Today in Westminster: The Holy Martyrs of Douai

Today, the Diocese of Westminster, London celebrates the feast of the Douai Martyrs--that is, martyrs who studied at the English College/seminary in Douai during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--who have been beatified and canonized. From St. Cuthbert Mayne, the protomartyr, to Blessed Thomas Thwing, a Popish Plot martyr, they suffered and died for the Catholic Faith and to serve the Catholic laity starting in 1577 and ending in 1679--102 years, from the reign of Elizabeth I to the reign of Charles II!

At 10:00 a.m. British Summer Time (4:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time) St Alban & St Stephen Roman Catholic Church will livestream the Mass celebrating this feast. (The parish has a YouTube channel so you should be able to watch the Mass at a time convenient for you.)

A couple of years ago I purchased the Baronius Press version of the 1962 Roman Missal: The Daily Missal and Liturgical Missal, Summorum Pontificum edition because it includes:

• Supplement of special Masses for the Dioceses of the USA
• Supplement of special Masses for the Dioceses of England and Wales
• Supplement of special Masses for the Dioceses of Scotland
• Supplement of special Masses for the Dioceses of Australia and New Zealand

I have not used it at Mass (I am used to the Angelus Press Roman Missal) but reference it for that supplement and the many prayers it also contains. In this Missal, the Collect is:

Excite in us, O Lord, that Spirit which Thy blessed Martyrs of Douai obeyed: that we, filled with the same Spirit, may ourselves endeavour to love what they cherished, and to practice what they taught. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ . . .  Amen.

The other Propers are the same as for the Mass of the Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales on May 4, except for the Gospel, which is from the Mass of Many Martyrs, Salus Autem (Luke 12, 1-8)

Blessed Martyrs of Douai, pray for us!

Image Credit: the Colleges at Douai (the English College is on the top), Adrien de Montigny (?–1615)[2] - From Les Collèges à Douai of the Album of Duke Charles of Croy. (Public Domain)

The Martyrs of Douai

In the Diocese of Westminster, England, today is the feast of the Douai Martyrs--that is, martyrs who studied at the English College/seminary in Douai during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--who have been beatified and canonized. According to the website of the Diocese of Westminster:

The Martyrs of Douai were a group of men who trained for the priesthood at Douai College during the English Reformation and were executed on their return to England for preaching the Catholic faith. Operating as a Roman Catholic priest during the Protestant Reformation was considered high treason, with a punishment of being hanged, drawn and quartered. In total, 158 members of Douai College were martyred between the years 1577 and 1680, including St Robert Southwell and St Edmund Campion.

These men provided essential pastoral and spiritual guidance for Catholics throughout the country and administration of the sacraments. They willingly took on this mission knowing that, as soon as they stepped onto English soil, their lives would be in imminent danger. Many people risked their lives during this period to support these men by sheltering them or allowing them to celebrate Mass in their homes.

In recognition of the work of these men and the sacrifice they made, 80 alumni of Douai College were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929, their feast day is celebrated on the 29th October.

Nineteen of the 158 martyrs were canonized in 1970:

Cuthbert Mayne
Ralph Sherwin
Edmund Campion, SJ
Alexander Briant, SJ
John Payne
Luke Kirby
Eustace White
Edmund Gennings
John Boste
Robert Southwell, SJ
Henry Walpole, SJ
John Almond

Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ
Ambrose Barlow, OSB
Alban Roe, OSB
Henry Morse, SJ

John Southworth

John Wall

John Kemble

(We'll talk about Saint John Kemble, a Popish Plot martyr, on Monday, November 2 in the last installment of our series on the Son Rise Morning Show!)

St. Cuthbert Mayne was the first Englishman prepared for the priesthood at Douai and he is the protomartyr of the English seminaries established on the Continent. Born in Devonshire, he was ordained an Anglican minister but became Catholic in the early 1570's while at Oxford. He returned to England in 1575, serving in Cornwall, and was arrested a year later. One of the charges against him was that he had an Agnus Dei, an image of Jesus as the Lamb of God, blessed by the pope. He was hung, drawn and quartered in Cornwall on November 29, 1577.

Blessed Thomas Thwing, the last Douai martyr, suffered during the Popish Plot hysteria in 1680. From 1664 to 1679 he served as a missionary priest in England. He and other members of Sir Thomas Gasciogne's household, including the master, were accused of a conspiracy to kill King Charles II and brought to London for trial. The others were acquitted but he was found guilty and condemned; the King pardoned him but the House of Commons demanded his execution. Of course he was innocent of any charges of conspiracy; he was guilty of being a Catholic priest. Blessed Thomas Thwing was hanged, drawn, and quartered on October 23, 1680.

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides information about Catholic activities in Douai:

To English Catholics, the name Douai will always be bound up with the college founded by Cardinal Allen during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, where the majority of the clergy were educated in penal times, and to which the preservation of the Catholic religion in England was largely due. Several other British establishments were founded there — colleges for the Scots and the Irish, and Benedictine and Franciscan monasteries — and Douai became the chief centre for those who were exiled for the Faith. The University of Douai may be said to date from 31 July, 1559, when Philip II of Spain (in whose dominions it was then situated) obtained a Bull from Pope Paul IV, authorizing its establishment the avowed object being the preservation of the purity of the Catholic Faith from the errors of the Reformation. Paul IV died before he had promulgated the Bull, which was, however, confirmed by his successor, Pius IV, 6 January, 1560. The letters patent of Philip II, dated 19 January, 1561, authorized the establishment of a university with five faculties; theology, canon law, civil law, medicine, and arts. The formal inauguration took place 5 October, 1562, when there was a public procession of the Blessed Sacrament, and a sermon was preached in the market-place by the Bishop of Arras.

There were already a considerable number of English Catholics living at Douai, and their influence made itself felt in the new university. In its early years, several of the chief posts were held by Englishmen, mostly from Oxford. The first chancellor of the university was Dr. Richard Smith, formerly Fellow of Merton and regius professor of divinity at Oxford; the regius professor of canon law at Douai for many years was Dr. Owen Lewis, Fellow of New College, who had held the corresponding post at Oxford; the first principal of Marchiennes College was Richard White, formerly Fellow of New College; while Allen himself, after taking his licentiate at Douai in 1560, became regius professor of divinity. It is reasonable to suppose that many of the traditions of Catholic Oxford were perpetuated at Douai. The university was, however, far from being even predominantly English; it was founded on the model of that of Louvain, from which seat of learning the majority of the first professors were drawn. The two features already mentioned — that the university was founded during the progress of the Reformation, to combat the errors of Protestantism, and that it was to a considerable extent under English influences — explain the fact that William Allen, when seeking a home for a projected English college abroad, turned his eyes towards Douai. . . . His object was to gather some of the numerous body of English Catholics who, having been forced to leave England, were scattered in different countries on the Continent, and to give them facilities for continuing their studies, so that when the time came for the re-establishment of Catholicism, which Allen was always confident could not be far distant, there might be a body of learned clergy ready to return to their country. This was of course a very different thing from sending missionaries over in defiance of the law while England still remained in the hands of the Protestants. This latter plan was an afterthought and a gradual growth from the circumstances in which the college found itself, though eventually it became its chief work. . . .

Please read the rest of the article to see how the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror meant the return of the Catholic scholars, seminarians, and monks to England. The article does not mention the Carthusian house that was also dissolved during the Reign of Terror (perhaps it had few English connections since the English Carthusian exiles were first located in Bruges and finally suppressed in Nieuwpoort by Emperor Joseph II), but the Chartreuse Saints-Joseph-et-Morand is now an art museum.

Martyrs of Douai, pray for us!

Image Credit: the Colleges at Douai (the English College is on the top), Adrien de Montigny (?–1615)[2] - From Les Collèges à Douai of the Album of Duke Charles of Croy. (Public Domain)

"I die merely for the Catholic Faith", May 6, 1590

As the Catholic Encyclopedia recounts, Blessed Edward Jones was one of Richard Topcliffe's victims, enduring the torture meted out by Elizabeth I's personal pursuivant:

Blessed Edward Jones:  Priest and martyr, b. in the Diocese of St. Asaph, Wales, date unknown; d. in London, 6 May 1590. Bred an Anglican, he was received into the Church at the English College, Reims, 1587; he was ordained priest in 1588, and went to England in the same year. In 1590 he was arrested by a priest-catcher, who pretended to be a Catholic, in a shop in Fleet Street. He was imprisoned in the Tower and brutally tortured by Topcliffe, finally admitting he was a priest and had been an Anglican. These admissions were used against him at his trial, but he made a skillful and learned defense, pleading that a confession elicited under torture was not legally sufficient to ensure a conviction. The court complimented him on his courageous bearing, but of course he was convicted of high treason as a priest coming into England. On the same day he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, opposite the grocer's shop where he had been captured, in Fleet Street near the Conduit. 

Blessed Anthony Middleton: On the same day there suffered Anthony Middleton, priest and martyr, born probably at Middleton-Tyas, Yorkshire, date unknown, son of Ambrose Middleton of Barnard Castle, Durham, and Cecil, daughter of Anthony Crackenthorpe of Howgill Castle, Westmoreland. He entered the English College at Reims 9 Jan., 1582; was ordained 30 May 1586, and went to England in the same year. His work lay in London and the neighbourhood and he laboured very successfully; he was captured at a house in Clerkenwell (London) by the same artifice which was practiced on Father Jones. On the ladder he said: "I call God to witness I die merely for the Catholic Faith, and for being a priest of the true Religion"; and someone present called out, "Sir, you have spoken very well". The martyr was cut down and disemboweled while yet alive.

According to Bishop Challoner's Memoirs of the Missionary Priests, Father Middleton was executed outside the house in Clerkenwell where he had been captured. He also includes the detail that signs were affixed to their gallows reading "For Treason and Foreign Invasion", so Father Middleton's statement about the true reason for his death--and the brave response to it--contradicted the government's claim about their crimes.

They were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.

Blessed Edward Jones, pray for us!
Blessed Anthony Middleton, pray for us!

Blesseds John Slade and Bodey, Lay Martyrs

John Slade was executed on October 30 and John Bodey or Body (as Challoner names him) executed on All Souls Day, November 2, 1583 for being Catholics and not accepting Elizabeth I's Royal Supremacy over the Christian Church in England. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on their martyrdoms focuses on Blessed John Bodey:

Martyr, b. at Wells, Somerset: 1549; d. at Andover, Wilts., 2 November, 1583. He studied at Winchester and New College, Oxford, of which he became a Fellow in 1568. In June, 1576, he was deprived, with seven other Fellows, by the Visitor, Horne, Protestant Bishop of Winchester. Next year he went to Douay College to study civil law, returned to England in February, 1578, and probably married. Arrested in 1580, he was kept in iron shackles in Winchester gaol, and was condemned in April, 1583, together with John Slade, a schoolmaster, for maintaining the old religion and denying the Royal Supremacy. There was apparently a feeling that this sentence was unjust and illegal, and they were actually tried and condemned again at Andover, 19 August, 1583, on the same indictment. Bodey had a controversy with Humphreys, Dean of Winchester, on the Nicene Council, and the martyr's notes from Eusebius still exist. After his second trial, he wrote from prison to Dr. Humphrey Ely, "We consider that iron for this cause borne on earth shall surmount gold and, precious stones in Heaven. That is our mark, that is our desire. In the mean season we are threatened daily, and do look still when the hurdle shall be brought to the door. I beseech you, for God's sake, that we want not the good prayers of you all for our strength, our joy, and our perseverance unto the end. . . . From our school of patience the 16th September, 1583."

At his martyrdom, Bodey kissed the halter, saying, "O blessed chain, the sweetest chain and richest that ever came about any man's neck", and when told he died for treason, exclaimed, "You may make the hearing of a blessed Mass treason, or the saying of an Ave Maria treason . . . but I have committed no treason, although, indeed, I suffer the punishment due to treason". He exhorted the people to obey Queen Elizabeth and died saying, "Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus". His mother made a great feast upon the occasion of her son's happy death, to which she invited her neighbours, rejoicing at his death as his marriage by which his soul was happily and eternally espoused to the Lamb.

In his Memoirs of the Missionary Priests, Bishop Richard Challoner provides more background on John Slade, who had also traveled to Douai to study both civil and canon law, having been born in Dorsetshire. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered in Winchester.

John Bodey and John Slade were included in the beatifications of 1929. They are included in the list of the Martyrs of Douai, which was celebrated on October 29 in the Archdiocese of Westminster.

Catholic Martyrs Under Elizabeth I and Charles I

These two sets of priests were executed during the reigns of Elizabeth I and Charles I under the same law that made it illegal for Catholic priests to be in England:

Blessed Francis Dickinson and Blessed Miles Gerard were captured, tried, and executed together, being hung, drawn, and quartered in Rochester on April 13, 1590.

Blessed Francis Dickinson or Dickenson was born in Otley and christened at Otley Parish Church on 28th October 1564. Nothing is known of his early life, but in 1582, at the age of 17, he entered the English College in Rheims. He was ordained at Soissons on 18th March 1589 and returned to England in November of that year. He was captured along with another priest (Blessed Miles Gerard). Upon refusing to swear allegiance to the Queen Francis was sent to London and committed to Bridewell Prison. 

During this time he was tortured in an attempt to obtain a self-incriminating confession. The date and place of his trial are unknown, however, he was taken to Rochester and there hanged, drawn and quartered on 13th April 1590. Francis had been a priest for just over one year and, at the age of 25, was one of the youngest Douai martyrs. Blessed Francis is venerated at Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Church in Otley (along with another martyr from that area, Blessed Matthew Flathers).

Blessed Miles Gerard born about 1550 at Wigan; executed at Rochester 13 April, 1590. Sprung perhaps from the Gerards of Ince, he was, about 1576, tutor to the children of Squire Edward Tyldesley, at Morleys, Lancashire. Thence in 1579 he went to the seminaries of Douai and Reims, where he was ordained 7 April, 1583, and then stayed on as professor until 31 August, 1589 (O.S.), when he started for England with five companions. At Dunkirk the sailors refused to take more than two passengers; so the missioners tossed for precedence, and Gerard and Francis Dicconson, the eldest (it seems) and youngest of the party, won. Though bound for London, they were driven out of their course into Dover harbour, where they were examined and arrested on suspicion (24 November, N.S.). A contemporary newsletter says that they were wrecked, and escaped the sea only to fall into the hands of persecutors on shore, but this is not consistent with the official records. These show that the prisoners at first gave feigned names and ambiguous answers, but soon thought it better to confess all. After many tortures in the worst London prisons under the infamous Topcliffe, they were condemned as traitors, and "taken to Rochester, where they were hanged and quartered", says Father John Curry, S.J., writing shortly afterwards, "and gave a splendid testimony to the Catholic Faith". 

Blessed John Lockwood and Blessed Edmund Catherick suffered execution during the reign of Charles I:

John Lockwood, priest and martyr, born in of Sowerby, Yorkshire, about 1555 (some say 1561). He was the eldest son of Christopher Lockwood and Clare Lascelles. With their second son, Francis, he arrived at Reims on 4 November 1579, and was at once sent to Douai to study philosophy. John then entered the English College in Rome on 4 October 1595, was ordained priest on 26 January 1597, and sent back to the English mission on 20 April 1598. After suffering imprisonment he was banished in 1610. He then returned to England, was again taken and condemned to death, but reprieved.

After 44 years of hidden ministry, John was finally captured in 1642 at Wood End, Gatenby, near Thirsk, where he had been living for some years, and taken to York for trial. Because of his advanced age – he was 81 years old – he had to be held on a horse in a slow and painful journey. He was tried for being a seminary priest and condemned to death, along with a younger priest called John (Edmund) Catherick. Thinking he saw signs of faltering in the younger man, he asked to be allowed to die first. They were both hung, drawn and quartered at York on 13 April 1642, and both were beatified in 1929. They were probably executed at Knavesmire, just outside the city walls, where there is now a racecourse.

Blessed Edmund Catherick was descended from the old family of Catherick of Carlton and Stanwick, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, known for its loyalty to the Faith. Educated at Douai College, he was ordained in the same institution, and about 1635 went out to the English mission where he began his seven years' ministry which closed with his death. During this time he was known under the alias Huddleston, which was probably his mother's maiden name. Apprehended in the North Riding, near Watlas, Catherick was brought by pursuivants before Justice Dodsworth, a connection by marriage — possibly an uncle. Gillow states (IV, 310) that it was through admissions made to Dodsworth, under the guise of friendship, that Catherick was convicted. He was arraigned at York and condemned to death together with Father John Lockwood. The execution was stayed by the king for a short time, but he finally signed the warrant and it was carried out during his presence at The Manor in York. Catherick and Lockwood were dragged through the streets of York on a hurdle to the place of execution and hanged, drawn, and quartered. Catherick's head was placed on Micklegate Bar, and what fragments remained, after the hangman's butchery, were buried at Toft Green. The "body" is now at St. Gregory's Monastery, Downside, and the skull, said to have been found at Hazlewood Castle, was carefully examined by Lingard in 1845.

Note that King Charles I signed their death warrants reluctantly and witnessed their executions at York.

All four of these martyrs are listed among the Blessed Martyrs of Douai. All four were beatified in 1929. Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Blessed William Patenson, priest and martyr

According to the Tyburn Convent:

He was a native of Durham and became an alumnus and priest of Douai College during its residence at Rheims, and was sent on the English mission a year after his ordination. He came to London to seek counsel in order to rid himself of the scruples of conscience with which he was troubled. On the third Sunday in Advent, 1591, the house where he was staying was searched by constables and churchwardens and sidesmen of the Protestant Parish Church with the object of finding which of the inmates did not attend the services. Father Patenson was seized and condemned at the first session held after Christmas. The night before his execution he was put into the “condemned hole” with seven malefactors who were to suffer with him on the following day. He converted six of them and helped them to make their peace with God. The persecutors were so enraged at the profession of the Catholic Faith they made on the scaffold, and the constancy with which they accepted an ignominious death in satisfaction for their past crimes, that the Martyr was treated with more than usual barbarity.

Since execution by hanging, drawing, and quartering was already pretty barbarous, that last statement makes me wonder. He was probably fully conscious after they hanged him and the butchery afterwards must have been done as roughly as possible. Father Patenson was martyred on January 22, 1592 and beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.

Tyburn Convent updated their website in 2013.

St. Cuthbert Mayne, Protomartyr

St. Cuthbert Mayne:

Martyr, b. at Yorkston, near Barnstaple, Devonshire (baptized 20 March, 1543-4); d. at Launceston, Cornwall, 29 Nov., 1577. He was the son of William Mayne; his uncle was a schismatical priest, who had him educated at Barnstaple Grammar School, and he was ordained a Protestant minister at the age of eighteen or nineteen. He then went to Oxford, first to St. Alban's Hall, then to St. John's College, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1570. He there made the acquaintance of Blessed Edmund Campion, Gregory Martin, the controversialist, Humphrey Ely, Henry Shaw, Thomas Bramston, O.S.B., Henry Holland, Jonas Meredith, Roland Russell, and William Wiggs. The above list shows how strong a Catholic leaven was still working at Oxford. Late in 1570 a letter from Gregory Martin to Blessed Cuthbert fell into the Bishop of London's hands. He at once sent a pursuivant to arrest Blessed Cuthbert and others mentioned in the letter.

Cuthbert was in the country, and being warned by Blessed Thomas Ford, he evaded arrest by going to Cornwall, whence he arrived at Douai in 1573. Having become reconciled to the Church, he was ordained in 1575; in Feb., 1575-6 he took the degree of S.T.B. at Douai University; and on 24 April, 1576 he left for the English mission in the company of Blessed John Payne. Blessed Cuthbert took up his abode with the future confessor, Francis Tregian, of Golden, in St. Probus's parish, Cornwall. This gentleman suffered imprisonment and loss of possessions for this honour done him by our martyr. At his house our martyr was arrested 8 June, 1577, by the high sheriff, Grenville, who was knighted for the capture. He was brought to trial in September; meanwhile his imprisonment was of the harshest order. His indictment under statutes of 1 and 13 Elizabeth was under five counts: first, that he had obtained from the Roman See a "faculty", containing absolution of the queen's subjects; second, that he had published the same at Golden; third, that he had taught the ecclesiastical authority of the pope in Launceston Gaol; fourth, that he had brought into the kingdom an Agnus Dei and had delivered the same to Mr. Tregian; fifth, that he had said Mass.

As to the first and second counts, the martyr showed that the supposed "faculty" was merely a copy printed at Douai of an announcement of the Jubilee of 1575, and that its application having expired with the end of the jubilee, he certainly had not published it either at Golden or elsewhere. As to the third count, he maintained that he had said nothing definite on the subject to the three illiterate witnesses who asserted the contrary. As to the fourth count, he urged that the fact that he was wearing an Agnus Dei at the time of his arrest was no evidence that he had brought it into the kingdom or delivered it to Mr. Tregian. As to the fifth count, he contended that the finding of a Missal, a chalice, and vestments in his room did not prove that he had said Mass.

Nevertheless the jury found him guilty of high treason on all counts, and he was sentenced accordingly. His execution was delayed because one of the judges, Jeffries, altered his mind after sentence and sent a report to the Privy Council. They submitted the case to the whole Bench of Judges, which was inclined to Jeffries's view. Nevertheless, for motives of policy, the Council ordered the execution to proceed. On the night of 27 November his cell was seen by the other prisoners to be full of a strange bright light. The details of his martyrdom must be sought in the works hereinafter cited. [CAMM, Lives of the English Martyrs, II (London, 1905), 204-222, 656; POLLEN, Cardinal Allen's Briefe Historie (London, 1908), 104-110; COOPER in Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v.; CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, I; GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.; DASENT, Acts of the Privy Council (London, 1890-1907), IX, 375, 390; X, 6, 7, 85.] It is enough to say that all agree that he was insensible, or almost so, when he was disembowelled. A rough portrait of the martyr still exists; and portions of his skull are in various places, the largest being in the Carmelite Convent, Lanherne, Cornwall.

The date of his execution is variously reported on-line; some sources say November 29 and some November 30. Beatified 29 December 1886 by Pope leo XIII (cultus confirmation) and canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI (decree of martyrdom). The Catholic Parish of St. Cuthbert Mayne in Launceston, Cornwall celebrates his feast today. As one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, he shares the feast day of May 4; as one of the Douai Martyrs, he would also share that feast of October 29! Gracewing published a biography of this protomartyr in 1984.

The Martyrs of Douai in London

In the Archdiocese of Westminster in London, today is the feast of the Martyrs of Douai College which was transplanted from the Spanish Netherlands to London. According to the website for Allen Hall:

Between 1577, the date of the martyrdom of St Cuthbert Mayne, the college’s protomartyr, and 1680, the date of the execution of Thomas Thwing, the college’s last martyr, one hundred and fifty eight college members, priests and laymen, secular and religious, met with a martyr’s death.

Here is a list of the martyrs. More on the protomartyr, St. Cuthbert Mayne, here.

If all goes well, my husband and I will be in London today, riding the Chunnel from Paris!