Blessed Nicholas Horner, Tailor and Martyr

While we're focusing on St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation" on the Son Rise Morning Show, I did not want to miss some of the great martyrs' and confessors' stories in Father Bowden's Mementoes this Lent. This one today, Blessed Nicholas Horner, is particularly affecting, as he suffered so much in prison and at the scaffold because of his loyalty to The Faith. And yet, he received many consolations:

A native of York, a tailor by trade and a zealous Catholic, he endeavoured, according to his ability, to persuade others to embrace the faith. Having come up to London to be cured of a wound in his leg, he was committed to Newgate for harbouring priests. There the heavy fetter on his leg and the deprivation of all medical aid rendered an amputation necessary. During the operation he sat upon a form, unbound, in silence, a priest the while ([Blessed John] Hewett [or Hewitt], who was afterwards himself a Martyr) holding his head, and he was further comforted by such a vivid apprehension of Christ bearing His Cross that he seemed to see it on His shoulders. Freed at the earnest suit of his friends, he worked at his trade at some lodgings at Smithfield. Again cast into Bridewell for harbouring priests, he was hung up by the wrists till he nearly died. At length condemned solely for making a jerkin for a priest, he was hanged in front of his lodging in Smithfield, 3 March 1590. On the night before his execution, finding him self overwhelmed with anguish, he betook him self to prayer, and perceived a bright crown of glory hanging over his head. Assured of its reality, he said: “O Lord, Thy will be mine,” and died with extraordinary signs of joy.

Father Bowden uses the title "The Vestments of Salvation" for this entry on March 4, and the Bible verse, "He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation" (Isaiah 61:10)

According to England's laws he was accused of two great offenses: encouraging others to become Catholic and assisting priests. The only thing he could be guilty of was making a jerkin (a kind of vest) for a priest! When Father Bowden wrote about him, Horner had been declared Venerable; Pope St. John Paul II beatified him with 84 other martyrs of England and Wales in 1987.

Blessed Nicholas Horner, pray for us!

Image Credit: (With Permission): Detail of a stained glass window in Tyburn Convent by Margaret Agnes Rope 

Preview: Margaret Powell, Recusant Catholic Confessor

Among the beatified and canonized English martyrs, there are only several women (Saints Margaret Ward, Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line, and Blessed Margaret Pole), but there are many whom Father Henry Sebastian Bowden would call Confessors. In his daily Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors, he highlights one such Confessor, Margaret Powell, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death in 1642 for aiding and abetting Blessed Thomas Bullaker, OSF, one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope John Paul II. So on Monday, February 5, we'll continue our series on the the Son Rise Morning Show by remembering this brave woman.

I'll be on at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

Father Bowden titles her entry for February 6 (p. 48) "The Sunamitess Rewarded" with this verse from 2 Kings 4:8: "now there was a great woman there, who detained him to eat bread; and as he passed often that way, he turned into her house to eat bread." Margaret Powell is the "great woman"; Blessed Thomas Bullaker the prophet Elisha; the bread is the Holy Mass in Bowden's analogy.

As he describes her, Margaret Powell was "of good birth," but "reduced to great poverty through her sufferings for the Faith." Like Saint Margaret Clitherow, she was married to a Protestant, but still ministered to priests in prison, and often had one visit their home to say Mass. In October 1642, Father Thomas Bullaker "was seized while saying Mass, and Margaret and her boy, aged twelve, who was serving the Mass, were taken with him".

One of the sources Father Bowden mentions in his introduction is "Mrs. Hope's Franciscan Martyrs". Mrs. Anne Hope's Franciscan Martyrs in England was published in 1878; she was convert to Catholicism after studying Church History and moved to Edgbaston to be close to Saint John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory (are you surprised?) She provides these details about Margaret Powell (p. 140):

M. de Marsys, a gentleman in the household of the Comte d'Harcourt, the French ambassador, tells us that this lady was Margaret Parkins, the wife of Mr. Powell, a Protestant. She was about thirty years of age, and though connected with the principal families of England, was reduced to great poverty by the constant persecutions which she suffered for the cause of God. She had an only son whom she educated with great care in the Catholic faith. She devoted herself to prayer, fasting, and good works, especially to waiting upon priests who were ill in the prisons, gladly shutting herself up with them, and nursing them with such care and liberality that even the most hardened heretics could not but admire her extra- ordinary virtue.

Mrs. Hope also provides Father Bowden these comments about her behavior at trial (p. 150):

One of the judges, who was a Puritan, exhorted her to think of her soul and her family, and to embrace the religion of the kingdom instead of giving her life for papistical superstitions. But she answered, smiling, that "as soon as the Parliament should have made choice of a religion they might invite her to receive it; as at the present moment they were disputing on it among themselves, it was ridiculous to make such a proposal to her." Her eloquence, her modest and courageous bearing, and her presence of mind touched even the Protestants who were present. The judges, therefore, finding that they drew from her only disagreeable truths and repartee which exposed them to the laughter of the bystanders, sent her back to prison.

  

British History Online has some detail about the indictments of Father Bullaker and Margaret Powell (though the dates don't match Father Bowden's timeline):

August 31: Also record of the arraignment &c. of Thomas Bullaker for being a catholic priest; and also of Margaret Powell, for receiving and harbouring the said Thomas Bullaker (pro hospitacione Tho. Bullaker). Against the name of Thomas Bullaker appears this minute "non vult directe respondere nec se super patriam ponere, Ideo consideratum est quod predictus Thomas Bullaker trahetur super hurdellam usque furcas de Tiborne et ibidem suspendetur et vivens ad terram prosternatur, quodque interiola et membra sua e corpore suo abscindentur et in conspectu comburentur, quodque caput ejus abscindetur, et corpus ejus in quatuor partes dividetur, Et quod corpus et quarteria ejus ponantur ubi Dominus Rex assignare voluerit."—Against the record of Margaret Powell's arraignment appears the memorandum "po se Repr usq' prox sine ball" = She puts herself 'Not Guilty' on a jury of the country, and is reprieved without bail till next Session.—In the record of the proceedings of the next Session, viz., of 7 December, 18 Charles I., appears this memorandum, "Itt is thought fitt and soe desired by this Courte that Mr. Serjeant Phesant doe attende the House of Lords to acquainte theire Lordships with the proceedings against one Margarett Powell, convicted for the felonious receivinge Thomas Bullaker a Popishe Priest (who was executed the last Session) knowinge him to bee soe, And to knowe theire Lordships' pleasure whether shee shall bee executed according to the judgment given against her or be reprieved." G. D. Reg.

Thus, Father Bullaker was condemned to being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in great Latin detail and Margaret, representing herself, pled not guilty and was bound over for trial. A later entry further notes:

September 11: True Bill that, at St. Sepulchre's London co. Midd. on the said day, Thomas Bullaker late of the said parish clerk, born within the kingdom of England, and after the Feast of St. John the Baptist, 1 Eliz., and before the said 11 Sept., 18 Charles I., made and ordained "Sacerdos anglice a Seminarye Preist" by authority derived and pretended from the See of Rome, was and remained &c.; and that, at St. Sepulchre's London co. Midd. on the said 11 Sept, 18 Charles I., knowing him to be a priest of such kind as is abovesaid, Margaret Powell late of the said parish spinster received, harboured, comforted and maintained the said Thomas Bullaker. The clerical note over Thomas Bullaker's name at the bill's head is, "Nihil dic' Judiciu' qd. trahetur suspendetur et quartiatur videlt.' At the bill's foot appears the usual record in full of the sentence for execution at Tiborne, in the manner prescribed for the execution of felons, convicted of high treason. A note over Margaret Powell's name shows that at a subsequent Session, held on 7 Dec, 18 Charles I., she was found 'Guilty' and sentenced to be hung. G. D. R., 5 Oct., 18 Charles I.

Blessed Thomas Bullaker was executed at Tyburn on October 12, 1642, but according to Father Bowden's memento, Margaret Powell was not hanged as sentenced (evidently Parliament ordered her reprieved in December 1642). Bowden comments on her reaction:

At her trial, she had "expressed her joy at the prospect of laying down her life for the Faith in which she had been born, and which she hoped with God's mercy to bear unspotted to the grave." When she heard that her "sentence was deferred, she burst into tears; yet quickly recovering herself, she offered her new lease of life to God as obediently as she had accepted death." 

Whether she remained in prison for the rest of her life or was released, the record does not say--nor could I find out the fate of "her boy, aged twelve." But we might remember that the reward of the Sunamitess was the life of her son, miraculously conceived although her husband was old and miraculously restored to life by the Prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4:16-37)

Blessed Thomas Bullaker, pray for us!

Margaret Powell, rest in peace! (and pray for us!)

Preview: "Mass Under Penal Laws" on the SRMS

Since in the USA we are still in the midst of the nationwide Eucharistic Revival, I've chosen the entry for January 27 in Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day in the Year for our next segment on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, January 22. I'll be on the air at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central with either Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

From a Letter of a Missionary Priest:

When a priest comes to their houses, they first salute him as a stranger unknown to them, and then they take him to an inner chamber where an oratory is set up, when all fall on their knees and beg his blessing.

Once the priest reminds them that he will have to leave in morning because of the danger of staying longer, the letter continues:

they all prepare for Confession that evening. The next morning, they hear Mass and receive Holy Communion; then after preaching and giving his blessing the second time, the priest departs, conducted by one of the young gentlemen (that is, of the Catholic Association).

Mention of the Catholic Association helps us date this letter (for which I have not found Father Bowden's source) because this group was established by George Gilbert in the early 1580's when the Jesuit mission to England had begun. That group of young Catholic gentleman, according to Father Bowden's entry for George Gilbert, "was solemnly blessed by Pope Gregory XIII, on April 14, 1580. The members promised to imitate the lives of the Apostles, and to devote themselves wholly to the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. They were to be content with the necessaries of their state, and to bestow all the rest for the good of the Catholic cause. They supplied the priests with altar requisites, with horses, and various changes of apparel, and disguised themselves as grooms or servants and escorted the priests through the country from house to house."

The letter goes on:

No one is to be found to complain of the length of the services. If the Mass does not last nearly an hour many are discontented.

The Catholic recusant laity were hungry for the Mass, wanting more and more:

If six, eight, or more Masses are said [Mass was not concelebrated; each priest said Mass separately] in the same place, in the same day (as often happens when when there is a meeting priests), the same congregation will assist at all.

Obviously, the members of the congregation would receive Holy Communion at only one of the Masses, but they wanted to participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass as often as they could when they could.

When they can get priests, they confess every week.

These Catholic communities had to work together for their access to the Sacraments and to assure their mutual safety, so

Quarrels are scarcely known amongst them. Disputes are almost always left to the arbitration of the priests.

And they had to be careful with whom they interacted outside of their communities:

They do not willingly intermarry with heretics [that could mean they wouldn't be able to practice their Catholic faith], not will they pray with them [they were Recusants, not attending Anglican services], nor do they like to have any dealings with them [they probably had to, but that could be dangerous because their recusancy was already known].

The letter does not mention it, but the missionary priests also probably baptized babies and officiated at marriages during these visits too. The recusant laity had to take advantage of these rare and dangerous visits.

Thinking of the first audience for Father Bowden's book in 1910, some of the English Catholics--and many of the Irish Catholics in England--had heard tales of their ancestors during the Penal times. This letter would have revived those shared memories and made them grateful for their greater access to the Sacraments. 

In a much milder way, post-COVID lock downs, many of us can appreciate some of that recusant fervor (and some whose TLM opportunities have been repressed can too; I have attended a TLM "house Mass" at least once so far).

Father Bowden selected this verse from Psalm 22 (5): 

Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreatheth me, how goodly is it.

Image Source (Public Domain): Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O'Kelly, 1883 (in Ireland)

Preview: Saint Eustace White Meets Richard Topcliffe

The martyrs of England and Wales suffered throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons, so we'll continue our series of discussions of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year, with his memories of Saint Eustace White, martyr.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, December 11 at my usual time at 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.

Saint Eustace White, one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 10, 1591. In his entry for the then Venerable Eustace White (declared so in 1886), Father Henry Sebastian Bowden described the priest's conversion, vocation, imprisonment, and torture:

He was born at Louth, Lincolnshire, and his conversion so much offended his father, an earnest Protestant, that he laid his curse upon him ; but God turned the curse to a blessing, and Eustace White became a priest and entered on the English Mission, October 1588. He was apprehended at Blandford, and having confessed himself a priest, a certain minister, one Dr. Houel, a tall man, reputed of great learning, was sent for to dispute with him, but was ignominiously vanquished, as he failed to disprove a certain text which White affirmed to be in the Bible. At the Bridewell, London, he was once hung by Topcliffe in iron manacles for eight hours together; but though the torment caused the sweat from his body to wet the ground beneath, nothing could be extracted from him of the least prejudice to Catholics. Under the extremity of his passion he cried out, “Lord, more pain if Thou pleasest, and more patience.” To his torturer he said, “I am not angry at you for all this, but shall pray to God for your welfare and salvation.” Topcliffe replied in a passion that he wanted not the prayers of heretics, and would have him hung at the next session. Then said the martyr, “I will pray for you at the gallows, for you have great need of prayers.”

Because of the reference to how much Father White sweated as he hung by his wrists, Father Bowden chose the title "The Sweat of the Passion" and the verse from the Gospel of St. Luke 22:44, "And His sweat became as drops of blood running down to the ground." (p. 390 in the Sophia Institute Press edition)

The torture technique of being "hung by iron manacles" was described by Father John Gerard, SJ in his Autobiography of a Hunted Priest:

My arms were then lifted up and an iron bar was passed through the rings of one gauntlet, then through the staple and rings to the second gauntlet. This done, they fastened the bar with a pin to prevent it from slipping, and then, removing the wicker steps one by one from under my feet, they left me hanging by my hands and arms fastened above my head. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground, and they had to dig the earth away from under them. They had hung me up from the highest staple in the pillar and could not raise me any higher, without driving in another staple. Hanging like this I began to pray. The gentlemen standing around me asked me whether I was willing to confess now. 'I cannot and I will not,' I answered. But I could hardly utter the words, such a gripping pain came over me. It was worst in my chest and belly, my hands and arms. All the blood in my body seemed to rush up into my arms and hands and I thought that blood was oozing from the ends of my fingers and the pores of my skin. But it was only a sensation caused by my flesh swelling above the irons holding them. The pain was so intense that I thought I could not possibly endure it, and added to it, I had an interior temptation. Yet I did not feel any inclination or wish to give them the information they wanted.   

Saint Eustace White was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 10, 1591 at Tyburn Tree, the same day that Saints Edmund Gennings, Polydore Plasden (priests), and Swithun Wells (layman), and Blesseds John Mason and Sidney Hodgson (also laymen who had assisted Catholic missionary priests) suffered near Saint Swithun Wells' home on Grays Inn Road. 

Richard Topcliffe, Elizabeth I's chief pursuivant of Catholic priests, and an expert torturer, was present at that site. He didn't show up at Tyburn--was it maybe because he did not want to hear Father White's prayers for him? He did hear Saint Swithun Wells pray that like Saul, Topcliffe would hear the voice of Jesus on his own road to Damascus, stop persecuting Catholics, and become like Saint Paul!

A layman suffered at Tyburn with Father White:

Brian Lacey was a Yorkshire country gentleman. Cousin, companion, and assistant to Blessed Father Montford Scott. Arrested in 1586 for helping and hiding priests. Arrested again in 1591 when his own brother Richard betrayed him, Brian was tortured at Bridewell prison to learn the names of more people who had helped priests. Finally arraigned at the Old Bailey, he was condemned to death for his faith, for aiding priests and encouraging Catholicism. Pope Pius XI beatified him in 1929. Blessed Brian Lacey was also related to Blessed William Lacey, a 1582 martyr in York.

Saint Eustace White, pray for us!

Blessed Brian Lacey, pray for us!

Preview: Saint Edmund Campion, SJ in Father Bowden's "Mementoes"

There are many reasons to admire, imitate and be inspired by Saint Edmund Campion, SJ: his intelligence, his courage, his care for his flock (he went back to a house to minister to the Catholics there and was thus captured), his ability to defend the teachings of the Church, and of course, his holiness, well attested by his martyrdom. 

Thus it's no surprise that Father Henry Sebastian Bowden mentions Campion 20 (twenty) times in his Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year, not counting the poem Saint Henry Walpole, SJ wrote about his mentor in martyrdom (Campion's blood splashed on Walpole and he left London to study for the priesthood and return to England as a missionary and martyr) included as an appendix ("Why do I use my paper, ynke and penne?") 

And it's no surprise that we'll look at what Father Bowden says about Campion's martyrdom in our next segment on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, December 4.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time at 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.

I chose the most dramatic of the mementoes Father Bowden offers, the description of the day of Campion's martyrdom, December 1, 1581, with the title "A Sight to God and Man" because of the richness of the details in the account. As we read the description, we can try to imagine what that day was like, as though we are witnessing it:

In the splash and mud of a wet December morning, Campion was led forth from the Tower, still in his old gown of Irish frieze. Undaunted he saluted the vast crowd, saying, “God save you all, gentlemen! God bless you and make you all good Catholics!” 

Irish frieze was a coarse, woven woolen cloth, very durable, with the nap left on one side. This garment would have been stripped from Campion once his execution began. On his way to a horrible death, Campion is both undaunted and loyal to his mission as a Catholic priest: to offer blessings and good will.

After kneeling in prayer he was strapped on the hurdle, Sherwin and Briant being together bound on a second hurdle. They were dragged at the horses’ tails through the gutter and filth, followed by an insulting crowd of ministers and rabble. 

Saint Ralph Sherwin, SJ (31 years old) and Saint Alexander Briant (25 years old) had been imprisoned, tortured, and tried at the same as Campion (41 years old). They and other Catholic priests had been accused of complicity in the Rome and Reims Plot, an invention of the Court. The gutters and streets would have been wet, and dirty not just from mud but from horses' dung and other waste. That was below them; above them were insults and curses.

Still some Catholics were consoled by a word from him, and one gentleman, like Veronica on another Via Dolorosa, most courteously wiped his face all spattered with mire and filth. Passing under the arch of Newgate, whereon still stood an image of Our Lady, Campion raised himself and saluted the Queen of Heaven, whom he hoped so soon to see. 

These two gestures of honor, one to comfort Campion and the other to show devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, are moving intervals as the martyrs are drawn to brutal executions.

At the gallows he began with a sweet firm voice, “Spectaculum facti sumus Deo Angelis et hominibus,”* but the Sheriffs interrupted him, and urged him to confess his treason. He repeatedly maintained his innocence, and having declined to join in prayer with the ministers, asked all Catholics for a Credo for him in his agony, and while again professing his loyalty to the Queen he went to his reward.

Campion begins by citing the verse Father Bowden includes in this memento, from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: *“ We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.”—1 Cor. 5:9. 

In his biography of Saint Edmund Campion, Richard Simpson cited the martyr's last words:

"I am a Catholic man and a priest; in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. But you have now what you desire. I beseech you to have patience, and suffer me to speak a word or two for discharge of my conscience."

He was not allowed to continue and his execution was almost another trial as he was questioned again about his loyalty to the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church and/or to the Queen of England. His final statement was:

"Wherein have I offended her? In this I am innocent. This is my last speech; in this give me credit — I have and do pray for her." Then the Lord Charles Howard asked of him for which queen he prayed, whether for Elizabeth the queen. To whom he answered, "Yea, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long quiet reign with all prosperity."

Then he was stripped, hanged until barely conscious, eviscerated, beheaded, and quartered. During this agony, his blood splashed on the bystander, Henry Walpole. Then Sherwin and Briant endured the same agony. 

How long could I -- or you -- have watched it?

He and his companions, and Henry Walpole, were canonized among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope St. Paul VI in Rome on October 25, 1970.

Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us!
Saint Ralph Sherwin, pray for us!
Saint Alexander Briant, pray for us!
Saint Henry Walpole, pray for us!

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.

Preview: A Martyr (St. Edmund Gennings) and His Brother (A Confessor)

On Monday, November 6, we'll continue our journey through Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year with a stop on the way of one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, Saint Edmund Gennings (or Genings) and his confessor brother, John Gennings. I'll be on at my usual time, 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.

Father Bowden has eight (8) entries for the martyr brother and two (one shared) for the confessor brother. I chose the November 7 entry for the martyr, "God Ways Not Ours" ["My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor My ways your ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:8] on page 354 which describes Saint Edmund's conversion, study for the priesthood, and return to England:

Page in the family of Mr. Sherwood, a Catholic gentleman, he was converted, ordained priest at Rheims, and when only 23 years old, landed in England. His first desire was to convert his family in Lichfield, but finding that they were all dead except a brother, who had gone to London, thither he went himself.

He didn't find his brother during his search, but one day, he felt a "strange feeling" about a young man, twice, and recognized his brother John. As Father Bowden, he asked about himself, and John replied:

that he had gone to the pope, was become a traitor to God and his country, and if he returned would certainly be hung. Finding him [his brother] hopelessly bigoted, [Edmund] left him, promising on his return to confide to him an important matter.

The important matter? 

John was converted by Edmund's martyrdom, and, as a Franciscan friar, renewed the life of his order in England.

On page 14, Father Bowden describes "The Prodigal's Return"  (on January 6) as John Genings has heard of his brother's horrific execution* on December 10, 1591. At first, John is relieved  

since he deemed it an escape from all Edmund's arguments and persuasions in favour of the Catholic religion, being himself strongly against the faith. But about ten days after his brother's execution, having spent all that day in sport and jollity, being weary with play, he returned home. There his heart felt heavy, and he began to weigh how idly he had passed the day. His brother's death came before him, and how he had abandoned all worldly pleasures, and for the sake of religion alone endured intolerable torments. Then the contrast of their two lives —the one mortified, fearing sin, the other spent in self-indulgence and in every kind of vice. Struck with remorse, he wept bitterly and besought God to show him the truth. In an instant joy filled his heart with a tender reverence for the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, of whom he had scarcely heard. He longed now to be of his brother's faith, and gloried in his eternal happiness. He left England secretly, was made priest at Douay, became a Franciscan, and the first Provincial of the renewed English Province.

Of course, the scripture verse is: " I will arise and go to my Father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee." (Luke 15:18)

*Saint Edmund Genning's execution was indeed brutal. Richard Topcliffe, Queen Elizabeth I's infamous pursuivant and torturer, was there and wanted to make sure that Genings suffered the full agony of being hanged, drawn, and quartered:

Topcliffe, the notorious priest-hunter, was enraged with the attitude of St Edmund Gennings. He then ordered that Edmund be hanged and immediately cut down. When the hangman began his butchery, St Edmund was still alive when his heart was ripped from his chest. With his last breath he cried out, "Saint Gregory: Pray for me." The hangman swore, "Zounds! See, his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth. O egregious Papist!".

If Father John Gennings heard those details, he would indeed have been moved.

Saint Edmund Gennings, pray for us!

Preview: Blessed John Slade and "The Voice of the People"

We'll return to our weekly discussion of an English martyr on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, October 30. I'll be on at my usual time, 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.

Monday's martyr from Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year was hanged, drawn, and quartered on October 30, 1583. Blessed John Slade, a layman, had been founded guilty of denying Queen Elizabeth's spiritual authority over the Church in England and thus had committed High Treason.

John Slade was born in Dorsetshire and left England after being expelled from New College in Oxford for his recusancy/Catholicism to study Civil and Canon Law at the English College at Douai. As Bishop Richard Challoner describes his return to England, where he worked as a schoolmaster, he was "so zealous in maintaining the old religion" that he was "apprehended on that account."

When he and John Bodey, another Canon and Civil lawyer trained at Douai, were tried for their zealous Catholicism, the main charge against them was that they would not recognize Queen Elizabeth as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, with spiritual authority. Thus they were violating the Act of Supremacy of 1558. They were imprisoned together at Winchester, tried and convicted together, but were not executed together. Blessed John Bodey suffered the execution of a traitor on November 2, 1583. Both Slade and Bodey were beatified by Pope Pius XI on December 15, 1929, among a large group of priests and laity (136).

As John Hungerford Pollen, who gathered the information about the English martyrs beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI, recounts, when John Slade was drawn to the gallows in Winchester on October 30. 1583, he was questioned again about Papal Supremacy and why he denied the religious supremacy of Elizabeth I.

He replied "the Supremacy hath and doth belong to the Pope by right from Peter, and the Pope hath received it as by divine providence. Therefore, we must not give those things belonging to God to any other than him alone. And because I will not do otherwise, I may say with the three children in the fiery oven, and the first of the widow's seven sons in the Maccabees: "Paraii sumus mori magis quam pairias Dei leges pravaricari." [we are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers." 2 Macc 7:2]

Asked about Pope Pius V's excommunication of Elizabeth I, Slade replied with similar boldness:

"Sir," answered Slade, " you are very busy in words: if the Pope hath done so, I think he hath done no more than he may, and than he ought to do. I will acknowledge no other head of the Church, but only the Pope: and her Majesty hath no authority in temporal causes likewise, but only what he shall think good to allow her." At these words the people cried, "Away with the traitor. Hang him. Hang him."

Father Bowden quotes these replies in his entry for Blessed John Slade, citing the verse from the Gospel according to St. Luke: "But they cried again, saying: Crucify him, crucify him." (23:21) as the "Voice of the People" who urged his bloody execution.

It's rather unusual for a layman to be convicted of High Treason for his religion, but after Pope Pius V had excommunicated Elizabeth I and declared that Catholics were not bound to be loyal to her religious or temporal supremacy--and in the midst of the investigation of the Throckmorton Plot to rescue Mary, Queen of Scots and place her on the throne of England--this was an essential issue for Elizabethan authorities. 

We may also be astonished that Blessed John Slade invoked the pope granting permission to Elizabeth I to rule England as Queen in the temporal sense, but the combination of temporal and religious authority in the monarch created the tension of loyalties for her Catholic subjects. I wonder how many in the Church of England--until the Tractarian Movement of the 1830's in Oxford--ever thought that perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior Church of England cleric, should have the spiritual authority, and that the Church of England should not be an Erastian church with the monarch having such control over worship, doctrine, and other ecclesiastical matters. (Note that of Henry VIII's heirs, only Mary I did not claim that authority, leaving it to the Pope and his representative in England, the Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole.) 

Not many, or at least not many would speak such thoughts out loud. T'would be Treason!

Blessed John Slade, pray for us!

Preview: Blesseds Duckett and Corby in "Holy Rivalry" and with "The Kiss of Peace"

On Monday, September 18, we'll continue our series on the Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors by Father Henry Sebastian Bowden on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

As of today, the book is still on sale for $10.00! You cannot say I haven't told often enough!

Father Bowden offers four mementoes of Blessed John Duckett and three of Blessed Ralph Corby, SJ during the month of September. The two martyrs share three mementoes, because although they came to England as missionary priests by separate paths, served in the missionary field in vastly different durations (Duckett for about a year; Corby for 14 years), and were arrested separately, they shared imprisonment in London and went to Tyburn together for execution on September 7, 1644--during the English Civil War. They were both arrested and executed under Parliamentary authority.

For Blessed (then Venerable) John Duckett, on page 300 (September 20) in the book, Father Bowden offers an example of a Catholic priest as an Alter Christus (Another Christ), echoing the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus says "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way." (John 13:8) in a memory explaining how Father Duckett admitted he was a Catholic priest "To Save Others":

He was taken, in company with two Catholic laymen, as he was going to baptize two children on the Feast of the Visitation, July 2. His captors, the Parliament soldiers, carried him before a committee of the Sequestrators at Sunderland. He declined to answer as to his priesthood and demanded proof, but was committed to prison by reason of the Holy oils and books found on him. Again examined, and again refusing to inculpate himself, he was threatened with lighted matches placed between his fingers to make him confess what he was. This availing nothing he was sent back to prison. After an hour he was again called, and found his two companions on the point of being shipped and sent away, merely because he would not confess who he was. "Seeing this," he says, "and also fearing that the Catholics of the neighbourhood who knew me might suffer, and especially those with whom I lived, I confessed myself to free them and the country." His self-sacrifice was successful, and seemed an inspiration from Heaven. No more inquiry was made after his friends, but Father Duckett was sent up to London in company with Father Corby, a Jesuit, who was taken in these parts as he was going up to the altar to say Mass.

So Father Duckett did not admit immediately to his priesthood, even enduring some torture, but when the two laymen were threatened and he also became concerned for others in the Durham area where he was captured--especially the family or families of the children who were to be baptized--he confessed to save their lives.

The Catholic Encyclopedia offers some details about his life before his arrest, imprisonment, and execution: He was probably a grandson of Venerable [Blessed] James Duckett [a layman executed on April 19, 1601, also at Tyburn], born at Underwinder, in the parish of Sedbergh, Yorkshire, in 1603; died 7 September, 1644. He was ordained priest in 1639 and afterwards went to Paris where he studied three years in the College of Arras. He had an extraordinary gift of prayer, and while yet a student would spend whole nights in contemplation. On his way to the English mission, he spent two months in spiritual exercises, under the direction of his uncle, the Carthusian prior at Nieuport.

Then, when Fathers Duckett and Corby are in prison and are offered an opportunity for one of them to escape, Father Bowden offers the story of their "Holy Rivalry":

RALPH CORBY, alias Darlington, was born near Dublin of English parents, natives of Durham, who had gone over to Ireland for the free exercise of their religion. The piety of the family is sufficiently attested by the fact that both parents and children entered into religion: the father and his three sons into the Society of Jesus, the mother and her daughters into the Order of St. Benedict. After twelve years' hard work, notwithstanding continuous ill-health, among the poorer Catholics in Durham, he was arrested and sent up to London with Father Duckett. They were escorted from Westminster to Newgate by a company of Parliament soldiers, with a captain at their head, beating drums and firing off their muskets through the crowded streets, as if they had been the enemy's generals taken in war as in the old Roman battles. In prison the life of one of them could have been saved by an exchange made for a prisoner in the hand of the Emperor of Germany. The offer was first made to Father Corby, who declined it on the ground that Father Duckett, being younger, could do more work than himself; but he in his turn refused it with thanks, as Father Corby's life, on account of his experience, was of greater value.

He cites a verse from the First Letter of John for this scene: "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us." (3:1) I wonder what the Puritan authorities thought of them, both rejectiing a chance to be freed, in exile of course (but probably to return).

In describing their executions at Tyburn Tree, Father Bowden offers these details ("The Kiss of Peace"):

They went out to suffer with their tonsures shaved, the one in his Jesuit's habit, the other in his priest's cassock. At the gallows Father Duckett made no speech, but told an heretical minister that he had not come hither to be taught his religion, but to die for it. After a short discourse from Father Corby, the two confessors turned to each other. Together they had been arrested, supported each other by their mutual courage and self-sacrifice, and with a last most loving embrace they together received their eternal crown. ("Salute one another in a holy kiss; all the saints salute you." 2 Cor. 13:12)

With these three mementoes, Father Bowden offers poignant examples of these martyrs' camaraderie in the midst of danger and suffering as they prepared for their executions. They were both beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI.

Blessed John Duckett, pray for us!

Blessed Ralph Corby, pray for us!

Preview: Blessed Adrian Fortescue and His Maxims

Blessed Adrian Fortescue, another one of Henry VIII's best friends (like St. Thomas More), was executed sometime in early July, 1539 (either July 8 or 9 or 10). He was a Knight of the Realm, a Knight of Malta, and a Dominican Tertiary. On Monday, September 11, we'll continue our series of Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors gathered by Father Henry Sebastian Bowden. Please note that the book is still available--as of today--for only $10.00 from the publisher!

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

The website of the Dominican Friars of England, Ireland, and Scotland provides this background of his life and times:

Like his forebears, Adrian served King Henry VIII in his ambitious military campaigns. He helped to rout the French the Battle of Spurs in 1513, and fought again in 1523. King Henry rewarded his support and in 1520 invited him to the splendorous Field of the Cloth of Gold where Henry famously wrestled with the King of France. Closer to home, Sir Adrian was made a Justice of the Peace of the county of Oxfordshire. In this period of history, royal favour could also take more peculiar forms. Sir Adrian had the dubious honour of being made a Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber, forerunner to the august body now known as the Privy Council.

In addition to being an assiduous servant of the Crown, Sir Adrian was evidently also a man of strong religious conviction and charity. His accounts reveal a number of benefactions to clergy and religious foundations. In 1532, he became a Knight of Devotion in the Order of Malta. The following year in July of 1533, he was admitted as a Dominican Tertiary at Blackfriars, Oxford, which he would visit from Stonor. But he also had a strong association with the Dominican Priory in London. His lodgings in the capital were in the precincts of the Blackfriars, close to the present eponymous tube station.

Sir Adrian was married twice and had children, so like St. Thomas More, he lived an active life as a Catholic layman, as a family man, with great devotion to his faith.

In the Catholic Encyclopedia, J.H. Pollen demonstrates the injustice of his martyrdom, as he was arrested, imprisoned, and included in a Bill of Attainder, without trial or evidence:

All of a sudden this quiet, worthy gentleman was overwhelmed by some unexplained whim of the Tudor tyrant. On 29 August, 1534, he was put under arrest, no one knows why, but released after some months. On 3 February, 1539, he was arrested a second time and sent to the Tower. In April he was condemned untried by an act of attainder; in July he was beheaded. No specific act of treason was alleged against him, but only in general "sedition and refusing allegiance". The attainder, however, went on to decree death against Cardinal Pole and several others because they "adhered themselves to the Bishop of Rome". Catholic tradition was always held that Sir Adrian died for the same cause, and modern Protestant critics have come to the same conclusion. His cultus has always flourished among the Knights of St. John, and he was beatified by Leo XIII in 1895.

Father Bowden does not highlight Blessed Adrian Fortescue's martyrdom, but instead provides a series of maxims he collected. (Pollen describes them thus: "He collected and signed several lists of proverbs and wise saws, which, though not very brilliant, are never offensive or coarse, always sane, and sometimes rise to a high moral or religious level.") Bowden uses the titles "A Martyr's Maxims (1) and (2)" with the verses, "She conducted the just, when he fled from his brother's wrath, through the right ways" (Wisdom 10:10) and "But the wisdom, that is from above, first indeed is chaste." (James 3:17).

Among the maxims:

Above all things love God with all thy heart.

Desire His honour more than the health of thine own soul.

Take heed with all diligence to purge and cleanse thy mind with oft Confession, and raise thy desire or lust from earthly things.

Be you houseled (that is receive Holy Communion) with entire devotion.

Pray often.

Also enforce thee to set thy house at quietness.

Resort to God every hour.

Advance not thy words or deeds by any pride.

Be pitiful to poor folk and help them to thy power, for then thou shalt greatly please God.

Give fair language to all persons, and especially to the poor and needy.

Also be diligent in giving of alms.

In prosperity be meek of heart, and in adversity patient.

And pray continually to God that you may do what is His pleasure.

Neither Father Bowden nor J.H. Pollen indicate where Blessed Adrian Fortescue wrote down these maxims, but this website indicates it was in his Book of Hours; further it notes that the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford has another book of Fortescue's containing proverbs which also includes a book written by his great-uncle John Fortescue, On Absolute and Limited Monarchy (dangerous reading while King Henry VIII was on the throne!), and passages from Langland's Piers Plowman!

The collection and use of these proverbs served as good preparation for the trials and martyrdom Blessed Adrian Fortescue would endure, imprisoned, found guilty without trial, and beheaded. Henry VIII also suppressed the Knights of St. John and seized their properties in England.

Blessed Adrian Fortescue, pray for us!

Preview: Blessed Thomas Holford, Convert and Martyr

August 28, 1588 was busy day for executioners throughout London, as several new gibbets had been constructed. With the defeat or failure of the Spanish Armada, government officials sought to make quite an example. 

The martyr whose mementoes we'll feature on Monday, August 28, was one of the martyrs who suffered that day, although Father Henry Sebastian Bowden highlights several successful escapes before his final capture, imprisonment, trial, and execution.

So on Monday, August 28, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

With the title "A Hunted Life" and verses from the Letter to the Hebrews, "They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: of whom the world was not worthy" (11:37-38), Father Bowden recounts Blessed Thomas Holford, who would be beatified in 1929, and his wanderings:

THE son of a Protestant minister in Cheshire, he was reconciled by Father Davis, and ordained, and his life as a priest seems to have been a fulfilment of the Gospel precept of flight under persecution. " He was first searched for," says Father Davis, "in the house where I lay, on All Souls' Day, but escaped. Again, after being nearly taken in the search for Babington, he repaired again to a house where I was staying, but we escaped to a hay-barn, through a secret place at the foot of the stairs. He then laboured for souls in his own county, Cheshire, was apprehended, sent to London, and lodged in an inn at Holborn. Then, rising early, he managed to pass the pursuivants, who had drunk hard and were asleep. On Holborn Viaduct he met a Catholic gentleman, who, seeing him half-dressed, thought him a madman. Pulling off his yellow stocking and white boot-hose, he walked barefoot by unfrequented paths till he arrived, late at night, at a house where I lay, about eight miles from London. He had eaten nothing, and his feet were bleeding and torn with briars and thorns. My hosts and their daughters tended him and put him to bed. The next year he was apprehended, and executed, August 28, at Clerkenwell." (p. 265, entry for August 17)

In his Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion, from the year 1577 till the end of the reign of Charles II, Bishop Richard Challoner (from whom Father Bowden excerpted this memento) adds this detail about Blessed Thomas Holford's final capture:

After this escape, he avoided London for a time, but the next year, 1588, he came to London to buy him a suit of apparel. At which time, going to Mr. Swithin Well's house, near St. Andrew's church in Holborn, to serve God (i. e. to say Mass) Hodgkins the pursuivant espying him as he came forth, dogged him into his tailor's house, and there apprehended him.

Just a little context: 

• After his conversion, Holford left England to study for the priesthood in Reims, arriving there on August 18, 1582; he was ordained in Laon on April 9, 1583, and returned to England on May 4 that same year.
• Fathers Davis and Holford were having to move around so much because of the discovery of the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth I, to replace her with the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots.
• Saint Swithun Wells is one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, executed on December 10, 1591 after another Mass was celebrated in his home on All Saints Day, a Mass he did not attend!
• Hebrews 11 is the chapter in which the faith of the Old Testament patriarchs is lauded from Abel to Moses and beyond! The full citation of verses 37 and 38 is:

They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted:

Of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth.

The full list of those executed on August 28, 1588:

Blessed Hugh More or Moor, educated at Oxford
Blessed James Claxton
Blessed Robert Morton
Blessed Thomas Felton, whose father, John Felton was executed for posting the Papal Bull excommunicating Elizabeth I after the Northern Rebellion
Blessed Thomas Holford, formerly a Protestant schoolmaster
Blessed William Dean, a former Protestant minister, he had been arrested and exiled and returned to England
Blessed William Gunter or Guntei, from Wales
Blessed Henry Webley, a layman who had assisted Father William Dean

Blessed Thomas Holford, pray for us!

Preview: Blessed Thomas Percy's Mementoes

After an hiatus on Monday the 14th as the Son Rise Morning Show prepared for the Solemnity of the Assumption on August 15th, we're back with our series of highlights from Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors, remembering Blessed Thomas Percy, an early Elizabethan martyr.

So on Monday, August 21, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

[This Thomas Percy is not to be confused with the Sir Thomas Percy, his father, who participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace during the reign of King Henry VIII, who has not been beatified by the Church. Note from the Catholic Encyclopedia: "When Thomas was eight years old his father was executed at Tyburn (2 June, 1537) for having taken a leading part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and he also is considered a martyr by many."*]

Father Bowden focuses on the time when Blessed Thomas Percy was imprisoned in Scotland under the title "Friday Abstinence" with verses from the Second Book of Maccabees (6:18-19): 

Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes . . . was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine's flesh. But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment.

Some background from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

On Elizabeth's accession the earl, whose steadfast loyalty to the Catholic Church was known, was kept in the North while the anti-Catholic measures of Elizabeth's first Parliament were passed. Elizabeth continued to show him favour, and in 1563 gave him the Order of the Garter. He had then resigned the wardenship and was living in the South. But the systematic persecution of the Catholics rendered their position most difficult, and in the autumn of 1569 the Catholic gentry in the North, stirred up by rumours of the approaching excommunication of Elizabeth, were planning to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and obtain liberty of worship. Earl Thomas with the Earl of Westmoreland wrote to the pope asking for advice, but before their letter reached Rome circumstances hurried them into action against their better judgment. After a brief success the rising failed, and Thomas fled to Scotland, where he was captured and, after three years, sold to the English Government. He was conducted to York and beheaded, refusing to save his life by abandoning his religion. He was beatified by Leo XIII on 13 May, 1895, and his festival was appointed to be observed in the Dioceses of Hexham and Newcastle on 14 November. His daughter Mary founded the Benedictine convent at Brussels from which nearly all the existing houses of Benedictine nuns in England are descended.

According to the website for the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, his feast is still celebrated on that designated date:

His feast day is celebrated in our Diocese on 14 November.

A Chapel at Langley Castle (completed in 1914) has stained glass windows featuring Blessed Thomas Percy (Blessed Thomas Percy was a descendent (sic) of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who originally owned Langley Castle).

(BTW: Langley Castle is now a hotel. Sic transit gloria mundi!) 

While he was a prisoner in Scotland in Lochleven Castle (where Mary, Queen of Scots was also held for a time in 1567-1568), Blessed Thomas Percy was besieged with loneliness and temptations to deny his Catholicism, including his fast and abstinence:

TORN from his friends and followers, from his wife and his four little girls, and betrayed into the hands of a declared enemy, Bl. Thomas in his captivity at Lochleven had indeed "sunk into deep waters among them that hated him" (Ps 68:15). But he found strength from above in his continual fasts and watchings and pious meditations, and proved himself a true champion of the faith. His Calvinist keeper, the Lord of Lochleven [William Douglas, the Sixth Earl of Morton], brought many of his sect to try and persuade him, by cunning argument and speeches or by threats and promises, to embrace their errors, but he could never be persuaded to depart in the smallest matter from the Communion of the Catholic Church. When, as often happened, meat was brought to him on days which Catholics observe as a fast, he contented himself with bread alone ; and by his example moved some of those attending on him to repent of their apostasy. The fortitude he thus acquired found a witness in Lord Hunsdon [Thomas Carey, Mary's Boleyn's son, Elizabeth I's cousin, and one of Shakespeare's patrons], who reported "that he is readier to talk of hawks and hounds than anything else, though very sorrowful and fearing for his life." (p. 269)

There are other entries for Blessed Thomas Percy, including one on August 13, p. 261, which recounts the seizure of Durham Cathedral during the Northern Rebellion and the celebration of Holy Mass for the first time after the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.

Blessed Thomas Percy was beheaded in York on August 22, 1572.

Blessed Thomas Percy, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of Blessed Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland (1528-1570, at full length, kneeling on a cushion, wearing a black doublet with a fur trimmed cloak, a white ruff and the Order of the Garter collar and garter, reading a prayer book.

*Since both father and son took part in rebellions, it might be asked why the son is beatified and not the father: Blessed Thomas Percy was offered his life if he renounced his illegal Catholic faith (punishable by fines at that time if he did not attend the government sanctioned Church of England services). During the reign of Henry VIII, his father was not offered such a choice.

And, just to add to the confusion of similar names, there is another Thomas Percy, a Gunpowder Plot conspirator, who died of gunshot wounds on November 8, 1605. His body was exhumed and beheaded during the repercussions of the failed, murderous plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

Preview: The Attempted Poisoning of Palasor in Prison

In our series on the Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors based on Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's selections of their stories, we'll next look at the imprisonment of Blessed Thomas Palasor, who had been declared Venerable when the book was originally published, and his two lay companions, John Norton and John Talbot. While they were in prison, someone tried to poison them--with quite unintended consequences!

So on Monday, August 7, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

With the title "Poison Detected" and the verse from Mark's Gospel (16:18), "They shall take up serpents and, if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them", Father Bowden describes how Father Palasor, Mr. John Talbot, and Mr. John Norton, were captured together in Yorkshire in Norton's home and brought to prison in Durham. 

Father Palasor was served some broth for dinner and its appearance was startling: "the bone of mutton in the dish ran blood in the form of crosses and of O's in the broth" so he did not taste it or consume it. The maid took it back to the woman who had prepared it, who added some spices and sent it with the maid to the two laymen, who noticed the same phenomenon and did not taste the broth.

The maid, Mary Day, went to Father Palasor and "confessed that the broth had been poisoned by the malice of her mistress, the jailer's wife, and on her knees begged his forgiveness, and asked him to make her one of his Faith." 

So Mary was received into the Catholic Church and left the jail to serve in the household of a Catholic lady, Eleanor Forcer, "who bore testimony to the occurrence", which is included in Bishop Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion.

As Bowden concludes this entry on the mementoes of Father Palasor and his companions: he was condemned to death for "returning to England as a priest, contrary to the statute" and they "received the same sentence for harboring and assisting him, and all three together were executed at Durham" on August 9, 1600. (p. 257)

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides some more detail about Blessed Thomas Palasor and his companions:

English martyr, born at Ellerton-upon-Swale, parish of Catterick, North Riding of Yorkshire; died at Durham 9 August, 1600. He arrived at Reims 24 July, 1592, whence he set out for Valladolid 24 August, 1592. There he was ordained priest in 1596. He was arrested in the house of John Norton, of Ravenswroth, nearly Lamesley, County Durham, who seems to have been the second son of Richard Norton, of Norton Conyers, attainted for his share in the Rebellion in 1569. Norton and his wife (if the above identification be correct, she was his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Christopher Redshaw of Owston) were arrested at the same time, and with them John Talbot, one of the Talbots of Thorton-le-Street, North Ridding of Yorkshire. All four were tried at Durham and condemned to death, Palasor for being a priest, and the others for assisting him. Another gentleman was condemned at the same time but saved his life by conforming, as they might have done. Mrs. Norton, being supposed to be with child, was reprieved. The others suffered together. Bishop Challoner tells how an attempt to poison Palasor and his companions made by the gaoler's wife resulted in the conversion of her maid-servant Mary Day.

I mentioned that at the time Bowden composed this book, Palasor had been declared Venerable, but in 1987 Pope John Paul II beatified him. Misters Norton and Talbot were also beatified among those 85 Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales. As Pope John Paul II said in his homily at the Mass of Beatification:

Among these eighty-five martyrs we find priests and laymen, scholars and craftsmen. The oldest was in his eighties, and the youngest no more than twenty-four. There were among them a printer, a bartender, a stable-hand, a tailor. What unites them all is the sacrifice of their lives in the service of Christ their Lord.

The priests among them wished only to feed their people with the Bread of Life and with the Word of the Gospel. To do so meant risking their lives. But for them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The twenty-two laymen in this group of martyrs shared to the full the same love of the Eucharist. They, too, repeatedly risked their lives, working together with their priests, assisting, protecting and sheltering them. Laymen and priests worked together; together they stood on the scaffold and together welcomed death. Many women, too, not included today in this group of martyrs, suffered for their faith and died in prison. They have earned our undying admiration and remembrance.

And 25 years after their beatification, Vincent Cardinal Nichols celebrated a Mass at Westminster Cathedral on that anniversary and commented in his homily:

Of the eighty-five martyrs we remember and honour today, sixty-three were priests. They knew the risk they took in embarking on their priestly mission in these countries. They did so, above all, to bring the eternal riches of the Holy Mass to Catholics here. . . But it was the Mass that mattered. . . .

Twenty-two of these martyrs were laymen of different standings, professions and trades. They include married and family men. They were committed to the care and protection of their priests, for they too treasured the gift of the Mass above all other things. There are no women among this group of martyrs, for very few were ever put to death in that age. But many women, too, risked everything to play their part in the struggle for the faith.

Note that Mrs. Norton's supposed pregnancy prevented her from being executed by being hanged to death, which supports both the pope's and the cardinal's comments about how few women (the three canonized martyrs--Saints Margaret Clitherow, Margaret Ward, and Anne Line--being the exceptions) were martyred for the Faith in the Recusant/Penal era. But they endured great suffering, especially the loss, in Margaret Norton's case, of their husbands, and probably their homes and property, being seized by the state since their husbands were accounted traitors. Whether Margaret Norton died in prison or was released, I do not know.

Blessed Thomas Palasor, pray for us!

Blessed John Norton, pray for us!

Blessed John Talbot, pray for us!

Preview: "Those Boots are made for Martyrdom": Blessed Everard Hanse

I know that's a pun that not even Scott Hahn should get away with, but in my defense, Father Henry Sebastian Bowden makes a pair of boots the center of his memento of Blessed Everard Hanse, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered on July 31, 1581 at Tyburn Tree. With the title, "Shod for the Gospel", and the verse, "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15) Father Bowden emphasizes that Hanse's foreign made boots led to his imprisonment, trial, and martyrdom.

So on Monday, July 31, we'll discuss the mementoes of Blessed Everard Hanse on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on the air at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here!

Blessed Everard Hanse was born in an Anglican family in Northamptonshire, attended Cambridge University, and was ordained as a Church of England minister with a good living. His brother William had become a Catholic priest in Rheims and returned to England in 1579, hoping to bring Everard to the Catholic Church. As Father Bowden remarks, his brother's arguments weren't as persuasive as an illness Everard suffered: it "placed all things in a new light, and William had the consolation of receiving his brother into the Church." (p. 247)

Everard left England for Rheims, the seminary, and ordination and returned to England in 1581 as a missionary priest. Fatefully, only three months after returning to England, he visited some prisoners in the Marshalsea "when the jailer noticed the foreign make of his boots, and took him before a magistrate."

Father Hanse admitted that he was a Catholic priest and was imprisoned in Newgate. 

In 1581, it was not yet treasonous for an Englishman just to be a Catholic priest in England, so the authorities had to find him guilty of a serious crime to sentence him to death. They did so at his trial, interpreting his statements that the pope had spiritual supremacy over him in England (denying Queen Elizabeth I's spiritual authority over him) and that he wished "all believed the Catholic Faith, as he did himself" (seen as his intention to persuade others to deny the Queen's supremacy and authority in religion) as proof of his treason. So he was sentenced to death and suffered at Tyburn on July 31, 1581.

Father Bowden adds the detail that when Blessed Everard Hanse's heart, cut out of his chest, was cast into the fire, "it leapt repeatedly, as if marking God's approval of his constancy." Bishop Challoner notes that the martyr's last words were "O happy day!"

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on December 29, 1886.

Blessed Everard Hanse, pray for us!

Image Credit (Stained glass from St Edmund's College Ware, used by permission).