Blessed Philip Powell, OSB and the Last Catholic Abbot and Monk of Westminster

According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia Blessed Philip Powell (or Powel), beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929, was born

at Tralon, Brecknockshire, 2 Feb., 1594; d. at Tyburn 30 June, 1646. He was the son of Roger and Catherine Powel, and was brought up to the law by David Baker, afterwards Dom Augustine Baker, O.S.B. At the age of sixteen he became a student in the Temple, London, but went to Douai three or four years later, where he received the Benedictine habit in the monastery of St. Gregory (now Downside Abbey, Bath). In 1618 he was ordained priest and in 1622 left Douai for the English mission. About 1624 he went to reside with Mr. Poyntz of Leighland, Somersetshire, but, when the Civil War broke out, in 1645, retired to Devonshire, where he stayed for a few months with Mr. John Trevelyan of Yarnscombe and then with Mr. John Coffin of Parkham. He afterwards served for six months as chaplain to the Catholic soldiers in General Goring's army in Cornwall, and, when that force was disbanded, took ship for South Wales. The vessel was captured on 22 February, 1646; Father Powel was recognized and denounced as a priest. On 11 May he was ordered to London by the Earl of Warwick, and confined in St. Catherine's Gaol, Southwark, where the harsh treatment he received brought on a severe attack of pleurisy. His trial, which had been fixed for 30 May, did not take place till 9 June, at Westminster Hall. He was found gulity and was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. At the instance of the Common Council of London the head and quarters were not exposed, but were buried in the old churchyard at Moorfields. The martyr's crucifix, which had formerly belonged to Feckenham, last Abbot of Westminster, is preserved at Downside, with some of his hair and a cloth stained with his blood.

Allow me to point out two interesting connections: one to the past of the Benedictine order in England, its brief restoration during the reign of Mary I and one to its survival in England after the accession of Elizabeth I and its second dissolution.

The first is between Blessed Philip Powell and John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, through his crucifix, which in 1913 at least was held at Downside Abbey (a search of their website yielded no results). Dom David Knowles profiled Feckenham in his book Saints and Scholars, "His mind moved in terms of practical concessions and adjustments; he had neither [Reginald] Pole's forward-looking zeal for reform, not the unworldly, single-minded missionary devotion of a Campion . . . Seen in the whole picture of his life, however, and as a man of his generation, he appears an admirable and sympathetic figure if not wholly an heroic one." As British History Online notes:

On the revival of the "old religion," under Queen Mary, John Feckenham, late Dean of St. Paul's, was appointed Abbot of Westminster and Chaplain to her Majesty, and, with fourteen monks, took possession of the Abbey. Malcolm quotes a few lines from a proclamation issued in 1553, to show the probable state in which Feckenham found the Abbey. Speaking of the churches—"especially within the cittie of London, irreverently used, and by divers insolent rashe persones sundrie waies abused, soe farre forth, that many quarreles, riottes, frayes, and bloudshedinges have been made in some of the said churches, besides shotinge of hand-gonnes to doves, and the com'on bringinge of horses and mules into and throughe the said churches." He was indefatigable in restoring the building to its former state, and Mary, with great zeal, collected into it as many as she could of the rich habits and other insignia of its former splendid worship; but the death of his royal mistress put an end to his exertions, and his authority as abbot ceased on the 12th of July, 1559.

At the death of Queen Mary, Feckenham carefully removed from the Abbey the "relic of the true cross," which had been exposed there to the veneration of the faithful for centuries. It was carefully secreted during nearly two centuries, and found in 1822, in a box along with some antique vestments, at the house of a Roman Catholic gentleman in Holborn—Mr. Langdale**. Having been duly authenticated, it was removed to the Benedictine College of St. Gregory, at Downside, near Bath, where it is still kept. It may be added that this particular relic is minutely described in the Chevalier Fleury's work on "Relics of the True Cross." [I'm not confusing Abbot Feckenham's crucifix with this relic of the true cross!]

**Mr. Langdale's distillery and warehouse were destroyed on June 7, 1780 during the Gordon Riots!

More on Abbot John Feckenham here, who died on October 16, 1585 in Wisbech Castle, after years of imprisonment in the Tower of London and house arrest. Westminster Abbey has this sad statement about him: "John Feckenham was Abbot of Westminster from 1556-1559 but is not buried in the Abbey and he has no memorial."

The other connection, which effected Powell's possession of Feckenham's crucifix, was the efforts of Dom Augustine Baker to ensure the continuity of the Benedictine order in England through the one man left, Sigebert Buckley, who had joined the order during Mary I's reign and Feckenham's brief term as Abbot at Westminster. As this history of the Benedictines in England notes, Buckley:

. . . refused to take the oath of supremacy, and suffered imprisonment all during Elizabeth's reign. At the accession of James I, he was released from the prison of Framlingham. In the same year 1603 two English monks of the Cassinese congregation, Fathers Preston and Beech, arrived at Yarmouth, and found Father Sigebert in the house of Mr Francis Woodhouse. The 86 year old Confessor of the Faith was willing and anxious to pass on at once the habit and the succession of Westminster. [emphasis added!! that's about 44 years!!]

How to do this legally caused a delay of four years. The difficulty was at last overcome by a young lawyer of Abergavenny who had gone to Italy to fulfil a vow and had returned a Benedictine monk. Br Augustine Baker drew up a legal instrument for the aggregation and succession which satisfied all ecclesiastical law. . . .

That's the same David or Augustine Baker who instructed Powell in the law. Wikipedia's page for Sigebert Buckley includes the statement that Baker had developed for the proper transfer of succession.

When he was condemned to death because he was a Catholic priest in England, and therefore a traitor under English law, Blessed Philip Powell exclaimed: "Oh what am I that God thus honours me and will have me to die for his sake?"

Blessed Philip Powell, OSB, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): portrait of Father Powell