Preview: A Priest and Layman in Warwick

Our last two martyrs were among the first of the English Reformation era in our Son Rise Morning Show series (Saints John Fisher and Thomas More). With these two martyrs, Blesseds John Sugar and Robert Grissold (Venerables at the time of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's work) we skip ahead to the beginning of the Stuart Dynasty in England. They suffered martyrdom on July 16, 1604, in Warwick.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time on Monday, July 17: 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 "The Continuity Theory" and the verse from Ephesians 2:19-20 ("You are fellow citizens with the saints . . . built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone"), Father Bowden sketches out Father Sugar's career before he became a Catholic missionary priest: he was born and raised in a Staffordshire County family, attended Merton College at the University of Oxford and left without taking a degree because he would not swear the Oath of Supremacy during Queen Elizabeth I's reign. Nevertheless, he served as a Church of England minister in his native Midland county, preaching against the Catholic Church and the Papacy.

But something changed his mind and he left England to study for the Catholic priesthood at Douai, returning to the Midlands of England in 1601 as a missionary priest. 

He and Blessed Robert Grissold, a layman, were arrested on July 8, 1603 in Warwick. Father Sugar was accused merely of being a Catholic priest present in England under the "Jesuits, etc. Act 1584", (27 Eliz. 1. c. 2) and he was found guilty after being held in prison for a year on July 14, 1604.

Father Bowden includes a couple of details from the day of Blessed John Sugar's martyrdom: he practiced some Catholic apologetics before being hanged, drawn, and quartered, asking the Church of England minister who had brought the Christian Faith to England. When the minister would not reply, he credited the successor of St. Peter, Pope Eleutherius, who sent missionaries Damianus and Fugatius to King Lucian, and said the religion practiced in England in their time "had crept in" during the reign of Henry VIII! Pope Saint Eleutherius reigned from around 174 to 189 A.D. and was one of the Greek Popes. The Venerable Bede mentions this story of an early mission to England.

Before he suffered--and he was conscious when he was disemboweled and beheaded--Blessed Father Sugar proclaimed "My true birth in this world began with the sign of the cross, and with that sign I leave it again."

Blessed Robert Grissold, or Griswold, was arrested by his cousin Clement while accompanying Father Sugar and accused of aiding a priest. He was offered clemency throughout his imprisonment from July of 1603 until July of 1604, if he would just attend a Church of England service, but he refused. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was his patron saint. 

On the day of their execution, Grissold was warned not to follow behind Father Sugar who was being dragged on a sledge through the mud. He replied "I have not thus far followed him to leave him for a little mire." Although he was usually afraid of seeing blood, he "gazed unmoved at the quartering of Ven. Sugar's body" and even dipped the noose of the rope with which he would be hanged  in the priest's blood. He gave thanks that he was to die with him.

Father Bowden titled his entry "Zeal for Martyrdom" and cited Acts 21:13 as the verse to accompany his mementoes: "For I am ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus."

Their martyrdoms must have been a remarkable scene in Warwick on July 16, 1604: a priest and a layman witnessing to the Faith so bravely and boldly. They were beatified in 1987 by Pope St. John Paul II.

Blessed John Sugar, pray for us!

Blessed Robert Grissold, pray for us!

Blessed John Sugar Image Source: shared under permission under a Creative Commons Attribution.

Blessed Robert Grissold Image Source (Public Domain).

There is a painting of Grissold standing behind Sugar on the sledge in the mud on this website. The artist is Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen (1830?-1923) aka Rebecca Dering, one of The Quartet at Baddlesley Clinton in Warwickshire. Baddlesley Clinton had been known as recusant household in the 1590's and the nineteenth century Quartet (Rebecca, her husband Marmion Edward Ferrers, Lady Georgiana Chatterton and her husband Sir William) were converts to Catholicism. 

Icons of Blesseds John Sugar and Robert Grissold are also included in the frieze behind the main altar in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Baddlesley Clinton.

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 Agnus Dei and "agni dei" in Recusant England

I've been listening to a new CD from The Sixteen and Harry Christophers: Agnus Dei. It's a compilation of performances of different settings of the Agnus Dei, The Lamb of God, part of the Ordinary of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, chanted/sung before Holy Communion:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, dona nobis pacem

(Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.)

There are 20 (twenty) settings on this CD:

1. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) (from Requiem, Op. 48) 5.16
2. Thomas Tallis (c.1505-85) (from Missa Puer natus est nobis) 8.53
3. Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) (from Missa Breve ‘La Stella’) 1.44
4. Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) (from Requiem of 1605) 3.57
5. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) (from Messa a 4 da cappella, SV 257) 2.06
6. Edmund Rubbra (1901-88) (from Missa Cantuariensis, Op. 59) 2.04
7. Orlande de Lassus (c.1532-94) (from Missa Bell’ amfritit’ altera) 4.29
8. J.S. Bach (1685-1750) (from Mass in B minor, BWV 232) 2.40
9. Duarte Lôbo (c.1565-1646) (from Missa pro defunctis a 8) 2.33
10. Bartłomiej Pękiel (fl.1633-70) (from Missa Concertata ‘La Lombardesca’) 1.47
(Conductor: Eamonn Dougan)
11. Frank Martin (1890-1974) (from Mass for Double Choir) 5.42
12. G.P. da Palestrina (1525-94) (from Missa Papae Marcelli) 3.34
13. Benjamin Britten (1913-76) (from Missa Brevis in D, Op. 63) 2.10
14. Christopher Tye (c.1505-73) (from Missa Euge bone) 6.30
15. Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) (from Missa Che fa oggi il mio sole) 4.15
16. Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) (from Mass in G, FP 89) 4.39
(Soli: Julie Cooper soprano, Kim Porter alto, Jeremy Budd tenor, Ben Davies bass)
17. John Sheppard (c.1515-58) (from Missa Cantate) 4.55
18. G.F. Handel (1685-1759) Behold, the Lamb of God (from Messiah, HWV 56) 3.13
19. Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650) (from Missa Regina caeli) 2.11
20. Samuel Barber (1910-81) [based on the famous "Adagio"] (Solo: Ruth Dean soprano) 8.29

Not only those riches, but the CD cover featuring the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb!! made this a must have for me (and I bought a copy as a gift for a dear friend's birthday last week).

But while searching for something else online, I found this article titled "The agnus dei, Catholic devotion, and confessional politics in early modern England" by Aislinn Muller, in the British Catholic History journal, published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2018. According to the abstract:

After 1571 Catholic sacred objects were outlawed in England, and the possession of such objects could be prosecuted under the statute of praemunire. Despite this prohibition sacred objects including rosaries, blessed beads, and the agnus dei (wax pendants blessed by the pope) remained a critical part of Catholic devotion. This article examines the role of the agnus dei in English Catholic communities and the unique political connotations it acquired during the reign of Elizabeth I. It assesses the uses of these sacramentals in Catholic missions to England, their reception amongst Catholics, and the political significance of the agnus dei in light of the papal excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570.

Please read the article there as allowances to share from it are limited.

You might recall that St. Cuthbert Mayne, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales and the protomartyr of the seminary priests who returned to England as missionaries after ordination on the Continent, was condemned partially because he had brought an agnus dei into England:

He was ordained in 1575 and came to England with St. John Payne (Payne and Mayne!) in 1576. When Father Cuthbert Mayne was arrested in June, 1577, authorities had some trouble in gathering evidence that corresponded with charges punishable by death:

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.

Father Mayne offered a defense for each of these counts:

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.

He was condemned in September but not executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering until November 30, 1577.

We should remember that Mr. Tregian, Sir Francis Tregian, suffered for receiving that his contact with Father Mayne and for almost receiving the agnus dei and copy of the Papal Bull:

Tregian was indicted under the Statute of Praemunire prohibiting dissemination of papal bulls. Mayne had a souvenir copy of a proclamation regarding the 1575 Holy Year dispensation, and it was supposed that he intended to give it to Tregian. Tregian was held in the Marshalsea for ten months before being returned to Cornwall for trial. At first the jury would return no verdict, but after threats from the judges a conviction was obtained.

Tregian's death sentence was remitted to imprisonment and his property confiscated. He was incarcerated at Windsor and then in various London prisons for twenty-eight years, eventually winding up at Fleet Prison, where his wife joined him. On the petition of his friends, he was released by King James I. . . .

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccati mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Sancte Cuthbert Mayne, ora pro nobis!

Blessed Philip Powell, OSB and the Last Catholic Abbot and Monk of Westminster

According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia Blessed Philip Powell (or Powel), beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929, was born

at Tralon, Brecknockshire, 2 Feb., 1594; d. at Tyburn 30 June, 1646. He was the son of Roger and Catherine Powel, and was brought up to the law by David Baker, afterwards Dom Augustine Baker, O.S.B. At the age of sixteen he became a student in the Temple, London, but went to Douai three or four years later, where he received the Benedictine habit in the monastery of St. Gregory (now Downside Abbey, Bath). In 1618 he was ordained priest and in 1622 left Douai for the English mission. About 1624 he went to reside with Mr. Poyntz of Leighland, Somersetshire, but, when the Civil War broke out, in 1645, retired to Devonshire, where he stayed for a few months with Mr. John Trevelyan of Yarnscombe and then with Mr. John Coffin of Parkham. He afterwards served for six months as chaplain to the Catholic soldiers in General Goring's army in Cornwall, and, when that force was disbanded, took ship for South Wales. The vessel was captured on 22 February, 1646; Father Powel was recognized and denounced as a priest. On 11 May he was ordered to London by the Earl of Warwick, and confined in St. Catherine's Gaol, Southwark, where the harsh treatment he received brought on a severe attack of pleurisy. His trial, which had been fixed for 30 May, did not take place till 9 June, at Westminster Hall. He was found gulity and was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. At the instance of the Common Council of London the head and quarters were not exposed, but were buried in the old churchyard at Moorfields. The martyr's crucifix, which had formerly belonged to Feckenham, last Abbot of Westminster, is preserved at Downside, with some of his hair and a cloth stained with his blood.

Allow me to point out two interesting connections: one to the past of the Benedictine order in England, its brief restoration during the reign of Mary I and one to its survival in England after the accession of Elizabeth I and its second dissolution.

The first is between Blessed Philip Powell and John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, through his crucifix, which in 1913 at least was held at Downside Abbey (a search of their website yielded no results). Dom David Knowles profiled Feckenham in his book Saints and Scholars, "His mind moved in terms of practical concessions and adjustments; he had neither [Reginald] Pole's forward-looking zeal for reform, not the unworldly, single-minded missionary devotion of a Campion . . . Seen in the whole picture of his life, however, and as a man of his generation, he appears an admirable and sympathetic figure if not wholly an heroic one." As British History Online notes:

On the revival of the "old religion," under Queen Mary, John Feckenham, late Dean of St. Paul's, was appointed Abbot of Westminster and Chaplain to her Majesty, and, with fourteen monks, took possession of the Abbey. Malcolm quotes a few lines from a proclamation issued in 1553, to show the probable state in which Feckenham found the Abbey. Speaking of the churches—"especially within the cittie of London, irreverently used, and by divers insolent rashe persones sundrie waies abused, soe farre forth, that many quarreles, riottes, frayes, and bloudshedinges have been made in some of the said churches, besides shotinge of hand-gonnes to doves, and the com'on bringinge of horses and mules into and throughe the said churches." He was indefatigable in restoring the building to its former state, and Mary, with great zeal, collected into it as many as she could of the rich habits and other insignia of its former splendid worship; but the death of his royal mistress put an end to his exertions, and his authority as abbot ceased on the 12th of July, 1559.

At the death of Queen Mary, Feckenham carefully removed from the Abbey the "relic of the true cross," which had been exposed there to the veneration of the faithful for centuries. It was carefully secreted during nearly two centuries, and found in 1822, in a box along with some antique vestments, at the house of a Roman Catholic gentleman in Holborn—Mr. Langdale**. Having been duly authenticated, it was removed to the Benedictine College of St. Gregory, at Downside, near Bath, where it is still kept. It may be added that this particular relic is minutely described in the Chevalier Fleury's work on "Relics of the True Cross." [I'm not confusing Abbot Feckenham's crucifix with this relic of the true cross!]

**Mr. Langdale's distillery and warehouse were destroyed on June 7, 1780 during the Gordon Riots!

More on Abbot John Feckenham here, who died on October 16, 1585 in Wisbech Castle, after years of imprisonment in the Tower of London and house arrest. Westminster Abbey has this sad statement about him: "John Feckenham was Abbot of Westminster from 1556-1559 but is not buried in the Abbey and he has no memorial."

The other connection, which effected Powell's possession of Feckenham's crucifix, was the efforts of Dom Augustine Baker to ensure the continuity of the Benedictine order in England through the one man left, Sigebert Buckley, who had joined the order during Mary I's reign and Feckenham's brief term as Abbot at Westminster. As this history of the Benedictines in England notes, Buckley:

. . . refused to take the oath of supremacy, and suffered imprisonment all during Elizabeth's reign. At the accession of James I, he was released from the prison of Framlingham. In the same year 1603 two English monks of the Cassinese congregation, Fathers Preston and Beech, arrived at Yarmouth, and found Father Sigebert in the house of Mr Francis Woodhouse. The 86 year old Confessor of the Faith was willing and anxious to pass on at once the habit and the succession of Westminster. [emphasis added!! that's about 44 years!!]

How to do this legally caused a delay of four years. The difficulty was at last overcome by a young lawyer of Abergavenny who had gone to Italy to fulfil a vow and had returned a Benedictine monk. Br Augustine Baker drew up a legal instrument for the aggregation and succession which satisfied all ecclesiastical law. . . .

That's the same David or Augustine Baker who instructed Powell in the law. Wikipedia's page for Sigebert Buckley includes the statement that Baker had developed for the proper transfer of succession.

When he was condemned to death because he was a Catholic priest in England, and therefore a traitor under English law, Blessed Philip Powell exclaimed: "Oh what am I that God thus honours me and will have me to die for his sake?"

Blessed Philip Powell, OSB, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): portrait of Father Powell

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)

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)

This Morning: St. Swithun Wells on the Son Rise Morning Show

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. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss Saint Swithun Wells, a recusant Catholic known to authorities who was executed on December 10, 1591 for NOT attending Mass in his home on All Saints Day.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here. 

His execution by hanging, with two other laymen, and two priests, who were meted out the full agony of hanging, drawing, and quartering, must have been remarkable scene. On Friday this week I'll preview the stories of the two priests who suffered with him that day on Gray's Inn Road. As remarkable at Saint Swithun's interaction with Topcliffe was, Saints Edmund Gennings and Polydore Plasden had even more extraordinary conversations with Sir Walter Raleigh and Topcliffe--all while preparing themselves to suffer excruciating executions!

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

Preview: St. Swithun Wells, Recusant Layman

On Monday, August 3, Anna Mitchell and I will talk about Saint Swithun Wells in our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central on Sacred Heart Radio).

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

The layman Saint Swithun Wells was hanged to death on December 10, 1591--a bloody day in the history of Catholic Recusancy in Elizabethan England. Seven English Catholics suffered brutal execution on December 10, 1591: three priests and four laymen, including Wells. One of the priests, Saint Eustace White and a layman, Blessed Brian Lacey were executed at Tyburn Tree. The other five suffered near Gray's Inn.

Wells was known to authorities as a recusant and they were probably watching his London house. According to the Oxford Reference website, Wells was

Born at Bambridge (Hants.) of a wealthy country family, Swithun Wells, a well-educated and travelled man, who was also poet, musician, and sportsman, lived a quiet country life until middle age. At one time he was tutor to the household of the earl of Southampton, later he married and then founded his own school at Monkton Farleigh (Wilts.). In 1582 he came under suspicion for his popish sympathies and gave up his school. He actively supported priests, organizing their often dangerous journeys from one safe and friendly house to another. He and his wife, though impoverished, moved to Gray's Inn Fields in 1586 and made their house a centre of hospitality to recusants. Wells was twice arrested and interrogated, but released for lack of evidence.

The Catholic Encyclopedia adds some details about his previous arrests:

On 4 July, 1586, he was discharged from Newgate on bail given by his nephew, Francis Parkins of "Weton", Berkshire. On 9 August, 1586, he was examined for supposed complicity in the Babington plot, and on 30 November, 1586, he was discharged from the Fleet prison. He was again examined 5 March, 1587, and on this occasion speaks of the well known recusant, George Cotton of Warblington, Hampshire, as his cousin.

He was indeed fortunate to have survived being questioned about the Babington Plot in 1586. The first executions of those convicted in that plot to replace Elizabeth I with Mary, Queen of Scots (who was her prisoner) were so brutal that authorities toned down the cruel gore the next day. 

In 1591, however, St. Swithun Wells was hanged for NOT attending a Catholic Mass in Elizabethan England. His wife Alice attended the Mass held in his house near Gray's Inn in London on November 1, 1591 (All Saints Day!), but he wasn't there when the priest hunters burst in during the Mass celebrated by Father Edmund Gennings. Those attending held the pursuivants off. His wife, Fathers Gennings and Polydore Plasden, and two other laymen, John Mason and Sidney Hodgson were arrested at the end of the Mass. Swithun was arrested when he came home. At his trial, he said he wished he could have attended that Mass and that was enough for the Elizabethan authorities. All of those arrested on November 1 were found guilty under 27 Elizabeth Cap 2 (Act Against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Disobedient Subjects) and sentenced to death. Authorities then built a scaffold right outside his house for the executions.

Gray's Inn, at the intersection of High Holborn and Gray's Inn Road, by the way, is one of the four Inns of Court in London, where future barristers studied and trained. Recusant Catholics secretly studied there, so the Well's house was well situated for helping priests and hosting Mass. The scaffold outside his house and the presence of dignitaries at his execution and that of the two priests and two other laymen--more about that next week--would have been a powerful warning to the recusants in the area. We're watching you and we will punish you.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Wells was an admirer and follower of Saint Thomas More, and he displayed some of that saint's sense of humor on the way to the scaffold and as he contended with Richard Topcliffe and a Church of England minister:

As he was led to the scaffold, Wells saw an old friend in the crowd and called out to him: "Farewell, dear friend, farewell to all hawking, hunting, and old pastimes. I am now going a better way"!" After he had climbed the ladder, Topcliffe called for a minister, who attempted to persuade Wells to confess to following false doctrine and traitorous priests. Wells turned and responded, "although I heard you say somewhat, yet it is but one doctor's opinion, and he also a very young one." The young minister was so daunted that he had no reply. Topcliffe then baited Wells, saying that "Dog-bolt Papists! you follow the Pope and his Bulls; believe me, I think some bulls begot you".Wells responded in kind: "if we have bulls to our fathers, thou hast a cow to thy mother".  He then immediately begged pardon and asked Topcliffe not to provoke him when he was trying to focus on other matters, hoping that this persecutor and torturer of Catholics would convert. He said, "I pray God make you a Paul of a Saul, of a bloody persecutor one of the Catholic Church's children."

John Hungerford Pollen's book Acts of English Martyrs Hitherto Unpublished, is the source of this dialogue. More and Wells must have "met merrily in heaven"!

St. Swithun's wife Alice received a reprieve from her death sentence, but died in prison in 1602.

Saint Swithun Wells, pray for us!

Image Credit: Statue of Saint Swithun Wells in Saint Etheldreda's, Ely Place in London.

This Morning: Saint Richard Gwyn on the Son Rise Morning Show

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. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss Saint Richard Gwyn, layman and Welsh Martyr, who suffered hanging, drawing, and quarterly in the Beast Market of Wrexham on October 15, 1584.

In non-COVID years, as in 2016, Saint Richard Gwyn has been celebrated and remembered in Wrexham with special Masses and processions. Perhaps by October it will be possible to continue the traditions.

He is honored appropriately in St. Mary's Cathedral of the Diocese of Menevia in Wrexham:

In the side chapel is a stained glass window, made at Wrexham College of Art in the 1980s, in memory of the martyr St Richard Gwyn. Born in 1536, he was a schoolmaster who refused to become a Protestant and was therefore hanged, drawn and quartered in Wrexham’s beast market in 1584. A relic of St Richard Gwyn is mounted on replica gallows in the cathedral. To its left is an icon depicting scenes of his life . . . This was painted in 2000 and consecrated during the cathedral’s annual St Richard Gwyn memorial celebration.

You may see an image of that icon with the scenes of life around him here. It's rather hard to make out the scenes, but he's shown teaching in a classroom, during his trial, and at his execution.

Saint Richard Gwyn, pray for us!

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

Preview: Saint Richard Gwyn, Welsh Protomartyr and Layman

The group of martyrs we are discussing on the Son Rise Morning Show every Monday this summer are called the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales and on Monday, July 20 I'll describe the martyrdom of Saint Richard Gwyn from Wales, a layman as the first of the six Welsh martyrs among the 40. His story of loyalty to the Catholic faith and perseverance in suffering is extraordinary. His wife Catherine supported him throughout his final incarceration and trial, in spite of the suffering she and their children certainly endured--loss of income, loss of companionship, etc. Gwyn is also known as Richard White since Gwyn in English is translated as "white" or "blessed"

Of course, there are many sources of information about his life, since the promoters of the Cause of the 40 Martyrs researched and documented his education, travels, and the persecution against him--a religious persecution conducted by Church of England ministers to force him to conform to the official State religion--quite completely. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry for him, Saint Richard Gwyn was

born at Llanilloes, Montgomeryshire, about 1537; executed at Wrexham, Denbighshire, 15 October, 1584. After a brief stay at Oxford he studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, till about 1562, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Overton in Flintshire, then at Wrexham and other places, acquiring considerable reputation as a Welsh scholar. He had six children by his wife Catherine, three of whom survived him. For a time he conformed in religion, but was reconciled to the Catholic Church at the first coming of the seminary priests to Wales. Owing to his recusancy he was arrested more than once, and in 1579 he was a prisoner in Ruthin gaol, where he was offered liberty if he would conform. In 1580 he was transferred to Wrexham, where he suffered much persecution, being forcibly carried to the Protestant service, and being frequently brought to the bar at different assizes to undergo opprobrious treatment, but never obtaining his liberty. In May, 1583, he was removed to the Council of the Marches, and later in the year suffered torture at Bewdley and Bridgenorth before being sent back to Wrexham. There he lay a prisoner till the Autumn Assizes, when he was brought to trial on 9 October, and found guilty of treason and sentenced on the following day. Again his life was offered him on condition that he acknowledge the queen as supreme head of the Church. His wife consoled and encouraged him to the last. Five carols and a funeral ode composed by the martyr in Welsh have recently been discovered and published.

I'm glad, however, to have found a source that was published soon after his canonization. There was an article in the January 1971 issue of The Eagle, "a magazine supported by members of St. John's College Cambridge" highlighting Gwyn and St. Philip Howard as alumni of St. John's who had just been canonized. It notes, however, that Gwyn had not taken his degree at St. John's but lost his benefactor there, Dr. George Bullock, who was forced to leave because he was a Catholic. So Gwyn had to return to Wales and open a school in Overton:

. . . At first, he attended Protestant services in Overton Church. In a poem written during his later imprisonment, Gwyn described a typical Protestant service. 

In place of an altar, a miserable trestle, 
In place of Christ, there's bread, 
In place of a priest, a withered cobbler, 
Crooking his lips to eat it. 

Gwyn soon stopped attending these services. Under pressure from the bishop of Chester, he returned on one occasion, but, falling dangerously ill soon after, he resolved never to attend another Protestant service. His persistent 'recusancy' was an offence against the existing laws. In June 1580, the Privy Council issued letters to all bishops, directing them to take renewed action against all 'recusants', particularly against schoolmasters. They were believed to be responsible for the progress of Catholicism, since they were engaged in teaching children. In July, Gwyn was captured and put into the Wrexham gaol, beginning a long incarceration which ended after four years in his execution. 

There are some famous episodes of harassment and torture during those four years: he was taken in chains to a Church of England service but made so much noise rattling his chains that no one could hear the sermon preached by the "withered cobbler"; he was placed in the stocks and harangued by a group of ministers:

One of these ministers, who had a very red nose, began to argue with Gwyn, claiming that he has received the keys as much as St Peter had. Gwyn replied, "There is this difference, sir, that whereas Peter received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the keys you have received are obviously those of the local pub!" He was indicted for 'having insolently and impiously interrupted a minister,' and returned to prison.  

Gwyn and two other laymen, John Hughes and Robert Morris, were indicted and tried for high treason for denying that Elizabeth I was Supreme Governor of the Church, for being Catholic, confessing that the Pope was the Vicar of Christ, and for trying to convert others to Catholicism. Hughes and Gwyn were found guilty, but Hughes was pardoned at sentencing (perhaps he recanted). Gwyn was sentenced to death:

"Richard Gwyn shall be hanged half dead, and so be cut down alive, his members cast into the fire, his body ripped unto the breast, his bowels likewise thrown into the fire, his head cut off, his body parted into four quarters. Finally, head and quarters to be set up where it shall please the Queen. And so the Lord have mercy on him." To which Gwyn, undaunted, replied, "What is all this? Is it more than one death?"

His wife Catherine, according to John Hungerford Pollen, was brought to Court and refused to listen to the judge encouraging her to renounce the Catholic faith in view of her husband's sentence. Catherine seems to have been pretty feisty as she challenged the judge to condemn her too, if he could bribe witnesses like her husband's accusers! She was arrested and later released on bail.

Gwyn was executed in Beast Market in Wrexham on October 15, 1584, handing Catherine some shillings and his Rosary beads as he left the jail. On the scaffold he made some of the same comments as the priests of this era: that he acknowledged Elizabeth as Queen and ruler of England in all secular matters, but that he was a Catholic and wanted only a priest to pray with him, not a minister. Just before Gwyn was hanged he turned to the crowd and said, "I have been a jesting fellow, and if I have offended any that way, or by my songs, I beseech them for God's sake to forgive me." He forgave the executioner who pulled on his leg irons as he hanged him, hoping to spare him the agony of the rest of the sentence, but Gwyn revived just as the executioner started to disembowel him. His last words, in Welsh, were reportedly "Iesu, trugarha wrthyf" ("Jesus, have mercy on me"). His head and quarters were displayed in different towns in Wales as a warning to other Catholics.

I wonder what happened to Catherine and the surviving children. According to Pollen, one witness later confessed to perjury against Gwyn.

Saint Richard Gwyn, pray for us!

Image Credit: Published under a Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license: Detail of a painting of Richard Gwyn in Wrexham Cathedral

A Marian Era Priest: Blessed Thomas Woodhouse

I'll post my preview for Monday's episode of our Son Rise Morning Show series tomorrow: Saint Richard Reynolds of Syon Abbey and Saint John Stone of the Austin Friars House in Canterbury will be our subjects!

Blessed Thomas Woodhouse is claimed by the Jesuits as their English Recusant era protomartyr because he was accepted into the order the year before his execution. According to the Singapore Jesuit website:

Fr Thomas Woodhouse was the first Jesuit to die for Christ in the conflict between the Catholic Church and the English monarchy between 1573 and 1679. Very little is known about his life prior to his imprisonment under Elizabeth I. He was born in England and was ordained probably in 1558, during the final year of the reign of Mary Tudor, the Catholic queen. He could not accept Elizabeth I who instituted religious reforms, including a non-Catholic prayer book, together with the 1559 decree declaring her supremacy in matters of religion. He resigned his parish position in Lincolnshire in 1560 and became tutor to the children of a wealthy family in Wales. He later left this position because of religious differences.

He was caught saying Mass, violating the law, on May 14, 1561 and held in prison for 12 years, able to minister to many Catholics and others in prison. Remember that prisons at this time in England were not run by the government and funded by tax dollars, they were run on a pay as you go basis by proprietary prison keepers. Prisoners had to pay their keep; somehow Father Woodhouse received enough donations to pay his room and board in prison.

Fr Woodhouse continued to celebrate Mass whenever he could, despite laws against the Catholic Mass and was arrested on May 14, 1561, while at Mass. He was imprisoned in London’s Fleet Prison where he spent the next twelve years. He was able to develop an apostolate to other prisoners because the prison officials were quite tolerant. He brought some of the inmates back to the Church. He also wrote short essays which he tied to a stone and threw them out whenever he saw a suitable individual pass his cell window. In 1572, he wrote to the Jesuit provincial in Paris as there was no Jesuit mission in England, requesting to enter the Society of Jesus. He was accepted. In his enthusiasm, he wrote a letter to William Cecil, the queen’s treasurer asking him to persuade the queen to accept the pope’s authority. Instead of doing what Fr Woodhouse asked, Cecil ordered him to be brought to trial on June 16, 1573 at Guildhall and when he repeatedly refused to acknowledge the judges’ authority and contested the competence of a secular tribunal to try a priest on religious matters, he was found guilty of high treason and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

His act of treason was denying the Queen's supremacy, which he had denied with that letter to William Cecil, urging Elizabeth to return to the Church and accept Papal authority. 

Fr Woodhouse met a martyr’s death three days after his trial at Tyburn. He was the second priest, but the first Jesuit, to be executed in England on religious grounds. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on Dec 9, 1886.

The first priest "to be executed in England on religious grounds" was Blessed Thomas Plumtree.

More about Blessed Thomas Woodhouse here.

Book Review: Lisa McClain's "Lest We Be Damned"

Clearly, I did not buy this book based on its cover!

From Routledge, Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation & Lived Experience Among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–1642 was written by Lisa McClain. She is an "Assistant Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies at Boise State University. She studies popular religion during the Reformation era, and has authored articles in journals such as the Sixteenth Century Journal and the Journal of Religious History", according to Routledge. As the publisher blurbs the book:

Through compelling personal stories and in rich detail, McClain reveals the give-and-take interaction between the institutional church in Rome and the needs of believers and the hands-on clergy who provided their pastoral care within England. In doing so, she illuminates larger issues of how believers and low-level clergy push[ed] the limits of official orthodoxy in order to meet devotional needs.

Table of Contents (from my notes and including the subheads in the chapters):

Introduction

Chapter 1. "Knitting the Remnants": Catholic Challenges and Priorities in Protestant England

--A Changing Religious Environment: Penal Laws against the Practice of Catholicism

--How Many Catholics Were There?

--Who Was a Catholic?

--Catholic Priorities

   --Immanence

   --Saints, Priests, and Sacraments

   --Salvation

--Meeting Catholic Priorities

   --Evolving Goals

--Book Trade

Chapter 2. A "Church" Without a Church: English Catholics' Search for Religious Space

--Three Degrees of Separation

--Prisons

--Examinations, Trials, and Executions

Chapter 3. Using What's at Hand: English Catholic Reinterpretations of the Rosary

--Praying the Beads

--Sacraments Versus Sacramentals

--Obtaining the Beads

--Society of the Rosary

--Changing Role of the Rosary and Mary

--One of Many Emerging Views of Mary

   --Pre-Reform Use and Interpretation of the Rosary in England

   --In Contrast to Post-Tridentine Continental Portrayals of Mary

Chapter 4. Reclaiming the Body: Receiving the Benefits of the Mass in the Absence of Priests

--Functions of Catholic Sacraments

--Filling the Need

--Spiritual Reception of the Body of Christ

--Finding the Body

--Reclaiming the Body: Christ's and One's Own

Chapter 5. Lawyers, Jailbirds, Grocers, and Diplomats: Catholic Options for Piety and Community in London

--Inns of Court

--Prisons

--Catholic Geography of London

--Executions

--Relic Takers

--Merchants and Tradespeople

--Foreign Aid

Chapter 6. Katholic Kernow: Catholics of Cornwall

--Cornish Independence

--Cornwall's Celtic Past: "An Ancient Song, Lilting Before You Came"

--Lives of the Celtic Saints

--Celtic-Cornish Immanence: Places, People, and Things

   --Places

   --People

   --Things

--Cornish Catholic Participation in a Larger Catholic Community

Chapter 7. "Border of Wickedness?": Catholics in the Northern Shires

--A Convenient Partnership

--New Experiences in the North

--Protecting What was Theirs: Distinctive Attempts to Thwart Protestant Authority

--The Importance of the Borders

   --Border Instability
--Why and How Catholics Flowed Back and Forth Across the Border
   --Why Was This Possible?
   --How Was This Possible?
--Northern Catholic Identity and Community
--Conclusion

Chapter 8. From the Old Comes the New: Catholic Identities and Alternative Forms of Community
--English Catholic Identity: How English Catholics Perceived Themselves
--Identifying with Persecution and Martyrdom
--Building New Catholic Communities
--Communities of Prayer
--Communities of the Book
--Communities of the Living and the Dead
--Conjunctions of Identity and Community: How English Catholics Perceived their Relationship to Rome
--Increasing Frustration with Rome
--Oath of Allegiance Controversy

Conclusion

Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

McClain does present many compelling stories and much rich detail--sometimes repetitiously--in delineating the response of English Catholics to the loss of their churches, their parishes, their public devotional life, their communities, and most crucially, their Church's Sacraments. She carefully traces the changing circumstances of Catholics in England from the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign until the end of Charles I's reign, not strictly chronologically, but topically. For example, McClain notes that during the first years of Elizabeth's reign enforcement of the Acts of Uniformity (worship) and Supremacy (authority) was rather lax. She continues her examination of the development and variations in that enforcement during Elizabeth's reign by looking at the prisons in London, the distance and independence in Cornwall, and the distinctive issues of distance, the border with Scotland, and nobles' authority in the northern counties.

In another example of this topical treatment of changing circumstances during the period (1559 to 1642), she examines the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance during James I's reign but does not continue that theme into the reign of Charles I. So a reader should not expect a strictly chronological description of Catholic issues in England during this recusant period.

Because of my great devotion and interest in St. Robert Southwell, I was fascinated by her citation of his advice to Catholics during his time as a missionary priest to use their imaginations in their homes and in their environments. He encouraged them to dedicate rooms or areas in their houses to Jesus, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to angels and saints; to use walking in fields or forests as pilgrimages to holy sites, to consecrate time and space to God in prayer and unity. These passages, cited from his Short Rule to a Good Life, accorded very well with what Anne R. Sweeney had written of St. Robert Southwell in Snow in Arcadia as images and imagination--inspired in him by the art and architecture of Counter-Reformation Rome--were so essential to his Ignatian poetic.

On the other hand, I was confused by her final statement about Blessed John Hambley, whose life and career she traces in two chapters (5 and 6): offering Mass at the Inns of Court in London and being born in Cornwall and leaving to become a missionary priest. She indicates that he died in prison in 1587 (p. 198) but he was hanged, drawn, and quartered on March 29 that year, according to martyrology.

McClain also alludes often to the trial and questioning of St. Margaret Clitherow, especially on the question, "What is the Church?" to which Clitherow had a good answer:

"It is that wherein the true word of god (sic) is preached which Christ langhs [launched] and left to his Apostles and they to their successors: ministering the seven sacraments which the same church has always observed, doctors preached, and martyrs and confessors witnessed. This is the church which I believe to be true."

McClain emphasizes the continuity recusant Catholics sought while they had to adapt to a great disruption: they could not practice their faith as they had done before (or as their parents and grandparents had done before Henry VIII's break from Rome) and yet they wanted to maintain the connection with the past because it was still alive and well in the world, just over the English Channel. At the same time that she emphasizes how they sought continuity, McClain explores how they had to change: praying the Rosary privately; reading their breviaries or Little Offices of the Blessed Virgin Mary in secret; if they did attend Anglican services to avoid paying the financially crippling fines, praying Catholic prayers; holding their rosaries in their pockets, etc.

Sometimes she stresses how far English Catholics were deviating from standard Catholic practice, but they were only doing so because it was the only thing they could do to maintain some continuity with the faith. When they couldn't attend Mass, confess their sins, receive Holy Communion, or even join their fellow citizens in the parish church their ancestors may have built and contributed to, they had to make Spiritual Communions, confess their sins to God and make a perfect act of contrition (declaring they never wanted to sin again!), join their intentions to Masses said on the Continent, etc. McClain notes that many of these devotions were based on late-medieval mystical piety, once considered rather dangerous because it bypassed the mediation of the ordained priesthood--but it was all that Catholics had, absent the regular ministrations of a priest, unless they were able to shelter their own chaplain, afford the fines, or benefit from friendly laxity in the enforcement of recusant laws. I think she might press this view of deviation too far, especially since it was Catholic priests recommending these practices to devout Catholics. They were not dissenting from Catholic teaching.

She does adopt what could be considered a controversial view of who was Catholic, accepting that Church Papists, those who outwardly conformed to the Church of England by attending services (not receiving Communion) but inwardly remained semi-faithful (?) to the Catholic Church were indeed still Catholic. In this, she could be following William Cardinal Allen's advice to the missionary priests he sent to England: if the laity confess attending an Anglican service as a sin, grant them absolution mercifully and gently, even if it's a sin they confess again and again (as most penitents do confess the same sins again and again).

Again, this study provides a great deal of detail: stories of arrests, imprisonments, conversations; data about books, martyrs, executions, prisons, embassy chapels; individual examples, etc, to develop a view of English Catholics' experience and life as a persecuted/prosecuted religious minority in a country that had once believed, prayed, and worshipped exactly as they did.

In her Conclusion, however, McClain tries to make more global claims of this history's significance in current situations of dissent within churches on doctrinal matters--something that never really occurs during this period among these Catholics--and the struggle to live in pluralistic societies, accommodating one another's beliefs and religious practices, bringing up book burnings, religiously inspired terrorism, all in the passive voice! ("Books are burned, martyrs are made, holy wars are declared, acts of religiously motivated terrorism proliferate"). Who burns the books, who executes the martyrs, who declares holy wars, who proliferates acts of religiously motivated terrorism? The passive voice avoids naming the actors. That's a lot of significance to cram into four paragraphs at the end of the book, especially when the purpose of the book was to help us understand the past, not necessarily help us understand the present, and especially when the situation, at least in the democratic West, is not that comparable.

I wish the book could have more illustrations and especially maps. And have a pretty cover!--but it's print on demand like so many scholarly books are now. It's an excellent resource, based on analysis of both primary and secondary sources, as McClain demonstrates familiarity with current scholarship.