Preview: The First Elizabethan Martyr Among the 40: St. Cuthbert Mayne

St. John Stone, whom we discussed on Monday, June 22 on the Son Rise Morning Show was executed in 1539; the next martyr among the 40 canonized in 1970, Saint Cuthbert Mayne, was executed in 1577. There is gap of 38 years between those martyrs.

Part of what I'd like to explore with on Monday, June 29 in our Son Rise Morning Show series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales is why there is such an interval between the last canonized martyr of Henry VIII's reign and the first canonized martyr of Elizabeth I's reign.

We also need to describe what makes Saint Cuthbert Mayne special: he is the protomartyr of the missionary priests, those men who studied for the priesthood on the Continent to return to England and bring the Sacraments back to recusant English Catholics. And he was born--and died--in Cornwall!

First of all, the chronological gap. There were additional martyrdoms during the reign of Henry VIII, but those martyrs, like the other Carthusians and the three abbots of the great monasteries (Colchester, Reading, and Glastonbury), have not been canonized.

During the reign of young Edward VI, some Catholics were arrested and imprisoned, but there are no Catholic martyrs, venerable or blessed from that brief reign.

During the reign of Mary I, who restored the practice of the Catholic faith in England, previous heresy laws were also restored by Parliament and Queen Mary, and thus nearly 300 men and women were burned alive at the stake for heresy (whether or not they were Protestant).

Catholics were also executed for their faith earlier in Elizabeth I's reign after the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were passed in 1559, like Blessed John Storey,  Blessed Thomas Woodhouse, Blessed John Felton, and others beatified in 1886 and 1895, but obviously, they weren't included among the 40 canonized in 1970.

St. Cuthbert Mayne and 10 other martyrs canonized in 1970 had been included among the first large group of martyrs beatified by Pope Leo XIII on December 29 in 1886. Father Paolo Molinari, S.J.,the postulator of the cause explained how those 11 were included among the 40:

Eleven of these forty martyrs had been included among the blessed solely by a decree confirming their cult. It was now necessary, in view of the hoped-for canonization, to make a thorough historical re-examination of their martyrdom, which had not been done ex professo when the Positio super introductione causue was prepared last century. As is customary, this task was entrusted to the Historical Section of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Availing itself essentially of the studies carried out under its direction by the General Postulation of the Society of Jesus and by the office of the English Vice-Postulation, it made a very favourable pronouncement on the material and formal martyrdom of the eleven Blessed in question. The other studies prescribed by law having been completed, His Holiness Paul VI signed the special Decree of the Declaratio Martyrii of these eleven Blessed Martyrs, on May 4th 1970. In preparing for this Decree, two volumes were published in English and in Italian respectively of the Positio super Martyrii et cultu ex officio concinnata (Official Presentation of Documents on Martyrdom and Cult) (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1968, pp. XLIV, 375 in folio) which in the judgment of international critics is a real model of scientific editing of old texts.

And we do have a great deal of detail about Saint Cuthbert Mayne: his career at Oxford, his conversion to Catholicism, his studies on the Continent, and his service in the house of Francis Tregian.

He was executed--hanged, drawn, and quartered--on November 29, 1577 on rather flimsy evidence, there being no laws yet against Catholic priests entering the country (that is that they weren't automatically traitors by being present in the country having been ordained abroad). According to the Catholic Encyclopedia entry, written before he was canonized among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI:

Martyr, b. at Yorkston, near Barnstaple, Devonshire (baptized 20 March, 1543-4); d. at Launceston, Cornwall, 29 Nov., 1577. He was the son of William Mayne; his uncle was a schismatical priest, who had him educated at Barnstaple Grammar School, and he was ordained a Protestant minister at the age of eighteen or nineteen. He then went to Oxford, first to St. Alban's Hall, then to St. John's College, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1570. He there made the acquaintance of Blessed Edmund Campion, Gregory Martin, the controversialist, Humphrey Ely, Henry Shaw, Thomas Bramston, O.S.B., Henry Holland, Jonas Meredith, Roland Russell, and William Wiggs. The above list shows how strong a Catholic leaven was still working at Oxford. Late in 1570 a letter from Gregory Martin to Blessed Cuthbert fell into the Bishop of London's hands. He at once sent a pursuivant to arrest Blessed Cuthbert and others mentioned in the letter. Blessed Cuthbert was in the country, and being warned by Blessed Thomas Ford, he evaded arrest by going to Cornwall, whence he arrived at Douai in 1573.

He was ordained in 1575 and came to England with St. John Payne (Payne and Mayne!) in 1576. When Father Cuthbert Mayne was arrested in June, 1577, authorities had some trouble in gathering evidence that corresponded with charges punishable by death:

He was brought to trial in September; meanwhile his imprisonment was of the harshest order. His indictment under statutes of 1 and 13 Elizabeth was under five counts: first, that he had obtained from the Roman See a "faculty", containing absolution of the queen's subjects; second, that he had published the same at Golden; third, that he had taught the ecclesiastical authority of the pope in Launceston Gaol; fourth, that he had brought into the kingdom an Agnus Dei and had delivered the same to Mr. Tregian; fifth, that he had said Mass.

As to the first and second counts, the martyr showed that the supposed "faculty" was merely a copy printed at Douai of an announcement of the Jubilee of 1575, and that its application having expired with the end of the jubilee, he certainly had not published it either at Golden or elsewhere. As to the third count, he maintained that he had said nothing definite on the subject to the three illiterate witnesses who asserted the contrary. As to the fourth count, he urged that the fact that he was wearing an Agnus Dei at the time of his arrest was no evidence that he had brought it into the kingdom or delivered it to Mr. Tregian. As to the fifth count, he contended that the finding of a Missal, a chalice, and vestments in his room did not prove that he had said Mass.

Nevertheless the jury found him guilty of high treason on all counts, and he was sentenced accordingly. His execution was delayed because one of the judges, Jeffries, altered his mind after sentence and sent a report to the Privy Council. They submitted the case to the whole Bench of Judges, which was inclined to Jeffries's view. Nevertheless, for motives of policy, the Council ordered the execution to proceed. On the night of 27 November his cell was seen by the other prisoners to be full of a strange bright light. 

There is even more information at this website, including these details about his execution:

Then the rope was put around his neck and the martyr glancing upwards and striking his breast cried out: “In manus tuas, Domine… He did not have time to finish “commendo spiritum meum” because immediately the executioner swung away the ladder. He then slashed at the rope with such violence, that St. Cuthbert fell from the high gibbet, striking his head on the platform so hard that his eyes were forced from their sockets. Lying on the ground, choking and barely alive, St. Cuthbert’s garments were torn away from his body by the executioner who with sharp knives began the work of dismembering and disembowelling the body and cutting in into four parts. The heart was torn out and held up for all to see and then thrown onto a fire. Tar and pitch were used to preserve the four parts of the body, which were distributed over the county, only one quarter being sent out of Cornwall to the native town of St. Cuthbert, Barnstaple, where it was spiked on to the bridge crossing the river Taw.

Saint Cuthbert Mayne, pray for us!