Just Another Catholic Recusant Poet: Edmund Bolton

Because I discovered Mrs. Dorothy Lawson's father, Henry Constable, the poet, I learned about one of Constable's contemporaries and friends, Edmund Bolton. Bolton was a poet and historian, born in 1575. According to Father Herbert Thurston, SJ in the Catholic Encyclopedia, he died circa 1633 and 

He seems to have been born of Catholic parents in Leicestershire, and must have been of good family and position, for he claims to have continued "many years on his own charge a free commoner at Trinity Hall, Cambridge", and after going to London to study law to have lived there "in the, best and choicest company of gentlemen". There can be no doubt that there was a strong Catholic element among the lawyers of the Inner Temple (Richard Southwell, the father of the martyr, might be named as one example among many), and the tone of the drama and much of the lighter literature of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period shows that the Bohemian society into which Bolton and his fellows were thrown was often pronouncedly papist. But while many who for a while were Romanizers, like his friend Ben Jonson, ultimately fell away, Bolton, much to his credit, remained stanch to his principles. Of his ability and zeal in the pursuit of knowledge there can be no question. He was the friend of Cotton and Camden; whose antiquarian researches he shared, and as a writer of verses he was associated with Sidney, Spenser, Raleigh, and others in the publication of "England's Helicon". Many influential friends, including for example the Duke, then Marquess, of Buckingham, tried to help him in his pecuniary embarrassments, but there seems no doubt that his Catholicism stood in the way of his making a living by literature.

Thurston cites as an example of this issue the rejection of his biography of King Henry II because it was too favorable to Saint Thomas a Becket! He did have friends at Court, however, including James I's favorite, George Villiers, the First Duke of Buckingham: 

It seems, however, that through Buckingham's influence he obtained some small post about the court of James I, and in 1617 he proposed to the king some scheme for a royal academy or college of letters which was to be associated with the Order of the Garter, and which was destined in the mind of its designer to convert Windsor Castle into a sort of English Olympus. James I gave some encouragement to the scheme, but died before it was carried into execution. With the accession of Charles I, Bolton seems to have fallen on evil days. The last years of his life were mostly spent either in the Fleet or in the Marshalsea as a prisoner for debt, to which no doubt the fines he incurred as a "recusant convict" largely contributed. The exact date of his death is unknown. Besides his contributions in English verse to "England's Helicon" Bolton wrote a certain amount of Latin poetry.

Here's an example of his verse from England's Helicon. Bolton also wrote Nero Caesar, or Monarchie Depraved (1624), and other works.

The 1885-1900 Dictionary of National Biography has these details about his family and later life:

All his schemes failed. He was now becoming advanced in years. He had a wife [Margaret Porter, the sister of Endymion Porter?] and three sons, and very slender means of support, none indeed at last, for there can he no doubt that he is the ‘Edmund Bolton of St. James, Clerkenwell,' who being assessed as a recusant convict at 6l. in goods, is returned by a collector of the subsidy of 1628 as having to his knowledge no lands or tenements, goods or chattels on which the tax could be levied, ‘but hath been a prisoner in the Fleet’ ever since the assessment was made. The same return was made in 1629, the only difference being that his place of detention was then not the Fleet but the Marshalsea. It was after this that he made his appeal to the city authorities [for a detailed history of London], and he appears to have made some progress with the work; but here he found himself anticipated by his friend Ben Jonson, who had promised to prepare for them ‘Chronological Annals;’ and when he talked of the history and the map costing 3,000l. or 4,000l., Sir Hugh Hammersley told him plainly that in prosecuting the application he would but berating the air. The latest letter of his at present known is addressed to Henry, Lord Falkland, on 20 August 1633. Probably he died soon afterwards, but the exact date of his death is not known.

So he made some progress in his intellectual pursuits, seemed to have some great ideas, the ability and energy to pursue them. Bolton's Catholicism held him back financially, assuredly, but he remained a recusant. The Dictionary of National Biography notes that he thought he was allowed to practice his faith freely [Writing to the secretary Conway on behalf of a catholic priest, he says that King James, whose servant he had been, allowed 'him with his wife and family to live in peace to that conscience in which he was bred' (Calendar of State Papers, Dom. 1625)], but clearly there were costs and consequences. 

I would like to know if his widow and his sons continued to be true to the Catholicism of Bolton, and I hope he was able to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction before he died.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of George Villiers by Peter Paul Rubens.

One of Elizabeth I's Diplomats, Sir William Waad, RIP

Sir William Wade or Waad or Wadd died on October 21, 1623.

He was born in 1546 and by the age of 30 was serving his monarch as an ambassador on the Continent, according to the Dictionary of National Biography:

In July 1576 he was residing at Paris, and frequently supplied political information to Burghley, whose ‘servant’ he is described as being (cf. Lansd. MS. 23, art. 75). He claimed ‘familiar acquaintance’ with the celebrated French publicist, Jean Bodin, from whom he seems to have derived some of the news he forwarded to Burghley. In the autumn of 1576 Sir Amias Paulet [q. v.] took Wade to Blois (Cal. State Papers, For. 1575-7 passim). During the winter of 1578-9 he was in Italy, whence he forwarded to Burghley reports on its political condition. From Venice in April 1579 he sent the lord-treasurer fifty of the rarest kinds of seeds in Italy (Cal. Hatfield MSS. ii. 254). In May he was at Florence, and in February 1579-1580 he was residing at Strasbourg. 

In the following April he was employed on some delicate mission in Paris by Sir Henry Cobham. The suggestion in the Cal. State Papers, Venetian, that he was ambassador to Spain and Portugal in 1579 is misdated. In 1580 he received instructions as ambassador to Portugal (Sloane MS. 1442, f. 114). In 1581 he seems to have returned to England, and entered the service of Sir Francis Walsingham as secretary, and in 1583 he became one of the clerks to the privy council (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1611-18, p.198). In April of that year he was sent to Vienna to discuss the differences between the Hanse Towns and English merchants abroad, and in July he accompanied Lord Willoughby on his embassy to Denmark to invest the king with the insignia of the Garter, and to negotiate an agreement on mercantile affairs (Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth, i. 24, 31). 

He undertook a couple of delicate and dangerous missions, to Spain and France:

In January 1583-4 he was sent to Madrid to explain the expulsion from England of the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza. He arrived in March, but Philip II refused all his requests for an interview, and ordered him out of Spain, with an intimation that he was fortunate to escape free (Cotton. MS. Vesp. C. vii. f.392; Cal. State Papers, Simancas, 1580-6, pp. 516, 520-1; Birch, i. 45, 48; Froude, xi. 414, 422). . . .

In March [1584-5] Waad was despatched to Paris to demand the surrender of the conspirator Thomas Morgan [accused in the Throckmorton Plot] (1543-1606?) [q. v.] Henry III was willing to consider the request but the catholic league [sic] and the Guises were violently opposed to it, and even instructed the Duc d’Aumale to waylay Waad and rescue Morgan on their way to the coast. Waad, however, convinced that he could not secure Morgan, contented himself with obtaining a promise that he should be detained in prison in France, but Aumale nevertheless attacked the envoy near Amiens, and inflicted on him a severe beating as an answer to his demand for the extradition of a catholic from France.

Waad also became involved in the ongoing issue of Mary, the former Queen of Scotland, being in England as a focus of Catholic plots:

He was back in England on 12 April, and with his return diplomatic relations between England and Spain ceased. In the same month Waad was sent to Mary Stuart to induce her to come to terns with Elizabeth, and his account of the interview is printed by Froude (Hist. xi. 448-51). In February 1584-5 he was appointed to accompany Nau to the court of James VI, but was stopped at the last minute (Cal. State Papers, Simancas, 1580-6, p. 533). . . .

In August 1585 Waad accompanied William Davison [q. v.] to the Low Countries to negotiate an alliance with the States-General. A year later he took a prominent part in arranging the seizure of Mary Stuart’s papers which implicated her in the Babington plot. He himself went down to Chartley in August 1586, and, while Mary was decoyed away on a hunting expedition, arrested her secretaries Nau and Curle, and having ransacked her cabinent [sic] , carried back a valuable collection of papers to London (ib. 1580-6, pp. 625-6; Amyas Poulet, Letter-Books, pp. 288 sqq.; Froude, xii. 160 sqq.) For this important service he was paid thirty pounds (Acts P. C. 1586-7, p. 211). In the following February he was again sent to France to explain the execution of Mary Stuart, to demand the recall of De l’Aubespine, the French ambassador, on the ground of his dependence on the league and complicity in Stafford’s plot [see Stafford, William, 1554-1612], and to justify Elizabeth’s detention of French shipping. For some time he was denied audience, the recall of the French ambassador was refused, but more success attended his endeavour to arrange the dispute about detention of French shipping in England and English shipping in France (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 1581-91, pp. 475, 477, 483, 492, 517, 527, 533). He returned to England in June.

That was the end of Waad's diplomatic career. He became a member of Parliament but:

He was, however, mainly occupied with his duties as clerk of the privy council, and especially in tracking treasonable practices and examining jesuits [sic] and recusants. His zeal in these pursuits gained him the reputation of being the chief persecutor of the catholics [sic] (ib. Dom. 1601-1603, p. 199; cf. Lansd, MSS. 63, 66, 145, 148, 153; Law, The Archpriest Controversy, i. 84, 85, 155, 208, 212, 215, 226; Foley, Records, vol. iv. passim). As early as September 1584 he had, when Walsingham’s secretary, gained great credit by piecing together and deciphering the fragments of the treasonable document which Father William Crichton [q. v.] had torn up on his capture; a portrait of Waad thus engaged is given in Bishop Carleton’s ‘Thankfull Remembrance,’ 1624 (the story, sometimes described as ridiculous, is undoubtedly true; see Mr. T. G. Law in English Hist. Review, viii. 698). From this time Waad was frequently engaged in bringing to light plots against the queen’s life among them being that of Dr. Roderigo Lopez [q. v.] in 1594, of which Waad drew up a narrative, extant at the record office (State Papers, Dom. Vol. ccxlviii. art. 7), and Essex’s rebellion in 1601 (see Carleton, Thankfull Remembrance; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1591-1603, passim).

Waad continued in royal service during the reign of James I and was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London at least by 1605 because he questioned those accused in the Gunpowder Plot, including Guy Fawkes and Thomas Wintour. He was also involved in the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh and supervised the imprisonment of Lady Arbella Stuart.

Waad was removed from his post at the Tower in 1613, evidently through the efforts of Frances Howard, the Countess of Somerset, so she could arrange the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, who had been arrested through the efforts of Robert Carr, the Earl of Somerset (King James I's favorite). Waad was too good a Lieutenant to let poisoned tarts pass into Overbury's cell. The Lieutenant of the Tower who replaced him, Sir Gervase Helwys, would be found guilty of being an accessory to Overbury's murder and was executed on Tower Hill on November 20, 1615. Frances Howard pled guilty to the murder and was sentenced to death, but King James commuted her sentence--and Robert Carr's--to imprisonment in the Tower and exile from Court. 

Waad had retired from public life and died in his bed at home, Battles Hall in Manuden, Essex on October 21, 1623 and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's the Virgin in Manuden, with a memorial in the church.

This Morning: Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Matt Swaim and I will discuss Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

You may have noticed that in my preview I emphasized that we were already moving on to another reign. There were just four martyrs among the 40 Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales who suffered during the reign of King James I--there are also several beatified martyrs--while half of the 40 canonized martyrs suffered execution (or in one case, death in prison under sentence of death) during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Why did Elizabeth I's regime condemn more Catholics--clerics and laity--to death for their religious beliefs? Why did James I's regime condemn fewer Catholic priests and even fewer Catholic laymen  (and no Catholic laywomen) to death for their religious beliefs? Why did the same pattern hold during the reign of Charles I?

Both monarchs feared plots against their reigns and their lives, but James I sought conciliation and peace with England's enemies, Spain, France, the Holy Roman Empire, while Elizabeth I, although she eschewed outright war most of the time because it was too expensive, maintained a combative posture against them and reached out more to the Protestant leadership on the Continent.

King James I negotiated marriage treaties for his son Charles with both Spain and France, and promised some leniency to Catholics in those treaties. He thought that making martyrs, using prison, torture, and execution to punish religious dissidents, was a sign of a weak and ineffective church. (He also maintained relationships with Protestant rulers and nations, marrying his eldest Elizabeth to Frederick V Elector Palatine, leader of the Protestant Union among the electors of the Holy Roman Emperor.)

You might say that Elizabeth I was more insular, emphasizing and even trying to extend the distance between England and the Continent, while James I wanted to reach out to the Continent and bring England and Scotland back in the European community--but both were seeking security and safety for their kingdoms and their reigns.

And Charles I, not only being married to a Catholic queen but loving her and wanting her happiness, was also reluctant to make Catholic martyrs. Today's martyr, Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ, was arrested, tried, and convicted far away from London--not transported across England to be questioned and tortured and then brought back to Lancaster for execution. 

The monarchy during the reign of Charles I--and the Stuart doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings--may have been in more danger from Parliament than it was from the Catholic Church and her allies in Europe. 

Throughout all three reigns, however, the common issue was the role of the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. As European rulers in the sixteenth and seventeenth century seemed to agree, that left no room for religious dissent and secular loyalty.

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, pray for us!

Image Credit: Elizabeth receiving Dutch ambassadors, 1560s, attributed to Levina Teerlinc (public domain)
Image Credit: Henrietta Maria and King Charles I with Charles, Prince of Wales, and Princess Mary, painted by Anthony van Dyck, 1633. The greyhound symbolises the marital fidelity between Charles and Henrietta Maria (public domain)

The Decollation of Sir Walter Raleigh

The History website tells us why Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded on October 29, 1618:

He was a celebrated soldier, a hero on land and sea. He was responsible for the first ever English colonies in the New World. And he wrote poetry that ranks with some of the finest in early modern England. Yet at the age of 54 Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for treason. What caused the downfall of this beloved Renaissance courtier?

For a court favorite, Raleigh actually spent quite a bit of his life locked up in the Tower of London. The first time, in 1592, it was because he’d secretly married his lover, Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Throckmorton, a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I. Bess was already pregnant, which explained both the marriage and the secrecy. Enraged by their plotting behind her back, Elizabeth dismissed Bess and imprisoned both of them in the Tower.

Raleigh did regain the Queen's favor eventually and then explored the New World, founding the Roanoke colony in Virginia, and returning from El Dorado (Guyana) promising more gold every time he visited.

While he remained in Elizabeth’s favor until her death, James VI’s of Scotland’s accession to the English throne as James I meant that Raleigh’s fortunes plummeted. This was largely because James was attempting a diplomatic rapprochement with Spain, England’s longstanding enemy, against whom Raleigh had been a formidable foe. England’s funds were depleted by their endless struggles against Spain’s richer, mightier forces, so James decided it was time to end the rivalry. . . .

So Raleigh was tried in a sham trial--never allowed to face his accuser and question him--and imprisoned again:

But James, in his determination to get on Spain’s good side, locked up Raleigh once again in the Tower—this time for 13 years. . . .

It was likely Raleigh’s promises of gold that got him released from prison before his sentence could be carried out: in 1617 he was pardoned so that he could once again travel to Guyana in search of El Dorado. But that quest would ultimately prove fatal: during the expedition a detachment of Raleigh’s men (against his orders) attacked a Spanish outpost, an action that directly contravened the conditions of his pardon.

Because Raleigh's men, led by Lawrence Keymis, had violated the 1604 Treaty of London, the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar, demanded Raleigh's execution (Keymis having committed suicide--Raleigh's namesake eldest son had died in the attack) and James I complied. Raleigh was executed at Whitechapel in London.

In addition to being an explorer, soldier, and courtier, Raleigh was a poet:

WHAT is our life? The play of passion.

Our mirth? The music of division:

Our mothers’ wombs the tiring-houses be,

Where we are dressed for life’s short comedy.

The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,

Who sits and views whosoe’er doth act amiss.

The graves which hide us from the scorching sun

Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.

Thus playing post we to our latest rest,

And then we die in earnest, not in jest.

He also wrote The History of the World, in which he was rather critical of Henry VIII:

NOW for King Henry VIII. If all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were lost in the world, they might all again be painted to the life out of the story of this king. For how many servants did he advance in haste (but for what virtue no man could suspect), and with the change of his fancy ruined again; no man knowing for what offence! To how many others of more desert gave he abundant flowers from whence to gather honey, and in the end of harvest burnt them in the hive! How many wives did he cut off and cast off, as his fancy and affection changed! How many princes of the blood (whereof some of them for age could hardly crawl towards the block), with a world of others of all degrees (of whom our common chronicles have kept the account), did he execute! Yea, in his very deathbed, and when he was at the point to have given his account to God for the abundance of blood already spilt, he imprisoned the Duke of Norfolk the father, and executed the Earl of Surrey the son; the one, whose deservings he knew not how to value, having never omitted anything that concerned his own honour and the king’s service; the other, never having committed anything worthy of his least displeasure: the one exceeding valiant and advised; the other no less valiant than learned, and of excellent hope. But besides the sorrows which he heaped upon the fatherless and widows at home, and besides the vain enterprises abroad, wherein it is thought that he consumed more treasure than all our victorious kings did in their several conquests; what causeless and cruel wars did he make upon his own nephew King James the Fifth! What laws and wills did he devise, to establish this kingdom in his own issues! using his sharpest weapons to cut off and cut down those branches, which sprang from the same root that himself did. And in the end (notwithstanding these his so many irreligious provisions) it pleased God to take away all his own, without increase; though, for themselves in their several kinds, all princes of eminent virtue.

April 11: A Decollation, A Burning, and A Coronation

On April 11, 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger was executed on Tower Hill for leading his eponymous rebellion against Mary I. I have to post on this event for three reasons: using the words "eponymous" and "decollation" and using this great profile portrait.

The Wyatt Rebellion, as this site notes, failed completely:

The plan itself involved too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ if it was to succeed. The noble conspirators planned to remove Mary, instate Elizabeth as Queen and arrange for her to marry Edward Courtenay – a man Mary had already rejected as a husband. [It sounds like the Gunpowder Plot!]

The plan was for three rebellions to take place in separate parts of the country. They would occur at the same time – in the Midlands, the West Country and Kent. The plan was that the government would not know which one to put down first and each would blossom as a result of their localised success and attract more and more supporters among the common people.

The French Navy would blockade the English Channel with eighty ships so that the Habsburgs would not be able to help Mary.

The plan failed miserably. The Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard, had heard rumours that such a plot existed and informed the Lord Chancellor, Stephen Gardner [sic], of his concerns. Gardner brought in Courtenay for questioning as Renard had mentioned his name. The records stated that Gardner’s questioning was ‘robust’ and Courtenay was not a man who could stand up to this. Edward Courtenay told Gardner all that he knew about the plot so that the government knew about the plot even before it had begun – even if Courtenay would not have known about the details.

The ‘uprisings’ in the Midlands and the West Country were a failure as few of the people there gave Carew and the Duke of Suffolk the support they needed for success. It seems that though there was concern about Mary marrying a foreigner, loyalty to the Queen took precedence. Those in the Midlands did not want to commit treason (Suffolk raised a force of just 140 men) while many in the West were Catholic. . . .

Only two of the leaders were executed for their treason – Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk. Other minor nobles were also executed but some – guilty of treason – were spared. In total about 90 rebels were executed but many of the common people who had joined Wyatt and survived were spared. Two other casualties were Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guildford Dudley. Both had been in prison since the failed attempt to put Lady Jane on the throne and had nothing to do with Wyatt’s rebellion. However Mary felt that she could no longer risk anyone rallying to Lady Jane’s cause – hence her execution – especially as her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had been involved in this plot and had been executed for treason.

I find it interesting that the website does not mention that Queen Mary had rallied her people to defend her and their city. Even John Foxe, who had no reason to present Mary in a good light, recounted her bravery, her devotion, and her resolve in her speech at Guildhall:

I am your Queen, to whom at my coronation, when I was wedded to the realm and laws of the same (the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger, which never hitherto was, not hereafter shall be, left off), you promised your allegiance and obedience to me…. And I say to you, on the word of a Prince, I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth the child, for I was never the mother of any; but certainly, if a Prince and Governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love the child, then assure yourselves that I, being your lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you. And I, thus loving you, cannot but think that ye as heartily and faithfully love me; and then I doubt not but we shall give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow.

Some details about Wyatt's execution for treason; although he was beheaded and therefore did not endure the full agony of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, his remains were eviscerated and quartered as a the body of a traitor would be:

After he was beheaded, his body was subjected to all the barbarities that formed part of punishment for treason. Next day his head was hung to a gallows on ‘Hay Hill beside Hyde Park,’ and subsequently his limbs were distributed among gibbets in various quarters of the town (Machyn, Diary, p. 60). His head was stolen on 17 April.

On April 11, 1612 the last execution for heresy took place in England, during the reign of James I. Edward Wightman was actually burned at the stake twice:

Wightman seems to have denied the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that Jesus Christ was God, denied the Resurrection and the legitimacy of Holy Communion and maintained that he himself was both the Holy Spirit and, though not himself divine, the Messiah appointed by God as the saviour of the world. From a modern perspective it seems clear that he had gone completely insane.

Wightman was eventually put on trial in the diocesan court in Lichfield, which in December pronounced him guilty of blasphemy and of promoting the heresies of figures ranging from Simon Magus to the Arians, the Manicheans and the Anabaptists. He was sent to the stake in the square in Lichfield in March 1612. When the flames began to scorch him he cried out in pain and it was thought he wanted to recant. Some of the crowd of spectators rushed to rescue him, though getting burned themselves. He was taken back to prison to recover, but when he was brought before the court again he refused to sign a formal recantation and on Easter Saturday in April he was sent back to the stake and was this time burned to death.

Finally, on April 11, 1689, William of Orange and Mary his wife and the daughter of the overthrown and deposed James II were crowned together in Westminster Abbey. A few notes from this blog, which indicate that we don't have all the details about the regalia used at this double coronation:

As we know, Mary and William were crowned as joint-monarchs in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689. An interesting note, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who typically presides over the coronation, refused to do so because he continued to support James II. So for this coronation, the bishop of London crowned the new queen and king (things like this happened several times in the Middle Ages, but there would often be a second coronation done with the AB of Canterbury for sake of continuity and because of fears over the illegitimacy of the ceremony).  . . 

King Edward’s Chair (or St. Edward’s Chair or the Coronation Chair) has been used for the coronation of English (and British later on) since Edward II, with the exceptions of Edward V and Edward VIII, both of whom were not crowned. Oddly enough, Mary II was not crowned in the chair as well. A second chair was constructed before the coronation for Mary to sit in. . . .

For the coronation of Mary and William there is no mention of the use of St. Edward’s Crown. Instead, some of the sources state that they wore their pair of imperial state crowns. A second crown, then, was either used from a previous queen (perhaps the consort of James II?) or a new crown imperial state crown was made for one or both of the new monarchs. 

Portrait Miniatures in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Eras

Timed perfectly for the opening of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London called "Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver", The Literary Review has posted this review of a biography of Nicholas Hilliard, one of the great portrait miniaturists of the Elizabethan era:

According to Elizabeth Goldring in this engrossing biography, the earliest recorded use of the term ‘miniature’ in English literature comes in Sir Philip Sidney’s prose romance The New Arcadia, written in the early 1580s. Four ladies bathe and splash playfully in the River Ladon, personified as male, and he responds delightedly by making numerous bubbles, as if ‘he would in each of those bubbles set forth the miniature of them’. It’s a pleasing image, calling to mind the delicacy and radiance of the works of Nicholas Hilliard, the leading miniaturist (or ‘limner’) of the Elizabethan age, whom Sidney knew and with whom he discussed emerging ideas about the theory and practice of art. In some ways, a miniature had the ephemerality of a bubble, capturing an individual at a fleeting moment in time, often recorded in an inscription noting the date and the sitter’s age. Yet it also made that moment last for posterity, as shown in this sumptuous book, where Hilliard’s subjects gaze back at us piercingly from many of the 250 colour illustrations.

Miniatures were often referred to as ‘jewels’, a term that captures their glittering beauty and the way that they were worn on the body, often in cases embellished with gemstones. Within the pictures also, Hilliard paid minute attention to costumes and jewellery, developing a new technique of simulating gems by ‘laying a ground of real silver, burnishing it to a shine, and then, with a heated needle, modelling the jewel out of stained resin’. Magnified images illustrate this in astonishing detail. Goldring also provides fascinating information about Hilliard’s techniques: playing cards were used as backing for miniatures; pigments were often mixed in mussel shells; paint was applied with a fine brush made of squirrel hair; silver was treated with garlic juice to guard it against tarnishing. . . .

Read the rest here.

Of Isaac Oliver, the NPG website offers this note:

Oliver was born in Rouen and came to England with his family as a Huguenot refugee. He learnt the art of miniature painting from Nicholas Hilliard but unlike Hilliard, and as a result of his understanding of continental art, he used light and shade (chiaroscuro) to develop a softer, more illusionistic style. Oliver was appointed miniaturist to Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, and later to their eldest son Henry, Prince of Wales.

Blessed Thomas Tunstall, OSB

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Blessed Thomas Tunstall, OSB, who was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929, was:

Martyred at Norwich, 13 July, 1616. He was descended from the Tunstalls of Thurland, an ancient Lancashire family who afterwards settled in Yorkshire. In the Douay Diaries he is called by the alias of Helmes and is described as Carleolensis, that is, born within the ancient Diocese of Carlisle. He took the College oath at Douay on 24 May, 1607; received minor orders at Arras, 13 June, 1609, and the subdiaconate at Douay on 24 June following. The diary does not record his ordination to the diaconate or priesthood, but he left the college as a priest on 17 August, 1610. On reaching England he was almost immediately apprehended and spent four or five years in various prisons till he succeeded in escaping from Wisbech Castle. He made his way to a friend's house near Lynn, where is was recaptured and committed to Norwich Gaol. At the next assizes he was tried and condemned (12 July, 1616). The saintliness of his demeanor on the scaffold produced a profound impression on the people. There is a contemporary portrait of the martyr at Stonyhurst, showing him as a man still young with abundant black hair and dark moustache.

Two years ago, the Catholic diocese of East Anglia celebrated the 400th anniversary of his execution, and provides this detail (with a variation in the date of his execution):

He made his way to a safe house in King's Lynn but had injured his hand during his escape and, when he looked for medical help, was re-captured and taken to Norwich Castle.

On July 12, 1616, Thomas was tried and condemned as a Catholic priest and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered just outside of the city's Magdalen Gate where, today, Magpie Road meets Bull Close Road. A later record of the execution says that this young man, with his abundant black hair and moustache, showed more than natural courage as he prayed for his accuser and thanked him for being instrumental in his death.

Image credit: A mid-19th-century engraving of Norwich Castle (where Blessed Thomas Tunstall was imprisoned) from Charles Knight's Old England: A Pictorial Museum (1845).

Fourteen Years in Northumberland

The Royal English College of Valladolid has this brief notice on today's martyr:

BLESSED William SOUTHERNE was born in Ketton, near Darlington, in the County of Durham; he was seminarian in Douai, and after later the College of St. Alban in VALLADOLID, where he was ordained a priest. For fourteen years he worked for the re-conversion of the English, mainly in Northumberland. Condemned for being a priest, he was stripped, hung (sic), drawn and quartered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 30th of April 1618. Pope John Paul II beatified him, on the 22nd of November 1987.

The Catholic Encyclopedia adds this detail: 

He was arrested while saying Mass, and committed by a neighboring justice to Stafford gaol. He was immediately sentenced to death for being a priest and refusing to take the oath of allegiance; he remained in prison for six days after condemnation, no hangman being forthcoming.

Blessed William Southerne served the underground Catholic community for fourteen (14) years! That means 14 years of hiding, walking or riding from safe house to safe house, saying Mass, hearing Confessions, baptizing newborns, always on the run, and finally captured.

The fact that he was mostly in Northumberland makes sense, since it was, during Elizabeth I's reign and well into James I's, a strongly recusant area. According to this history, published by the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the Catholic community did not suffer as much as could be expected after the Gunpowder Plot was discovered and the penal/recusant laws strengthened  :

However, in the rural heartland of the north it would seem that the laws were rarely enforced. None of the 33 Northumbrian Catholics, many of them well‐known, summonsed between 1614 and 1617 to the court of the Ecclesiastical High Commission sitting at Durham ever bothered to present themselves. Indeed, we can go further and say that a biblical astuteness (which included the right marriage alliances) along with remoteness from central government and a closeness to those who counted in local government, allowed the Catholic gentry to live in a style to which they long had been accustomed, not only possessing vast estates, but also having the means to improve them. 

Of the then leading 18 Northumberland families 12 were Catholic, including the Radcliffes at Dilston and their relatives the Widdringtons of Cartington. Both incurred considerable expense improving their properties during these years, Francis Radcliffe audaciously providing even a separate (and therefore public) chapel in 1615/6. It is said that half of the Northumbrian recusants during James' reign lived in this southern part of Tynedale. 

But James' reign also witnessed a falling away of many wealthy Catholics, some of them certainly to prevent the loss of their property. Nevertheless, many remained Catholic at heart, despite their return to politics at national and local level. Sometimes they took steps to see that their children were brought up in the Faith. The pro‐Catholic Howard’s though mainly courtiers, acquired estates in Northumberland where the number of recusants increased from 150 to 358 during the years 1600‐ 1620. Similar increases were observed in Durham.

However, despite this resurgence, Catholics remained a tiny minority, less than 2% of the total population of the two counties. Demographically they tended to group into pockets away from the towns, where the gentry could provide not only protection but also, in the absence of bishops, spiritual leadership. From Cleveland to Northumberland Catholic gentlemen helped to organise Mass centres. The priests themselves, tired of constant harassment as they moved from place to place, also gravitated to the rural retreats of the gentry to act as their chaplains. By way of exception the more populated region of Tyneside also possessed Mass centres about this time. Dorothy Lawson's new house of 1632 at St Anthony's was built to accommodate more than one priest. Some years later Gateshead House, the new home of the Riddells on the site of the medieval chapel of St Edmund in Gateshead High Street also housed priests. The same can be said of the area around and including Durham city. 

Though King James must take some responsibility for the on‐going persecution of Catholics, he continued to stop short of the death penalty, if only to further his plans for marriage alliances with the two great Catholic countries of Spain and France. When in 1618 the priest William Southerne who had been working in Newcastle from a room (which doubled up as a chapel) on the upper floor of a house on the quayside was tried and summarily executed, it was done on the orders of the anti‐ Catholic Lord Sheffield, president of the council of the North whom the king swiftly dismissed from this high office.

According to his DNB entry, Lord Edmund Sheffield did indeed James I's displeasure, who was in the midst of negotiations with Spain:

On 21 April 1593 Sheffield was elected a knight of the Garter (Doyle). About 1594 he was a candidate for the wardenship of the west marches, and in 1595 he applied to Cecil for the post of lord president of the north. Suspicions of his religion caused by the fact that he had married a catholic were said to be the cause of his ill-success (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90 p. 145, 1595–7 p. 140, 1580–1625 p. 365). Yet he seems to have been suspected very unjustly, and a letter from the north in 1599 praises his zeal in apprehending priests. ‘He will undertake any service against the papists, for God hath called him to a very zealous profession of religion’ (Cartwright, Chapters of Yorkshire History, p. 174; cf. Laughton, i. 66). On 13 Jan. 1598–9 Sheffield was appointed governor of Brill (Collins, Sidney Papers, ii. 71–80; Egerton Papers, p. 270).

Under James I he obtained the object of his ambition, and became lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire (1 Aug. 1603) and president of the council of the north (19 Sept. 1603). These two posts he held till 1619, when he resigned his presidency to Lord Scrope. This resignation was probably not a voluntary one, for Sheffield having executed a catholic priest without the king's leave, James promised the Spanish ambassador that he should be removed (Doyle, ii. 541; Gardiner, History of England, iii. 137; Court and Times of James I, ii. 136). An accusation of arbitrary conduct was also brought against him, but without result (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, pp. 24, 531, 577).

Sheffield's first wife was Ursula Tyrwhitt, daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, whom the History of Parliament describes as a "lifelong Catholic":

Under Elizabeth, although adjudged a ‘hinderer of the true religion’, Tyrwhitt was retained on the bench at least until 1579. Whether it was he or his uncle who led 237 followers against the northern rebels of 1569 is not known. It was only towards the end of his life that he and his children were harried for their recusancy. He himself had a spell in the Fleet, where in September 1580 he was allowed his wife’s company and access to the gardens for his health, and when he died on 16 Nov. 1581 two of his sons were released from prison to attend the funeral. Yet the will which he made five days before his death shows that recusancy had not impoverished him.

Ursula received a bequest from her father, knowing that he had suffered for the faith while her husband was prosecuting Catholics!

 

Blessed William Southerne, pray for us!

Blessed Robert Drury, An Appellant Martyr

Blessed Robert Drury was born in Buckinghamshire in about 1567. He studied at the English College, Rheims, France in 1588, and the English College, Valladolid, Spain in 1590. Ordained at Valladolid in 1593. Returned to England in 1593 to minister to covert Catholics around London, England. He was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth, but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. When James I came to the throne, the king required them to sign a new oath which acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused, and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England. He is one of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1987.

Blessed Robert Drury attempted to appease Queen Elizabeth and her government as one of the Appellants. Two of the 13 who signed the Protestation of Allegiance would be executed during the reign of James I of England: today's martyr and Blessed Roger Cadwallador (in 1610 on August 27). The Appellants opposed the Jesuit methods of leading the Catholic mission to England and attempted to compromise, pleading a divided but honest loyalty--secular loyalty to Elizabeth's authority as the Queen of England; religious loyalty to Papal authority as the successor to St. Peter. The Appellants also opposed the authority and methods of the Archpriest George Blackwell, whom they thought favored the Jesuit approach. The Jesuit approach, articulated by Father Robert Parsons, was uncompromising: total loyalty to the Roman Pontiff and absolute refusal to adopt public acceptance of the Church of England while remaining privately opposed. The Jesuits would not tolerate Church Papists who attended Anglican services to avoid the fines and imprisonments, for example. The Elizabethan regime took advantage of these disagreements to encourage division among Catholics in England.

Even if Elizabeth I had accepted their appeal for relief to her Catholic subjects, the succession of James VI of Scotland ended this attempt--because he would not compromise, either. He demanded that the Appellants accept his authority over both religious and secular matters with the Oath of Allegiance. Members of the Appellant party were divided over whether they could take James I's new oath. Drury and Cadwallador were arrested and refused to take the oath.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Blessed (then Venerable) Robert Drury:

The results of the address were disappointing; Elizabeth died within three months of its signature, and James I soon proved that he would not be satisfied with any purely civil allegiance. He thirsted for spiritual authority, and, with the assistance of an apostate Jesuit, a new oath of allegiance was drawn up, which in its subtlety was designed to trouble the conscience of Catholics and divide them on the lawfulness of taking it. It was imposed 5 July, 1606, and about this time Drury was arrested. He was condemned for his priesthood, but was offered his life if he would take the new oath. A letter from Father Persons, S.J., against its lawfulness was found on him. The oath declared that the "damnable doctrine" of the deposing power was "impious and heretical", and it was condemned by Pope Paul V, 22 September, 1606, "as containing many things contrary to the Faith and Salvation". This brief, however, was suppressed by the archpriest, and Drury probably did not know of it. But he felt that his conscience would not permit him to take the oath, and he died a martyr at Tyburn, 26 February, 1606-7. A curious contemporary account of his martyrdom, entitled "A true Report of the Arraignment . . . of a Popish Priest named Robert Drewrie" (London, 1607), which has been reprinted in the "Harleian Miscellany", calls him a Benedictine, and says he wore his monastic habitat the execution. But this "habit" as described proves to be the cassock and cap work by the secular clergy. The writer adds, "There were certain papers shown at Tyburn which had been found about him, of a very dangerous and traitorous nature, and among them also was his Benedictine faculty under seal, expressing what power and authority he had from the pope to make men, women, and children here of his order; what indulgence and pardons he could grant them", etc. He may have been a confrater or oblate of the order.

The Gunpowder Plot Blows Up Again

BBC One will broadcast a miniseries about the Gunpowder Plot this fall. The cast announced so far is Kit Harington as Robert Catesby, Liv Tyler as Anne Vaux, and Tom Collin as Guy Fawkes. No word yet on who will play Fathers Henry Garnett and John Gerard.

The actor Kit Harington says that he is related on his mother's side to Robert Catesby, according to this article:

In 2016, Harington revealed that he was a direct descendant of Robert Catesby on his mother's side — and that the Catesby and Harington families had previously had a humorous interaction years (sic) before Kit's parents were ever even born.

"When (Catesby's) head was marched past the houses of Parliament on a pike, John Harington on my father's side, who was in the houses of Parliament at the time, looked at him and is quoted as saying, 'He's an ugly fellow, isn't he?" Harington said on The Andrew Marr Show in 2016. "Isn't that brilliant?"

Instead of "years", perhaps the word "centuries" would be more appropriate.

Harington is referring to his ancestor Sir John Harington, who was a courtier in both Elizabeth I's and James I's reigns. According to History Today he was:

A witty and erudite figure at the court of Elizabeth I, John Harington is now remembered mainly for two things. One is his cynical epigram on treason: ‘Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’ The other is his invention of the flush water closet. He installed one at his country house at Kelston, near Bath in Somerset, and described it in a Rabelaisian manner in his A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax of 1596. Ajax was a pun on ‘jakes’, which was slang for a privy, where people could simply use a bucket. Wealthy households might have a close-stool, which had a padded seat with a metal or porcelain container beneath it that still had to be emptied.

Harington’s device emptied itself. It had a pan with a seat and water was pumped up into a cistern above. When a handle on the seat was turned, the water swept the pan’s contents into a cesspool underneath. There was a picture of it in his book and he proclaimed that it ‘would make unsavoury Places sweet, noisome Places wholesome and filthy Places cleanly’. He installed one for Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace. She does not seem to have been impressed, but then like other rich people she did not have to empty her own close-stool.

More about Robert Catesby here; more about John Harington here (also from History Today).

Happy Birthday, Sir Kenelm Digby!

Kenelm Digby, Catholic convert and son of one of the Gunpowder plotters, was born on July 11, 1603--almost three years before his father's execution. From Cambridge University:

A dark shadow lay over his family name when, aged 24, Sir Kenelm Digby raised a fleet to sail against the enemy French in the multicultural world of the Mediterranean. In his new book, Joe Moshenska (Faculty of English) looks at the intellectual, political and culinary life of a man driven by a thirst for knowledge. . . .

Sailing south in January 1628, Digby left behind a beloved wife and two sons, the youngest just a few weeks old. He was a man on the make. Despite being well-connected and highly educated, he had a black mark against his name. His father, Everard Digby, had been hung for treason against the crown. Revealed to be a co-conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, Everard was subjected to the most grisly of executions. In front of approving crowds, his heart was ripped out and his genitals sliced off.

Everard Digby maintained his dignity right up to the moment he lost consciousness. He professed that he “deserved the vilest death” and made an impassioned plea that wife and sons not be punished for his crime. Everard’s fortitude became legendary but his family lived with a sense of disgrace. The blood stain in the title of Moshenska’s book is a reference to a wound cut deep into a man with an extraordinary thirst for knowledge and experiences.

Seventeenth century England was layered in complexity. Raised as a gentleman and a Roman Catholic in a country that had officially broken its ties with Rome, Kenelm Digby learned early on to tread a delicate line between faith, politics and expediency. As a practising Catholic student at Oxford, he was unable to “weare a gowne” (matriculate) and each November endured the bonfire celebrations that reminded him of his father’s death. But Digby had friends in high places and the means to travel.

Trips to Europe, the first when he was aged just 14, helped Digby to develop the worldly ease and diplomatic skills so vital to him later in life. In Italy, his nimble mind won admiration in philosophical debates. In France, his handsomeness gained the (embarrassing) attention from the older and powerful Queen Regent. Visiting Spain, he socialised with the future Charles I – and became dangerously entangled in negotiations for a royal marriage bringing two disparate nations together.

The single voyage that allowed Digby to establish himself as a loyal subject was almost derailed by those who sought to discredit him as papist. The 1620s saw England engaged in an expensive war with its Roman Catholic neighbours. When he finally got the commission he sought from the king, it gave him permission to sail wherever he chose and to take as prizes any ships belonging to enemies of England. He was empowered to undertake any action “tending to the service of the realm and the increase of his knowledge”.

More about the book here; looks fascinating!

July 1 and Three Martyrs

St. Thomas More was sentenced to death on July 1, 1535. St. Oliver Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered on July 1, 1681 (please see my blog at The National Catholic Register telling his story here). And there is one more martyr, Blessed Thomas Maxwell:

A martyrdom in London during James I's reign was an event with international implications--the Spanish ambassadors were quite active around this time in pursuing pardons or even exile (knowing the priest would very likely return). 

Blessed Thomas Maxfield was born in Stafford gaol, about 1590, martyred at Tyburn, London, Monday, 1 July, 1616. He was one of the younger sons of William Macclesfield of Chesterton and Maer and Aston, Staffordshire (a firm recusant, condemned to death in 1587 for harbouring priests, one of whom was his brother Humphrey), and Ursula, daughter of Francis Roos, of Laxton, Nottinghamshire. William Macclesfield is said to have died in prison and is one of the prætermissi as William Maxfield; but, as his death occurred in 1608, this is doubtful. Thomas arrived at the English College at Douai on 16 march, 1602-3, but had to return to England 17 May, 1610, owing to ill health. In 1614 he went back to Douai, was ordained priest, and in the next year came to London. Within three months of landing he was arrested, and sent to the Gatehouse, Westminster. After about eight months' imprisonment, he tried to escape by a rope let down from the window in his cell, but was captured on reaching the ground. This was at midnight 14- 15 June, 1616. For seventy hours he was placed in the stocks in a filthy dungeon at the Gatehouse, and was then on Monday night (17 June) removed to Newgate, where he was set amongst the worst criminals, two of whom he converted. 

On Wednesday, 26 June, he was brought to the bar at the Old Bailey, and the next day was condemned solely for being a priest, under 27 Eliz., c, 2. The Spanish ambassador* did his best to obtain a pardon, or at least a reprieve; but, finding his efforts unavailing, had solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in his chapel during the martyr's last night on earth. The procession to Tyburn early on the following morning was joined by many devout Spaniards, who, in spite of insults and mockery, persisted in forming a guard of honour for the martyr. Tyburn-tree itself was found decorated with garlands, and the ground round about strewn with sweet herbs. The sheriff ordered the martyr to be cut down alive, but popular feeling was too strong, and the disemboweling did not take place till he was quite senseless. 

He was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II as one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales.

Downside Abbey, the Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch, and Holy Trinity Catholic in Staffordshire each honor his relics. See this site for a picture of an altar in Holy Trinity depicting the martyr.

*The Spanish Ambassador at that time was Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, 1st Count of Gondomar, who had succeeded in obtaining the release of Luisa de Carvajal in 1614.

The Martyr's Beads II: Blessed Thomas Atkinson

Coming the day after St. John Ogilvie's feast, and with another connection to the Rosary, I wanted to highlight Blessed Thomas Atkinson, who was executed on March 11, 1616 in York. He was 70 years old and had been serving in England as a missionary priest since 1588:

Thomas Atkinson, of Yorkshire, England, studied for the priesthood in Reims, France, where he was subsequently ordained in 1588 around the age of forty-two. Returning to England, he traveled about on foot to minister to his fellow Catholics, becoming a special friend of the poor among them. It was only after breaking a leg that the indefatigable priest resorted to traveling by horse instead. His labors in the service of persecuted Catholics became so well known that, to escape arrest by the Protestant authorities, he could only journey safely by night. In the end, he was betrayed by an informer and captured while staying at the home of a Catholic family. Then about seventy, Father Atkinson was led to prison together with the couple that had hosted him, and their children. The “incriminating evidence” found by the government officials in the priest’s possession consisted of Rosary beads and the text of an indulgence. Condemned to death by drawing and quartering, Father Atkinson is said to have faced death “with wonderful patience, courage, and constancy, and signs of great comfort.”

As Nathan Mitchell notes in The Mystery of the Rosary: Marian Devotion and the Reinvention of Catholicism, the Rosary--the beads of the Rosary--had become a marker "of recusant Catholic identity" and the beads "embodied what it meant to be a practicing Catholic in a time of religious strife and persecution." (p.5) Of course, one does not have to have a set of Rosary beans in hand to pray the Rosary and meditate on the life of Jesus and His Mother, one could use one's fingers! Father Atkinson's possession of an indulgence, which might have been--I don't find this detail in the sources I've looked--a papal document, would have been even more condemning for the court. In his book, Champions of the Rosary, Father Donald Calloway mentions that Father Atkinson was encouraging enrollment in the Confraternity of the Rosary and the the indulgence document he possessed gave details of indulgences obtained by praying the Rosary. Sources I've found also do not indicate whether or not Father Atkinson was offered James I's Oath of Allegiance.

Father Atkinson was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1987 as one of the Eight-five Martyrs of England and Wales. Obviously, as he had served his Catholic flock quietly for almost three decades he was no danger to the state. But he was captured during a period of James I's reign when fear of Catholicism was heightened and the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, was much in favor of persecuting Catholic priests. I also could not discover what happened to the family arrested with him. They may have been held in prison for some time, but James I did not want to make martyrs of lay people. Except for at the beginning of his reign in the transition from Elizabeth I, laymen or women who aided priests were not executed as often as they were during Elizabeth I's reign. They were fined and imprisoned, but not executed.

The Earl of Essex and the Gunpowder Plot

The latter years of Elizabeth I's reign were the scene of a great conflict between her last favourite, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex and her principal secretary William Cecil, Baron Burghley, ending in the former's execution on February 25, 1601.

Essex rose quickly at Court after the death of Elizabeth's long-time favourite, his step-father, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. He was about 21; she was in her early 50s. She granted him many honors and he disobeyed her direct orders many times, but it was his unfortunate performance in Ireland that got him in such trouble that he dared plot against his mentor.

He went to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, charged with putting down the revolt of the Catholic Lords of Ulster in 1599. Essex did not lead his 16,000 forces very well, and seemed more bent on developing his personal popularity by knighting many soldiers. He negotiated a truce with Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone with unfavorable terms for England. Hearing that the Queen was displeased with him Essex left his post and returned to England to make sure she heard his side of the story. He ended up in house arrest for a time and was stripped of his Court offices.

Once he was released, he hoped to be back in her good graces. Because he could not regain one of the lucrative monopolies he had formerly held, Essex panicked and led a poorly designed rebellion against Elizabeth. At his treason trial on February 19, 1601 one of the charges laid against him was that he tolerated religious dissent (i.e. Catholics) but he said that Catholics were making up evidence against him! He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

The Tudor Society provides this description of his execution and his last words:

At just before 8am on the 25th February 1601, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was brought out of the Tower of London and walked to the scaffold. He was wearing a black velvet gown, black satin doublet and breeches and a black hat, which he took off as he climbed up onto the scaffold so that he could bow to the people gathered. He then made a speech acknowledging "with thankfulness to God, that he was justly spewed out of the realm", and said:

My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world’s pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it me – most wretched of all.

After praying that God would preserve the Queen and asking the crowd to join him in prayer, he begged God to forgive his enemies. He then removed his gown and ruff and knelt at the block, looking up at the sky and saying the Lord's Prayer. After forgiving the executioner, who knelt in front of him, Essex repeated the Creed and then took off his doublet, as it was covering his neck, to display a waistcoat of scarlet, the colour of martyrs. He laid himself on the block, stretched out his arms and prayed, "Lord be merciful to Thy prostrate servant… Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." After repeating two verses of Psalm 51, he could take no more and cried out, "Executioner, strike home!". The executioner swung his axe to behead Essex, but, unfortunately, it took three blows to sever his neck. When the deed was finally done, the executioner held the head aloft, shouting, "God save the Queen!"

Re: the charges of favouring Catholics (i.e., being lenient with them): One of the Earl's main conspirators was a Catholic, Sir Christopher Blount, who was educated at Louvain by William, later Cardinal, Allen. He had been a member of the Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester's household--in spite of Leicester's staunch Calvinism--and he married Leicester's widow, the Earl of Essex's mother, Lettice Knollys Devereux Dudley, aka the Countess of Leicester, the title she kept after marrying Blount. Since Elizabeth I had never been pleased with Leicester and Lettice marrying, since he was HER Favourite, she was not happy that Lettice was happily married again. Blount would be executed on March 18, 1601.

As this website points out, however, there were several other Catholics engaged in the plot:

Amount the handful who supported Essex either openly or covertly were the seven Catholics mentioned here: Robert Catesby, Thomas Winter, John and Christopher Wright, Thomas Percy, John Grant and Francis Tresham. Robert Catesby, even though he had been previously arrested on suspicion in 1596 during an illness of Queen Elizabeth - a stomach complaint at first diagnosed as a catholic attempt to poison her - was imprisoned after being wounded during the short battle at Essex house. He was released later on payment of a fine of £3000. Francis Tresham only escaped a charge of treason by a bribe of £1000 to Lady Catherine Howard. In addition, some payment was probably given to Egerton and the Lieutenant of the Tower, Lord Thomas Howard, before the pardon could be procured. Records of Sir Thomas Tresham indicate the reverberation of Francis' incarceration. He was forced to sell a number of properties in order to come up with the £2000 fine. It has also been questioned whether he assisted in paying some of Robert Catesby's fine also. The others were fined lesser amounted depending on the degree of participation with Essex.

Those seven--and others--would then participate in the Gunpowder Plot at the beginning of James I's reign. Had the Earl of Essex promised them leniency with the Recusant Laws if his coup succeeded?