Requiem Mass and Burial of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, died on July 16, 1557 during the reign of Mary I. On August 4 she was buried in Westminster Abbey, according to Catholic ritual. As Tracy Borman argues in this History Today article, she may have been the most successful of Henry's wives: she survived him and lived happily ever after. Anne accepted the annulment settlement Henry granted her, acceded to his wishes, and ended up with land and comfort. After Henry's marriage to Catherine Howard ended with her beheading, Anne might have married Henry again:

Speculation began at once about who would be the king’s next wife. Among the potential candidates was Anne of Cleves. She had been careful to remain on good terms with Henry after their annulment, and had shown no signs of resentment at being so humiliatingly rejected. She had been a regular visitor to court and had also received several visits from her former husband, which by all accounts had been very convivial. The pair had exchanged New Year’s gifts in 1542. But the king made no indication of wishing to revive their union, and although Anne was rumoured to be bitterly disappointed when he married his sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr, this may have been just for show.

By that time, Anne was comfortably ensconced at Hever with all the riches and honours of being a queen, but none of the disadvantages of being married to the ageing, bloated and increasingly tyrannical king. She remained there for the rest of her days, outliving her estranged husband, who died in 1547 and was succeeded by Edward, his nine-year-old son.

She avoided Court during Edward VI's reign but soon returned when Mary succeeded:

The archetypal ‘merry widow’ (or divorcee), Anne also outlived Henry’s son, Edward, who died after just six years on the throne. He was succeeded by his elder half-sister Mary, with whom Anne was still on good terms. She and Elizabeth were accorded the place of honour at Mary’s lavish coronation. The two women shared an open chariot which was richly arrayed with crimson velvet and “cloth of silver”. Anne and her younger stepdaughter were also given new dresses made from a similarly rich silver material, and in the procession to Westminster Abbey they walked together directly behind the new queen.

But neither Anne nor Elizabeth would long enjoy Mary’s favour. Their reformist religious views set them at odds with the new conservative Catholic regime, and there were soon rumours that the two women were conspiring against the queen. These were almost certainly untrue: Anne was far too sensible to take such a risk and had no grudge against Mary. Fortunately, Mary retained enough of her former affection for Anne not to act against her.

With characteristic discretion, Anne left court soon after Mary’s accession, resolved to live out her days quietly at Hever and Chelsea – another manor left to her by Henry. It was while staying at the latter that Anne died on 16 July 1557, after a short illness. Although she was only 41 years of age, she had outlived each of Henry VIII’s five other wives – and had had a happier ending than any of them.

Borman's comments about Anne's "reformist religious views" are confusing, since she was buried, according to Westminster Abbey, with Catholic Rites as "Anne had wanted". If she was a Protestant, she would not have wanted a Catholic Requiem Funeral Mass, which was sung by the Abbot of Westminster, John Feckenham. Such a Mass would be replete with prayers for the dead, which a Protestant reformist would probably not have wanted, having rejected the doctrine of Purgatorial perfecting before Heaven. Nancy Bilyeau notes that Anne indeed wanted to be buried with “the suffrages of the holy church according to the Catholic faith.” And the Tudor Times notes, Anne had been born and raised a Catholic (she conformed to Henry's wishes to become an Anglican and returned to the Catholic Church at Mary's request):

During Anne’s early childhood, a large part of the empire, roughly correspondingly to Germany, was convulsed by the religious upheaval instigated by the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, followed by the hugely destructive Peasants’ War. This tumult led to many of the northern Imperial states seeking to reduce, or even throw off altogether, the control of the Empire in secular matters, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in religious matters.

In Cleves, Anne’s father did not join the Lutheran party overtly, and Anne was brought up as a Catholic (contrary to what is often supposed). Duke John sought reform of the Church within his territories, but he looked to Erasmus rather than Luther for guidance. Duchess Maria was far less interested in ecclesiastical reform than her husband.

Therefore, the term "reformist religious views" would have to be carefully defined. Many Catholics wanted the Church to be reformed and made more faithful and holy--that doesn't mean they rejected certain Catholic doctrine, worship and devotion or that they became Lutherans. Whether or not Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched, Erasmus remained a Catholic.

One more note about her Catholic funeral: the Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I, was the chief mourner, remaining with Anne's body in state in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, listening to Abbot Feckenham's Catholic sermon on the Psalms, and attending the Requiem, hearing the prayers for Anne and the chant of Dies Irae:

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

The monks of the Benedictine Abbey would have prayed for Anne as she and Mary wished through the ages. But when Mary died and Elizabeth came to the throne, Elizabeth would reject Abbot Feckenham's ceremonial greeting, suppress Westminster Abbey, and place the Abbot under arrest. Her religious settlement, in the Thirty-Nine Articles, would again reject prayers for the dead and the doctrine of Purgatory.

Image credit: Doom Painting, St Mary's Church, North Leigh, Oxfordshire, 15th century

The Holy Maccabean Martyrs

In the Orthodox Church and on the calendars of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite AND of the Eastern or Byzantine Catholic Rite, today is the feast of the Holy Maccabean Martyrs, the prophet St. Eleazar, the mother (Solomonia) and her seven sons (Abim, Antonius, Gurias, Eleazar, Eusebonus, Alimus and Marcellus) who were tortured and killed because they would not eat pig flesh, violating Jewish law, when the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes ordered them to. Their stories are told in the second book of Maccabees 6:18–7:42.

Their resistance and heroism were remembered on the Catholic calendar because they are models of obedience to God's law rather than the civil law. At least one English Catholic martyr, Blessed John Slade, invoked the Holy Maccabean martyrs during his trial for recusancy, refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth I as the Governor of the Christian Church in England.

Abbot Gueranger wrote about the mother and her sons in The Liturgical Year:

The Holy Ghost, who would Himself hand down to posterity the acts of the protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen's glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed, it was he who then, as under the law of love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother, who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who, in false pity, wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life; she bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon Heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tormentor, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren (2 Mach. 7:27, 28, 29). And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures; and the incomparable mother followed her sons.

The Breviary Lesson is taken from a sermon of St. Gregory Nazianzen:

What [shall I say] of the Maccabees? For this festal day is celebrated in their name by this present congregation. Although by many they are not held in honor, because they did not enter on the conflict after Christ, yet they are worthy to be honored by all, because they showed courage and constancy in defense of the laws and institutions of their fathers. For if they suffered martyrdom before the Passion of Christ, what would they have done, if they had suffered persecution after Christ, and if they had had, as a model to be imitated, His death, which He accepted for our salvation? For, if they showed such and so great a courage, when they had no example before them, would they not have been even more courageous in the battle, if they had had that example before their eyes? There is even a certain mystical and hidden reason, which seems highly probable to me, and to all who love God, that none of those who suffered martyrdom before the coming of Christ could have attained to it without faith in Christ.

EWTN provides this information about other Old Testament figures remembered on the Eastern Catholic calendar (from ZENIT in 2007):

After our reply on invoking Old Testament saints (Oct. 30) several readers suggested that I had given insufficient consideration to the fact that almost all the Eastern Catholic Churches do have specific feast days for Old Testament figures.

The objection is valid, although some such oversights are almost inevitable, as a result of the relatively brief extension of our replies as well as of our incomplete knowledge of the Eastern liturgies. This goes to show that we often learn more from our readers than we manage to impart.

Among the celebrations readers mentioned were some saints of the Melkite (Greek or Byzantine Catholic) calendar. A reader cites "Malachi, Jan. 3; Zechariah, Feb. 8; Job, May 6; Amos, June 15; Ezekiel, July 23; Eleazar, the Seven Holy Maccabees, their mother Salome, Aug. 1; Joshua and Moses, Sept. 1 and 4; Hosea, Oct. 17; Daniel and the Three Holy Youths, Dec. 17."

Many of the other holy ones celebrated are grouped toward the last four months of the year. Also, the reader notes: "The Sunday between Dec. 11 and 17 commemorates the holy ancestors of Christ, and the Sunday between Dec. 18 and 24 commemorates all the Old Testament saints from Abraham to Joseph, the husband of Mary."

Besides St. Joseph, both the Latin and Eastern calendars celebrate some saints who are on the frontier between the Old and New Testaments. These include Joachim and Anna, Simeon and the prophetess Anna, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and St. John the Baptist.

Although the Maccabean martyrs are not on the current Roman Rite liturgical calendar, they are still worthy of our devotion and, God help us, of our imitation!

Newman and the Blessed Sacrament

Catholics use different terms for our responses to what the great Dietrich von Hildebrand would refer to as the hierarchy of values, especially in response to Almighty God in the Holy Trinity, and his angels and saints. Most properly: we worship and adore God; we venerate the saints and offer greater devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. When we participate in the Holy Mass, our response is worship through the sacrifice taking place on the Altar: we offer our sacrifices in union with Jesus Christ's. When we "make a visit" to the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle, or pray before the Host exposed in a monstrance, we adore His Real Presence and demonstrate our devotion. In The Catholic Herald, Father Ian Ker, the great Newman biographer writes about how Blessed John Henry Newman's devotion to Jesus as an Anglican led him to love His Real Presence in Catholic churches:

It is remarkable how it was the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in Catholic churches that more than anything else impressed and moved Newman, even more than the Mass itself. And it tells us something very important not only about Newman but also about a central aspect of the impact of Catholicism on the imagination of the 19th-century English Protestant convert. Thus Newman is not only making a devotional and spiritual point when he writes to an Anglican friend:

I am writing next room to the Chapel – It is such an incomprehensible blessing to have Christ in bodily presence in one’s house, within one’s walls, as swallows up all other privileges … To know that He is close by – to be able again and again through the day to go in to Him …

Newman is saying something very significant about objectivity and reality. For it was that concrete presence of Jesus in a material tabernacle which, for Newman, above all produced that “deep impression of religion as an objective fact” and which so impressed him about Catholicism. He admired “every where the signs of an awful and real system”. . . .

His almost obsessive preoccupation with this “Real Presence” was more than simply devotional: “It is really most wonderful to see this Divine Presence looking out almost into the open streets from the various Churches … I never knew what worship was, as an objective fact, till I entered the Catholic Church.” . . . 

Newman’s fascination with the reservation of the Sacrament reflects his celebrated philosophical distinction between the notional and real, notions being intellectual abstractions and the real what we personally and concretely experience. Catholics, he insisted, worshipped not dogmatic definitions but “Christ Himself”, believing in the “[Real] Presence in the sacred Tabernacle not as a form of words”, or “as a notion, but as an Object as real as we are real”.

In his Meditations and Devotions, Newman offers this prayer for a visit to the Blessed Sacrament:

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I place myself in the presence of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.

I adore Thee, O my Saviour, present here as God and man, in soul and body, in true flesh and blood.

I acknowledge and confess that I kneel before that Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary's womb, and lay in Mary's bosom; which grew up to man's estate, and by the Sea of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the cross, lay in the tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in heaven.

I praise, and bless, and give myself wholly to Him, who is the true Bread of my soul, and my everlasting joy.

Newman mentions a visit to the Blessed Sacrament as part of "the round of the day" in his "A Short Road to Perfection":

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

Two By Two to Smithfield

On July 30, 1540, two different sets of martyrs set off for Smithfield for execution. There were three Catholics, who had refused to swear Henry VIII's Oaths of Succession and Supremacy, and there were three Protestants--more properly, Zwinglians--who refused to accept the definition of Christian sacramental doctrine outlined in Henry VIII's Six Articles. The three Catholics were what I call Supremacy Martyrs, since the immediate cause of their execution/martyrdom was their refusal to accept Henry VIII as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England.

Thomas Abell, Richard Fetherston, and Edward Powell had all been chaplains and defenders of Queen Catherine of Aragon--very learned men; graduates of the University of Oxford. Thomas Abell had written Invicta veritas. An answere, That by no manner of law, it may be lawfull for the most noble King of England, King Henry the eight to be divorced from the queens grace, his lawfull and very wife. B.L. in 1532 and had also been implicated in the Nun of Kent cause celebre. During his long imprisonment he wrote to Thomas Cromwell asking to be allowed to say Mass. 

Richard Fetherston had also written against Henry's divorce of Catherine in Contra divortium Henrici et Catharinae, Liber unus although no copy of the text survives. He also tutored the Princess Mary. At about the same time as St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, Fetherston was offered the Oath of Succession and refused to swear it. He and Abell were in prison from 1534 to 1540.

Henry VIII had favored Edward Powell for his works against Lutheran doctrines in earlier days, but then Powell ran afoul of Henry's changing policies and desires to cast aside Catherine of Aragon. As the Catholic Encyclopedia describes Powell's anti-Lutheran efforts:

A court preacher in high favour with Henry VIII, he was ordered to publish a reply to Luther ("Propugnaculum summi Sacerdotii Evangelici, ac septem Sacramentorum, aeditum per virum eruditum, sacrarum literarum professorem Edoardum Poelum adversus Maratinum Lutherum fratrem famosum et Wiclifistan insignem", London, 1523, three books in the form of a dialogue between Powell and Luther). The University of Oxford commended this work, and styled Powell "the glory of the university" in a letter to the king.

The Zwinglians Robert Barnes, Thomas Garrett, and William Jerome were also taken to Smithfield that day. Robert Barnes had attended the University of Cambridge and had "hung out" at the White Horse Inn with other Lutheran minded students and masters. While Thomas Cromwell was in power, they had preached against the Catholic Bishop, Stephen Gardiner, but once Cromwell fell and was executed on July 28, 1540, they lost their protector and were sentenced to death.

As this website explains, Barnes and his companions had become involved with various disputes, including Henry VIII's discontent with Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife:

Henry VIII was angry with Thomas Cromwell for arranging the marriage with Anne of Cleves. The conservatives, led by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, saw this as an opportunity to remove him from power. Gardiner considered Cromwell a heretic for introducing the Bible in the native tongue. He also opposed the way Cromwell had attacked the monasteries and the religious shrines. Gardiner pointed out to the King that it was Cromwell who had allowed radical preachers such as Robert Barnes to return to England.

Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the leading religious conservative in England, made an attack on Lutheran opinions on 15th February, 1540. (18) In the following weeks Robert Barnes, Thomas Garrard, and William Jerome attacked Gardiner's views. On 3rd April, Henry VIII gave orders for the three men to be sent to the Tower of London. Two days later Barnes was summoned to appear before Henry VIII and Gardiner. Barnes begged forgiveness but continued to preach against the religious conservatives. (19)

Thomas Cromwell retaliated by arresting Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester and Nicholas Wotton, staunch conservatives in religious matters. He then began negotiating the release of Barnes. However, this was unsuccessful and it was now clear that Cromwell was in serious danger. (20) The French ambassador reported on 10th April, 1540, that Cromwell was "tottering" and began speculating about who would succeed to his offices. 

Thomas Cromwell, recently named the Earl of Essex, was arrested at Privy Council meeting on June 10, 1540 and attainted a traitor. He was beheaded on July 28 that year, and therefore:

With Thomas Cromwell unable to protect them, Barnes, Thomas Garrard, and William Jerome were once again taken into custody. On 22nd July, 1540, Garrard, Barnes and Jerome, were attainted as heretics, a procedure which denied them the chance to defend themselves in court, and sentenced to death; their heresies were not specified. At the stake, on 30th July, Garrard and his fellows maintained that they did not know why they were being burnt, and that they died guiltless. Richard Hilles, who observed the executions, commented that the men "remained in the fire without crying out, but were as quiet and patient as though they felt no pain"

Both the Catholics and the Zwinglians were sentenced to death without trial. Bills of Attainder condemned the Catholics as Traitors and the Zwinglians as Heretics. Three hurdles dragged the men to Smithfield from the Tower; each hurdle held a traitor and a heretic. At Smithfield, the traitors were hung, cut down and butchered while alive, their bodies quartered and their heads cut for display; the heretics were burnt alive at the stake. A poem titled, "The Metynge of Doctor Barnes and Dr. Powell at Paradise Gate and of theyre communicacion bothe drawen to Smithfylde fro the Towar" described the juxtaposition of the Catholic and the Protestant that day.

This day demonstrates Henry VIII's personal rule over both State and Church; he sentenced both those who refused to swear the oaths he demanded and those who refused to obey the religious doctrine he required. The Catholics certainly knew the dangerous route they were taking -- defending Catherine against the king's wishes and refusing the oaths. By 1540, the pattern of execution for those offenses was well established. The Zwinglians were probably caught off guard by Cromwell's sudden fall; on the leading edge of Protestant thinking and theology, they lost their protector and were caught up in the strange factional divisions Henry countenanced in the later years of his reign.

Catherine's former chaplains were beatified by Pope Leo XIII; the Zwinglian preachers were honored by John Foxe in his Acts and Monuments.

Image credits: Book about Blessed Thomas Abell; "Barnes and his Fellow-Prisoners Seeking Forgiveness", from an 1887 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, illustrated by Kronheim.

Henry VIII: Matching and Dispatching on July 28, 1540

Henry VIII married for the fifth time on July 28, 1540, the same day that the erstwhile Earl of Essex, Thomas Cromwell, was executed. Henry had negotiated an annulment with Anne of Cleves which netted his fourth wife property and security in England and thus was free to marry Catherine Howard, a cousin of his second wife Anne Boleyn.

The Queen Anne Boleyn website will post evaluations of Thomas Cromwell's contributions to English History and I contributed some comments.

Another man was beheaded on Tower Hill that day and author Nancy Bilyeau offered some background on Sir Walter Hungerford, condemned for treason, heresy, and buggery:

A great many soldiers appeared on Tower Hill the day of the execution, in case of some last-minute defense of Cromwell. The chronicler Edward Hall said he was greatly mourned by the "common people." But there was no outcry on his behalf that day. Sir William Kingston, who listened to Anne Boleyn's terrified rambling while she was imprisoned, was still the constable. Perhaps it was Kingston who led Hungerford and Cromwell out to the hill and formally handed them over to the jurisdiction of the city of London for execution.

Eyewitnesses agree that Hungerford panicked before the crowd. Some modern historians refer to Sir Walter as well known for insanity. But the pragmatic letters he wrote to Cromwell just a couple of years earlier attest to Hungerford's being well able to function in society. It is likely that, during his weeks of interrogation and with the knowledge he would soon die on the block, Hungerford had a nervous breakdown, like Jane Boleyn would in late 1541.

Hungerford "seemed so unquiet that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise," said one observer. Cromwell, who was about to make his final remarks to the crowd, took aside Sir Walter and said to him:

"There is no cause for you to fear. If you repent and be heartily sorry for what you have done, there is for you mercy enough for the Lord, who for Christ's sake will forgive you. Therefore be not dismayed, and though the breakfast we are going to be sharp, yet, trusting in the mercy of the Lord, we shall have a joyous dinner."

Cromwell was the first to die, in a bungled beheading infamous for its ghastliness. Hungerford followed. Both bodies were carted to the nearby Church of St. Peter ad Vincula, within the Tower walls. Their graves are a few feet from Anne Boleyn's. As Macaulay wrote, "In truth there is no sadder spot on earth than that little cemetery."

Blessed William Davies of Wales

According to Dom Bede Camm in the Catholic Encyclopedia, William Davis, declared Blessed by Pope St. John Paul II, was

. . . one of the most illustrious of the priests who suffered under Queen Elizabeth, b. in North Wales, probably and Crois in Yris, Denbighshire, date uncertain; d. At Beaumaris, 27 July, 1593. He studied at Reims, where he arrived 6 April 1582 just in time to assist a the first Mass of the venerable martyr Nicholas Garlick. He received tonsure and minor orders 23 Sept., 1583, together with seventy-three other English students. Ordained priest in April, 1585, he laboured with wonderful zeal and success in Wales till March, 1591-2, when he was arrested at Holyhead with four students whom he was sending via Ireland to the English College at Valladolid. He was thrown into a loathsome dungeon in Beaumaris Castle and separated from his companions, having frankly confessed that he was a priest. 

After a month his sanctity and patience gained him some relaxation of his close confinement and he was able to join the students for and hour in the day, and even to celebrate Mass. By degrees the jailor became so indulgent that they might have escaped had they so willed. The fame of the priest's sanctity and wisdom brought Catholics from all parts to consult him and Protestant ministers came to dispute with him. At the assizes he and his companions were condemned to death, on which the martyr intoned the "Te Deum", which the others took up. The injustice of the sentence was so apparent that to still the people's murmurs the judge reprieved the condemned till the queen's pleasure be known. Sent to Ludlow, to be examined by the Council of the Marches, Father Davies had to submit to fresh assaults by the ministers. Here too he foiled the artifices of his enemies who took him to the church under pretext of a disputation, and then began the Protestant service. He at once began to recite the Latin Vespers in a louder voice than the ministers', and afterwards publicly exposed the trick of which he had been a victim. From Ludlow he was sent to Bewdley, where he had to share a foul dungeon with felons, and from thence to other prisons until at last he was sent back to Beaumaris, where, to their mutual consolation, he rejoined his young companions. For some six moths he lived with them the life of a religious community, dividing the time between prayer and study, "with so much comfort to themselves that they seemed to be rather in heaven than in prison". 

At the summer assizes it was decided that the priest must die as a traitor, though he was offered his life if he would go but once to church. In spite of the then open opposition of the people, who honoured him as a saint, the cruel sentence was carried out and he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Beaumaris. As he put the rope round his neck, the martyr said: " Thy yoke, O Lord is sweet and Thy burden is light." His cassock stained with his blood was brought by his companions and preserved as a relic. They, though condemned to imprisonment for life, managed in time to escape, and the youngest found his way at last to Valladolid, where he recounted the whole story to Bishop Yepes, who wrote it in his "Historia particular de la Persecucion en Inglaterra". There is now a chapel in Anglesey built as a memorial to the martyr.

This parish in Wales provides more information on Father Davies' works and projects in the area he served:

He had many friends in this area, people who had known him since boyhood, but, of course, the very secrecy of his movements means that few records are available of the families he served. However, it is known that he was a friend of Robert Pugh of Penrhyn and that they were linked together in an interesting and important event on the Little Orme.

From May 1586 life became even more difficult for Catholics. The Queen was incensed to learn that laws against ‘recusants and obstinate persons in religion’ had not been enforced.

The local Magistrates were accused of negligence and ordered to condemn forthwith the unlawful assembly of Catholics. This was an order that could not be ignored, even by Magistrates sympathetic to Catholics, but a friendly warning was given to Robert Pugh and William Davies and they were able to escape, taking refuge, along with several others, in a cave on the Little Orme. They remained there in comparative safety for about nine months and even managed to produce a small book on a printing press they had hidden there.

The book was ‘Y Drych Gristianogawl’ – ‘The Christian Mirror’ and its importance lies in the fact that it was possibly the first book ever printed in Wales. In April 1587, the cave was discovered and the local Magistrate, Sir Thomas Mostyn, informed. He went to the cave with a large band of people but did not enter – preferring (so it was said) to wait until the following day. He left several of his own men on guard, but when morning came – it was found that all the cave dwellers had managed to escape!

Nothing more was known of Robert Pugh and William Davies until five years later, in March 1592, when they were arrested in Holyhead, Angelsey. They had gone there to assist four student Priests on their journey to Valladolid in Spain, but all six persons were arrested – Robert Pugh being the only one to escape. The others were thrown into Beaumaris Castle dungeons where Father Davies regularly said Mass. Beaumaris rapidly became a centre for all the Catholics of Angelsey.

This booklet provides more detail with pictures! Pope Benedict XVI received a facsimile of ‘Y Drych Gristianogawl’ when he visited the UK (He did not go to Wales, however).

Image credit: Beaumaris Castle (Licensed)

The Last Cardinal Protector of England, RIP

On July 25, 1539 Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio, former bishop of Salisbury, former Cardinal Protector of England, and former Papal Legate in the matter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon's marriage, died in Rome.

According to his Dictionary of National Biography entry, written by James Gairdner:

He was born in 1472 of a noble Bolognese family, and at nineteen years of age devoted himself to the study of imperial law at Pavia and Bologna, along with his own father, Giovanni Campeggio, whose works upon that subject were long held in considerable repute. Early in life he married, and had a son born in 1504, who was made a cardinal by Julius III in 1551. But after his wife's death he took holy orders, and became bishop of Feltri and auditor of the rota at Rome. He was sent by Leo X on a mission to the Emperor Maximilian, and while so engaged was created a cardinal, in his absence, in 1517. Next year he was sent to England as legate to incite Henry VIII to unite with other princes in a crusade against the Turks. He was detained some time at Calais before being allowed to cross, Henry VIII having insisted with the pope that his favourite, Cardinal Wolsey, should be invested with equal legatine functions before he landed. He was, however, very well received, and a few years later (1524) Henry VIII gave him, or allowed him to obtain by papal bull, the bishopric of Salisbury. About the same time he was made archbishop of Bologna. He held also at various times several other Italian bishoprics. He was also sent to Germany in 1524, and presided at the diet at Ratisbon, where a vain attempt was made to check the Lutheran movement. In 1527 he was besieged with Pope Clement VII at Rome, in the castle of St. Angelo. Next year he was sent into England on his most celebrated mission, in which Wolsey was again joined with him as legate, to hear the divorce suit of Henry VIII against Catherine of Arragon (sic). On this occasion he suffered much, both physically and mentally. He was severely afflicted with gout, and had to be carried about in a litter; and while he was pledged to the pope in private not to deliver judgment without referring the matter to Rome, he was pressed by Wolsey to proceed without delay. Some of his ciphered despatches from London at this time have been deciphered within the last few years, and show a very creditable determination on his part not to be made the instrument of injustice, whatever might be the cost to himself. The cause, as is well known, was revoked to Rome, and so his mission terminated. On leaving the kingdom he was treated with singular discourtesy by the officers of customs, who insisted on searching his baggage, and on his complaining to the king, it was clear that the insult was premeditated, and was really a petty-minded indication of the royal displeasure. Five years later, in 1534, he was deprived of the bishopric of Salisbury by act of parliament, on the ground that he was an alien and non-resident, though the king had certainly never expected him to keep residence when he gave him the bishopric. 

Gairdner, who contributed many of the entries for the Tudor era in the DNB, clearly favors Campeggio's sincere and principled efforts in Henry VIII's marital issues. He believed that Henry and Katherine were validly married and thus he would not "be made the instrument of injustice, whatever might be the cost to himself". Gairdner seems to think poorly of Henry VIII's depriving Campeggio of the Salisbury bishopric and his orders for "the officers of customs" treating the Cardinal Legate with "singular discourtesy". God bless Cardinal Campeggio; may he rest in peace!

One of 85; One of 40: Lambton and Boste

The Catholic Encyclopedia cites a horrible detail in the execution of Blessed Joseph Lambton, most likely on July 24, 1592 at Newcastle-on-Tyne:

English martyr, b. 1569; d. at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The day of his death is variously given as 23 June, 23 July, and 27 July, and the year as 1592 and 1593; but from a letter of Lord Huntingdon it is clear he died before 31 July, 1592, and Father Holtby's Stonyhurst manuscript says he died on a Monday, so that the probable date is 24 July, 1592. He was the second son of Thomas Lambton of Malton-in-Rydall, Yorks, and Katharine, daughter of Robert Birkhead of West Brandon, Durham. He arrived at the English College, Reims, in 1584, and at the English College, Rome, in 1589. Being allowed to curtail his theological course, he was ordained priest when only twenty-three, and sent on the mission on 22 April 1592. He was arrested at Newcastle on landing with [Blessed] Edward Waterson, and condemned at the next assizes under 27 Eliz., c. 2. He was cut down alive, and the reprieved felon who acted as hangman refused to complete the sentence, which was at last carried out by a Frenchman practicing as a surgeon at Kenton.

So half-strangled he had to wait on another executioner--perhaps the surgeon was able to complete the process more humanely than the felon would have!

On the same date, two years later, another martyr, St. John Boste, suffered in Durham, also in extraordinary circumstances:

Priest and martyr, b. of good Catholic family at Dufton, in Westmoreland, about 1544; d. at Durham, 24 July, 1594. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford, 1569-72, became a Fellow, and was received into the Church at Brome, in Suffolk, in 1576. Resigning his Fellowship in 1580, he went to Reims, where he was ordained priest, 4 March, 1581, and in April was sent to England. He landed at Hartlepool and became a most zealous missioner, so that the persecutors made extraordinary efforts to capture him. At last, after many narrow escapes, he was taken to Waterhouses, the house of William Claxton, near Durham, betrayed by one Eglesfield [or Ecclesfield], 5 July, 1593. The place is still visited by Catholics. From Durham he was conveyed to London, showing himself throughout "resolute, bold, joyful, and pleasant", although terribly racked in the Tower. Sent back to Durham for the July Assizes, 1594, he behaved with undaunted courage and resolution, and induced his fellow-martyr, Bl. George Swalwell [or Swallowell], a convert minister, who had recanted through fear, to repent of his cowardice, absolving him publicly in court. He suffered at Dryburn, outside Durham. He recited the Angelus while mounting the ladder, and was executed with extraordinary brutality; for he was scarcely turned off the ladder when he was cut down, so that he stood on his feet, and in that posture was cruelly butchered alive. An account of his trial and execution was written by an eye-witness, [Blessed] Christopher Robinson, who suffered martyrdom shortly afterwards at Carlisle.

Blessed Joseph Lambton was among the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II, while St. John Boste was canonized by Pope Paul VI. Boste is included in the group portrait commissioned at the time of the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970, standing on the left side of the Tyburn Tree altar, behind and right of a live tree, wearing a hat.

Blessed George Swalwell, Blessed Christopher Robinson, and Blessed Edward Waterson are also among those beatified in 1987.

Maurice Chauncey: A Carthusian Who Took the Oath

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Maurice Chauncey was:

Prior of the English Carthusians at Bruges, date of birth unknown; died at Bruges, 2 July, 1581. He was the eldest son of John Chauncey, Esq. Wood thinks he studied at Oxford, and afterwards went to Gray's Inn for a course of law. Finally he entered the London Charterhouse. In 1535 the majority of the Carthusians refused to take the oath of supremacy, but Chauncy, on his own confession, consented to take it. After the surrender of the monastery in 1537, Chauncy with a few others joined the Carthusians of Sheen who had settled in Bruges. On the accession of Mary they returned to Sheen, and in 1556 Chauncy was elected prior. In 1558 they retired again to Bruges, living with their Flemish brethren until 1569, when they obtained a house on their own in St. Clare Street. The hostility of the Calvinists compelled them to leave Bruges in 1578. Failing to settle at Douai, they retired to Louvain (May, 1578). Chauncy died at the old house in Bruges. In his history of the Carthusians he frequently laments his weakness in taking the oath of supremacy. He wrote: "Historia aliquot nostri saeculi Martyrun in Angliâ", etc. (Mainz, 1550, and Bruges, 1583); "Commentariolus de vitae ratione et martyrio octodecim Cartusianorum qui in Anglia sub rege trucidati sunt" (Ghent, 1608), a portion of which was reprinted; "Vitae Martyrun Cartusianorum aliquot, qui Londini pro Unitate Ecclesiae adversus haereticos", etc. (Milan, 1606). "The Divine Cloud of Unknowing", in manuscript, is ascribed to him by Anthony a Wood.

He died in Bruges on July 23, 1581. According to Philip Hughes in his Rome and the Counter Reformation in England, Chauncey wrote to Father William Allen in 1577 complaining about how the missionary priests wore secular clothing when they returned to England. Allen had to instruct Chauncey about the dangers the priests were already facing--before Parliament had made it a treasonous offense for a priest to be present in England. Alison Plowden provides some quotations from Allen's reply to Chauncey in her Danger to Elizabeth.

St. Mary Magdalene and the English Reformation

Today is one of my name days honoring one of my three patron saints (St. Stephen, St. Anne, and St. Mary Magdalene)--it would be celebrated today as Feast but that today is Sunday and the Mass of every Sunday has precedence over Feasts. Parish churches named for St. Mary Magdalene or Magdalen may celebrate her Feast today, however. Pope Francis raised her feast day from a Memorial to a Feast in 2016, as she is "the Apostle to the Apostles" bringing the good news of the Resurrection of Jesus to them.

I've found some interesting research on devotion to St. Mary Magdalene among recusant Catholics: with the title “They have taken away my Lord”: Mary Magdalene, Christ’s Missing Body, and the Mass in Reformation England, Lisa McClain of Boise State University published an article in The Sixteenth Century Journal (Spring 2007):

In early modern Protestant England, traditional Catholic worship and sacraments, particularly the Mass, declined, and many Catholics feared for their salvation. At the same time, an increased veneration of Mary Magdalene focused no longer on penance and redemption, but on Mary’s discovery of Christ’s empty tomb. Magdalene’s distress at losing the corporeal body of Christ mirrored English Catholic anxiety over losing the body of Christ as contained in the Eucharist in the absence of regular Mass. English Catholics chose to revive and adapt this form of Magdalene symbolism to best meet their spiritual needs, thus emphasizing the many uses and flexibility of such a familiar symbol as Mary Magdalene and suggesting types and nuances of Magdalene worship that have yet to be fully investigated by scholars.

Other works, including a doctoral dissertation, focus on different views of St. Mary Magdalene during the Reformation era, Protestant and Catholic.

St. Robert Southwell, SJ, as the Poetry Foundation describes, wrote a major work on St. Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus:

The second of Southwell’s prose works to appear in print was Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears. It had been circulating in manuscript before Gabriel Cawood published it in late 1591 with an author’s preface to the reader, and it, too, was written for one of the recusant circle: Dorothy Arundel, the daughter of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne; she later became a Benedictine nun. The work originated in a popular homily, usually attributed to Origen, on Saint John’s account of Mary Magdalen’s encounter with Christ on Easter morning. Southwell first read this homily in Italy, presumably in Italian and Latin (an Italian version survives in manuscript at Stonyhurst, attributed to Saint Bonaventura). In the Stonyhurst holograph there are fragments of Southwell’s attempts at an English translation; they show how difficult he found English composition after speaking Latin and Italian for ten years. The homily was available in England, printed in Latin around 1504 and in English translation in 1565. There are signs that Southwell knew and used this translation. Some writers suggest that he may also have known Valvasone’s poem Le lagrime di S. Maria Maddalena, but no clear evidence of this influence has been presented.

In Southwell’s hands the little homily grows to a work three times as long. It used to be thought that the book originated as a sermon, but this theory was based on ignorance of the source. Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears is a meditation on Mary’s experience, cast largely in the form of a dialogue between Mary and the other persons present, the angels in the empty tomb, Christ, and the narrator. The homily provides the outline and some of the contents, but Southwell’s tone is different from that of his source, partly owing to the intensity, detail, and accomplishment of his prose but mostly to his conception of the incident as a love story. Southwell’s Mary is less the repentant sinner than the lover of Christ; she weeps tears of loss, not remorse. For her, Christ is the sum of all value, and in finding the empty tomb she experiences utter loss. All Mary’s thoughts and actions proceed from her love, and as Southwell presents her, she is a heroic woman.

There is also an allegorical tendency in the work, which Southwell found in his source but which he develops according to his own preoccupations. Allegorically speaking, Mary is the Christian soul, separated from the living Christian truth that is her only happiness; more specifically, she is an English Catholic woman, and the violence that threatens her is that of contemporary England.

St. Robert Southwell, pray for us!

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us!