church is carried out in accordance with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and in communion with the universal Church.

Blessed Peter Snow and Blessed Ralph Grimston, pray for us!

Catholic Martyrs Under Elizabeth I and Charles I

These two sets of priests were executed during the reigns of Elizabeth I and Charles I under the same law that made it illegal for Catholic priests to be in England:

Blessed Francis Dickinson and Blessed Miles Gerard were captured, tried, and executed together, being hung, drawn, and quartered in Rochester on April 13, 1590.

Blessed Francis Dickinson or Dickenson was born in Otley and christened at Otley Parish Church on 28th October 1564. Nothing is known of his early life, but in 1582, at the age of 17, he entered the English College in Rheims. He was ordained at Soissons on 18th March 1589 and returned to England in November of that year. He was captured along with another priest (Blessed Miles Gerard). Upon refusing to swear allegiance to the Queen Francis was sent to London and committed to Bridewell Prison. 

During this time he was tortured in an attempt to obtain a self-incriminating confession. The date and place of his trial are unknown, however, he was taken to Rochester and there hanged, drawn and quartered on 13th April 1590. Francis had been a priest for just over one year and, at the age of 25, was one of the youngest Douai martyrs. Blessed Francis is venerated at Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Church in Otley (along with another martyr from that area, Blessed Matthew Flathers).

Blessed Miles Gerard born about 1550 at Wigan; executed at Rochester 13 April, 1590. Sprung perhaps from the Gerards of Ince, he was, about 1576, tutor to the children of Squire Edward Tyldesley, at Morleys, Lancashire. Thence in 1579 he went to the seminaries of Douai and Reims, where he was ordained 7 April, 1583, and then stayed on as professor until 31 August, 1589 (O.S.), when he started for England with five companions. At Dunkirk the sailors refused to take more than two passengers; so the missioners tossed for precedence, and Gerard and Francis Dicconson, the eldest (it seems) and youngest of the party, won. Though bound for London, they were driven out of their course into Dover harbour, where they were examined and arrested on suspicion (24 November, N.S.). A contemporary newsletter says that they were wrecked, and escaped the sea only to fall into the hands of persecutors on shore, but this is not consistent with the official records. These show that the prisoners at first gave feigned names and ambiguous answers, but soon thought it better to confess all. After many tortures in the worst London prisons under the infamous Topcliffe, they were condemned as traitors, and "taken to Rochester, where they were hanged and quartered", says Father John Curry, S.J., writing shortly afterwards, "and gave a splendid testimony to the Catholic Faith". 

Blessed John Lockwood and Blessed Edmund Catherick suffered execution during the reign of Charles I:

John Lockwood, priest and martyr, born in of Sowerby, Yorkshire, about 1555 (some say 1561). He was the eldest son of Christopher Lockwood and Clare Lascelles. With their second son, Francis, he arrived at Reims on 4 November 1579, and was at once sent to Douai to study philosophy. John then entered the English College in Rome on 4 October 1595, was ordained priest on 26 January 1597, and sent back to the English mission on 20 April 1598. After suffering imprisonment he was banished in 1610. He then returned to England, was again taken and condemned to death, but reprieved.

After 44 years of hidden ministry, John was finally captured in 1642 at Wood End, Gatenby, near Thirsk, where he had been living for some years, and taken to York for trial. Because of his advanced age – he was 81 years old – he had to be held on a horse in a slow and painful journey. He was tried for being a seminary priest and condemned to death, along with a younger priest called John (Edmund) Catherick. Thinking he saw signs of faltering in the younger man, he asked to be allowed to die first. They were both hung, drawn and quartered at York on 13 April 1642, and both were beatified in 1929. They were probably executed at Knavesmire, just outside the city walls, where there is now a racecourse.

Blessed Edmund Catherick was descended from the old family of Catherick of Carlton and Stanwick, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, known for its loyalty to the Faith. Educated at Douai College, he was ordained in the same institution, and about 1635 went out to the English mission where he began his seven years' ministry which closed with his death. During this time he was known under the alias Huddleston, which was probably his mother's maiden name. Apprehended in the North Riding, near Watlas, Catherick was brought by pursuivants before Justice Dodsworth, a connection by marriage — possibly an uncle. Gillow states (IV, 310) that it was through admissions made to Dodsworth, under the guise of friendship, that Catherick was convicted. He was arraigned at York and condemned to death together with Father John Lockwood. The execution was stayed by the king for a short time, but he finally signed the warrant and it was carried out during his presence at The Manor in York. Catherick and Lockwood were dragged through the streets of York on a hurdle to the place of execution and hanged, drawn, and quartered. Catherick's head was placed on Micklegate Bar, and what fragments remained, after the hangman's butchery, were buried at Toft Green. The "body" is now at St. Gregory's Monastery, Downside, and the skull, said to have been found at Hazlewood Castle, was carefully examined by Lingard in 1845.

Note that King Charles I signed their death warrants reluctantly and witnessed their executions at York.

All four of these martyrs are listed among the Blessed Martyrs of Douai. All four were beatified in 1929. Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Two More Priests Martyred in York

On March 16, 1589, these two priests suffered being hung, drawn and quartered in York. Robert Dalby was from Hemingbrough in the East Riding of Yorkshire and lived at first as a Protestant minister. Becoming a Catholic, he entered the English College at Rheims on 30 September 1586 to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest at Châlons on 16 April 1588. It was on 25 August that year that he set out for England. He was arrested almost immediately upon landing at Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast and imprisoned in York Castle.

There is some doubt about the early life of Blessed John Amias. One story is that he was indeed John Amias or Amyas, born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, England, where he married and raised a family, exercising the trade of cloth-merchant. On the death of his wife, he divided his property among his children and left for the Continent to become a priest. There is also a possibility that he was really William Anne (surname), youngest son of John and Katherine Anne, of Frickley near Wakefield.

Regardless of his actual name, on 22 June 1580, a widower calling himself "John Amias" entered the English College at Rheims to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest in Rheims Cathedral on 25 March 1581. On 5 June of that year Amias set out for Paris and then England, as a missionary, in the company of another priest, Edmund Sykes, of whom we will hear again soon. Of his missionary life we know little. Towards the end of 1588 he was seized at the house of a Mr. Murton at Melling in Lancashire and imprisoned in York Castle.

Yorkshire, as I've commented before on this blog and in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, was one of those districts of England where recusancy and Catholicism was particularly strong. This History of York describes the Catholic Resistance during Elizabeth I's reign, providing some details of the trouble the queen had in asserting her authority over the practice of religion in the north.

Pope Pius XI beatified these two priests among the 137 martyrs on December 15, 1929.

Blessed William Hart, March 15, 1583

From this account, taken from the old Catholic Encyclopedia, Blessed William Hart traveled widely to fulfill his vocation as priest after returning to the Catholic faith. The Catholic college and seminary had to move from Douai to Reims because of religious wars in the Spanish Netherlands (where Douai then was). He has that fascinating connection to St. Margaret Clitherow and her household. The Trappes scholarship was established at Lincoln College by Joyce or Jocosa Frankland, who also established fellowships at Brasenose College, where she is remembered in one of the College Graces:

Qui nos creavit, redemit et pavit, sit benedictus in aeternum. Deus, exaudi orationem nostrum. Agimus tibi gratias, Pater caelestis, pro Gulielmo Smyth episcopo, et Ricardo Sutton milite, Fundatoribus nostris; pro Alexandro Nowel, Jocosa Frankland, Gulielmo Hulme, Elizabetha Morley, Mauritio Platnauer aliisque benefactoribus nostris; humiliter te precantes ut eorum numerum benignissime adaugeas.

Ecclesiam Catholicam, et populum Christianum custodi. Haereses et errores omnes extirpa. Elizabetham Reginam nostram et subditos eius defende. Pacem da et conserva, per Christum Dominum nostrum.(May he who hath created, redeemed and provided for us be blessed forever. Hear our prayer, Lord. We give thee thanks, Heavenly Father, for William Smyth, Bishop and Richard Sutton, Knight, our Founders. For Alexander Nowel, Joyce Frankland, Elizabeth Morley, Maurice Platnauer and for our other benefactors, humbly beseeching thee that thou wilt add to their number in goodness.

Safeguard the catholic Church and all Christian people. Root out all heretical waverings. Defend Elizabeth our Queen and her subjects. Grant peace and preserve it, through Christ our Lord. Amen.) 

The other martyr mentioned in this entry is Blessed William Lacy who was executed on August 22, 1582 in York. He also had been held in irons. Being held in irons was a form of torture leading to weakness and open sores. Since both priests were held in the underground dungeon, that certainly meant they were neglected, left in filth and darkness, without adequate food and water.

Born at Wells, 1558; suffered at York, 15 March, 1583. Elected Trappes Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford, 25 May, 1571, he supplicated B.A., 18 June, 1574. The same year he followed the rector, John Bridgewater, to Douai. He accompanied the college to Reims, and returned thither after a severe operation at Namur, 22 November, 1578. He took the college oath at the English College, Rome, 23 April, 1579, whence he was ordained priest. On 26 March, 1581, he left Rome, arriving at Reims 13 May, and resuming his journey 22 May. On reaching England he laboured in Yorkshire. He was present at the Mass at which Blessed William Lacy was captured, and only escaped by standing up to his chin in the muddy moat of York Castle. Betrayed by an apostate on Christmas Day, 1582, and throne into an underground dungeon, he was put into double irons. After examination before the Dean of York and the Council of the North, he was arraigned at the Lent Assizes.

From the unprofessional account of his trial, which states that he was arraigned on two counts, we may be fairly certain that he was on trial on three, namely: (1) under 13 Eliz. c. 2 for having brought papal writings, to wit his certificate of ordination, into the realm; (2) under 13 Eliz. c. 3. for having gone abroad without royal license; and (3) under 23 Eliz. c. 1. for having reconciled John Wright and one Couling. On what counts he was found guilty does not clearly appear, but he was certainly guilty of the second. 

So this brief entry, properly read, reveals a great deal about Blessed William Hart's endurance and faithfulness in pursuing his vocation and serving the Catholic minority in England. Like all of the Catholic martyrs of this era, his story is both unique and the same: the same pattern of exile, danger, torture, and death but with individual details that are so wonderful to contemplate.

Good Friday, March 25, 1586

U.K.'s The Catholic Herald highlights St. Margaret Clitherow, crushed to death on March 25, 1586 for refusing to make a plea in her arrest for harboring a Catholic priest in York:

Margaret was arrested in 1586 for harbouring Catholic clergy. She refused to plead guilty to the charge because she knew her children would be brought forward as witnesses and consequently might be subjected to torture.

Margaret was executed by being crushed to death on Good Friday in 1586. The two sergeants hired to kill her used four beggars to do the deed instead. It took her 15 minutes to die as she was crushed with rocks and stones. Her last words were “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy on me!”

Her body was left for six hours until the weight was removed. Her hand was saved following her death and is now a relic in the chapel of the Bar Convent in York.

When Elizabeth I heard of Margaret’s horrific death, she wrote to the citizens of York condemning the act and arguing that women should not be executed. Her son William also became a priest and her daughter Anne became a nun in Louvain, Belgium. Margaret was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI. She is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

When St. Margaret Clitherow was prepared for her execution, she was laid on her back with a sharp stone underneath. Her arms were spread and tied down as though she was on a cross, with her feet tied down. Did her executioners realize that she was imitating Jesus on the Cross so exactly, on Good Friday?

A Layman and a Priest in York: Martyrs under the New Acts of Treason

Two of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II, a layman Blessed Marmaduke Bowes and a priest, Blessed Hugh Taylor suffered in York on November 26, 1585 in York.

The most important point about these two martyrs is that they were the first to be executed under the 1584 act against the Jesuits (or any other Catholic priests) who had been born in England or Wales and then traveled to the Continent for ordination and then returned as missionaries to the recusant Catholic community, and against those who assisted them.

Blessed Marmaduke Bowes was born in Ingram Grange in Yorkshire: Married layman and father. Fearful of the persecutions of the day, he was a covert Catholic who put in appearances in the Established church to keep the authorities away. He sheltered priests on the run, and had his children raised Catholic. In 1585 his children's tutor was arrested and bribed to apostatize, turn informer, and denounce Bowes for helping priests. Bowes and his wife were arrested and imprisoned in York; she was released, but Marmaduke was convicted on the statements of the tutor.

He was the first layman executed under the law that made helping priests a felony. He was hung on the 26th of November in 1585, along with Blessed Hugh Taylor, who had just arrived in York in March 1585, after his ordination in Rheims in 1584. We don't have much other detail about Blessed Hugh Taylor: I suppose we could imagine him growing up in a recusant family and being prepared to endure exile, danger, and death for his parents' Catholic faith. Or, he could have grown up in an Anglican family, read the Fathers, questioned the validity of the Church of England and secretly converted, traveling to Rheims for study and ordination, returning to England to almost immediate capture

Father Taylor was the first to suffer under the Statute 27 Eliz. c. 2. against priests as traitors passed by Parliament in 1584. Most of the Catholics executed after 1584 suffered under this statute (there were a few executed under the 1571 and 1581 statutes which made it treasonous to call the monarch a heretic or to convert or induce someone else to become Catholic, respectively). Blessed John Britton was martyred under the 1571 Statute, for example, in 1598. Blessed George Errington suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering in 1596 under the 1581 Statue, in another example, The priests who suffered before 1584 were found guilty of simple treason, which usually, as in the case of Saints Campion, Briant and Sherwin coming up on December 1, meant that the Crown accused the priests of some conspiracy against the Queen.

Blessed Marmaduke may be called a martyr in spite of himself--he had tried to maintain a public face of conformity, attending Church of England services to avoid suspicion or fines, but secretly he helped priests and raised his children in the Catholic Faith. Betrayed by a Catholic, he was arrested and charged based on evidence offered by his children's tutor.

The Carthusian Martyrs at York; Hanging in Chains

Two of the Carthusians of the Charterhouse of London began their agonizing and slow death by being hung in chains from the York city battlements: Blessed John Rochester and Blessed James Walworth. They were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on the 20th of December in 1886 or 1888 (I've found two sources with two dates!).

After the first three Carthusian priors were executed on May 4, 1535, the next three leaders in line, Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate, were executed on June 19 that same year and these two monks were taken from London to the Charterhouse of St. Michael in Hull.

In the wake of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Rochester and Walworth were tried in York by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk and found guilty of treason.

The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this detail about Blessed John Rochester:

Priest and martyr, born probably at Terling, Essex, England, about 1498; died at York, 11 May, 1537. He was the third son of John Rochester, of Terling, and Grisold, daughter of Walter Writtle, of Bobbingworth. He joined the Carthusians, was a choir monk of the Charterhouse in London, and strenuously opposed the new doctrine of the royal supremacy. He was arrested and sent a prisoner to the Carthusian convent at Hull. From there he was removed to York, where he was hung in chains. With him there suffered one James Walworth (?Wannert; Walwerke), Carthusian priest and martyr, concerning whom little or nothing is known. He may have been the "Jacobus Walwerke" who signed the Oath of Succession of 1534. John Rochester was beatified in 1888 by Leo XIII.

It must have been an agonizing death--hanging until death by exposure and dehydration--left like their brother Carthusians in Newgate Prison in London. When Rowan Williams, who resigned last year as Archbishop of Canterbury, remembered the Carthusian martyrs at the Charterhouse in London in 2010, he quoted H.F.M. Prescott's The Man on a Donkey and her description of Robert Aske's sufferings while hanging in chains, dying slowly by hunger, thirst, and exposure:

And towards the end of that extraordinary novel, we watch and listen to Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, in his last anguished moments, hanging in chains from the Keep of the Castle in York: "God did not now nor would in any furthest future prevail. Once he had come and died. If he came again, again he would die, and again and so forever, by his own will, rendered powerless against the free and evil wills of men. Then Aske met the full assault of darkness without reprieve of hoped for light, for God ultimately vanquished was no God at all. But yet, though God was not God, as the head of the dung worm turns, so his spirit turned blindly, gropingly, hopelessly loyal, towards that good, that holy, that merciful - which though not God, though vanquished - was still the last dear love of a vanquished and tortured man." . . . Robert Aske hangs in chains still, but (as Hilda Prescott's novel portrays it) a discovery has been made as he falls from level to level of despair and desire 'For now, yet with no greater fissure between then and now, and as a man's eyes are aware where no star was of the first star of night, now he was aware of One, vanquished God, Saviour who could as little save others as himself. But now, beside him and beyond, was nothing - and he was silence and light.'

Blessed martyrs of the Carthusians, pray for us!

A Recusant Martyr (Blessed John Bretton) and His Widow

According to this tremendous account of his life and death, the layman Blessed John Bretton was executed on April 1, 1598 after years of recuscancy "For words spoken out of Catholic Zeal" "because he was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church," he "urged others to embrace the same religion" and he "denied the spiritual primacy of the Queen." His wife, Frances, survived him and continued their recusancy. Just some highlights:

John Bretton was executed at York on 1st April 1598 because of his faith, the culmination of many, many years of courage and steadfastness in the face of persecution, by both John Bretton and Frances, his wife. . . .

The earliest reference to the Recusancy of John and Frances Bretton occurs in Archbishop Sandys’ List of Yorkshire Recusants returned to the Privy Council in 1577, wherein they are stated to have “no Habilities (Wealth)” “and yet are the most obstinate and perverse”. This list was sent five years after the Earl of Huntingdon had begun his intense investigation and persecution of Catholics in Yorkshire, four years before the passing of the Act 23 Eliz. c1 which made “reconciliation” to the Catholic Church a capital crime. For many years, because of the persecution he was suffering through his Recusancy, John Bretton was forced to flee and hide. Altogether he seems to have been a fugitive from 1577 to 1593, when the Act 35 Eliz. c2 forced all recusants to return home and stay within five miles thereof on pain of the loss of all property. . . .

That the Brettons were regarded as amongst the more notorious recusants is shown by the fact that on 12th February, 1589, within a year of their first conviction, the Exchequer issued a Commission for the assessment and seizure to the use of the Queen of two thirds of their lands and all their goods and chattels in accordance with the Statute of 1586. The Memoranda Roll recording this Commission and the subsequent enquiries gives the text of the patent, signed for the Queen by Burghley, and the names of the Yorkshire Gentry thereby empowered. They included “John, Lord Darcye: Sir Thomas Fairfax: Sir Richard Malliverer: Sir George Savell, and eleven others” In fact only six people, Richard Wortley, William Wentworth, Thomas Wentworth, Robert Bradford, Henry Farrer and Michael Kaie did the work and had produced before them on 8th April 1589, not only details of John Bretton’s property, but also that of forty five other recusants whose names were included in the schedule, including Maud (Matilda) Wentworth, widow, who was Frances’ aunt by marriage and lived over the way at Bretton Hall, and Dorothy Wentworth, the wife of Maud’s son, Matthew, also living there. . . .

Read more here about how Frances struggled without his constancy and loyalty to the Faith:

One might be forgiven for hoping that, having had so much suffering in her life, culminating in her husband’s execution Frances Bretton would now be left in peace - but this was not to be. Within a month the Escheator was on her track. His very presence was proof that the family fortunes were in great jeopardy. In the midst of her grief, therefore she had to remind herself that it now devolved on her alone, as legal owner, to safeguard the livelihood of her children. To whom could she turn for advice ?

Her own kinsfolk, the Wentworths, one of the most powerful families in Yorkshire, doubtless watched events with interest, if not with sympathy. But, with one exception, (Michael of Woolley), all her male relatives appear to have been, at best, "Church Papists". One or two were strong and active supporters of the new religion. Tenacious of this world’s goods they must, as a whole, have been highly impatient with her rigid adherence to Catholic principle. Even her aunt, Maud Wentworth of Bretton Hall, after maintaining her recusancy for many years had, in her old age, publically conformed three years previously and thus preserved her property intact for her son, Matthew.

Although Frances herself finally submitted to the Archbishop of York and was pardoned of her previous recusancy for the sake of her own son, Luke, and his inheritance, she was was soon numberered among the recusants again, and died in the Catholic faith. Blessed John Bretton and Frances also had two other sons, Richard and Matthew, who became Catholic priests!

You can see, on a slide-show, a shrine to Blessed John Bretton on the website of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Wakefield.

St. Margaret Clitherow and Holy Week

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning at 7:45 a.m. Eastern and 6:45 a.m. Central (etc) to discuss St. Margaret Clitherow, who was crushed to death on March 25, 1586 at the age of 30. Brian Patrick and I will also discuss the liturgical celebration of Holy Week before and after the English Reformation. You can listen live here--otherwise tune in on your local EWTN affiliate radio station!

Remember that St. Margaret Clitherow was a convert--when she was 18 years old--and since she was born just two years before Queen Mary I died, she almost certainly had no memory and little knowledge about the processions, rituals and traditions of Holy Week in England before the Reformation under Henry VIII, further advanced by Edward VI and his Protectorate, and briefly restored by Mary. At the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign, and particularly in York, of course, there was a transition period and some Catholic priests continued to celebrate Mass and the Sacraments according to the old ways, but even in York, government pressure to uniformity succeeded in ending those practices.

More about St. Margaret Clitherow from last year here--note that the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales will honor her with a pilgrimage this year on Saturday, May 4 (the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales)--and more about the pilgrimage to York I'll lead this September here.

For more information about Holy Week before the English Reformation, please see my posts from last year on the Pray the Mass website: on Palm Sunday and on the Triduum.

Two More Martyrs in York: Richard Dalby and John Amias

On March 16, 1589, these two priests suffered being hung, drawn and quartered in York.

Robert Dalby was from Hemingbrough in the East Riding of Yorkshire and lived at first as a Protestant minister. Becoming a Catholic, he entered the English College at Rheims on 30 September 1586 to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest at Châlons on 16 April 1588. It was on 25 August that year that he set out for England. He was arrested almost immediately upon landing at Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast and imprisoned in York Castle.

There is some doubt about the early life of Blessed John Amias. One story is that he was indeed John Amias or Amyas, born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, England, where he married and raised a family, exercising the trade of cloth-merchant. On the death of his wife, he divided his property among his children and left for the Continent to become a priest. There is also a possibility that he was really William Anne (surname), youngest son of John and Katherine Anne, of Frickley near Wakefield.

Regardless of his actual name, on 22 June 1580, a widower calling himself "John Amias" entered the English College at Rheims to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest in Rheim Cathedral on 25 March 1581. On 5 June of that year Amias set out for Paris and then England, as a missionary, in the company of another priest, Edmund Sykes. Of his missionary life we know little. Towards the end of 1588 he was seized at the house of a Mr. Murton at Melling in Lancashire and imprisoned in York Castle.

Yorkshire, as I've commented before on this blog and in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, was one of those districts of England where recusancy and Catholicism was particularly strong. This History of York describes the Catholic Resistance during Elizabeth I's reign, providing some details of the trouble the queen had in asserting her authority. That's one of the reasons York is the first stop on the Catholic Martyrs of England tour this September. The shrine of St. Margaret Clitherow in The Shambles, York Castle and York Tyburn, where these two priests, yesterday's martyr Blessed William Hart, St. Henry Walpole, and many other Catholics suffered execution are on the itinerary. A visit to York Minster, St. Mary's Abbey's ruins and Mass at the Parish of the English Martyrs completes the itinerary.

The Battle of Bosworth Field Fought Again

It's the Plantagenets against the Tudors again: Richard III vs. Henry VII. This blog post from History Today sums up the debate pretty well.

The discovery of the remains of Richard III is an archaeological find of the highest importance and the University of Leicester richly deserves its moment of glory. Much less deserving is the Richard III Society, who, predictably, are proclaiming the find as vindication of their long campaign to rehabilitate their hero. It is nothing of the sort.

For years the Society has protested that the idea of Richard as a hunchback with one shoulder higher than the other was pure propaganda by the Tudors. We now see that the Tudor propagandists (and indeed Sir Laurence Olivier) were entirely right: Richard had severe distortion of the spine and a shoulder markedly higher than the other. Tudors 1; Ricardians nil.

The Society has long claimed that the famous portrait of Richard III in the National Portrait Gallery is a piece of wicked Tudor propaganda designed to make him look evil. The reconstruction of Richard's face from his skull shows that the portrait is in fact a remarkably good likeness. Tudors 2; Ricardians nil.

The Society is always claiming that Richard was a popular, much-loved King. The bones cannot be expected to prove this one way or the other, but the evidence of a knife thrust into his corpse's backside does not appear to suggest that Richard's passing was mourned by those on the scene: it contrasts sharply, for example, with the reverence with which Charles I's body was treated after his execution. Not conclusive, I grant you, but judging strictly on the evidence of the bones: Tudors 3; Ricardians nil. [I think this is rather weak: Richard III was killed on the field of battle with emotions running high; Charles I was beheaded in an orderly, public, "legal" execution.]

Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society said on seeing the face, "It doesn't look like the face of a tyrant. I'm sorry but it doesn't." Well, I'm sorry, but my first thought on seeing the face was that I have never seen such ruthlessness in a human face in my life. We'll call that one a draw.
History Today also provides a summary of Richard III's life and reign with this interesting conclusion (different author than above, of course):

Richard might have been an excellent king if he had won the battle of Bosworth. Victory in battle would have vindicated him in the eyes of many and delivered God’s favourable verdict on the usurpation. His intelligence, vigour and vision might well have delivered a period of good rule. Instead, he died ‘fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies’, within yards of his nemesis, Henry Tudor. We can never know whether Edward V might have been a strong ruler, but the likelihood is that a power struggle would have ensued and the spectre of civil war would have been raised again. Richard’s character, and the trajectory of power he had experienced, made subjection and obedience to those he considered his inferiors impossible. The usurpation guaranteed the preservation of strong central authority, but it was the Tudors who benefited from it. The Yorkist achievement, in making royal administration more accountable and effective, did survive Richard’s death, even if the dynasty itself was all but destroyed.

But there are more debates occasioned by the identification of Richard III's body: where should Richard III be buried: York or Leicester? (That seems to be settled.) With what service: Catholic or Anglican? Surely, Catholic, since that is what he was. And can we dig up the bones of the Princes in the Tower buried at Westminster Abbey to figure out who killed them: Richard III or Henry VII? No, says the Abbey. The reputations of Shakespeare and St. Thomas More are also up for debate, ala Josephine Tey.

Out of all this debate, I'd say the most constructive thing is that it proves how important history is, how essential the past is to today as the battle of Bosworth Field rages on. We are still examining the structures of power, of religion, of truth and propaganda in the 15th and 16th centuries in the 21st: we want to know what is good, true and beautiful in the past and in the present. Truth, goodness, and beauty matter. We want to find them and be able to proclaim them. May I suggest that we are currently looking at the wrong grave? We should be looking at the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection of the One, Jesus, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in Whom Truth, Beauty and Goodness meet! Amen.

The Big Announcement

I hinted at a big announcement at the end of last year! Now I can make it! I have been working with Corporate Travel Services on designing and planning a CATHOLIC MARTYRS OF ENGLAND PILGRIMAGE.

From September 4 to 12, 2013, we will visit major sites in connection with the martyrs: in York, Oxford, London, Canterbury, and Arundel, focusing on martyrs like St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Edmund Campion, St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, St. Philip Howard, St. John Southworth, St. Robert Southwell--even St. Thomas a Becket, so symbolic for Henry VIII in the 16th century. While in Oxford, we'll even include sites associated with Blessed John Henry Newman.

We'll visit York Minster, the St. Margaret Clitherow shrine in The Shambles, the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and celebrate Mass at the Parish of the English Martyrs in York; see the memorials to the Reformation martyrs in Oxford, tour Trinity and Oriel Colleges (Newman) and celebrate Mass at the Oxford Oratory (which features a mural of St. Edmund Campion's martyrdom and a shrine to Blessed John Henry Newman).

In London, there will be free time for shopping or other sight-seeing, but we will go to Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, and Westminster Cathedral, the Tower of London, St. Etheldreda's and Tyburn Convent--and from London we'll visit Canterbury and Arundel (Mass in the Cathedral dedicated to St. Philip Howard!

Our only difficulty was having to leave places out--Cambridge, for example, and other London locations (the Charterhouse, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, etc).

Link here for the official information from CTS about the pilgrimage--and you may download a four color brochure too!

Mary Ward in York and the Bar Convent

Mary Ward was born and died in January (23 January 1585-30 January 1645) and if one were travelling to York and had any interest in her life or in the history of Catholicism in England, a stop at Bar Convent would be in order:

The Bar Convent is England’s oldest convent, founded in 1686 and still active with a resident religious community. It was established as a school for girls, and the fine 18th century buildings now house a Museum, Library & Archives, and gift Shop, together with well-equipped Meeting rooms, guest house Accommodation with free wi-fi and a Café. . . .

The Community of nuns who still reside at the Bar Convent belong to the Congregation of Jesus which was founded by the Yorkshire woman, Mary Ward (1585-1645).

More about Mary Ward later this month, but here's a link to the Bar Convent's biography of the Venerable nun. You might also note that the Chapel of the Bar Convent has a relic of St. Margaret Clitherow, the great Yorkshire martyr.

In Cassock and Biretta, Blessed Richard Thirkeld

Blessed Richard Thirkeld:
Educated at Queen's College, Oxford, 1564-1565. Studied at Douai and Rheims, France. Ordained on 18 April 1579 at an age somewhat older than his confreres. Returned to England on 23 May 1579 as a home missioner around York. Confessor to Saint Margaret Clitherow. Arrested on Annunciation Eve in 1583 for the crime of priesthood; the authorities became suspicious when he visited a Catholic prisoner. Lodged in Ousebridge Kidcote prison, York, for two months. He wore a cassock and biretta to trial, was convicted on 27 May 1583 of hearing confessions and bringing the lapsed back to the Church, and was sentenced on 28 May 1583 to death. He used his time in jail to minister to other prisoners, working especially with others sentenced to death. Martyred in secret on May 29 for fear his covert parishioners would cause a civil disturbance. Six of his letters have survived. This site exerpts two of those letters.

A Priest and a Layman at York

Blessed Robert Thorpe and Blessed Thomas Watkinson suffered martyrdom on the Ides of May in 1591:

Robert Thorpe: Priest and martyr, b. in Yorkshire; suffered at York, 15 May, 1591. He reached the English College at Reims 1 March, 1583-4, was ordained deacon in December following, and priest by Cardinal Guise in April, 1585. He was sent on the mission, 9 May, 1585, and laboured in Yorkshire. He was arrested in bed very early on Palm Sunday, 1595, at the house of his fellow-martyr, Thomas Watkinson, at Menthorpe in the East Riding of Yorkshire, someone having seen palms being gathered the night before, and having informed John Gates of Howden, the nearest justice of the peace. Watkinson, an old Catholic yeoman who lived a solitary life, is described by the treacherous priest John Cecil as a clerk, so it is possible he was in minor orders. Both, though naturally timorous, met their deaths with great fortitude. Thorpe, condemned as a traitor merely for being a priest, was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Watkinson, condemned as a felon merely for harbouring priests, was only hanged. He was offered his life if he would go to church.

Here is a source on Catholicism in York from the recusant era to the late 18th century.