Preview: Two Second-Chance "Confessor" Bishops

I thought we'd continue with the theme of second chances at the Tudor Court because Father Henry Sebastian Bowden remembers two bishops who survived during the religious changes of the Tudor dynasty in his Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year on November 18 and 23: Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall and Bishop Richard Pate. Bowden includes them as "Confessors", not as canonized saints, but as Catholics who suffered under the religious changes of their age in England, sometimes after having gone along with the flow of change.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time on Monday, November 20, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, the last segment in the second national hour on EWTN Radio. Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later here.

Just a quick reminder of these religious changes during the Tudor Dynasty:

Henry VII: Catholic with strong ties to Rome through Cardinal Protectors

Henry VIII: Started out the same; ended up divided from the universal Catholic Church; proclaimed as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England; various changes in liturgy and devotion; Catholicism and Lutheranism mixed; religious orders destroyed

Edward VI: Reigned as a minor; strongly Calvinist doctrine; known as "The New Josiah" (the sixteenth King of Judah who restored Temple worship in Jerusalem); some Catholic prelates (including these two) realized their errors

Mary I: restored Catholic worship and doctrine; reconciled England to Rome

Elizabeth I: Re-established Royal control over the Church; compromise Thirty-Nine Articles; outlawed the Catholic Mass, etc

With the title "Lifelong Repentance", and a verse from Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 35:5 ("To depart from iniquity pleaseth the Lord, and to depart from injustice is an entreaty for sin.") Father Bowden sketches out Bishop Tunstall's career:

Erasmus described him as a man of most exquisite judgment both in Greek and Latin literature, but at the same time of incredible modesty and of sweet and joyful manner. [Saint]Thomas More, who had been educated with him, declared that "the world scarce contained any one of greater learning, prudence, or goodness." Yet he failed where More stood firm, and under Henry VIII took the oath of Supremacy, and defended himself to Pole on the ground that the Pope’s supremacy was not so certain a matter as to die for. [Reginald] Pole replied, "Your friends Fisher and More were of not so vile a mind as not to know why they died. God send you a livelier spirit in His honour."** He atoned, however, for his weakness under Edward VI by his opposition to the new Protestantism, and was sent to the Tower. Restored to his See of Durham under Mary, and strengthened and pardoned by the blessing of Christ's vicar, he ardently repaired the havoc caused by schism in his diocese. Summoned by Elizabeth to take the oath, he refused, and on his arrival in London, after a week’s journey, was deposed, and died imprisoned under Clark [sic: should be Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury] at the age of eighty-five, November 18, 1559.

**Father Bowden is probably referencing an exchange of letters between Pole and Tunstall after Pole had written his public letter "On the Unity of the Church" to Henry VIII, deploring his actions--including the executions of More, Fisher, and the Carthusians--which the Lambeth Palace Library has in its collection (Tunstall, Cuthbert, A letter written by Cuthbert Tunstall, late bishop of Duresme, and John Stokesley, sometime byshop of London, sente unto Reginalde Pole ... (London, 1560). STC 24321 [A polemical letter against Pole by two of Henry VIII’s advisers.] (ZZ)1553.02.03)

So Tunstall, like almost everyone else, went along with Henry VIII's marital and ecclesiastical plans, then began to see their results during the reign of Edward VI and was fortified enough with the restoration of Catholicism during the brief reign of Mary I, to refuse to cooperate with Elizabeth I and her Parliament's legislation establishing the Church of England with its Thirty-Nine Articles, etc. Thus he died in Lambeth Palace under house arrest.

Father Bowden gives Bishop Pate's memento the title "Wasted Away" with verses 3 and 5 from Psalm 31: "Because I was silent my bones grew old, whilst I cried out all the day long . . . I have acknowledged my sin to Thee." He also took the required oaths during the reign of Henry VIII, but while at the Court of Charles V in Spain, seemed to advocate for the Princess (then called Lady) Mary's legitimacy, so that's why, as Father Bowden mentions, Henry VIII mistrusted him:

He was the nephew of Longland, the Courtier Bishop of Lincoln, confessor to Henry VIII, and was made by him Canon and Archdeacon of his Cathedral, even before taking his degree at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Through his uncle’s influence he was sent as Ambassador to Charles V in Spain. Recalled to England in 1537, he accepted the Royal Supremacy, and in 1540 returned as Ambassador to Charles. Though his desire to please the King led him into schism, Henry secretly mistrusted him, and recalled him to England. Pate fled to Rome, and was attaindered. In Rome he was fully reconciled to the Church, and nominated to the See of Worcester by Paul III in 1541, and assisted as one of two English bishops at the Council of Trent. On Mary’s accession he returned to England, and took possession of his See. Under Elizabeth he voted in the first Parliament against every anti-Catholic measure, and made reparation for his previous fall by refusing to take the oath. He was imprisoned in the Tower, and then for a year and a half placed under the custody of Jewel, September 1563, at Salisbury, and finally recommitted to the Tower, where he died of his sufferings after six years’ confinement, November 23, 1565.

When I read these biographies of those who lived through all the religious changes in the Tudor dynasty, I'm reminded of the title of an EWTN program hosted by Ralph Martin, The Choices We Face.

They faced tremendous and fateful choices (King or Church; safety or martyrdom?), made their choice, and then had to live with it. These two men made their choice, realized their error, repented, and made the better choice, to return to the Church and the Catholic Faith.

May they rest in the peace of Christ.

Pole and Pate in Tridentine Italy on the Doctrine of Justification

As I'm reading Father Dermot Fenlon's Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation, I just read about one Richard Pate, the Bishop of Worcester appointed by Pope Paul III in 1541 after Henry VIII dismissed the incumbent Italian bishop, Cardinal Jerome Ghinucci in 1535 (the Pope was acting as if nothing had changed!). Bishop Richard Pate would not really take up his see until Queen Mary I came to the throne and was one of the co-consecrators of of Reginald Cardinal Pole in 1556 as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Like many during Henry VIII's reign, and beyond, he had an interesting career. According to the old Dictionary of National Biography (published 1885-1900), he had one great advantage: one of his uncles was Bishop John Longland of Lincoln, his mother's brother, as he was the:

son of John Pate by Elinor, sister of John Longland [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, was born in Oxfordshire, probably at Henley-on-Thames, and was admitted on 1 June 1522 a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. on 15 Dec. 1523, according to Wood (Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 63). This degree having been completed by determination, he went to Paris, and there graduated M.A. On 4 June 1523 he was collated by his uncle to the prebend of Centum Solidorum in the church of Lincoln, and he resigned it for that of Cropredy in 1525. He appears to have resided for some time at Bruges, as John Ludovicus Vivès, writing from that city on 8 July 1524 to Bishop Longland, the king's confessor, says: ‘Richard Pate, your sister's son, and Antony Barcher, your dependant, are wonderfully studious’ (Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 203). In 1526 he was made archdeacon of Worcester. On 11 March 1526–7 he had the stall of Sanctæ Crucis, alias Spaldwick, in the church of Lincoln, and on 22 June 1528 the stall of Sutton cum Buckingham in the same church. On this latter date he was also made archdeacon of Lincoln upon the death of William Smith, doctor of decrees. . . .

He served Henry VIII as Ambassador to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and heard Katherine of Aragon's nephew express his complaints about "the course adopted by the king of England, and energetically defended his own action on behalf of his aunt, Catherine of Arragon (sic). Subsequently he accompanied the emperor to the Low Countries."

Peter Marshall, in Religious Identities in Henry VIII's England, according to Wikipedia notes that Pate in 1537 [perhaps influenced the Emperor?] ". . . was removed from that position, after he had advocated for the legitimate status of Princess Mary; but he was reinstated in 1540.[2]" He also notes that that Pate was thought lukewarm toward the king's marital matters, and was recalled to England soon after that reinstatement (p. 235). But he stayed on the Continent and went to Rome, where he was named the Bishop of Worcester as noted above. On page 238 of the same volume, Marshall notes that Pate and his chaplain, Seth Holland, were attainted as traitors by Parliament in 1542.

As Pope Paul III's Bishop of Worcester, Richard Pate attended the Council of Trent. When Reginald Cardinal Pole left the first session of the Council of Trent because of illness, Pate remained as one of the spirituali of Pole's community, and he argued for a more Lutheran doctrine of Justification. (Chapter 9. The 'spirituali' at Trent)

Fenlon states on page 149 that on 9 July 1546 Pate argued "'faith alone' was the instrument of justification, while seeming to imply as well, that good works performed after justification were not meritorious, although they remained necessary as being in accordance with the will of God." Later that month, on 20 July, Pate supported the statement that "justice increased to the extent faith increased; good works were the fruit of justification, and a sign to man that his salvation was assured." (pp. 149-150) Fenlon also comments that Pate was "significantly more opposed to the doctrine [on Justification] was about to define . . . [than] any other prelate present at Trent" (p. 150), and after a detailed survey of Pate's educational, clerical, and diplomatic career (pp. 149 to 160) concludes that Pate "was convinced of Luther's orthodoxy on the fundamental question of salvation". (p. 150).

How Pole and Pate will respond to the Doctrine of Justification as defined by the Council of Trent, I have yet to find out. This is a post in medias res. The next chapter is 10. Pole's Protest!

The Dictionary of National Biography continues his life story:

Pate attended the council of Trent as bishop of Worcester, his first appearance there being in the session which opened on 21 April 1547. He was also present at the sittings of the council in September 1549 and in 1551. He remained in banishment during the reign of Edward VI. In 1542 he had been attainted of high treason, whereupon his archdeaconry was bestowed on George Heneage, and his prebend of Eastharptre in the church of Wells on Dr. John Heryng.

On the accession of Queen Mary he returned to this country. His attainder was reversed, and on 5 March 1554–5 he obtained possession of the temporalities of the see of Worcester (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 415). . . .

Historian Jack Scarisbrick describes how Pate finally took up the see of Worcester in this 2019 Catholic Herald article:

. . . Worcester was very complicated. For a while in 1554 there were four people with the title of bishop: the long-since-resigned Hugh Latimer; his successor Thomas Heath, future archbishop of York, who was deprived of his see in 1551 by the Protestant regime and replaced by one Thomas Hooper (who was eventually burnt, along with Latimer and Cranmer).

Heath was restored to Worcester by Mary – only to be soon translated to York, thus making way for Pate – and enabling the latter at last to take up residence in the see of which he had been pastor in absentia for 13 years.

The Dictionary of National Biography entry concludes:

Queen Elizabeth deprived him of the temporalities in June 1559, and cast him into prison. He was in the Tower of London on 12 Feb. 1561–2, when he made his will, which has been printed by Brady. On regaining his liberty he withdrew to Louvain, where he died on 5 Oct. 1565. Mass is still said for him every year at the English College, Rome, on the anniversary of his death. 

One of the figures in Holbein's celebrated picture of ‘The Ambassadors,’ now in the National Gallery, is believed to represent Pate (Times, 8 Dec. 1891).

I wonder if that annual Mass is still celebrated at the VEC in Rome? 

The identity of the figures in Holbein's The Ambassadors I think is settled now (and one of them is not Pate!) according to The National Gallery in London.