Blessed Margaret Pole, Pray for Us!

Blessed Margaret Pole's early life was greatly affected by the dynastic battles of the Wars of the Roses; her adult life by the English Reformation, and she would die because of her clear loyalty to the universal Catholic faith. She was martyred on May 27, 1541, but her feast day is May 28 since St. Augustine of Canterbury is honored on May 27.

She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III; her father was George, the Duke of Clarence and her mother Lady Isabel Neville, the Duchess of Clarence. Since her father was attainted a traitor during the reign of Edward IV, so the family lost their lands; she and her surviving sibling, Edward, were also removed from the line of succession by Richard III. Her mother had died when she was three; her father when she was five.

With the fall of Richard III and the House of York, she was in greater danger. Her brother Edward Plantagenet was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1485 to 1499, when he was executed. Henry VII arranged her marriage to Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and she bore four sons, including the future Reginald Cardinal Pole, and one daughter. Margaret was widowed in 1504 and had to live with the nuns of Syon Abbey for a time because of the loss of her husband's income. When Henry VIII succeeded he named her the Countess of Salisbury, restored her family's lands, and appointed her governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon. 

In loyalty to Catherine, she opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he had called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Reginald Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, she remonstrated with him and tried to assure the king that she repudiated his treason completely.

In 1538, her son Henry Pole, Lord Montague was executed for treason and her other surviving son, Geoffrey was also arrested and found guilty of treason and was pardoned, but the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then had her beheaded on May 27, 1541. She was never given a legal trial, but included in an Act of Attainder that accused many of treason on quite flimsy grounds, mostly on the suspicion of opposing the King's religious supremacy. Margaret Pole was devoted to the Five Wounds of Jesus; the Pilgrimage of Grace proceeded under banners emblazoned with the Five Wounds of Jesus; therefore, the flawed logic was that her devotion proved her support of  rebellion. Never mind that devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus was popular throughout England in the 16th century. Her sons' opposition to Henry's marital and ecclesial efforts was enough. She rightly protested against the lack of due process and there are various reports about how horrible her execution was: certainly the headsman was incompetent.

She was seventy when she was martyred in 1541. Margaret was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. She is buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Margaret Pole had planned a resting place for herself in what is now Christchurch Priory in what was, before 1539, an Augustinian Priory, in the Salisbury Chantry, where Masses would be said for the repose of her soul. More on her life and times here. Her daughter Ursula had married Henry Stafford, who was the eldest son of Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham executed on May 17, 1521 for treason. Ursula and Henry survived the double blows of two parents beheaded for treason against Henry VIII, and Stafford was named Baron Stafford during the reign of Edward VI. One of their sons, Thomas, would also lose his head after participating in the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I.

Blessed Margaret Pole's other son, Reginald Cardinal Pole, returned to England in 1554 to reconcile the English church and nation to the Catholic Church and the Papacy, becoming the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1556. He died two years later and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. You may read my review of her standard biography, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce here. I also reviewed a more recent biography by Susan Higginbotham here.

One of my favorite passages from a book about Blessed Margaret Pole comes from Dom David Knowles' Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits. In the chapter on William More, the Prior of Worcester, he describes a visit of Princess Mary, Margaret Pole, and her sons, except for Reginald:

The imagination rests for a moment on the guest-hall at Worcester that year. England in 1526 must still have been a settled country with the future predictable, when Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were still in private places, and the sword that was to divide kinsmen so sharply lay still sheathed. Yet the four visitors who sat there with the prior were all to know sorrow, and were all in their fashion to suffer, or to cause suffering, for their faith. The Countess and her elder son were to perish at the hands of the executioner, while the younger son was to die in exile haunted by the disaster that he had helped to cause. They must often have spoken of the absent brother, Reginald, also in part to be the cause of their fate, who was himself to die, a prince of the Church, on the same day as the little girl, his cousin, each of them alone in the new, harsh world which they had hoped to sweeten, but had only the more embittered.

I do not think that Blessed Margaret Pole had really done anything to embitter the world. It had been harsh when she was born and she had tried to sweeten it through her faith, her devotion to the Princess Mary, and her efforts to remain loyal to both Henry VIII and the Catholic Church.

Blessed Margaret Pole, pray for us!

An Early Elizabethan Era Martyr, Blessed John Felton

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

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

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

Speaking of Blessed John Felton, Dom Camm comments:

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

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

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

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

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

Two By Two to Smithfield

On July 30, 1540, two different sets of martyrs set off for Smithfield for execution. There were three Catholics, who had refused to swear Henry VIII's Oaths of Succession and Supremacy, and there were three Protestants--more properly, Zwinglians--who refused to accept the definition of Christian sacramental doctrine outlined in Henry VIII's Six Articles. The three Catholics were what I call Supremacy Martyrs, since the immediate cause of their execution/martyrdom was their refusal to accept Henry VIII as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England.

Thomas Abell, Richard Fetherston, and Edward Powell had all been chaplains and defenders of Queen Catherine of Aragon--very learned men; graduates of the University of Oxford. Thomas Abell had written Invicta veritas. An answere, That by no manner of law, it may be lawfull for the most noble King of England, King Henry the eight to be divorced from the queens grace, his lawfull and very wife. B.L. in 1532 and had also been implicated in the Nun of Kent cause celebre. During his long imprisonment he wrote to Thomas Cromwell asking to be allowed to say Mass. 

Richard Fetherston had also written against Henry's divorce of Catherine in Contra divortium Henrici et Catharinae, Liber unus although no copy of the text survives. He also tutored the Princess Mary. At about the same time as St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, Fetherston was offered the Oath of Succession and refused to swear it. He and Abell were in prison from 1534 to 1540.

Henry VIII had favored Edward Powell for his works against Lutheran doctrines in earlier days, but then Powell ran afoul of Henry's changing policies and desires to cast aside Catherine of Aragon. As the Catholic Encyclopedia describes Powell's anti-Lutheran efforts:

A court preacher in high favour with Henry VIII, he was ordered to publish a reply to Luther ("Propugnaculum summi Sacerdotii Evangelici, ac septem Sacramentorum, aeditum per virum eruditum, sacrarum literarum professorem Edoardum Poelum adversus Maratinum Lutherum fratrem famosum et Wiclifistan insignem", London, 1523, three books in the form of a dialogue between Powell and Luther). The University of Oxford commended this work, and styled Powell "the glory of the university" in a letter to the king.

The Zwinglians Robert Barnes, Thomas Garrett, and William Jerome were also taken to Smithfield that day. Robert Barnes had attended the University of Cambridge and had "hung out" at the White Horse Inn with other Lutheran minded students and masters. While Thomas Cromwell was in power, they had preached against the Catholic Bishop, Stephen Gardiner, but once Cromwell fell and was executed on July 28, 1540, they lost their protector and were sentenced to death.

As this website explains, Barnes and his companions had become involved with various disputes, including Henry VIII's discontent with Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife:

Henry VIII was angry with Thomas Cromwell for arranging the marriage with Anne of Cleves. The conservatives, led by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, saw this as an opportunity to remove him from power. Gardiner considered Cromwell a heretic for introducing the Bible in the native tongue. He also opposed the way Cromwell had attacked the monasteries and the religious shrines. Gardiner pointed out to the King that it was Cromwell who had allowed radical preachers such as Robert Barnes to return to England.

Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the leading religious conservative in England, made an attack on Lutheran opinions on 15th February, 1540. (18) In the following weeks Robert Barnes, Thomas Garrard, and William Jerome attacked Gardiner's views. On 3rd April, Henry VIII gave orders for the three men to be sent to the Tower of London. Two days later Barnes was summoned to appear before Henry VIII and Gardiner. Barnes begged forgiveness but continued to preach against the religious conservatives. (19)

Thomas Cromwell retaliated by arresting Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester and Nicholas Wotton, staunch conservatives in religious matters. He then began negotiating the release of Barnes. However, this was unsuccessful and it was now clear that Cromwell was in serious danger. (20) The French ambassador reported on 10th April, 1540, that Cromwell was "tottering" and began speculating about who would succeed to his offices. 

Thomas Cromwell, recently named the Earl of Essex, was arrested at Privy Council meeting on June 10, 1540 and attainted a traitor. He was beheaded on July 28 that year, and therefore:

With Thomas Cromwell unable to protect them, Barnes, Thomas Garrard, and William Jerome were once again taken into custody. On 22nd July, 1540, Garrard, Barnes and Jerome, were attainted as heretics, a procedure which denied them the chance to defend themselves in court, and sentenced to death; their heresies were not specified. At the stake, on 30th July, Garrard and his fellows maintained that they did not know why they were being burnt, and that they died guiltless. Richard Hilles, who observed the executions, commented that the men "remained in the fire without crying out, but were as quiet and patient as though they felt no pain"

Both the Catholics and the Zwinglians were sentenced to death without trial. Bills of Attainder condemned the Catholics as Traitors and the Zwinglians as Heretics. Three hurdles dragged the men to Smithfield from the Tower; each hurdle held a traitor and a heretic. At Smithfield, the traitors were hung, cut down and butchered while alive, their bodies quartered and their heads cut for display; the heretics were burnt alive at the stake. A poem titled, "The Metynge of Doctor Barnes and Dr. Powell at Paradise Gate and of theyre communicacion bothe drawen to Smithfylde fro the Towar" described the juxtaposition of the Catholic and the Protestant that day.

This day demonstrates Henry VIII's personal rule over both State and Church; he sentenced both those who refused to swear the oaths he demanded and those who refused to obey the religious doctrine he required. The Catholics certainly knew the dangerous route they were taking -- defending Catherine against the king's wishes and refusing the oaths. By 1540, the pattern of execution for those offenses was well established. The Zwinglians were probably caught off guard by Cromwell's sudden fall; on the leading edge of Protestant thinking and theology, they lost their protector and were caught up in the strange factional divisions Henry countenanced in the later years of his reign.

Catherine's former chaplains were beatified by Pope Leo XIII; the Zwinglian preachers were honored by John Foxe in his Acts and Monuments.

Image credits: Book about Blessed Thomas Abell; "Barnes and his Fellow-Prisoners Seeking Forgiveness", from an 1887 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, illustrated by Kronheim.

Carthusian Martyrs of Newgate Prison

Anna Mitchell and I will talk about the continuing saga of the Carthusian Martyrs of London during the reign of Henry VIII this morning around 7:50 Eastern/6:50 Central on the Son Rise Morning Show, broadcast by Sacred Heart Radio in Cincinnati, Ohio and on-line here.

The last group of Carthusians who had refused to accept Henry VIII's role as Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England began to die in Newgate Prison on June 6, 1537. They had been imprisoned there, bound and left standing against pillars, without food or water since May 29.

They survived until June 6 because for the few days of their imprisonment--note again that they were left to die without trial or condemnation--Margaret Giggs Clement, one of St. Thomas More's wards and adopted daughter, came into the prison disguised as a milkmaid and brought food and water to the monks and laybrothers. When they hadn't died as quickly as Henry VIII expected, the jailer wouldn't let her in again. She tried to lower food and water to them from the roof, but that just didn't work:

• Blessed William Greenwood, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, on June 6, 1537
• Blessed John Davy, deacon, choir monk of the London Charterhouse,  on June 8. 1537
• Blessed Robert Salt, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, on June 9, 1537
• Blessed Walter Pierson, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, on June 10, 1537
• Blessed Thomas Green (perhaps alias Thomas Greenwood), choir monk of the London Charterhouse, on June 10, 1537
• Blessed Thomas Scryven, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, on June 15, 1537
• Blessed Thomas Redyng, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, on June 16, 1537

Two of the Carthusians evidently received some food and water or there had been some change of strategy, because they did not die in prison until later that summer:

• Blessed Richard Bere, choir monk of the London Charterhouse, on August 9, 1537
• Blessed Thomas Johnson, choir monk of the London Charterhouse, on September 20, 1537

One of this group was evidently removed from the starvation cell and held in confinement for almost three more years before his execution:

• Blessed William Horne, laybrother of the London Charterhouse, hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn, London on August 4, 1540.

In his book Saints and Scholars, David Knowles eulogizes the Newgate prison group:

The third and most numerous band was denied even the dignity of a formal trial and execution. They had asked to live as hidden servants of Christ; they died, silent witnesses to his words, hidden from the eyes of all. Chained without possibility of movement in a foul atmosphere, and systematically starved . . .

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude to demand of them an approval and a submission which they could not give. They had long made of their austere and exacting Rule a means to the loving and joyful service of God; pain and desolation, therefor, when they came, held no terrors for them. When bishops and theologians paltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

The More family, so closely associated with the Carthusians, went into exile. Margaret Giggs Clement died in Mechelen, and her daughter recounted a mystical experience she had on her deathbed:

But the time had now come that God had appointed to reward her for her good works done to the Fathers of the Charterhouse. He visited her with an ague which held her nine or ten days, and having brought her very low and in danger, she received all the sacraments with great devotion, and being desirous to give her blessing to all her children who were all present except her Religious daughters and one more that remained at Bruges with her husband, she caused her to be sent for in all haste. Wednesday being now come, which was the last day before she died, and asking if her daughter were come, and being told no, but that they looked for her every hour, she made answer that she would stay no longer for her, and calling her husband she told him that the time of her departing was now come, and she might stay no longer, for there were standing about her bed the Reverend Fathers, Monks of Charterhouse, whom she had relieved in prison in England and did call upon her to come away with them, and that therefore she could stay no longer, because they did expect her, which seemed strange talk unto him. Doubting that she might speak idly by reason of her sickness, he called unto her ghostly Father, a Reverend Father of the Franciscans living in Mechlin, to examine and talk with her, to whom she constantly made answer that she was in no way beside herself, but declared that she still had the sight of the Charterhouse monks before her, standing about her bedside and inviting her to come away with them, as she had told her husband. At the which they were all astonished. 

BTW: the first group of Carthusian martyrs are three of the protomartyrs of the English Reformation, suffering on May 4, 1535: St. John Houghton, St. Augustine Webster, and St. Robert Lawrence.

The second group suffered on June 19, 1535: Blesseds Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate.

The third set on May 11, 1537: Blessed John Rochester and Blessed James Walworth.

Blessed Carthusian martyrs, pray for us.

Blessed Margaret Pole: Tall in the Chapel

In the National Catholic Register last year, Thomas Craughwell wrote about the discovery of Blessed Margaret Pole's remains in the Tower of London:

You never know what you’ll find when you go hunting around old churches. In 1876, a restoration crew was at work in the Tower of London’s appropriately named Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains). In the crypt, where so many executed prisoners were buried, they found the remains of a tall, elderly lady. And since only one elderly lady was executed in the Tower, its is very likely that these bones are the relics of Blessed Margaret Pole, whose feast day we celebrate on May 28.

Henry VIII is notorious for his cruelty to his wife and daughter, his execution his friends, most famously Thomas More, but Blessed Margaret is the only member of the English Royal Family to fall victim to the king.

Henry once described Margaret as “the saintliest woman in Christendom.” Bear in mind, the king offered this fine tribute years before he wanted Margaret’s head — literally.

Margaret Pole was a member of the House of Plantagenet, the family which had been ruling England since 1154. Two of her uncles were kings, Edward IV and Richard III. The famous “Little Princes in the Tower,” who went missing and were almost certainly murdered during the reign of their uncle Richard III, were her first cousins. You would think that coming from England’s royal family Margaret would have been guaranteed a life of privilege and ease. Instead, she suffered more than her share of tragedy.

She was executed in the aftermath of the Exeter Conspiracy, but mostly because one of her sons, Reginald Pole, had written to Henry VIII descrying not only his role as Supreme Head and Governor in the Church of England but his actions in executing the Carthusians, Sir Thomas More, and John Cardinal Fisher. After having been held in the Tower of London for two and a half years, she was Attainted as a traitor by Parliament and her execution ordered:

Early in the morning on May 27, 1541, Margaret learned that she would be executed that day. She had never had a trial. This was a summary execution ordered by the king.

Typically, large crowds turned out for the execution of a prominent person. But Henry’s advisors knew that having an elderly lady (Margaret was about 68 at the time) climb a scaffold in front of a throng of sympathetic witnesses would be a public relations disaster. Instead, in front of very few witnesses, Margaret was led out to a courtyard where a small headman’s block had been set on the ground. She knelt and placed her neck on the block. The Tower’s professional executioner was away, so a young novice was given the job. He blundered badly, hacking at Margaret’s neck and shoulders until she was dead.

The date of her martyrdom coincides with the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury--but today we are celebrating Trinity Sunday. In the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, ten first Masses are being celebrated by the newly ordained!

The Last Carthusian; Giles and Cecily (More) Heron

In July, we had a cluster of English Catholic martyrs at the end of the month. The anniversaries of Supremacy, Recusant, and Popish Plot martyrs are spread throughout August, with some unique stories (the Feltons, father and son; St. John Kemble's pipe; a martyr who had witnessed another priest's martyrdom (NOT Walpole and Campion); etc). Today's beatified martyr and his companions represent, in a way, some tidying up in the last years of Henry VIII's reign: the last Carthusian, the last Carmelite, and one more connection to Thomas More.

From my research, I don't think anyone knows why Blessed William Horne survived all his Carthusian brothers until August 4, 1540, but for some reason he was kept alive while the others starved to death. Refusing to abandon his religious habit, he was not attainted till 1540, when he was hanged, disemboweled, and quartered at Tyburn on August 4, 1540 along with five other Catholics: the two laymen Robert Bird and Giles Heron, Friar Lawrence Cook, Carmelite Prior of Doncaster, the Benedictine monk, Dom Thomas Epson, and (probably) the secular priest William Bird, Rector of Fittleton and Vicar of Bradford, Wiltshire. Blessed William Horne must have been inspired by the memory of St. John Houghton, to remain so true. As David Knowles wrote of Houghton in his book Saints and Scholars:  "In . . . John Houghton, the strict monastic life brought to blossom for the last time on English soil a character of the rarest strength and beauty--a last flowering, a winter rose, of English medieval monachism. . . . the picture that emerges is of a man capable not only of inspiring devoted attachment, but of forming in others a calm judgment and a heroic constancy equal to his own." Loving Jesus, remaining true to his vows, Horne was faithful to his master's pattern of life and death. More about the Carthusian martyrs here (well-illustrated!)

His companions are also interesting: the Carmelite friar represented the last of his order in Henry VIII's England. Thirty-six Carmelite monasteries in England were destroyed or sold to private owners; and a score of others in Scotland and Ireland. In 1539 the famous Carmelite library in London suffered a similar fate. Friar Cook had supported the Pilgrimage of Grace and had been kept in Beauchamp Tower--where Blessed Thomas Abell had also been held in great destitution for almost seven years before his execution--for two years after his arrest in 1538. The last active friar of the Carmelite order, George Rayner, died "in chains" during Elizabeth I's reign--what must it have been like to be the last? The last Carthusian, having seen his fellows starve and die; the last Carmelite, having seen his order destroyed in his own country?

With Giles Heron, we have a connection to St. Thomas More; he was one of More's wards and married More's daughter Cecily:

Giles Heron’s father had served both Henry VII and Henry VIII as treasurer of the chamber. He was still a minor at his father’s death and in March 1523 his wardship was granted to Sir Thomas More, then under treasurer of the Exchequer. In July 1525 he obtained livery of an inheritance in south-eastern England, his chief residence being at Hackney: shortly afterwards he and William Dauntesey, the son of another royal official, each married one of More’s daughters.

There are only occasional references to Heron in More’s letters, and he was probably not so close to his father-in-law as was William Roper; when More was chancellor Heron is said to have refused a settlement in a chancery case, hoping for a favourable decision, only to have More finally make a ‘flat decree against him’. Yet there is no reason to regard Heron as unsympathetic to More’s ideals: his fate indeed implies the contrary. It was doubtless More who, as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, secured the election of both Heron and Dauntesey for Thetford in 1529, the first Parliament to which that borough is known to have returned, although they must also have enjoyed the support of the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, himself a duchy official and the patron of William Roper at Bramber. Nothing is known of Heron’s role in the Commons. Cromwell did not include him with Dauntesey, Roper and two others of the More circle (all three bracketed as ‘of Chelsea’) on a list compiled in the spring of 1533 and thought to be of Members opposed to the bill in restraint of appeals. On the contrary, what little is known of Heron’s career outside Parliament at this time suggests that he remained in royal favour: in 1532 he sold his messuage of Alderbrook in Wanstead, Essex, to the King and in the same year, as an esquire of the body, he and three of his brothers were pardoned offences against the forest laws. He was presumably returned again to the Parliament of 1536, in accordance with the King’s request for the re-election of the previous Members, and he was on the Middlesex grand jury which found a true bill against Anne Boleyn; for the next three years, however, nothing is known of his activities.

Heron had been involved in a number of disputes over lands and with his tenants, dependants and relatives, including one with his brother Christopher and another with Robert Dormer over lands which had belonged to Heron’s brother-in-law John Dynham. When recording Heron’s sale of Rycote in Oxfordshire to Sir John Williams, Leland was to describe him as ‘wise in words, but foolish in deeds’; the sale was confirmed by a private Act (31 Hen. VIII, c.19). It was a dispute with a tenant, one Lyons, whom Heron had expelled from his farm, which led to his downfall. In 1539 Lyons, seeking revenge, appears to have informed Cromwell of certain treasonable words or deeds attributed to Heron and to have tried to get others to confirm them. In February of that year Heron had to find three recognizances of 500 marks each for his appearance before the Council when called to answer charges: at this time he can hardly have been suspected of treason but in May he was ‘in trouble’ in the Fleet and in July he was sent to the Tower as a suspected traitor. Cromwell’s memoranda include a number of references to Heron and from these it appears that Lyons was the only witness against him. It was perhaps because he could not easily have secured a conviction on this evidence that Cromwell had a bill of attainder introduced into the Lords on 3 May 1540 which passed through all its stages in both Houses in six days (32 Hen. VIII, c.58). The minister’s own fall delayed the execution until Aug. 1540, when Heron was hanged at Tyburn.

Lyons’s malice did not stop there, for it was at his instance that in the month following Heron’s death three of his brothers were examined by the Council with regard to their share in his treason: all were found innocent and were dismissed. Two of them, Christopher and John, were servants of (Sir) Ralph Sadler, a neighbour of the Herons to whom Giles Heron’s schoolboy sons had appealed for help during their father’s imprisonment. In July 1554 Queen Mary restored to Thomas Heron, the elder of these sons, part of his father’s lands.

Blessed William Horne was included with the other Carthusians to be beatified, but the others executed on August 4, 1540 have been passed over for some reason. The Center for Thomas More Studies notes that Giles and Cecily had three children, but does not have a date for her death. She lost both her father and her husband to charges of treason. She suffered greatly for the faith, too.

Known and Unknown Martyrs in 1539

Along Old Kent Road, there was a spot called St. Thomas's Waterings or St. Thomas-a-Watering, where pilgrims to Canterbury, including Chaucer's crossed a stream on their way. It was therefore a well-travelled spot and thus a good place for executions and the display of traitors' remains. As British History Online notes:

This spot was in the old Tudor days the place of execution for the northern parts of Surrey; and here the Vicar of Wandsworth, his chaplain, and two other persons of his household, were hung, drawn, and quartered in 1539 for denying the supremacy of Henry VIII. in matters of faith.

And in another place, BHO names the Vicar:

In our account of the Old Kent Road (fn. 4) we have mentioned the fate of Griffith Clerke, Vicar of Wandsworth, his chaplain, and two other persons. They were hanged and quartered at St. Thomas a Waterings on the 8th of July, 1539, for denying the royal supremacy.

The old Catholic Encyclopedia has these details about those martyred on July 8, 1539, highlighting the Venerable Waire, and:

English friar and martyr, hanged, drawn, and quartered at St. Thomas Waterings in Camberwell (a brook at the second milestone on the Old Kent Road), 8 July, 1539. All authorities agree that there were four martyrs at this time and place, and all agree that one of them was the Vicar of Wandsworth, Surrey. It is certain that the name of the last was John Griffith, generally known as Ven. John Griffith Clarke, and that he was chaplain to Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, who was executed, 9 December, 1538, or 9 January, 1538-39, and that he was also Rector of Dolton, Devon. Stow is the only person to mention "Friar Waire". Sander speaks of "a monk whose name was Mayer"; but he wrote in Latin and his work was printed abroad. It is clear that Waire was a friar, for both Wriothesley and Lord Lisle's servant, John Husee, speak of two friars as having suffered with Griffith. Of the two unnamed martyrs we know that one was a priest and Griffith's curate or chaplain at Wandsworth. The other was either a friar, as Wriothesley and Husee say, or one of Griffith's servants, as is asserted by Stow and Sander. It is possible that Friar Waire is to be identified with Thomas Wyre, one of the signatories to the surrender of the Franciscan friary of Dorchester, 30 September, 1538. However, it is uncertain to what order he belonged. If he was a Franciscan it is remarkable that his death is not recorded in the "Grey Friars' Chronicle", and that no mention is made of him in such English Franciscan martyrologists as Bouchier or Angelus a S. Francisco.

Venerable Waire and Venerable John Griffith Clarke are among those declared Venerable at the beginning of the Cause for the English Martyrs during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII. Just enough is known about them for them to be so honored, but:

though they all died heroically, their lives were so retired and obscure that there is generally but little known about them. It may, however, be remarked that, being educated in most cases in the same seminaries, engaged in the same work, and suffering under the same procedures and laws the details which we know about some of the more notable martyrs (of whom special biographies are given) are generally also true for the more obscure.

In the article about the English Reformation Martyrs for the Catholic Encyclopedia, author J.H. Pollen made these comments about the two known martyrs of July 8, 1539:

1539: Friar Waire, O.S.F., and John Griffith p. (generally known as Griffith Clarke), Vicar of Wandsworth, for supporting the papal legate, Cardinal Pole, drawn and quartered, (8 July) at St. Thomas Waterings.

In 1536, Reginald Pole, in exile, wrote "Pro ecclesiasticæ Unitatis defensione" (Defense of the Unity of the Church) to protest against Henry VIII's usurpation of the title of Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England, making himself the Vicar of Christ. Soon after sending it to Henry, Pole was named a Cardinal by Pope Paul III and then Legate. He was involved in efforts to make the Pilgrimage of Grace more successful. His brothers and mother were arrested in connection with the Exeter Conspiracy; his brother Henry Pole, Baron Montagu was executed on January 9, 1539 and his mother remained under arrest until her beheading on May 28, 1541. If Venerables Waire and Griffith Clarke were accused of supporting Pole, the charges against them included not just denial of the Supremacy, but involvement in rebellion against the king. We don't know if they had been held in prison like the trio of Queen Katherine of Aragon's chaplains and counselors, Thomas Abel, Richard Fetherston, and Edward Powell, refusing to accept Henry VIII's new title, or if they had, like the great abbots of the monasteries of Reading, Glastonbury, and Colchester, taken the oath and then regretted it, hoping for a return to the unity of the Church under the Vicar of Christ. Either way, they were brave men, even in obscurity. May the same be known of us someday, however dimly.

Knights of Malta, English Catholic Martyrs

Once Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell started the Attainder process, no one was safe. Today's beatified martyrs were arrested and condemned upon flimsy and amorphous grounds:

On July 8 or 9 or 10, 1539, Sir Thomas Dingley and Sir Adrian Fortescue, Knights of St. John, were executed by order of Henry VIII. In the common pattern of injustice at the time, they were never tried and were attainted in documents that included Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury (who would be finally executed on May 28, 1541).

Adrian Fortescue had been in very high favor at Henry VIII's Court; his mother was Alice Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's aunt. He was made a Knight of the Bath in 1503, along with Henry, then Prince of Wales. In the early years of Henry's reign he accompanied his king to Calais and to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Sir Adrian married twice and had four daughters and three sons.

In 1532 he entered the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, and by the mid 1530's that Order's opposition to Henry VIII's religious policy resulted in suppression of the Order and seizure of its property by the Crown. Knights of the Order were not welcome at Court and were forbidden to wear the habit or badges of their Order. Sir Adrian was imprisoned at Marshalsea, released, and arrested again on February 14, 1539, held in the Tower of London until his execution. He was then attainted and his possessions first cataloged, then seized by the Crown.

The Bill of Attainder contains vague language about his crime, speaking of "sundry treasons". Since the Pole family was the main target of this Bill, including not only the Countess of Salisbury, but also her exiled son Cardinal Reginald Pole and other of his associates, Fortescue's association with the Poles (his son Anthony married Catherine Pole) contributed to his condemnation. [Catherine Pole was Margaret Pole's granddaughter. Catherine's father was Sir Geoffrey Pole, who may have betrayed his brother, Henry Lord Montague--executed on December 9, 1538 with Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter--and was pardoned by Henry VIII.]

Sir Thomas Dingley was a prior of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem; he also was attainted and condemned without trial, accused of travelling to foreign courts in the interests of the king's enemies.

The date of their executions is reported variously--July 8, 9, or 10--and their place of burial is not known. Clearly they did not merit the usual "obsequies perform'd" according to the state.

Sir Adrian's eldest son John held posts in the Courts of Elizabeth I and James I; he contributed books owned by Sir Adrian to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. His youngest son, Anthony, was involved in a conspiracy against Elizabeth I in 1561 and was exiled.

The cult of these two martyrs, beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1895, is honored among the Order of Malta. The Catholic priest and scholar, Adrian Fortescue, 1874-1923, is a direct descendant of this martyr.

Image Credit: Coat of arms of the Knights of Malta from the façade of the church of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri, Florence, Italy.

Dying as Hidden Servants of Christ

On June 15, 1537, the second group of those Carthusians held in Newgate Prison, without charge, or trial, or sentence, or any other mark of justice except for the will of Henry VIII, began to die. Brothers Thomas Scryven and Thomas Redyng died on June 15 and June 16--Dom Richard Bere did not die till August 9, and the priest Thomas Johnson not until September 20, so they must have received some nutrition, according to the King's great mercy.

One survived this starvation ordeal: Brother William Horne. He was finally attainted by Parliament in 1540 and executed at Tyburn on August 4, 1540.

In his book Saints and Scholars, David Knowles eulogizes the Newgate prison group:

The third and most numerous band was denied even the dignity of a formal trial and execution. They had asked to live as hidden servants of Christ; they died, silent witnesses to his words, hidden from the eyes of all. Chained without possibility of movement in a foul atmosphere, and systematically starved . . .

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude to demand of them an approval and a submission which they could not give. They had long made of their austere and exacting Rule a means to the loving and joyful service of God; pain and desolation, therefor, when they came, held no terrors for them. When bishops and theologians paltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

Blessed Carthusian martyrs, pray for us.

Reading and Glastonbury Martyrs

On November 15, in 1539, the Abbots of Glastonbury and Reading Abbeys and their companions were martyred: without trial at Cromwell's instructions. Blessed Richard Whiting, Blessed John Thorne, and Blessed Roger James were executed on Glastonbury Tor near their empty and soon to be desolated abbey, and Blessed Hugh (Cook) Faringdon, Blessed John Rugg and Blessed John Eynon were executed at Reading Abbey.

Glastonbury was one of the richest abbeys in the kingdom, and one of the best run and most observant of the Rule of St. Benedict: it was a ripe target for Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, and the Court of Augmentations. Reading Abbey was a Benedictine house established during the reign of King Henry I and dedicated to Our Lady and St. John the Evangelist. It was initially part of the Cluniac branch of the Benedictine order. Cromwell had to trump up some charges against the elderly abbot at Glastonbury, because his Visitor first reported that everything was managed very well there; the monks were observant of the Benedictine Rule. Cromwell told Richard Layton to look further: hisjob was not to find excellence but detect failure as the the excuse for suppression. Both Abbot Whiting and Abbot Faringdon of Reading Abbey had gone along with Henry VIII's claims of supremacy over the Ecclesiae Anglicanae.

More about the martyrs at Glastonbury here and about those at Reading. Perhaps their martyrdoms expiated their guilt for denying the authority of Christ's Vicar on earth: These six martyrs of the Dissolution of the Monasteries on November 15, 1539 (three each at Reading and Glastonbury) represent in some ways the remorse of the abbots and abbey leadership, who had accepted Henry VIII's oaths that proclaimed his authority over the Church of England as Supreme Head and Governor. Somehow they did not realize or imagine what he could and would do with that power and authority. 

Pope Leo XIII beatified these six monastic martyrs in 1895.

August Martyrs: Blessed Richard Bere

Today's August martyr is the Carthusian, Blessed Richard Bere, who also has a connection with Glastonbury Abbey, where Blessed Richard Whiting and companions suffered in 1539. Bere died of dehydration and starvation in Newgate Prison on August 9, 1537. From the Shrine of Our Lady of Glastonbury in Somerset (with their permission) comes this story of one of the last of the Carthusians to die during Henry VIII's reign:

One of the tenants on the Glastonbury estates was a brother of Richard Bere, Abbot of Glastonbury (1494-1525), of the name of Robert. He had a son Richard born about A.D.1508, who was brought up at the Abbey School, and is said to have been a frequent visitor at the Abbey.

From Glastonbury the Abbot sent him to Oxford, and later wanted him to marry Jane Samuel of Mells, an only daughter, of whom the Abbot, on the death of her father, became guardian. But Richard refused, and went to study at the Inns of Court or Chancery in London. He later abandoned his legal studies and became a Carthusian monk in London.

In the Spring of 1535 commissioners were appointed by Thomas Cromwell to visit certain places and people to make them take the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledging King Henry as Head of the Church. Refusal meant death. The Carthusian monastery in London, where Richard Bere lived was one of those places specially ear-marked for a visit.

Aware of the forthcoming ordeal John Houghton, the Prior, with Augustus Webster, Prior of Axholme, and Robert Lawrence, Prior of Beau Vale, was preparing by prayer. After consultation they decided to forestall the commissioners, and asked Cromwell for an exemption from the obligation of the Oath. This was refused, and they were lodged in the Tower. Then they expressed willingness to consent “so far as the law of God might allow”. But when this was roughly brushed aside, they refused absolutely. They were “tried” at Westminster Hall, and an unwilling jury was threatened by Cromwell into pronouncing the verdict of guilty; and they were hanged in their habits on 4^th May at Tyburn.

Two years later Cromwell sent Thomas Bedyll to try to persuade the three senior monks, Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate to submit, but as they remained unmoved they were taken to the Marshalsea where for a fortnight they were chained by the neck and legs to posts. As nothing could shake them, they were “tried” and later executed on 19^th June 1537. The rest of the community, including Richard Bere, deprived of their leaders, were subjected to every form of persecution. Ten monks, including Richard Bere, would not take the Oath of Henry's supremacy over the Church. They were lodged in a filthy ward of Newgate prison, where they were chained standing with their hands tied behind them to posts, and so left to die of starvation. Seven died. It is probable that Cromwell interfered and ordered those still living to be given food in order that they might be preserved for execution. This would account for the fact that Richard Bere and Thomas Johnson lingered so long, though the cruel privations they had already endured brought on death before they could be carried to Tyburn for execution.

Blessed Richard Bere died on 9^th August 1537, Thomas Johnson on 20^th September, and William Horne was the only one whom Cromwell saved for the executioner's knife. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, is the Head of His Church on earth.

Glastonbury can surely take pride in having reared one of these heroes and martyrs.

The church has a beautiful tapestry featuring the martyrs from the Glastonbury area, including Blessed Richard Whiting and his companions from Glastonbury Abbey.

The Penultimate Late July Martyrs: Catherine of Aragon's Chaplains

On July 30, 1540, two different sets of martyrs set off for Smithfield for execution. There were three Catholics, who had refused to swear Henry VIII's Oaths of Succession and Supremacy, and there were three Protestants--more properly, Zwinglians--who refused to accept the definition of Christian sacramental doctrine outlined in Henry VIII's Six Articles. The three Catholics were what I call Supremacy Martyrs, since the immediate cause of their execution/martyrdom was their refusal to accept Henry VIII as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England.

Thomas Abell, Richard Fetherston, and Edward Powell had all been chaplains and defenders of Queen Catherine of Aragon--very learned men; graduates of the University of Oxford. Thomas Abell had written Invicta veritas. An answere, That by no manner of law, it may be lawfull for the most noble King of England, King Henry the eight to be divorced from the queens grace, his lawfull and very wife. B.L. in 1532 and had also been implicated in the Nun of Kent cause celebre. During his long imprisonment he wrote to Thomas Cromwell asking to be allowed to say Mass. Richard Fetherston had also written against Henry's divorce of Catherine in Contra divortium Henrici et Catharinae, Liber unus although no copy of the text survives. He also tutored the Princess Mary. Henry VIII had favored Edward Powell for his works against Lutheran doctrines in earlier days, but then Powell ran afoul of Henry's changing policies and desires to cast aside Catherine of Aragon.

The Zwinglians Robert Barnes, Thomas Garrett, and William Jerome were also taken to Smithfield that day. Robert Barnes had attended the University of Cambridge and had "hung out" at the White Horse Inn with other Lutheran minded students and masters. While Thomas Cromwell was in power, they had preached against the Catholic Bishop, Stephen Gardiner, but once Cromwell fell and was executed on July 28, 1540, they lost their protector and were sentenced to death.

Both the Catholics and the Zwinglians were sentenced to death without trial. Bills of Attainder condemned the Catholics as Traitors and the Zwinglians as Heretics. Three hurdles dragged the men to Smithfield from the Tower; each hurdle held a traitor and a heretic. At Smithfield, the traitors were hung, cut down and butchered while alive, their bodies quartered and their heads cut for display; the heretics were burnt alive at the stake. A poem titled, "The Metynge of Doctor Barnes and Dr. Powell at Paradise Gate and of theyre communicacion bothe drawen to Smithfylde fro the Towar" described the juxtaposition of the Catholic and the Protestant that day.

This day demonstrates Henry VIII's equal opportunity injustice; he sentenced both those who refused to swear the oaths he demanded and those who refused to obey the religious doctrine he required. The Catholics certainly knew the dangerous route they were taking -- defending Catherine against the king's wishes and refusing the oaths. By 1540, the pattern of execution for those offenses was well established. The Zwinglians were probably caught off guard by Cromwell's sudden fall; on the leading edge of Protestant thinking and theology, they lost their protector and were caught up in the strange factional divisions Henry countenanced in the later years of his reign. (See chapter 2 in Supremacy and Survival, in the section titled, "Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, and Henry's Reformation" for more insight into that period.)

Catherine's former chaplains were beatitified by Pope Leo XIII; the Zwinglian preachers were honored by John Foxe in his Acts and Monuments

480 Years Ago Today: The Trial of St. John Fisher

On June 17, 1535, John Fisher, former Bishop of Rochester (Henry VIII had stripped him of his title) left the Tower of London to be tried in Westminster Hall. The charge against him was that:

He falsely, maliciously, and traitorously wished, willed, and desired, and by craft imagined, invented, practised, and attempted to deprive the king of the dignity, title, and name of his royal estate, that is of his title and name of supreme head of the church of England, in the Tower, on 7th day of May last, when, contrary to his allegiance, he said and pronounced, in the presence of different true subjects, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously, these words: "The king our sovereign lord is not supreme head on earth of the church of England."

Rich, the Solicitor-General, was the main witness for the prosecution. He admitted to having played the part of an agent provocateur when he had visited the bishop in the Tower with the confidential message from the king, and he gave Fisher's denial of the Royal Supremacy in evidence against him despite the solemn promise given to him in the name of the king that this would not happen. The cardinal protested indignantly at Rich's treacherous conduct[.]

Of course, there was no real, just trial: the purpose of the gathering in Westminster Hall was to sentence to death the man Henry VIII had previously regarded as the holiest bishop in England. Although he argued that when he spoke to Richard Rich there was no malice or falsehood, Thomas Audley as Chancellor told him that any speaking against the King's position as Supreme Head of the Church of England was treason.

My lords, I am here condemned before you of high treason for denial of the King's supremacy over the Church of England, but by what order of justice I leave to God, Who is the searcher both of the king his Majesty's conscience and yours; nevertheless, being found guilty, as it is termed, I am and must be contented with all that God shall send, to whose will I wholly refer and submit myself. And now to tell you plainly my mind, touching this matter of the king's supremacy, I think indeed, and always have thought, and do now lastly affirm, that His Grace cannot justly claim any such supremacy over the Church of God as he now taketh upon him; neither hath (it) been seen or heard of that any temporal prince before his days hath presumed to that dignity; wherefore, if the king will now adventure himself in proceeding in this strange and unwonted case, so no doubt but he shall deeply incur the grievous displeasure of the Almighty, to the great damage of his own soul, and of many others, and to the utter ruin of this realm committed to his charge, wherefore, I pray God his Grace may remember himself in good time, and harken to good counsel for the preservation of himself and his realm and the quietness of all Christendom.

According to this website, the court was moved but not enough to do the right thing:

William Rastell, a lawyer nephew of Sir Thomas More who was present at the Fisher trial, leaves us the following account of the bishop's valedictory statement: "He showed himself excellently and profoundly learned, of great constancy and of a marvellous godly courage, and declared the whole matter so learnedly and therewith so godly, that it made many of those present, and some of their judges also, so inwardly to lament, that their eyes burst out with tears to see such a great famous cleric and virtuous bishop to be condemned to so cruel a death by such impious laws and by such an unlawful and detestable witness (Richard Rich), contrary to all human honesty and fidelity."

From June 17 to June 22, Cardinal Fisher--Pope Paul III had named him a cardinal in the hopes that Henry VIII would show some respect and leniency to a prince of the Church, seriously misjudging Henry--prepared for death. As he had suffered great want and deprivation in the Tower of London, so much so that he was too weak to walk from the Tower to Westminster Hall, Henry commuted his sentence from being hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn to being beheaded on Tower Hill. Long before his trial, he had begged Cromwell for some clothing and food (on December 22, 1534):

I beseech you to be a good master to me in my necessity. I have neither shirt nor suit, nor yet other clothes, that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent shamefully. Notwithstanding I might easily suffer that, if they would keep my body warm. But my diet also, God knoweth how slender it is at many times, and now in mine age my stomach may not away but with a few kinds of meats, which if I want I decay forthwith, and fall into coughs and diseases of my body, and cannot keep myself in health. But as our Lord knoweth, I have nothing left unto me to provide any better, but as my brother of his own purse layeth out to me to his great hindrance.

Wherefore good Master Secretary eftsoons I beseech you to have some pity upon me, and let me have such things as are necessary for me in mine age and especially for my health. And also that it may please you by your high wisdom to move the king's highness to take me unto his gracious favour again, and to restore me unto my liberty out of this cold and painful imprisonment; whereby ye shall find me to be your poor beadman for ever unto Almighty God, who ever have you in his protection and custody.

He had also begged to have a confessor and attend Mass, but to no avail. Henry and Cromwell couldn't even allow Fisher some peace and comfort in his last days:

Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, wrote to Charles V on 30 June 1535: "They gave him (Fisher) as a confessor, a sworn enemy of his, and the staunchest Lutheran in the world as well as the originator of all the devilish acts practiced here; who, however, was so much edified by the bishop's countenance and behavior on the scaffold that he ceases not to say, that one of the best and holiest men in the world has been executed."

Henry VIII would go on to try to destroy all the evidence of Bishop Fisher's good work, even that great work Fisher had done with the support of Henry VIII's own grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, at St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He had preachers denounce Fisher (and More), diplomats denigrate his career, and everything possible done to remove remembrance of this great and holy man. Bishops Gardiner (another blot against his character) and Sampson also attacked Fisher in print after his death. Cromwell blamed the Pope for Fisher's execution, saying that if he had not been named Cardinal, Henry might have . . . what? St. John Fisher had opposed Henry's wishes in the Great Matter from the beginning; he was never going to receive any mercy or even justice.

David Knowles on the Carthusians in Newgate

On June 15, 1537, the second group of those Carthusians held in Newgate Prison, without charge, or trial, or sentence, or any other mark of justice except for the will of Henry VIII, began to die. Brothers Thomas Scryven and Thomas Redyng died on June 15 and June 16--Dom Richard Bere did not die till August 9, and the priest Thomas Johnson not until September 20, so they must have received some nutrition, according to the King's great mercy.

One survived this starvation ordeal: Brother William Horne. He was finally attainted by Parliament in 1540 and executed at Tyburn on August 4, 1540.

In his book Saints and Scholars, David Knowles eulogizes the Newgate prison group:

The third and most numerous band was denied even the dignity of a formal trial and execution. They had asked to live as hidden servants of Christ; they died, silent witnesses to his words, hidden from the eyes of all . . .

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude . . . When bishops and theologians faltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.