Preview: 120th Anniversary of R.H. Benson's "The King's Achievement"

The King's Achievement, Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's historical novel about the Dissolution of the Monasteries, was published in 1905, 120 years ago. It was one of those books I read years before I started studying the English Reformation in depth before writing my book, so I've selected it for our next Son Rise Morning Show 2025 anniversary on Monday, October 13, Columbus Day! I'll be on the air at my usual time, 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to discuss this anniversary and its importance. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Like its sequel, By What Authority?, which was published in 1904, The King's Achievement is a family drama, as Benson shows the divisions caused in two families by the English Reformation during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. One link between the two novels, for example, is the former nun, Margaret Torridon, taken from her convent by her own brother in The King's Achievement, living years later in the Catholic household of her brother-in-law and sister Mary in By What Authority?

Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson was a convert to Catholicism, the youngest son of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896, and his wife, Mary. Robert's older brothers, E.F. (Edward Frederick) and A.C. (Arthur Christopher) were also authors: E.F. wrote the "Mapp and Lucia" novels and A.C. contributed to Elgar's Coronation Ode written for Edward VII in 1902 and "Land of Hope and Glory"; he was also Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Their sister Margaret was an Egyptologist.

After his conversion to Catholicism in 1903, Robert Hugh Benson was ordained a priest the next year. 

He wrote several novels, historical and contemporary, and consulted with Don Bede Camm, another Catholic convert, who studied the English Reformation martyrs, on his historical novels. He acknowledges Dom Bede Camm's assistance in both By What Authority? and The King's Achievement. 

Dom Bede Camm was inspired by the stories of the English Catholic martyrs beatified by Pope Leo XIII and published a two-volume book about them in 1904, Lives of the English Martyrs. He also helped the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre who had established a convent near the former site of Tyburn Tree, where many martyrs suffered.

So Camm was a good resource for Benson, but the characters and the dramas Benson created are fictional--although Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and other historical people appear in The King's Achievement. 

Ralph, the elder son of the Torridon family, works for Thomas Cromwell and he goes to visit More at his Chelsea home in Chapter V, "Master More":

It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on either side of it ; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the bell-turret 'that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the steps.

There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat up ; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter ; small pieces of grass were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement, recognised the ex- Lord Chancellor of England.

In the plot of The King's Achievement, the crucial issue is Ralph's corruption and cruelty as he does Cromwell's will, closing the monasteries and nunneries, leaving the practice of his family's Catholic faith, and even preparing to betray even his master Cromwell when his fall comes, after having betrayed Thomas More by pretending to help him. Beatrice, a young lady from More's household, loves Ralph and trusts him until he demonstrates his cruelty to More and his own family. 

It's an old fashioned novel, but Benson demonstrates great insight into Ralph's character, as he continues to serve Cromwell as he believes he is serving Henry VIII, betraying his own father, his brother Chris a monk at Lewes, and his sisters. There are some dramatic scenes of family conflict and estrangement, especially in the chapters "Father and Son" and "A Nun's Defiance", when Ralph "visits" his sister Margaret's convent to cast her out because she is underage. Benson depicts the corruption of Cromwell's visitors of the monasteries and the convents, and even as Ralph sees it himself, he accepts it as part of his duty to his master and his king. 

The twist of the novel is that the great concern of Beatrice and Chris is the redemption of the souls of Ralph and his mother, who also become cold and skeptical toward both family and Church. Beatrice and Chris work together to reconcile both of them in spite of all the suffering they've endured.

The significance of this book is that, while Dom Bede Camm was studying the English martyrs and writing individual stories about their sufferings, and at the same time helping the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre establish their monastery shrine near Tyburn, Monsignor Benson was offering this historical novel. 

Thus he could show what these divisions, disruptions, and sufferings meant to families, to the relationships between husband and wife, father and son, sister and brother, brother and brother, and even a man and a woman who were beginning to love each other perhaps toward being married. As dramatic as the martyrdoms of Thomas More, the three Carthusians, and Bishop John Fisher were--and Benson does not neglect them--readers can sympathize and even empathize with what the families suffered.

That's what fiction or drama can do. And Benson does it very well.

An Early Elizabethan Era Martyr, Blessed John Felton

Dom Bede Camm wrote about the first group of Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation beatified by Pope Leo XIII. He discussed the offenses of four of the early Elizabethan martyrs (John Felton, John Storey, Father Thomas Woodhouse, and Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland), noting that each of them had offended Elizabeth I in connection with her temporal power:

Coming now to Felton, Storey, Woodhouse, Percy, whose deaths were connected in one way or another with the Rising or the excommunication, we see that their causes involve many more problems than the lives of the other martyrs do. One might, for instance, discuss their patriotism in so far as they championed the old order, which was being subverted by a monstrous exercise of royal tyranny. One might draw out parallels between them and others, such as Hampden, who are commonly belauded as champions of popular resistance to the encroachments of the Crown, and the comparison would be greatly in favour of the Catholics. But here we are only concerned with the precise question of their martyrdom. Were they executed out of the motive of hatred of the Faith? Were they persecuted for professing the Faith, or for performing some act intimately connected with that profession ? On these points, too, this group of martyrs is somewhat exceptional.

For, whereas all the other martyrs were conspicuous for their inoffensiveness, these four had annoyed the Queen or opposed her titles or temporal claims. If we take a partial view of their cases, and fix our eyes exclusively on their abnormal features, we may feel a doubt about their claim to the honours of martyrdom. But it is needless to say that such a way of looking at them would not only be quite unfair, it would misrepresent the facts. We cannot arrive at the truth without considering the cases in their surroundings ; we must consider these executions as parts of a cruel persecution?

Speaking of Blessed John Felton, Dom Camm comments:

In Felton's case, if we regard nothing but the fact of his having set up the Bull of Deposition, we might remain uncertain about his claim to martyrdom. It is not everyone who meets his death while executing the sentences of an ecclesiastical court who is a martyr, for such sentences may and do provoke many passions besides hatred of the Faith. Even Catholic princes who would on no account have tampered with the faith or discipline of the Church, have been known to execute Papal messengers who brought them notice of excommunication, and yet no one pretends that such messengers deserve to be canonized as martyrs. But if we enlarge our view, and regard the whole of the circumstances of Felton's case, we at once see how different his was from that just described. He was not executed by a Catholic unwilling to tamper with the liberties of the Church, but by a persecutor of the Church eager to extinguish every single one of its liberties. Nor did either side regard the exercise of Papal authority in question as an issue unconnected with the continuance of the old Faith in this country. It seemed to be the only remedy in that desperate struggle. Felton took what seemed the last chance "to secure that the Pope's Apostolic voice should be heard, and his Apostolic judgment made known among his English flock. Death endured for that cause was true martyrdom."

As the Dictionary of National Biography describes him, Felton was a

catholic (sic) layman, [and] was descended from an ancient family in Norfolk. He was a gentleman of large property, and resided at Bermondsey Abbey, near Southwark, Surrey. His wife had been maid of honour to Queen Mary, who just before her death recommended her to Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, Elizabeth held her in great respect, for they had been friends and companions in childhood, and on this account Mrs. Felton was favoured with a special grant to keep a priest in her house. When Pius V published the bull of excommunication and deprivation against Elizabeth, Felton obtained copies of it from the Spanish ambassador's chaplain, who immediately left the kingdom. Felton published the bull in this country by affixing a copy to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace between two and three o'clock of the morning of 15 May 1570. The government, surprised at and alarmed by this daring deed, at once ordered a general search to be made in all suspected places, and another copy of the bull was discovered in the chambers of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, when put to the rack, that he had received it from Felton. The next day the lord mayor, the lord chief justice, and the two sheriffs of London, with five hundred halberdiers, surrounded Bermondsey Abbey early in the morning. Felton, guessing their errand, opened the doors and gave himself into their custody, frankly admitting that he had set up the bull. He was conveyed to the Tower, where he was placed on the rack, but he resolutely refused to make any further confession.

He was arraigned at Guildhall on 4 Aug. 1570, and on the 8th of the same month was drawn on a sledge to St. Paul's churchyard, where he was hanged in front of the episcopal palace. He said that he gloried in the deed, and proclaimed himself a martyr to the papal supremacy. Though he gave the queen no other title than that of the Pretender, he asked her pardon if he had injured her; and in token that he bore her no malice, he sent her a present, by the Earl of Essex, of a diamond ring, worth 400l., which he drew from his finger. His body was beheaded and quartered, ‘and carried to Newgate to be parboiled, and so set up, as the other rebels were.’

Felton was low of stature, and of a black complexion; naturally of a warm temper, and almost ungovernable where the interest of his religion was concerned. His plate and jewels, valued at 33,000 pounds, were seized for the queen's use. He was beatified by decree of Pope Leo XIII, dated 29 Dec. 1886.

Blessed John Storey and Two Canonized Martyrs

Dom Bede Camm, in his survey of the martyrs beatified by Pope Leo XIII, compares Blessed John Storey (or Story) to Blessed (as he was then) Thomas More: two laymen, involved in the courts, married with families, serving their monarchs in the prosecution of heresy, etc. Like More, he was called upon to travel on diplomatic missions for Henry VIII; unlike More, he took the Oath of Supremacy, and thus survived the religious changes of that monarch and then he experienced and was involved in all the religious changes of the Tudor Dynasty during each reign: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. He endured imprisonment and exile, torture and execution, success and failure at the University of Oxford, in Parliament, and at Court.

John Story or Storey was born in northern England in 1504 and educated at the University of Oxford. He became a Doctor of Law and served at the President of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College) from 1537 to 1539.

After becoming a member of the House of Commons for Hindon in Wiltshire in southwest England in 1547, he seems to have regretted his previous acceptance of the monarch's supremacy over the Church. (He also got married to a woman named Joan in 1547.) In 1549 he protested against the Act of Uniformity introduced in Parliament by the government of young king Edward VI. This Act promulgated Thomas Cranmer’s new Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England. This law was controversial in Parliament and John Storey spoke against it—and against the boy king. Because he cried out “Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child,” the House of Commons imprisoned him.

Eventually, House of Commons released John Storey; he and his family went into exile in Louvain in the Low Countries under the rule of Spain, now in Belgium. There he joined the faculty at the University of Louvain and the community of English Catholic exiles, including William Rastell, Thomas More’s nephew and publisher.

In August of 1533, Storey and his family returned to England after Edward VI died and Mary, Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon’s Catholic daughter succeeded to the throne in spite of the attempt to supplant her by the Protestant Lady Jane Grey. Story went back to Oxford as Regius Professor of Law but then took on important duties in the revived Catholic Church, serving as Chancellor for the dioceses of London and Oxford, and Dean of the Arches, the ecclesiastical court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his role as Chancellor for the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, he took part in heresy trials. He also served as proctor or representative for Queen Mary I at the trial of Thomas Cranmer in Oxford and joined efforts to control the publication of heretical books in several dioceses.

When Mary I and Reginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury, died on November 17, 1558, Storey, like other Catholics in England, waited to see what direction Elizabeth I would take in religion. Her first Parliament began to introduce bills leading to the establishment of the Church of England, and John Storey found himself under attack for his opposition and for his work during Mary I’s reign. In May of 1560 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Fleet, from which he escaped briefly, being recaptured and taken to Marshalsea Prison in April or May of 1562. He escaped from Marshalsea before he could be confronted with the taking of Elizabeth I’s Oath of Supremacy and fled again to Louvain, leaving everything he owned behind in England. His family joined him in exile again and the Duke of Alba offered him financial assistance and a position as a customs official. John Storey renounced his allegiance to Elizabeth I and placed himself in the service of Philip II of Spain, ruling in the Spanish Netherlands. He remained there for seven years.

English agents used his position as customs agent to capture Storey and return him to England. William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State set a trap by having spies pose as refugees from England seeking Spanish protection in the Netherlands. Storey went aboard a ship in Antwerp to search it and the ship sailed to Yarmouth where he was placed under arrest. In London he was tortured and held there from August of 1570 until his trial on May 26, 1571 in Westminster Hall.

St. Edmund Campion attended this trial at which Storey protested that he was a subject of the King of Spain and therefore not accountable to English treason laws. Accused of plotting the death of Elizabeth I, he refused to plead. The only evidence against him was his association with the Norton family who had been part of the Northern Rebellion of 1569, when Catholics rose up against Elizabeth’s religious policies. On April 27, 1570 Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in the Bull, Regnans in Excelsis, which also released her subjects from any allegiance to her. Certainly a former English subject, living in exile under the protection of one of England’s enemies did not stand a chance against the presumption of his guilt. The fact that he had opposed religious changes in Parliament during two reigns and participated in heresy trials in another compounded his danger. The verdict was a foregone conclusion and Storey was sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered.

St. Edmund Campion’s presence at this trial confirmed him in his reversion to Catholicism as he was on his way to join the English exiles in Douai to study for the priesthood. Evidently he did not witness John Storey’s execution on June 1, 1571 at Tyburn in London. Even though Story was 70 years old, the execution was carried out as brutally as possible—and he was posthumously mocked in pamphlets for having cried out in agony.

The Nuns of Tyburn Convent, in their 1917 book The 105 Martyrs of Tyburn, added this detail about Blessed John Storey's speech at Tyburn:

He was tried on a charge of treason and for comforting traitors, and without proof was found guilty. At Tyburn, with the rope round his neck, he made a long speech, and pleaded on behalf of his wife " who hath four young children, and God hath now taken me away that was her staff and stay. . . . I have good hopes that you will be good to her, for she is the faithfulest wife, the lovingest, the constantest, that ever man had, and twice we have lost all that ever we had, and now she hath lost me, to her great grief I know."

Philip II arranged for his widow and family to receive a pension—and his son John became a priest. The elder John Storey was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. Blessed John Storey offers a great example--his willingness to stand up for the Catholic faith in spite of repeated imprisonment and exile, culminating in his final capture, torture, trial and execution. The fact that his example influenced one of the greatest of the Elizabethan era martyrs, St. Edmund Campion, demonstrates what a model of faithfulness and fortitude he was and is.

A Catholic Oxford Martyr

This parish website posts the story of Blessed George Napper (or Napier) as told by Father Robert F. McNamara:

George Napper (or Napier) belonged to a Catholic recusant family of considerable prominence, (and was grand nephew of the English Franciscan cardinal, William Peyto). Born at Holywell Manor in Oxfordshire, he managed to secure entrance in 1565 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but was expelled in 1568 as a recusant. In 1580 he was arrested as a recusant and imprisoned for over eight years.

Weary of imprisonment at the end of that time, Napper decided to capitulate, and declared his acceptance of the religious supremacy of the Queen. But after his release from jail, he became increasingly ashamed of having given in. Determined to make generous amends for having rejected the pope, he decided to study for the Catholic priesthood. God had given him a second chance.

Crossing the English Channel to Douay in Flanders, he now sought admission to the English College there. Ordained a Catholic secular priest in 1596, he was sent back to England in 1603 and spent the remaining seven years of his life on the mission in his native Oxfordshire. . . .

Father Napper naturally followed the policy of working in secrecy, but like many another brave priest, he was at one point apprehended by the police as a suspect. They caught up with him outside a village near Oxford early in the morning of July 19, 1610. Those who had stalked him failed in searching him to find two Eucharistic hosts and a small reliquary that he carried concealed on his person. They did find, however, his breviary and set of holy oils. These provided evidence enough to his priesthood to present at the next court session.

Napper’s friends managed to obtain a stay of his execution when he was arraigned, and were working for a total reprieve. But while in prison Father George ministered to a certain condemned criminal, who died declaring himself a Catholic. Now, “reconciling” a fallen-away Catholic was a particularly heinous crime according to the current anti-Roman legislation. The Anglican clergy therefore raised a row with the court, demanding capital action against the prisoner. Under cross-examination, Napper admitted that he had reconciled the man in question. He even said, wittily, that he would be glad to do the same for the judges. Somehow he was again reprieved. But then he refused to take the oath of allegiance that described the pope’s power to depose as “impious, heretical and damnable”. That was too much for the court to take. George Napper was condemned to death.

“Seminary priest” Napper was executed at Oxford on November 9, 1610.

Dom Bede Camm provides the details of Blessed George Napper at his execution, that he prayed for King James I (that he become a great saint in Heaven), that he confessed that he was a Catholic priest and that only for being that did he die, and that he was a great sinner. He prayed the De Profundis, the Miserere Mei, and repeated several times, "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum", and struck his breast three times (perhaps praying the words he had prayed before taking Communion at each Mass he'd ever said: "Domine non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur anima mea"?)

Blessed George Napper, pray for us!

Blessed John Storey: Kidnapped and Executed

Dom Bede Camm, in his survey of the martyrs beatified by Pope Leo XIII, compares Blessed John Storey (or Story) to Blessed (as he was then) Thomas More: two laymen, involved in the courts, married with families, serving their monarchs in the prosecution of heresy, etc. Like More, he was called upon to travel on diplomatic missions for Henry VIII; unlike More, he took the Oath of Supremacy, and thus survived the religious changes of that monarch and then he experienced and was involved in all the religious changes of the Tudor Dynasty during each reign: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. He endured imprisonment and exile, torture and execution, success and failure at the University of Oxford, in Parliament, and at Court.

John Story or Storey was born in northern England in 1504 and educated at the University of Oxford. He became a Doctor of Law and served at the President of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College) from 1537 to 1539.

After becoming a member of the House of Commons for Hindon in Wiltshire in southwest England in 1547, he seems to have regretted his previous acceptance of the monarch's supremacy over the Church. (He also got married to a woman named Joan in 1547.) In 1549 he protested against the Act of Uniformity introduced in Parliament by the government of young king Edward VI. This Act promulgated Thomas Cranmer’s new Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England. This law was controversial in Parliament and John Storey spoke against it—and against the boy king. Because he cried out “Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child,” the House of Commons imprisoned him.

Eventually, House of Commons released John Storey; he and his family went into exile in Louvain in the Low Countries under the rule of Spain, now in Belgium. There he joined the faculty at the University of Louvain and the community of English Catholic exiles, including William Rastell, Thomas More’s nephew and publisher.

In August of 1533, Storey and his family returned to England after Edward VI died and Mary, Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon’s Catholic daughter succeeded to the throne in spite of the attempt to supplant her by the Protestant Lady Jane Grey. Story went back to Oxford as Regius Professor of Law but then took on important duties in the revived Catholic Church, serving as Chancellor for the dioceses of London and Oxford, and Dean of the Arches, the ecclesiastical court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his role as Chancellor for the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, he took part in heresy trials. He also served as proctor or representative for Queen Mary I at the trial of Thomas Cranmer in Oxford and joined efforts to control the publication of heretical books in several dioceses.

When Mary I and Reginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury, died on November 17, 1558, Storey, like other Catholics in England, waited to see what direction Elizabeth I would take in religion. Her first Parliament began to introduce bills leading to the establishment of the Church of England, and John Storey found himself under attack for his opposition and for his work during Mary I’s reign. In May of 1560 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Fleet, from which he escaped briefly, being recaptured and taken to Marshalsea Prison in April or May of 1562. He escaped from Marshalsea before he could be confronted with the taking of Elizabeth I’s Oath of Supremacy and fled again to Louvain, leaving everything he owned behind in England. His family joined him in exile again and the Duke of Alba offered him financial assistance and a position as a customs official. John Storey renounced his allegiance to Elizabeth I and placed himself in the service of Philip II of Spain, ruling in the Spanish Netherlands. He remained there for seven years.

English agents used his position as customs agent to capture Storey and return him to England. William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State set a trap by having spies pose as refugees from England seeking Spanish protection in the Netherlands. Storey went aboard a ship in Antwerp to search it and the ship sailed to Yarmouth where he was placed under arrest. In London he was tortured and held there from August of 1570 until his trial on May 26, 1571 in Westminster Hall.

St. Edmund Campion attended this trial at which Storey protested that he was a subject of the King of Spain and therefore not accountable to English treason laws. Accused of plotting the death of Elizabeth I, he refused to plead. The only evidence against him was his association with the Norton family who had been part of the Northern Rebellion of 1569, when Catholics rose up against Elizabeth’s religious policies. On April 27, 1570 Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in the Bull, Regnans in Excelsis, which also released her subjects from any allegiance to her. Certainly a former English subject, living in exile under the protection of one of England’s enemies did not stand a chance against the presumption of his guilt. The fact that he had opposed religious changes in Parliament during two reigns and participated in heresy trials in another compounded his danger. The verdict was a foregone conclusion and Storey was sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered.

St. Edmund Campion’s presence at this trial confirmed him in his reversion to Catholicism as he was on his way to join the English exiles in Douai to study for the priesthood. Evidently he did not witness John Storey’s execution on June 1, 1571 at Tyburn in London. Even though Story was 70 years old, the execution was carried out as brutally as possible—and he was posthumously mocked in pamphlets for having cried out in agony.

Philip II arranged for his widow and family to receive a pension—and his son John became a priest. The elder John Storey was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. Blessed John Storey offers a great example--his willingness to stand up for the Catholic faith in spite of repeated imprisonment and exile, culminating in his final capture, torture, trial and execution. The fact that his example influenced one of the greatest of the Elizabethan era martyrs, St. Edmund Campion, demonstrates what a model of faithfulness and fortitude he was and is.

Three Priests at Tyburn and the "Rome and Rheims Plot"

Fathers Thomas Ford, John Shert, and Robert Johnson were hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on May 28, 1582. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Ford was:

Born in Devonshire . . . He incepted M.A. at Trinity College, Oxford, 14 July, 1567, and was a fellow, Woods says president, of the college. He went to the English College, Douai, in 1570, and was one of the first three of its students to be ordained, receiving all orders in March, 1573, at Brussels. After becoming B.D. at Douai he left for England, 2 May, 1576, and soon became chaplain to Edward Yate and his Bridgettine guests at Lyford, Berkshire. Arrested with St. Edmund Campion 17 July, 1581, and committed to the Tower 22 July, he was thrice tortured. He was brought before the Queen's Bench 16 November, with his fellow martyr Blessed John Shert, on an absurd charge of conspiracy at Rome and Reims, where he had never been, on dates when he was in England, and both were condemned 21 November. 

So he was held (and tortured) from July 1581 until trial in November 1581, but not executed until May 1582. In addition to his connection with St. Edmund Campion, Thomas Ford had aided the protomartyr St. Cuthbert Mayne:

Late in 1570 a letter from Gregory Martin to [Saint] Cuthbert fell into the Bishop of London's hands. He at once sent a pursuivant to arrest [Saint] Cuthbert and others mentioned in the letter. [Saint] 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.

You may read details of Ford's arrest and capture with St. Edmund Campion here.

John Shert, according to the same source, was also held in prison a long time:

A native of Cheshire; took the degree of B.A. at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1566. Successively schoolmaster in London, and servant to Dr. Thomas Stapleton at Douai, he entered the seminary in 1576, and was ordained subdeacon. He was ordained priest from the English College, Rome, of which he was the senior of the first six scholars. He left Reims for England 27 August, 1579, and was sent to the Tower 14 July 1581.

The Diocese of Shrewsbury adds these details about his trial and execution:

He was one of 20 who stood trial in Westminster Hall, London, for treason in the fictitious “Rome and Rheims Plot” against Queen Elizabeth I. Although he could amply demonstrate that he was in England when the plot was allegedly hatched he, like all the other priests, was convicted

He was the second of three priests to die at Tyburn on 28th May 1582 and was made to watch as the first, Blessed Thomas Ford, was butchered, shouting with arms outspread: “O happy Thomas! You have run that happy race. You blessed soul, pray for me.”

When it was his turn to die, Blessed John rejected an invitation from the Sheriff to request the Queen’s forgiveness on the grounds that he was guilty of no offence. He also refused an offer of clemency if he admitted treason with the words: “Should I for saving this carcass condemn my soul? God forbid!”

He did, however, acknowledge Queen Elizabeth as the legitimate English sovereign but not as the supreme governor of the Church in England. “She is not nor cannot be, nor any other, but only the supreme pastor,” he said.

To the crowd baying for his blood he left the admonition: “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church).

Finally, Robert Johnson:

Born in Shropshire, entered the German College, Rome, 1 October, 1571. Ordained priest at Brussels from the English College, Douai, in April, 1576, he started immediately for England. After a pilgrimage to Rome in 1579 he returned to England in 1580, and was committed to the Poultry Counter 12 July, whence he was transferred to the Tower 5 Dec. On 16 December he was terribly racked, and then thrust into an underground dungeon. He was brought before the Queen's Bench 14 November, and condemned 20 November.

Shrewsbury offers this detail about his trial and execution:

During the trial Blessed Robert gave evidence against claims by George Eliot, the renegade Catholic who betrayed Campion, that he and St John Paine had tried to persuade him to join a plot against Elizabeth. All the defendants were convicted, however, in spite of the lack of evidence against them. Campion, St Ralph Sherwin and St Alexander Briant were executed almost straight away. But Blessed Robert was held in custody until 28th May the following year when he was drawn face down on a hurdle to the Tyburn Tree along with Blessed John Shert, another Shrewsbury priest, and Blessed Thomas Ford.

Blessed Robert was the last to die, after being forced to watch the quartering of Blessed John. He went to his death vowing his loyalty to the Queen and protesting his innocence of treason, saying: “I teach (nothing) but the Catholic faith”.

When the Sheriff accused him of being a traitor he replied: “If I be a traitor for maintaining this faith then all the kings and queens of this realm heretofore, and all our ancestors, were traitors for they maintained the same.”

So why the long delay in their executions? Saints Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant had all been executed on December 1, 1581, not long after the trial. Dom Bede Camm suggests in his Lives of the English Martyrs, published in 1916, that the Elizabethan government recognized that their efforts to curtail the flow of missionary priests through execution had failed and that the trumped up conspiracy charges had also been exposed as false. Camm notes that a pamphlet issued by the government to demonstrate the "traitorous affection" of Campion and the other priests didn't even mention the "Rome and Rheims Plot". Therefore, the remaining "conspirators" were asked a series of "bloody questions" about Pope Pius V's papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, Queen Elizabeth's supremacy and legitimacy as monarch, the Northern Rebellion, etc. Of course, their responses to these questions are opinions, not actions against the state or the monarch. Their responses may attest to their "traitorous affections" but are not acts of treason for which a person may be condemned and executed, even under English Common Law at that time. So both the trial and this extra-judicial questioning were unjust.

Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs of England and Wales on December 29, 1886 and these three were among that group. Blessed Thomas Ford, Blessed John Shert, and Blessed Robert Johnson, pray for us!