Preview: Gunpowder and Popish Plot Martyrs on "Church and Culture" with Deal Hudson

Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Deal Hudson for his Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio. Last August we talked about four Tudor era English Catholic Martyrs: two from the reign of Henry VIII and two from Elizabeth I's. 

This time we told the stories of four martyrs from the Stuart Dynasty: two from the reign of James I in the aftermath of the real Gunpowder Plot and two from Charles II's reign during the fake Popish Plot.

Background for the Gunpowder Plot ("Remember, remember, the Fifth of November"):

Catholic conspirators, frustrated by King James I not keeping his promise to be lenient with Catholics once he succeeded Elizabeth I, did plot to murder the king, his family, his Court, and members of Parliament by blowing up Parliament when they were all gathered there. They conspired to commit murder and terrorism to place James's Protestant daughter on the throne and through an uprising, take over the government and change England's state religion. It was outlandish, stupid, and sinful. 

The plot was discovered because one conspirator thought of a relative who would be in attendance and warned him not to go. Authorities searched the undercroft of the House of Lords and captured Guy Fawkes when he checked on the gunpowder, depicted above in an 1823 painting by Henry Perronet Briggs. 

He was tortured; other conspirators killed in a raid; others captured, tried, and executed as traitors (hanged, drawn, and quartered). Father Henry Garnet, SJ was also questioned and tried and executed: controversy about how much he knew about the Gunpowder Plot, how strenuously he advised against it, etc., has meant that he has not been beatified or canonized as a martyr. As I wrote in my review of Jessie Child's God's Traitors (the story of Vaux family's efforts to remain Catholic in Elizabethan and Stuart England) several years ago:

Anne Vaux feared that young men she knew well like Robert Catesby were plotting something horrible and she wanted Father Henry Garnet to tell them not to go forward with their plans. Did Father Garnet do enough? did he ask the right questions? respond forcefully enough to tell Catesby and Digby et al not to pursue whatever plot they had in mind? Those were questions he asked himself while in prison and even during his questioning. Although he did not instigate the plot or encourage the plot--he knew [something] about the Gunpowder Plot and he did not report it to the authorities, citing the seal of the confessional.

The aftermath of the Plot meant that Catholics were more restricted than before under the Popish Recusants Act of 1605 (finally repealed in 1829) with higher fines and a new oath, etc. And the government continued to search for any Jesuit priests in the country who might--because of their connection to Father Henry Garnet--have been involved in the conspiracy. Antonia Fraser wrote a book about Gunpowder Plot.

The two martyrs who suffered because of the fallout from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that I selected were Saint Thomas Garnet, SJ, and Saint Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother and the great designer and builder of Priest Holes in Catholic homes. They were arrested after hiding in Priest Holes in Hindlip Hall which Owen had built! 

Background for the Popish Plot:

Titus Oates, one of the perjurers behind the Popish Plot was not trustworthy: the Church of England didn't trust him. But once he started talking about a plot he'd discovered among Catholics to assassinate Charles II, who'd returned to the throne in 1660 after the English Civil War and Interregnum, and replace him with his brother James, the Duke of York, a Catholic convert, he found a willing audience.

He and William Bedloe developed the story for the plot, convinced authorities of its reality, and testified against several Jesuits and other Catholics. The way the Courts tried defendants--namely, the assumption that the accused was guilty and had to prove he wasn't-- and the established prejudice against Catholics (especially Jesuits; remember the Gunpowder Plot) meant it took a long time for the judges to catch on to the web of lies Oates and Bedloe got tangled up in. 

After numerous trials and executions Oates' perjury was finally recognized and he was convicted of sedition, imprisoned, and fined. During the reign of James II, he was convicted of perjury, imprisoned for life, and pilloried. William and Mary pardoned him and he died in obscurity in 1705. The most recent book about the Popish Plot is from Yale University Press, Hoax: The Popish Plot that Never Was by Victor Slater.

The two martyrs I selected for the Popish Plot or the Titus Oates Conspiracy of 1678/1679, are Blessed Richard Langhorne, a lay lawyer accused of aiding the conspirators and Saint John Kemble, an 80-year old priest who'd served in the west of England and Wales for 54 years. 

The hour-long segment will air during Church and Culture on Saturday, February 1 (3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern/2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central) and Sunday, February 2 (7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern/6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central). Listen live here. When the program has been added to the archive for Church and Culture I'll update my Facebook page.

Today on the Son Rise Morning Show: Relics of Two English Catholic Martyrs

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning to discuss the possible identification of the relics (bones) of Saints Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd, two of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate.

And here's a reminder of their stories from the series Anna, Matt, and I did last year to tell the stories of all the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales during the 50th anniversary year of their canonization:

While neither of them was accused of being involved in the Popish Plot, Evans and Lloyd were arrested because of heightened efforts in England and Wales to find Catholic priests, even if they had been serving their flocks, like Saint John Lloyd, for many (24) years. Saint Philip Evans, SJ was a more recent recruit to the Catholic mission, having served only four years. . . .

The martyrs were both arrested in late 1678, imprisoned in the Castle Gaol in Cardiff and finally tried in May, 1679. They were executed together on July 22, 1679 in Pwllhalog, near Cardiff at a site known as the "Death Junction".

The Friends of the Ordinariate blog offers these profiles of the two priests:

St. John Lloyd, the older of the two saints by some 15 years, was born at about 1630, and went to the Royal English College at Valladolid, being ordained priest on 7th June 1653. The following April he returned to Wales, and spent 24 years ministering among the Catholics of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire operating over a vast area. His brother was also a secular priest: Fr William Lloyd, who was also imprisoned in the Titus Oates plot, but died as a result of his torture before he was executed.

John Lloyd was arrested 20th November, 1678 and placed in solitary confinement, until being united in a cell with the younger Philip Evans.

St Philip Evans was born in Monmouthshire in 1645, studied at St. Omer, in France, and was ordained for the Society of Jesus in 1675. He immediately returned to Wales, and spent the next four years administering the Sacraments around Abergavenny, in his native Monmouthshire, staying in various different houses and continuing largely unmolested. He stayed at Sker House, with the Tuberville Family, where he was eventually arrested, in the wake of the Titus Oates plot. His betrayer was the younger bother of the owner of the house. He was arrested on the 4th December, 1678. He was then taken to Cardiff and imprisoned in the Castle Goal. For the first few weeks of his incarceration he was in solitary confinement, before being put in the same cell as Fr. John Lloyd. They were imprisoned until trial in May of 1679.

Their trial found them guilty of being priests, and they were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered on the 9th May, 1679. It was not, however, until July that the sentence was decreed to be carried out. Philip, a light hearted man, was found playing tennis (they were allowed quite a bit of liberty) on the 21st July when news that the execution was to take place the following day reached him. The jailer told him he should return to prison, to which he responded “what haste is there? First let me play out my game!” which he duly did.

Philip was also a fine harp player, and when his jailers came to collect the two priests on the morning of the execution, they found Philip playing his harp, in spite of his leg shackles. These shackles took an hour to remove, so tight were they, and caused him excruciating pain.

According to this blog honoring the Welsh martyrs, St. Philip Evans was executed first:

When he mounted the scaffold Fr Evans said; “This is the best pulpit a man can have to preach in, therefore, I cannot forbear to tell you again that I die for God and for Religion’s sake.” He addressed the crowd in English and in Welsh, then turning to Fr Lloyd, who stood waiting his own turn, he said, “Adieu, Mr Lloyd! Though only for a little time, for we shall soon meet again.”

St. John Lloyd suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering after him.

St. John Lloyd, pray for us!

St. Philip Evans, pray for us!

Preview: A Box of Bones and Two of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Anna Mitchell asked me to come on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, April 19 to discuss an announcement about Saints Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd, two of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate.

About 150 years ago, a box of bones was discovered at the Holywell Shrine in Wales--St. Winifrede's Well, a place of pilgrimage and healing for centuries before the English Reformation and even after Henry VIII's suppression of the nearby Basingwerk Abbey and closure of the shrine. 

Please note that Henry VIII's father (Henry VII) is believed to have visited Holywell before the Battle of Bosworth and that there is evidence that his grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, may have contributed to the building of the structures at the shrine remaining today. It always startles me how Henry VIII not only broke away from the universal Catholic Church (redundant I know) but also with his family's recent history and heritage.

Even though Henry VIII closed down the shrine, had St. Winifrede's relics destroyed and suppressed the abbey, Holywell remained a site of pilgrimage and of Catholic hope. Blessed Edward Oldcorne, SJ, another martyr, like Saints Evans and Lloyd, who suffered after the Gunpowder Plot was discovered in 1605, had traveled to Holywell when suffering from throat cancer during his sixteen years of missionary work--and was cured. The Gunpowder Plot conspirators visited the shrine. James II and his queen, Mary Beatrice of Modena visited the shrine in hopes of conceiving a son and heir--and their hopes were fulfilled.

Distant as Wales is from London and the center of England's administrative and judicial power, both secular and Jesuit priests were able to maintain their missions in Holywell in the seventeenth century until the great panic of the Popish Plot in 1678 and 1679. The last of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales were the six priests arrested in and near Wales in the general hysteria of the Popish Plot: Philip Evans, SJ, David Lewis, SJ, John Wall, Franciscan, John Kemble, John Lloyd, and John Plessington. They had nothing to do with the Popish Plot (they couldn't anyway, since there wasn't any conspiracy to assassinate Charles II) and most of them had been serving as missionary priests in that area for years.

As the Jesuit Collections website describes the discovery of the bones:

In 1878 a discovery was made in an attic of the Jesuit priest’s house in Holywell. A wooden box containing two skulls, and a variety of other bones wrapped in an ancient linen jacket. One of the skulls had a large hole in the cranium. Some of the bones showed evident signs of having been cut with a sharp knife. This indicated that these bones related to two individuals who had been hanged, drawn and quartered, and whose bones had been hidden for safety, possibly for two centuries.

Fr Morris was invited to investigate and made this drawing. He speculated that they were martyrs because of the age of the bone and the fact that they had been hidden in a Jesuit house, but made no suggestion as to their identities.

So whose bones were they? And why were they kept together?

The source of the mystery about these bones is that there was no documentation in the box with them; their provenance was not clearly indicated--where they had been, how they'd been saved, why they were wrapped in a linen jacket, much less whose bones they were--all unknown.

Dr. Jan Graffius, Curator of Stonyhurst College, believes they might be the bones of Saints Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd. She has assembled the evidence of the bones, the style of the  linen jacket, where the bones were found, the fact that two persons' bones are together, the difference between the treatment of the bones, etc., to come to that conclusion. As she comments in this CNA story:

“The starting point is you look at the evidence in front of you,” she told CNA in an interview. “So you have two skulls. One has a hole in the cranium, and many of the bones that are associated with the two skulls show evidence of having been cut with a sharp knife.”

“The immediate premise that you draw from that is that at least one of these two was dismembered after death and that one of the heads was stuck on a spike.”

Acknowledging that the details were “quite graphic,” she continued: “I examined the skull to see whether the hole in the top had been inflicted from the outside in or from the inside out. And the way the bone had been damaged indicated that the force had come from within the skull, within the cranium itself. It had also been pierced by something from inside, like a spike.”

“The clinching argument was that the coccyx . . . -- the bone at the base of the spine -- had been severed very cleanly. And when you’re hanging, drawing, and quartering, the quartering is literal: you cut the body into pieces. And that indicates to me where you would normally expect the cuts to come from severing the legs from the body.”

She consulted with other experts, Maurice Whitehead of the Venerable English College in Rome and Hannah Thomas of the Bar Convent in York and they suggested that these bones could be the relics of Saints Evans and Lloyd:

“They both said, ‘Look, this must be Evans and Lloyd because they were very closely associated in life.’ They spent their last six months or so together in prison. They were executed at the same time. They were buried, or disposed of, at the same time, and they are always spoken of as a pair, if you like, because of the close friendship they had during life.”

“So it makes perfect logical and historical sense for these two bones of these very closely associated men to have been rescued together, and secreted together.”

It is not an absolutely certain conclusion, based on Graffius' inductive reasoning: no DNA has been processed; no familial DNA has been gathered to compare, and there is no indication that there's any plan to pursue this method of investigation. As she concludes the CNA interview, she has "a good degree of confidence" that these bones are the relics of Evans and Lloyd. 

But what this effort to identify these bones reveals is the horrible violence of the execution of these priests, especially of Saint Philip Evans the Jesuit and the first to be hanged, drawn, and quartered--perhaps to persuade Saint John Lloyd to deny his faith--and the care Catholics took after their executions to find their bodies, bury them, perhaps disinter their bones to prevent them being found, keep them safe as relics, etc.

In my home diocese, Wichita, Kansas, as Matt Swaim and Anna Mitchell have mentioned, the remains of Servant of God Chaplain Emil Joseph Kapaun have definitely been identified through DNA matching. The Kapaun family have been working closely with the diocese and the decision has been made to have his remains interred in a crypt in our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. As our diocesan paper, The Catholic Advance, notes, this:

would not only provide a safe and secure location for them, but would also allow opportunities for Catholics and many others inspired by Fr. Kapaun’s life to be able to visit and venerate this priest, whose cause for sainthood progresses. In 1993, Fr. Emil Kapaun was named a “Servant of God”, which signified that his cause for canonization could begin. Fr. Kapaun’s placement in the Cathedral will be a temporary location in the event that the Church recognize him as a saint in the future, in which case a dedicated shrine or chapel might be erected to hold his remains and commemorate his life.

I cite this just as a comparison between a proven identification and a likely identification.

Saint Philip Evans, pray for us!

Saint John Lloyd, pray for us!

Servant of God, Emil Kapaun, pray for us!

Image Credit: Saint Philip Evans, SJ (used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license)

Image Credit: Then Second Lieutenant Emil J. Kapaun (Public domain)

This Morning: The Last Three Canonized Martyrs Among the 40

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 today to conclude our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Matt Swaim and I will discuss the missions and martyrdoms of Saints John Plessington, John Kemble, and David Lewis, SJ, three priests captured and executed in the wake of the Popish Plot.

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).

To sum up this series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, I draw your attention to this homily by Father Lawrence Lew, OP, preached on Sunday, October 25, the Feast of Christ the King in the 1962 Missal as established by Pope Pius XI, and the 50th anniversary of the Canonization of these martyrs by Pope Paul VI:

The forty martyrs who we especially remember today exemplify the ultimate self-denial and carrying of the Cross that is demanded of us Christians. This group of English and Welsh Martyrs, just a small representation of the hundreds executed during the so-called Reformation, is composed of 13 diocesan priests (or secular clergy), 3 Benedictines, 3 Carthusians, 1 Brigittine, 2 Franciscans, 1 Augustinian, 10 Jesuits and 7 members of the laity, including 3 mothers. And all of them sacrificed everything for the sake of the Holy Mass and the Sacraments; for the unity of Christ’s Church in communion with the Pope; for the sake of the sacred Priesthood through whom we receive the Sacraments; and for the sake of Christ’s teaching on the sanctity of marriage and family life. 

Please read the rest there.

Even after a summer when we saw statues and churches attacked in the USA, and even as we are rightly concerned about religious freedom issues on local, state, and federal government levels, we know that in the USA we don't face mortal martyrdom. We do face spiritual martyrdom, as we should, and Father Lew reminds us that following Christ the King does not mean that we serve Him in a Court of pleasure, comfort, power, and diversion--His kingdom is not of this world. Father Lew selects two lessons for us to take from these martyrs and from Christ's kingship:

Therefore, in our times and in our country, we honour these holy men and women, and we show ourselves to be their friends, if we love what they love. So, let us love the Mass and the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church; love the Holy Father and pray for him; love your clergy, pray for them and uphold them with care and help; love your husband, your wife, and as a family bear witness to the love and joy of the Gospel. . . . Therefore, enthrone Christ in your homes, in your families, and in your own hearts. . . .

However, it is most noteworthy in the accounts of their lives and their final words that the forty martyrs of England and Wales did all this without rancour or bitterness or anger or hatred. Instead, they spoke with humour, serenity, and humility, always acting with charity. For this is the genuine sign that Christ is their King. Let it be so for each of us too, especially in these difficult and polarised times. . . .  It is a joy that flows from a childlike confidence and trust in God’s love, in the victory of the Risen Lord Jesus; a joy that springs from a firm faith in divine Providence. . . .

Good reminders for us the day before Election Day in the USA.

Preview: Last of the 40: Three Popish Plot Martyrs

On All Souls Day, Monday, November 2, Matt Swaim and I will conclude our Son Rise Morning Show series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales with the stories of Saint John Plessington, Saint John Kemble, and Saint David Lewis, the last Welsh martyr. These three martyrs were arrested in and near Wales. Kemble and Lewis were taken from Wales to London to be questioned about the Popish Plot and when authorities accepted that they'd had nothing to do with the Plot (which had never been a Plot), they were returned to Wales to face trial and execution for a being Catholic priests in England, acts of treason according to an Elizabethan statute. Plessington was merely arrested, charged with that crime, and executed. 

Saint John Plessington was born in Lancashire in 1637 in a Royalist (supporting the monarchy during the English Civil Wars) and Catholic family. He studied with the Jesuits at Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire and then at what is now called the Royal College of Saint Alban at Valladolid, Spain, and then at Saint Omer Seminary in France, being ordained in 1662 on the Feast of the Annunciation. He returned to England in 1663, sometimes using the name John Scarisbrick and according to the Diocese of Shrewsbury, he:

based himself largely at Puddington Hall, near Burton, Wirral, where he laboured without harassment for more than decade as chaplain to the Massey family and tutor to the children.

But in 1678 the pretended revelations of a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and replace him with his Catholic brother James created national hysteria. In December that year they claimed their first victim, Edward Coleman, and until 1st July 1681, with the martyrdom of St Oliver Plunkett, Catholics were executed in locations all over England. According to a local tradition, St John was drawn into the plot at the insistence of a Protestant landowner simply because he had forbidden a match between his son and a Catholic heiress. Three witnesses gave false evidence of seeing St John serving as a priest: he forgave each of them by name from the scaffold.

Saint John Plessington was hanged, drawn, and quartered on July 19, 1679. The Diocese of Shrewsbury has longed hoped to find his relics because the Massey family was able to prevent his quartered body to be displayed after his execution in Boughton, Cheshire:

The authorities had demanded that the quartered remains of St John were to be displayed at the four corners of Puddington Hall, near Burton, where he had served as chaplain to the obstinately Catholic Massey family and tutor to their children. When the soldiers arrived with the body, they were stoned by the locals and fled. The Masseys instead laid out the remains of the priest on an oak table to the hall in preparation for his burial.

Plessington was about 42 years old and had served in Monmouthshire for about 16 years.

Saint John Kemble was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1599 so was about 80 years old when he was executed. Like Father Plessington, he had been able to serve Catholics for many years (54) without much trouble. As this Herefordshire history website describes his life and martyrdom:

[His] family was staunchly Catholic, and already included four priests when John studied for his priesthood and was ordained at Douai College on 23rd February 1625, following which he returned to England and began his work as a missionary in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. His popularity steadily grew, and not just among the Catholics…..he was a very likeable man, and he continued to serve for more than 50 years, living with his brother at Pembridge Castle.

Then, poor John was caught up in the horrific doings of Titus Oates the perjurer who fabricated the Popish Plot, which was the non-existent conspiracy by Catholics to kill King Charles II. Oates was a spectacularly nasty character, with no scruples whatsoever, and his fraud was eventually uncovered but sadly too late to save many an innocent man.

In 1678, Captain John Scudamore of Kentchurch (a lapsed Catholic, although his wife and children were parishioners of John Kemble) arrived at Pembridge Castle to arrest the elderly John Kemble, and although people tried hard to get him to escape he merely said “According to the course of nature I have but a few years to live. It will be an advantage to suffer for my religion and therefore I will not abscond.” He was taken to Hereford, where he spent three months in gaol, before being taken to Newgate Prison in London…….no comfortable trip as he was bundled backwards onto a horse like a sack. For anyone that would have been torture, but for an 80 year old it must have been almost unbearable. When interrogated, John refused to admit to a non existent plot, and eventually was sent back to Hereford…by foot. There, in accordance with Elizabeth I’s Statute 27 he was tried for the treasonable offence of being a Catholic priest and for saying Mass, and was duly declared guilty, being condemned to be hanged drawn and quartered.

Before he was executed on August 22, 1679, he asked to smoke his pipe one last time, drink a cup of wine, and finish his prayers. A "Kemble Cup" and a "Kemble Pipe" became well-known terms in the area. He was buried in the Anglican churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin at Welsh Newton.

The last of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, and the last of the Six Welsh Martyrs, was Saint David Lewis, SJ. As the Jesuits in Singapore website notes, it's a similar story to that of the six Popish Plot martyrs among the 40: he was arrested after serving the Catholic people for years because of the rewards promised during a time of fear and crisis:

David Lewis, a Welshman, was born in Abergevenny, Gwent, the youngest of 9 children to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. He was raised as a Protestant and studied at the Royal Grammar School where his father was the headmaster. He read Law at the Middle Temple and became a Catholic in 1635. He returned to Abergevenny and lived with his parents and came to know his maternal uncle, John Prichard, a Jesuit priest ministering in South Wales. David was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1642 and entered the Jesuit Roman Novitiate in 1645.

After working in Wales for a year, Fr Lewis was recalled to Rome to serve as the Spiritual Director to the seminarians at the English College. He returned to work in Wales on the Hereford-Gwent border and for the next 30 years he worked tirelessly in the apostolate, showing special interest and care for the poor and needy and was twice superior of that district.

Because of the plot fabricated by Titus Oates, alleging that the Jesuits were intent on the murder of Charles II and the re-establishment of the Catholic faith in the land, anti-Catholic hatred ran high. Fr Lewis was arrested, betrayed by an apostate couple, who were eager to earn the 50 pounds for the capture of a Jesuit and the 200 pounds offered by the Welsh magistrate, John Arnold, a rabid Calvinist.

Like Father Kemble, he was taken to London for questioning and then returned for trial, found guilty, and condemned for his priesthood. He was finally executed on August 27, 1679, speaking to the witnesses of his martyrdom:

“I believe you are here not only to see a fellow native die, but also with expectation to hear a dying fellow native speak……. I speak not as a murderer, thief or such-like malefactor, but as a Christian, and therefore am not ashamed. My religion is the Roman Catholic; in it I have lived above this 40 years; in it I now die, and so fixedly die, that if all good things were offered me to renounce, all should not move me one hair’s-breadth, from my Roman Catholic faith. A Roman Catholic priest I am; a Roman Catholic priest of the religious order called the Society of Jesus I am, and I bless God who first called me… Please now to observe I was condemned for reading Mass, hearing Confessions, administering the Sacraments, and dying for this I therefore die for my religion.”

Saint John Plessington, pray for us!

Saint John Kemble, pray for us!

Saint David Lewis, pray for us!

40 Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

This Morning: Saints Philip Evans, SJ and John Lloyd

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 today to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss the missions and martyrdoms of Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd, captured and executed in the wake of the Popish Plot.

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).

Next Monday we'll conclude this series with brief profiles of the other three Popish Plot Martyrs: Saint John Plessington, Saint John Kemble, and Saint David Lewis, SJ.

Preview: Two Popish Plot Martyrs: Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd

With the penultimate episode of our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will move on to the Popish Plot Martyrs. We discussed one of these martyrs of 1679 before, Saint John Wall, as one of the two Franciscan martyrs among the canonized, but the last five martyrs we'll profile suffered for their priesthood and fidelity to Jesus at a particularly dangerous time for Catholics in England during the reign of Charles II, the restored Stuart monarch. 

The Popish Plot was a fictitious plot targeting the Jesuits serving in England. Titus Oates, a supposed convert who had sought admission to the Society of Jesus, made up a grand conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and place his brother, James, the Duke of York--who just happened to be a real convert to Catholicism--on the throne. Oates and others accused several Jesuits, laymen serving at Court, the Queen, five Catholic members of the House of Lords, and others (including Samuel Pepys) of being in on this plot. Twenty-two innocent men, including nine Jesuits, were executed until Parliament and the Courts realized that Oates and his conspirators were lying. Charles II never believed Oates, but as J.P. Kenyon asserts in his classic narrative The Popish Plot, he dared not defend these innocent men, not even Saint Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, in part because of the tenuous status of the succession. Like so many before him, Charles had no legitimate male (or female) heir (plenty of illegitimate children) to succeed him so he was protecting his brother James's right to become king upon his death.

While neither of them was accused of being involved in the Popish Plot, Evans and Lloyd were arrested because of heightened efforts in England and Wales to find Catholic priests, even if they had been serving their flocks, like Saint John Lloyd, for many (24) years. Saint Philip Evans, SJ was a more recent recruit to the Catholic mission, having served only four years.

Saint Philip Evans, SJ and Saint John Lloyd were born and died in Wales, so their martyrdoms are celebrated on October 25 in Wales among the Six Welsh Martyrs and their [English] companions, the anniversary of the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. They are also celebrated on May 4 in England along with all the beatified Martyrs of England Wales. In Wales, they also have a separate feast on July 23 (since July 22 is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles). In England, their optional memorial is also celebrated on July 23 but Saint Bridget of Sweden's Feast as one of the Patrons of Europe probably takes precedence. (In the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, commemoration of a saint or saints on another feast day is permitted, with the Collect of the commemorated saint prayed after the Collect of the superior feast!)

The martyrs were both arrested in late 1678, imprisoned in the Castle Gaol in Cardiff and finally tried in May, 1679. They were executed together on July 22, 1679 in Pwllhalog, near Cardiff at a site known as the "Death Junction".

The Friends of the Ordinariate blog offers these profiles of the two priests:

St. John Lloyd, the older of the two saints by some 15 years, was born at about 1630, and went to the Royal English College at Valladolid, being ordinaed priest on 7th June 1653. The following April he returned to Wales, and spent 24 years ministering among the Catholics of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire operating over a vast area. His brother was also a secular priest: Fr William Lloyd, who was also imprisoned in the Titus Oates plot, but died as a result of his torture before he was executed.

John Lloyd was arrested 20th November, 1678 and placed in solitary confinement, until being united in a cell with the younger Philip Evans.

St Philip Evans was born in Monmouthshire in 1645, studied at St. Omer, in France, and was ordained for the Society of Jesus in 1675. He immediately returned to Wales, and spent the next four years administering the Sacraments around Abergavenny, in his native Monmouthshire, staying in various different houses and continuing largely unmolested. He stayed at Sker House, with the Tuberville Family, where he was eventually arrested, in the wake of the Titus Oates plot. His betrayer was the younger bother of the owner of the house. He was arrested on the 4th December, 1678. He was then taken to Cardiff and imprisoned in the Castle Goal. For the first few weeks of his incarceration he was in solitary confinement, before being put in the same cell as Fr. John Lloyd. They were imprisoned until trial in May of 1679.

Their trial found them guilty of being priests, and they were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered on the 9th May, 1679. It was not, however, until July that the sentence was decreed to be carried out. Philip, a light hearted man, was found playing tennis (they were allowed quite a bit of liberty) on the 21st July when news that the execution was to take place the following day reached him. The jailer told him he should return to prison, to which he responded “what haste is there? First let me play out my game!” which he duly did.

Philip was also a fine harp player, and when his jailers came to collect the two priests on the morning of the execution, they found Philip playing his harp, in spite of his leg shackles. These shackles took an hour to remove, so tight were they, and caused him excruciating pain.

According to this blog honoring the Welsh martyrs, St. Philip Evans was executed first:

When he mounted the scaffold Fr Evans said; “This is the best pulpit a man can have to preach in, therefore, I cannot forbear to tell you again that I die for God and for Religion’s sake.” He addressed the crowd in English and in Welsh, then turning to Fr Lloyd, who stood waiting his own turn, he said, “Adieu, Mr Lloyd! Though only for a little time, for we shall soon meet again.”

St. John Lloyd suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering after him.

St. John Lloyd, pray for us!

St. Philip Evans, pray for us!

"The Great Holocaust of the [Popish] Plot"

The summer of 1679 in England was a tense and dangerous one for Catholics; nevertheless, they survived and were even strengthened by what John Kenyon calls "the great holocaust of the [Popish] plot". At the beginning his book, which I think is still the standard text for comprehending the social, religious, and legal aspects of the Popish Plot, Kenyon declares that he will not use the titles Venerable, Blessed, or Saint when referring to the victims of that period of anti-Catholic hysteria. Nevertheless, he pays tribute to these martyrs in a way:

Between 20 June and 27 August 1679 . . . fourteen Catholics were executed; one layman, two Franciscans, four seminary priests, and seven Jesuits. . . . To the Catholics, it must have seemed that the reign of terror would henceforward mount in intensity, engulfing at least those priests still in prison . . .

But the whole process was self-defeating [for the Whigs]. . . . there is some evidence that the steady denials of those convicted were beginning to take effect. . . .

In the provinces, where the victims were notable local figures, and were being executed not for specific treason but merely for being in orders, feelings were even stronger. . . . The deaths of men like Francis Wall [St. John Wall], John Kemble and David Lewis did no one any good except the Catholic community, which was strengthened by their sacrifice. . . .

The sheriff of Monmouth (James Herbert of Coldbrook) postponed David Lewis's execution as long as he could, then stayed away from it . . . (pp. 205-206)

Saint David Lewis, SJ, was executed on August 27, 1679. at Usk in Monmouthshire. He was able to give a long last speech and the large crowd that witnessed his execution--predominantly Protestant--made sure that he was dead before he was eviscerated.

His feast is celebrated in Wales on August 26 since today is the feast of St. Monica of Hippo, St. Augustine of Hippo's mother.

James Herbert of Coldbrook, according to the History of Parliament, suffered some backlash because of that delay in executing Saint Davis Lewis: "on 18 Nov. 1680 [he] was reprimanded by the House of Lords for his lack of zeal in prosecuting Papists, though with the qualification that his loyalty and protestantism [sic] were not impugned."

St. David Lewis is one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

St. David Lewis, pray for us!

The Popish Plot: William Bedloe, RIP

William Bedloe who assisted Titus Oates in perjury and false accusations against Jesuit priests and other Catholics in the Popish Plot during the reign of King Charles II died on August 20, 1680. His entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, written by Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth, denounces him as a "dishonest adventurer and 'evidence' in the Popish plot". Bedloe was complicit with the conviction of at least one innocent man, Blessed Edward Coleman or Colman.

His biographical entry describes his duplicity with dizzying detail:

He claimed for himself the attainment of proficiency in Latin, heraldry, and mathematics. David Lewis, the Jesuit, who was afterwards executed at Monmouth, took notice of the boy when he was twelve years old, and taught him much, with intent of converting him. When aged twenty, in 1670, he travelled to London with one hundred pounds in his pocket, and lived near two Jesuits, Father Harman and Father Johnson. They dined at Locket's ordinary, and were said to adjourn to Mother Cresswell's. Bedloe certainly lived a sharping life in London before he went to Dunkirk, where he was recommended by the lady abbess to Sir John Warner, who sent him to Father Harcourt, the Jesuit, afterwards executed on the evidence of Oates. By his own account, William Bedloe went to Rome, Flanders, Spain, &c., carrying letters; but opened them and made forged copies, which he delivered, retaining the originals. He bore an alias of Captain Williams, under which he cheated the Prince of Orange, and from him, by fraud, obtained a captain's commission. But this captaincy was as apocryphal as the 'invisible degree' of doctor won by Titus Oates at Salamanca. Five years of varied service, intrigues, frauds, and broils, prepared him, with occasional employment by the Jesuits, for emerging into notice as a betrayer and forsworn spy. He declared that Titus Oates had anticipated and outstripped him in making revelations of the popish plot. At the beginning of August 1678, he confessed that he 'had once been an ill man, but desired to be so no more.' He wrote from Bristol, offering to make startling declarations. The Earl of Danby gave little credit to him; and in revenge for this, Bedloe asserted that a bribe was offered to him by Danby, who promised that he should be supported in whatever country he chose to retire into, if he would suppress his threatened revelations. The commons accepted his account of the murder of Sir E. B. Godfrey, and gave him 500l. The extant portrait of Bedloe, prefixed to his 'Narrative' of the fire of London having been caused by the papists, shows a villainous countenance, harsh and forbidding, full of malice and revenge. With beetle brows, hard mouth, and savage eyes, we see the man, unscrupulous, unrelenting, as he in later life became. Dressed in finery beyond his station, his arrogance is as self-evident as his malice. He declared that Counsellor Reading had tried to tamper with him for suppression of his testimony, and Reading was condemned to a year's imprisonment, with exposure for an hour in the pillory, and to pay a fine of 1,000l. Bedloe made many accusations and found willing associates. The king's chemist, Dr. James, deposed that one Dr. Smith, a papist, tried to make him poison Bedloe with a pill on 20 March 1679. By this time he was almost as popular as Oates. He received ten pounds weekly allowance from the royal funds, and lived at the rate of two thousand a year. Rich dupes were plentiful. The citizens feasted him. His folio pamphlets, with copperplate portrait prefixed, had a large sale. He attributed the most extensive plots and execrable crimes, falsely, to the Romanists.

Bedloe went too far, however, and was facing distrust and waning influence when he died:

Then he was recalled to London in the middle of July 1680. He was now, with Oates, experiencing the fickleness of fortune and the waning of popularity. Sir George Jeffreys [left], on the bench, told him sharp truths, and he felt his power deserting him. He retreated back to Bristol, where he had left his wife Anna, who, in her illness, summoned him, at beginning of August. He fell ill after his hurried journey, having 'broken his gall' by violent riding. He was said to be past cure. At the commencement of the assizes on 16 Aug., Sir Francis North, chief justice of the common pleas, attended Bedloe, and took his dying deposition. There had been a promise of fresh revelations, but none of importance were forthcoming. He reiterated old statements as really true, his wife being beside him. James Bedloe [his brother] made immediate application for money from King Charles, through North, next day. This application, 'that his sickness was very changeable, and that money was required for his subsistence,' explains the persistence of the family in the accusation of the Jesuits. William's death took place on Friday, 20 Aug. 1680.

When Sir George Jeffreys, later of the Bloody Assizes (as featured in the Errol Flynn movie Captain Blood) turns against you, you're in trouble. Although Jeffreys would later serve James II as Lord Chancellor, he was no friend of Catholics and was certainly ready to find them guilty of treason--as was Sir William Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice at the time of the Popish Plot--and it was not until the end, nearly, of all the trials and executions, that these judges began to see the perjury of Oates, Bedloe, and others.

Although Ebsworth denounces Bedloe, he's no friend of Catholics either, using the terms Romanists and Papist, and Romanism (in his biography of Edward Coleman, Bedloe's chief victim).

St. Oliver Plunkett on the Son Rise Morning Show

As I noted yesterday, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central) to talk about St. Oliver Plunkett on his feast day, observed in Ireland. I wrote about him a couple of years ago for the National Catholic Register in the context of the "Fortnight for Freedom" the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops were promoting at that time. He was, as I noted yesterday, the last Catholic priest executed in England, but he was not a missionary priest in England nor a Jesuit, the main target of the so-called Popish Plot. He was the Catholic primate of Ireland and the Archbishop of Armagh. Like the English missionary priests he had prepared for the priesthood on the Continent.

Oliver Plunkett was born on All Saints Day in 1625 to a well-to-do Catholic family in County Meath, Ireland. He studied for the priesthood in Rome but did not return to Ireland when he was ordained in 1654 because the Church was being persecuted after Oliver Cromwell’s defeat of the Irish uprising after the English Civil War. Father Plunkett remained in Rome and taught Theology at the college of the Propaganda Fide; in 1669 he was appointed the Archbishop of Armagh and arrived in Ireland the next year.

As Archbishop he was able to revive the Church under the tolerant leniency of the English Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He reformed the clergy, confirmed thousands of Catholics, built a Catholic college in Drogheda (which admitted Protestants), and served the Church with zeal. Then the Test Acts were passed by Parliament in England in 1673 and the short period of leniency was over in Ireland. James, the Duke of York had converted to Catholicism; he was his brother Charles II’s heir (Charles had many illegitimate sons by several mistresses but no surviving children from his Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza). Archbishop Plunkett went into hiding and continued to serve his flock.

He was the ultimate bogey-man to the Anglicans of England, for he was the embodiment of Catholic resistance to English rule in Ireland and all the English attempts, from Elizabeth I's reign, to bring Catholic Ireland under Anglican rule. He was tried twice on charges of conspiracy against Charles II--once in Ireland where he was acquitted and again in England where he was found guilty. He could not be found guilty for being a priest in England under the old Elizabethan statute since he had been brought to England by authorities, and there was no real proof of any conspiracy with the French to overthrow Charles II, but he was still found guilty and the sentence carried out:

On the 1st July 1681, he was dragged on a sledge from Newgate prison, before a noisy crowd, a distance of three kilometers to Tyburn. The keeper of Newgate when asked how the prisoner was, replied that he had slept soundly and that he was as unconcerned as if he was going to a wedding. From the three cornered gallows at Tyburn, Archbishop Oliver in a prepared speech, refuted his accusers point by point and forgave all of them, including the judges, and those who had given evidence against him at the trial: "I beg of my Saviour to grant them true repentance, I do forgive them with all my heart."

Oliver's theme of reconciliation continued, by his asking forgiveness of all those whom he had ever offended by thought, word or deed. He prayed: "I beseech your Divine Majesty by the merits of Christ and the intercession of his Blessed Mother and all the holy angels and saints to forgive me my sins and to grant my soul eternal rest."

Kneeling he recited an act of contrition, the Miserere psalm and he repeated before his death, the prayer of Jesus on the cross: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my Spirit". St. Oliver worked tirelessly as Archbishop for ten years, paying the ultimate price of martyrdom without seeing the fruits of his labours, and his crowning glory was the manner of his death, humble, heroic and holy. Several priests were close by and they blessed and absolved him at the point of his death. He may have been already dead when he was taken down and the further mutilation began. A fire had been prepared to consume his remains, his head was thrown into it, but it was quickly recovered and scorch marks may still be discerned on the left cheek. His demeanour and his speech from the scaffold were well received and it was patently obvious to many that he was innocent, as the plot had already shown signs of crumbling.

Charles II knew that Archbishop Plunkett was being framed but he did nothing because it was not politically expedient to protect a Catholic priest from injustice. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Earl of Essex, Arthur Capell, recognized the injustice of Plunkett's trial, conviction, and execution and Charles excoriated him: "his blood be on your head - you could have saved him but would not, I would save him and dare not".

After his martyrdom, St. Oliver's head was thrown into a fire and Catholics saved it. The head was taken to Rome and returned to Ireland 40 years later, kept safe in a Dominican convent in Drogheda until the 20th century. A new shrine was created in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda in 1995. 

The Archdiocese of Armagh publishes this prayer:

Glorious Martyr, Oliver, who willingly gave your life for your faith, help us also to be strong in faith. May we be loyal like you to the See of Peter. By your intercession and example may all hatred and bitterness be banished from the hearts of Irish men and women. May the peace of Christ reign in our hearts, as it did in your heart, even at the moment of your death. Pray for us and for Ireland. Amen.

Later this month, on July 9th, the Archdiocese of Armagh will unveil a new statue of St. Oliver Plunkett in the Cathedral of St. Patrick "to honour the 350th anniversary of the appointment of St Oliver Plunkett as Archbishop of Armagh". I'll post an update after that date!

St. Oliver Plunkett, pray for us!

Another Victim of Titus Oates' Perjury

Today is the feast of St. Claude de la Colombiere, SJ who died on February 15, 1682. In a way, he is a victim of the Popish Plot, according to this biography published on the Jesuits in Britain website:

Claude found himself sent to England, to London where, seventy years after the Gunpowder Plot, there was still hostility to Catholics. Claude was sent to be Chaplain to the Duke and Duchess of York, both Catholics. The Duke was the younger brother and heir-presumptive of the reigning King Charles II; the Duchess, Mary of Modena, was a devout Catholic. As King James II & VIIth, he would become the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland until deposed in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. Charles II had granted the couple special permission to maintain a chapel in St. James’s Palace. English Jesuits were still, in those days, in considerable disarray and English Catholic priests would not have been permitted to occupy such a prominent posting. Fr Claude was given a modest apartment in the Palace and moved in on October 13th, 1676.

Fr Claude found it difficult from the beginning. That first London winter seems to have been severe. Perhaps imprudently, he would not hear of any extra heating in his sparse apartment. He admits to finding London cuisine inedible. Physical hardship was not the worst of his unhappiness. The morals of the Restoration era (broadly 1660 – 1710) were lax and louche, as the contemporary literary evidence shows. Claude was distressed by what he saw but he refused to harangue; instead, he returned again and again, in his preaching, to the Eucharistic love of Christ’s heart. Another biographer notes that “he breathed good will” and that there was “nothing of Savonarola about de la Colombiere”. Fr Claude’s spiritual diary of that time records an increasing devotion to St Francis de Sales; in Claude’s preaching we find a similar emphasis on the tenderness of God’s mercy, and an amazement at the contrast between God’s unlimited love and the boundless ingratitude that people show in return. This would surely have recalled, for Claude, those spiritual conversations and discernments in the Pray-le-Monial days.

Trouble lay ahead. Seventeenth-century London was an ambiguous place and not safe for Catholics, especially Jesuits. An entirely fictitious conspiracy, dreamt up by one Titus Oates, gripped both the English and Scottish kingdoms between 1678 and 1681. Catholics, it alleged, were plotting against the life of Charles II. The Jesuits in England were to carry out the “Popish Plot” (there had been a popular, hysterical assumption that the Great Fire of London in 1666 had been ignited by the Jesuits). Oates claimed to have attended a meeting, in a pub on The Strand, which discussed the Jesuits’ tactics. Caught up in this wave of frenzy, Claude was denounced by someone whom he thought he could trust. Imprisoned in November 1678 in an unheated filthy dungeon, he suffered a rapid deterioration in his health. Claude was charged with traitorous speech against the King and parliament. He was deported back to France and, seriously ill, slowly made his way back to Paray. There, his health broken and after one final meeting with St Margaret Mary, he died, 41 years old, on February 15th 1682.

Pope St. John Paul II canonized St. Claude in 1992.

Blessed Richard Langhorne

Blessed Richard Langhorne (c. 1624 – 14 July 1679) was a barrister executed as part of the Popish Plot. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in May 1647 and called to the bar in November 1654. He provided legal and financial advice for the Jesuits.

His wife, Dorothy, was a Protestant from Havering in Essex. His sons Charles and Francis were both priests. When, in October 1677, Titus Oates was expelled from the English College at St Omer "for serious moral lapses", Charles Langhorne entrusted Oates with a letter to his father. Oates returned to St Omer with a letter from Richard thanking the Jesuits for all they had done for his sons.

When Oates and Israel Tonge unleashed their Popish Plot in September 1678, three Jesuits and a Benedictine were arrested. Langhorne was arrested a week later, imprisoned at Newgate and charged with Treason. Oates claimed, corroborated by William Bedloe, that Langhorne's earlier correspondence dealt with treason.

He was found guilty of High Treason. As the result of a petition by his wife, a ‘true Protestant’, he received a month's reprieve to tidy the affairs of his clients. He was executed at Tyburn, London, on 14 July 1679. According to the Benedictines at Tyburn Convent, "He declared on the scaffold at Tyburn, that not only a pardon, but many preferments and estates had been offered to him if he would for sake his religion. As the hangman was placing the rope round his neck, he took it into his hands and kissed it."

This notice from The Tablet archives has this additional detail about his execution from a contemporary account:

"He then said, 'Pray God bless his Majesty and this kingdom, and defend him from all his enemies '; and then prayed that there might be no more blood shed, and that God would forgive them that designed or rejoyced in his death, and suddenly added, 'I shall say no more in publick.' And presently applyed himself to his private devotions, and by some words which he spake lowder than ordinary it appeared that some of his prayers were in Latin and some in English. One near him saying, the Lord have mercy on his soul,' he, turning to him, said, I thank you for your charity.' Having continued about a quarter of an hour in his private ejaculations (though the sheriff told him he might take half an hour if he pleased), he asked whether the rope were right. A while after he said, You need stay no longer for me.' Upon which the cart was immediately drawn away, and the hangman, having struck him on the breast and pull'd his legs to dispatch him, he was stripp'd, and being quite dead, was cut down and the sentence executed upon him. . . .

"After his bowels were burnt and his body quartered according to his sentence, his corps was, by his Majesty's most gracious order, delivered to his friends, who put it into a hearse, with escutcheons about it, and was afterwards interred in the Temple church, in which place he was once a student of the laws."

On 15 December 1929, he was beatified by Pope Pius XI.

As I've noted before on this blog when discussing the Popish Plot, England's justice system benefited the accuser and gave little leeway to a defendant trying to prove a negative: Langhorne could not prove their interpretation of his letters was wrong. Samuel Pepys and other defendants finally received some measure of justice because Judge Scrogg figured out Oates' and his confreres' perjury. Samuel Pepys was accused that same year of giving naval secrets to the French and of being a Catholic, just because of his loyalty to James, the Duke of York. He spent six months in the Tower of London and eventually established, not his innocence per se, but his accuser's guilt. Pepys was cleared of charges and reinstated as Secretary to the Admirality--in 1684!

Blessed Richard Langhorne, pray for us!

The Last Rebel, The Last Battle

As the latest biography of James, the Duke of Monmouth notes:

At first light on July 6, 1685, the last battle ever fought on English soil was almost over. On one side of the watery pasture at Sedgemoor was the dashing thirty-six-year-old Duke of Monmouth, the charismatic son of Charles II, adored by the people. A reformer, a romantic, and a Protestant, he was fighting the army he had once commanded, in opposition to his uncle, King James II. Yet even before he launched his attack, Monmouth knew he would die.

How did he know that he would die? Because he was trapped and his surprise attack had failed, according to this UK Battlefields Resource Center post:

During the night, in a last desperate attempt to salvage something from his abortive rebellion, Monmouth launched a surprise night attack from the least expected direction, across the marshy wastes of Sedgemoor. But the rebels’ bold strategy was discovered before they reached the royal camp and then, in the darkness, their cavalry failed to locate the ford giving access to the royal camp.

With the element of surprise lost any chance of victory had disappeared. The rebel horse soon fled the field and in open country without cavalry support Monmouth’s infantry proved an easy target for the royal cavalry. The discipline, experience and firepower of the well equipped professional soldiers of the army of James II soon began to tell. As the morning light revealed the rebels’ true plight of the rebels, Feversham launched a join cavalry and infantry attack. Monmouth’s army was totally destroyed.

Monmouth, aka James Monmouth Scott, was Charles II's favorite bastard:

Born in the backstreets of Rotterdam in the year his grandfather Charles I was executed, Monmouth was the child of a turbulent age. His mother, the first of Charles II's famous liaisons, played courtesan to the band of raw and restless young royalists forced abroad by the changing political current. Conceived during a revolution and born into a republic, Monmouth, by the time he was twelve, was the sensation of the most licentious and libertine court in Europe. Adored by the king and drenched in honors, he became the greatest rake and reprobate of the age.

On his path to becoming "the last royal rebel," Monmouth consorted with a spectacular list of contemporaries: Louis XIV was his mentor, William of Orange his confidant, Nell Gwyn his friend, the future Duke of Marlborough his pupil, D'Artagnan his lieutenant, John Dryden his censor, and John Locke his comrade. Anna Keay expertly chronicles Monmouth's life and offers splendid insight into this crucial and dramatic period in English history.

It's interesting to note that another of Charles II's illegitimate sons fought for James II: Henry Fitzroy, the 1st Duke of Grafton. He was one of Charles's three sons with Barbara Palmer, the 1st Duchess of Cleveland. He would later support William of Orange in his invasion of England to depose James II, leaving his uncle's service with John Churchill. Churchill and Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham also led the king's army against Monmouth's troops. Fitzroy was a Catholic; Monmouth an Anglican.

Monmouth's army was also commanded by Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville and Benjamin Hewling. Tankerville survived after the defeat:

He was in command of the cavalry, and its defeat on two occasions may have been caused by his cowardice, possibly even by his treachery. He was taken prisoner and condemned for high treason, but he obtained a pardon by freely giving evidence against his former associates, and was restored to his honours in June 1686.

Hewling was one of those executed in the Bloody Assizes condemned by Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys, who had also presided over many of the Popish Plot trials. Just to show how tangled these webs of family, rebellion, and treachery were: Henry Fitzroy's guardian, Roger Palmer, Barbara's husband and a prominent Catholic (she had become Catholic too) was accused of involvement in the Popish Plot. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London but defended himself ably against Jeffreys and the Lord Chief Justice at the time, William Scroggs.

Monmouth was executed soon after his defeat, on July 15, 1685, despite offering to convert to Catholicism--at the same time, being refused Communion in the Church of England by the bishops of Bath and Wells (Thomas Ken, later a nonjuror) and Ely (Francis Turner, ditto) because he would acknowledge his sins. His execution, commuted from the usual penalty of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, was not merciful at all because Jack Ketch, the headsman, could not cut off the poor man's dead efficiently or expeditiously. According to Thomas Macaulay, Monmouth feared it would be so:

He then accosted John Ketch the executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given to all who have succeeded him in his odious office. 'Here ', said the Duke, 'are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well.' He then undressed, felt the edge of the axe, expressed some fear that it was not sharp enough, and laid his head on the block. The divines in the meantime continued to ejaculate with great energy; 'God accept your repentance! God accept your imperfect repentance!'

The hangman addressed himself to his office. But he had been disconcerted by what the Duke had said. The first blow inflicted only a slight wound. The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked reproachfully at the executioner. The head sank down once more. The stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck was not severed, and the body continued to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a curse. 'I cannot do it,' he said; `my heart fails me.' 'Take up the axe, man,' cried the sheriff. 'Fling him over the rails,' roared the mob. At length the axe was taken up. Two more blows extinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was used to separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in danger of being torn in pieces, and was conveyed away under a strong guard.

Finally, you might recall that Raphael Sabatini wrote Captain Blood, an historical novel about a doctor, Peter Blood, who treats a Monmouth supporter wounded at the Battle of Sedgemoor and is transported to the West Indies as a slave during the Bloody Assizes. The novel was made into a movie in 1935 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland--Vernon Steele appears as James II and Leonard Mudie as Justice Jeffreys. TCM.com provides some scenes from the movie--at the beginning his servant tells Blood that he is thought to be a Papist by some because he is not fighting for Monmouth!

The Popish Plot and The Howard Family

The Howard family boasts two martyrs: St. Philip Howard who died in the Tower of London during Queen Elizabeth I's reign (denied the opportunity to see his son before he died unless he denied his Catholicism and professed to be a Protestant!) and his grandson, Blessed William Howard, who was beheaded on December 29, 1680 on Tower Hill.

William Howard was born on November 30, 1614, the son of Thomas Howard, who had conformed to the Church of England. William married Mary Stafford in a Catholic ceremony in 1637 and they had nine children. The Howard family, being Royalists, fled to the Netherlands during the English Civil War and returned to England with the Restoration of Charles II, being restored to his lands. Three of their daughters became nuns on the Continent and his wife died in 1692; James II had provided her with a pension.

He was accused by Titus Oates of being part of the non-existent Popish Plot and was tried by his peers in the House of Lords in Westminster Hall. One of his witnesses was arrested and died in jail. Howard was, of course, found guilty, attainted and his lands forfeit. The British Museum has a print that depicts his trial and execution.

He protested his innocence throughout the trial and on the scaffold:

Next he lift up his hands, standing up, and said. "I beseech Thee, God, not to avenge my innocent blood upon any man in the Whole kingdom ; no, not against those who by their perjuries have brought me here. For I profess before Almighty God that I never combined against the King's life, nor any body else, but whatever I did was only to procure liberty for the Romish religion. And, as for the Duke of York, I do here declare, upon my Salvation, I know of no design that he ever had against the King, but hath ever behaved himself, for ought I know, as a loving, loyal brother ought to do.
So now, upon my Salvation, I have said true all that I have said. And I pray God to have mercy upon my soul." . . .

After which he went round the scaffold and spake to the multitude thus, "I pray God, bless the King, and bless you all, especially the King's loyal subjects (such as I am myself) for I know you have a good and gracious King as ever reigned. God forgive me my sins, I forgive all the world, even those fellows that brought me here, and pray God to send them no worse punishment than to repent and tell the truth. And so, God bless you all."

And some replyed, "God have mercy upon your soul." Then a minister applyed himself, and said, "Sir; you did disown the indulgences of the Romish Church."

To which he answered, with a great passion.

"Sir ; what have you to do with my religion? Pray do not trouble me. However, I do say that the Church of Rome allows no indulgences for murder, lying, &c., and whatever I have said is true. What need you trouble yourself?"

Min. "Have you received no absolution?"

Answ. "I have received none at all. Sir, trouble not yourself, nor me."

Min. "You said that you never saw those witnesses."

Answ. "I never saw any of them but Dugdale, and that was at a time when I spoke to him about a footboy, or a foot match."

Then his man took off his periwig and upper coat, and with a pair of sizers (sic) cut off the collar of his masters shirt, after which, W.S. lyes down in a white satin waistcoat, a quilted sky-coloured silk cap, with lace turn 'd up, &c.

He gave his watch to a gentleman, crucifix to his page, his staff and paper to another.

Having fitted his neck to the block, rise up upon his knees and prayed to himself, then takes the block and embraced it, then 'his servants cut off more of the linen, in all which time he sent up short prayers, that Christ would receive his spirit. Then lying down and praying upon the block, the sheriff Cornish askt' of the headsman, in kindness to W.S., if he had given him any sign. He answered "No."

 

Whereupon W.S. rose up in a consternation and asked what they wanted. To which it was answered, "What sign will you give, Sir?"

Answ. "No sign at all. Take your own time. God's will be done."

Whereupon the executioner said, "I hope you forgive me?"

He made answer, "I do." Then lying down again, two of his servants came with a piece of black silk to receive the head. Then the headsman took the Axe in 'his hand, and after some pause gave the blow, Which was cleverly done, save the cutting off a little skin, which was cut off immediately with a knife. 

In 1824 his great-great-great grandson George William Jerningham requested Parliament to reverse the attainder against William Howard and restore the title Viscount Stafford, which he then inherited.

Pope Pius XI beatified William Howard in 1929.