Another Builder of "Priest Holes" or "Hides" in England

When I discussed the Stuart-era Catholic Martyrs with Deal Hudson on his Church and Culture program, we highlighted Saint Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit lay-brother, tortured to death by English authorities in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. We spoke of him as the great engineer and builder of numerous "priest holes" or "hides" in Recusant houses in England. 

There was, however, another great engineer and builder of these hiding places, Father Richard Holtby, SJ (1553–1640). He worked mostly in Yorkshire and the 1885-1900 Dictionary of National Biography has a quite a detailed entry about his life and mission to Catholics in the Recusant era, written by Thompson Cooper (who was an expert in the Mason-Gurney system of shorthand!). 

After studying at both Cambridge and Oxford (where he studied with the future martyr Alexander Briant at Hart Hall*) Holtby left England and was received into the Catholic Church after arriving at Douai to study at the English College in August 1577:

He was ordained priest at Cambrai 29 March 1578. A year later he was sent to English mission, and he laboured with great zeal in the northern counties. In 1581 Father Edmund Campion [Saint!] paid him a visit, and while staying in his house composed the famous ‘Decem Rationes,’ and urged him to join the Society of Jesus. Holtby accordingly went in the following spring to Paris, where he was admitted into the society in 1583, and he passed his novitiate at Verdun. After spending four years in the study of theology in the university of Pont-à-Mousson, he was appointed about 1587 superior of the Scotch College there. The father-general, Aquaviva, sent him back to England in 1589. In 1603 he was professed of the four vows. After the execution of Father Henry Garnett he was appointed superior or vice-prefect of the English mission, and during his three years’ tenure of that office he appears to have resided in London.

After some controversy with the archpriest George Blackwell on whether or not Catholics could take James I's new Oath of Allegiance, he left London. Here are some of Cooper's comments on Father Holtby's priest holes and other efforts:

He was a skillful mechanic, and constructed many cleverly contrived hiding-places for the persecuted priests. He could also ply the needle to make vestments and altar-cloths. . . . He died in the Durham district on 14 May (O.S.) 1640. ‘Of no other English Jesuit,’ remarks Dr. Jessopp, ‘can it be said that he exercised his vocation in England for upwards of fifty years, and that, too, with extraordinary effect and ceaseless activity, without once being thrown into gaol or once falling into the hands of pursuivants; and quietly died in is bed in extreme old age.’

Father Holtby also contributed to the history of recusancy and persecution in England, according to Cooper:

His works are: ‘On the Persecution in the North,’ 1594 manuscript at Stonyhurst College, printed by Morris in ‘Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,’ iii. 103-219, and partially printed in Dodd’s 'Church History,’ ed. Tierney, iii. 75-148. and ‘Account of Three Martyrs’ (namely Page, Lambton, and Waterson, priests), manuscript at Stonyhurst College; printed by Morris in ‘Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,’ iii. 220-30.

How remarkable that he was able to serve the Catholics of England for so many years, especially with his connections to martyrs like Saint Alexander Briant and Saint Edmund Campion!

*Hart Hall, now Hertford College, was for a time a refuge for recusant Catholics under Philip Randall, its principal from 1549 to 1556. John Donne was a student there (when he was Catholic!) in 1583/4.

Randall died on March 11, 1599 and was buried at St. Peter-in-the-East, now the Library of St. Edmund Hall.

Carthusian Gardens: Cells and Horticulture

Via Tea at Trianon: English Heritage describes how the Carthusians at Mount Grace Priory had gardens outside their cells:

The garden of the Mount Grace Priory cell is English Heritage’s best preserved example of monastic horticulture. It was replanted for the first time in 1994, following archaeological excavation of the cells. The excavations showed that the lay-out and use of each garden varied according to the inclination and interest of the individual monk.

The pattern of paths and beds in the garden was based on archaeological evidence, but it was uncertain which plants were used or how they may have been arranged in the beds. None of the recent planting was intended to be a restoration or reconstruction of the original garden. It instead was a demonstration of the kinds of plants that were grown in gardens at the time the monastery flourished.

Equipment, too, has changed how we tend to our gardens today. Monk’s tools would have been simple wooden and metal ards (like a small hand pulled plough) or mattocks rather than the mechanised marvels of today’s horticulture. Rather than a tractor, power for larger plots would have been provided by oxen.

Cell gardens as at Mount Grace Priory provided monks with the opportunity for manual labour within the confines of their own cell, which was a key part of the Carthusian ideal. As a hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) they also had biblical associations including the garden of the ‘Song of Solomon’, and alluded to the ‘original’ Garden of Eden, or to ‘Paradise’ itself. These spaces were not primarily for food production but had multiple functions of spirituality, health and utility. The mass of food for the monks came from much larger kitchen gardens, plots and farms elsewhere.

These cell gardens were strongly geometric in form, often compartmentalised (defining spaces for medicinal or poisonous species) and in the 15th century started to become decorative. This included a mix of medicinal and aromatic herbs, and flowering plants to lift the mind and spirit and to aid contemplation.

English Heritage also describes how Mount Grace was a thriving community as late as 1523, with a waiting list of men wanting to become Carthusians. The last prior, John Wilson, tried to save the house:

Though the Carthusians featured prominently in the early opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon and the consequent break with Rome, Mount Grace remained relatively untroubled during the first years of the Reformation.

The monks refused to become involved with the Pilgrimage of Grace, the popular rising that broke out in Yorkshire in the autumn of 1536 in reaction to the suppression of the lesser monasteries.

When Mount Grace was eventually suppressed in December 1539 the community were given generous pensions. The prior was granted the hermitage and chapel of The Mount in nearby Osmotherley, which belonged to the priory.[11] He, with one of his monks and two lay brothers, was to join the charterhouse of Sheen when it was refounded under Mary I in 1555.[12]

The last prior of Sheen Priory in Richmond, named the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, was Maurice Chauncey. He was:

one of the few religious of the London charterhouse who purchased their lives of Henry VIII. by compliance with his wishes, and on its dissolution obtained a pension of £5. In his future penitence he deeply bewailed that he had not shared the crown of martyrdom, and spoke of himself as 'the spotted and diseased sheep of the flock.' The Carthusians, who were for a short time gathered together under Prior Maurice at Sheen during Mary's reign, were the scattered remnant of the various English charterhouses. Several died during their brief sojourn at the restored house, and the rest followed their superior into exile on Elizabeth's accession. Prior Maurice died at Paris on 12 July 1581; two years later his history of the sufferings of the Carthusians under Henry VIII. was printed, of which Mr. Froude made so much use in his graphic and sympathetic account of their treatment. (fn. 34)

In exile, the remaining Carthusians gathering in Belgium under Chauncey's leadership in the Sheen Anglorum Charterhouse.

Blesseds Pilchard, Pike, and Flathers at Dorchester and York

Both of these priestly martyrs had been arrested and banished, but returned to England and suffered martyrdom when arrested again, one during the reign of Elizabeth I and the other during the reign of James I.

The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the life and death of Blessed Thomas Pilchard or Pilcher, incuding among the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987:

He was born at Battle, Sussex, 1557; died at Dorchester, 21 March 1586-7. He became a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, in 1576, and took the degree of M.A., in 1579, resigning his fellowship the following year. He arrived at Reims 20 November, 1581, and was ordained priest at Laon, March, 1583, and was sent on the mission. He was arrested soon after, and banished; but returned almost immediately. He was again arrested early in March, 1586-7, and imprisoned in Dorchester Gaol, and in the fortnight between committal to prison and condemnation converted thirty persons. He was so cruelly drawn upon the hurdle that he was fainting when he came to the place of execution. When the rope was cut, being still alive he stood erect under the scaffold. The executioner, a cook, carried out the sentence so clumsily that the victim, turning to the sheriff, exclaimed "Is this then your justice, Mr. Sheriff?" According to another account "the priest raised himself and putting out his hands cast forward his own bowels, crying 'Miserere mei'". Father William Warford, a contemporary of Blessed Thomas Pilchard, says: "There was not a priest in the whole West of England, who, to my knowledge, was his equal in virtue."

He is honored at the Dorset Martyrs Memorial on Gallows Hill, Dorchester, which includes Blessed William Pyke or Pike, a layman reconciled to the Catholic Church by Blessed Thomas Pilchard. Some sources give his date of execution at December 22, 1591 but others say that the date is uncertain and so he is remembered with his confessor. He was also hanged, drawn, and quartered because he had converted to Catholicism, which was an act of treason. He also answered the Bloody Question incorrectly according to authorities, denying Elizabeth I's ecclesiastical authority. He was a joiner, or carpenter, and was resolute.

The Catholic Encyclopedia records another brutal execution on March 21, in 1607, of Blessed Matthew Flathers in York:

An English priest and martyr; b. probably c. 1580 at Weston, Yorkshire, England; d. at York, 21 March, 1607. He was educated at Douai, and ordained at Arras, 25 March, 1606. Three months later he was sent to English mission, but was discovered almost immediately by the emissaries of the Government, who, after the Gunpowder Plot, had redoubled their vigilance in hunting down the priests of the proscribed religion. He was brought to trial, under the statute of 27 Elizabeth, on the charge of receiving orders abroad, and condemned to death. By an act of unusual clemency, this sentence was commuted to banishment for life; but after a brief exile, the undaunted priest returned to England in order to fulfil his mission, and, after ministering for a short time to his oppressed coreligionists in Yorkshire was again apprehended. Brought to trial at York on the charge of being ordained abroad and exercising priestly functions in England, Flathers was offered his life on condition that he take the recently enacted Oath of Allegiance. On his refusal, he was condemned to death and taken to the common place of execution outside Micklegate Bar, York. The usual punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering seems to have been carried out in a peculiarly brutal manner, and eyewitnesses relate how the tragic spectacle excited the commiseration of the crowds of Protestant spectators.

He was also included among the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified in 1987. Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Church in Otley honors him as a local martyr.

Remember that hanging, drawing and quartering was live vivisection: a fumbling, inept executioner could prolong the suffering. It was a mercy if the hangman allowed the victim to die while hanging, or at least be unconscious.

Image credit: © Copyright Becky Williamson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Martyrs' Memorial, Gallows Hill, Dorchester, taken 2 years ago
This memorial was erected in 1986 to commemorate all Dorset men and women who were martyred for their faith, particularly during the religious troubles of the 16th and 17th centuries. 

The artist who created the sculptures was Elizabeth Frink.

August Martyrs: Blessed Nicholas Postgate, Popish Plot Victim

Blessed Nicholas Postgate is one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales and he is also one of the victims of the Popish Plot. Rather like Blessed John Kemble in Monmouthshire whom we will honor later this month, he had served Catholics in his locality, North East Yorkshire for decades without interference from authorities. But the Popish Plot changed that, as this site recounts:

Often disguised as a gardener, and credited with introducing the daffodil to North Yorkshire, he cared for his scattered flock. It is not easy to keep secrets in a rural community and it would seem that it was well known amongst Catholics and many non Catholics that Nicholas Postgate was a priest.

This acceptance was undermined by the so called “Popish Plot” of 1678, a fictitious scare about a plot to kill the King and establish a Catholic government. An exciseman by the name of John Reeves learned of the identity of Nicholas Postgate, and as the priest came to Redbarns at Littlebeck to baptise a child he was arrested. In due course he was taken to the magistrate at Brompton, and sent to the Assizes at York. Here the judge reluctantly found him guilty under the Act of 1585 against Jesuits and seminary priests. Nicholas Postgate was condemned to death. During his imprisonment it is said that he wrote the hymn, which is still sung. He was executed on the Knavesmire on 7th August 1679. In his final words he declared, he was dying for the Catholic Faith, not for any plot but for his religion. He asked the Sheriff, to assure the King that he had never at any time wronged his Majesty in any way whatsoever. He prayed God to grant the King grace and the light of truth, he then declared that he forgave all who had brought him to his death and asked forgiveness for himself from all.

I am glad to report that there is a very active cause in his home diocese for his canonization, with pilgrimages and other events. The Postgate Society and the Middlesborough Diocese are encouraging prayer for his intercession and canonization:

O God who raised up the Glorious martyr
Blessed Nicholas Postgate to be an example for us
today, grant us the grace to walk in his ways
and gain the crown of the Blessed.
Grant us we pray, Almighty God, that we who
admire the courage of your martyrs' glorious
confession of the Faith may witness in ourselves
the power of their loving intercession.
O God, who glorifies those who give you glory,
and are honoured in the valour of your Saints,
grant, we pray you, by the solemn judgement
of your Church, to glorify the Blood of
The Blessed' Nicholas Postgate, and all those
Martyrs who were put to death in England and
Wales for the testimony of Jesus.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN

Venerable Mary Ward

This site offers the story of her life and death:

Born into a Yorkshire Catholic recusant family in 1585 Mary Ward was remarkable for being among the first women to believe that women should be actively involved in the apostolic life of the Catholic Church. However, initially she opted for the strictest form of contemplative religious life determined to give herself totally to God.

When God revealed to her that a life of prayer and obscurity behind a convent wall was not what she was called to she returned to London in 1609. Here with a group of like-minded young women she engaged in apostolic work disregarding the strict laws against Catholics at the time. Later that same year Mary realised that God was calling her to some form of religious life “more to his glory” To discern what it was she left London for Flanders with her young companions and founded her first house at St Omer.

In 1611, when at prayer, enlightenment came to her and she heard clearly the words: ‘take the same of the Society’ by which she understood the ‘Society of Jesus’ founded by St Ignatius of Loyola. The rest of her life was to be spent in developing a congregation of religious women on the Ignatian model for which she needed, and failed to gain, papal approval.

Three times she and her companions walked to Rome from Flanders, twice to try to gain this approval and the third time as a prisoner of the Inquisition following the suppression of her congregation by Pope Urban VIII in 1631. During this period she founded houses and schools in Liège, Cologne, Rome, Naples, Munich, Vienna, Pressburg and other places, often at the request of the local rulers and bishops, but papal approval eluded her. . . .

 

Summoned to Rome in 1632 to face charges Mary was granted an audience with the Pope at which she declared: “Holy Father, I neither am nor ever have been a heretic”. She received the comforting reply: “We believe it, we believe it”. No trial ever took place, but Mary Ward was forbidden to leave Rome or to live in community.

In 1637 for reasons of health Mary was allowed to travel to Spa and then on to England. She died during the English Civil War just outside York on January 30th 1645. She is buried in Osbaldwick Anglican churchyard close by.

 

The same site also describes the progress of her cause for beatification and canonization: she has been declared Venerable--what is needed is a miracle!

 

The recognition by the Church of Mary Ward as foundress did not take place until 1909, and the First World War then presented a further delay. Only in 1922 was a petition to open her cause sent to Pope Pius XI signed by all the bishops of England. The process opened in Middlesborough, Yorkshire in 1929. Soon afterwards permission was obtained to pursue the case simultaneously in Munich where most of the archive material was available.

The historical research was begun by Fr Josef Grisar SJ and completed by Sr Immolata Wetter CJ accompanied by the Postulator Fr Paul Molinari SJ and the Relator Fr Peter Gumpel SJ. This was accepted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1995. The theologians completed their investigation in May 2009 and recommended unanimously that Mary Ward demonstrated ‘heroic virtue’ and that her cause should go forward. This was confirmed by the commission of Cardinals and Bishops in November 2009, and promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI on 19th December of the same year. By this action Mary Ward was officially recognised as ‘Venerable’ by the Church.

 

Prayers for her beatification and other devotions may be found here.

Mary Ward in York and the Bar Convent

Mary Ward was born and died in January (23 January 1585-30 January 1645) and if one were travelling to York and had any interest in her life or in the history of Catholicism in England, a stop at Bar Convent would be in order:

The Bar Convent is England’s oldest convent, founded in 1686 and still active with a resident religious community. It was established as a school for girls, and the fine 18th century buildings now house a Museum, Library & Archives, and gift Shop, together with well-equipped Meeting rooms, guest house Accommodation with free wi-fi and a Café. . . .

The Community of nuns who still reside at the Bar Convent belong to the Congregation of Jesus which was founded by the Yorkshire woman, Mary Ward (1585-1645).

More about Mary Ward later this month, but here's a link to the Bar Convent's biography of the Venerable nun. You might also note that the Chapel of the Bar Convent has a relic of St. Margaret Clitherow, the great Yorkshire martyr.

"Persuading to Popery" in 1587

One of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales: In his earlier years, George Douglas, of Edinburgh, Scotland, worked as a schoolmaster in the English county of Rutland. He subsequently journeyed overseas to Paris, where he studied for the priesthood and was ordained. There are uncertainties in the biographical details of his life, including the specific year of his ordination. He may have been a member of a religious congregation, perhaps the Franciscan Order, but this cannot be established. Father Douglas came to England about ten years after his ordination to serve the country’s Catholics persecuted under Queen Elizabeth I. It was while laboring thus that he was arrested a first time, but was thereafter released. He was arrested a second time at Ripton in the northern county of Yorkshire. Father Douglas was sentenced to death for “persuading to popery,” that is, for winning converts to the Catholic faith. At York he was executed by drawing and quartering on September 9, 1587, manifesting great fortitude during his torments. He was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987, more than 400 years after his martyrdom.

Blesseds Peter Snow and Ralph Grimston

Peter Snow, of Ripon, England, was ordained a priest in Soissons, France in 1591. After returning to England, he served for seven years in Yorkshire, ministering to his fellow Catholics persecuted under Queen Elizabeth I. In the spring of 1598, he received assistance in his travels from a Yorkshire native, Ralph Grimston, a married layman from Nidd. Ralph had previously suffered imprisonment for opening his home to Catholic priests. On or around May 1, 1598, Father Snow and Ralph were captured while journeying together to York. Father Snow was condemned to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering for being a priest. Ralph was condemned to death by hanging for having assisted Father Snow and for having attempted to prevent the priest’s arrest when they were caught. They suffered martyrdom together on June 15 at York.

The Catholic Cathedral at Leeds, dedicated to St. Anne, has their skulls as relics, and the University of Dundee reconstructed their faces based on their skulls (just like they do on Bones and all the other forensic cop shows on television!). It's rather heartbreaking to imagine the young Father Peter Snow enduring the tortures of being hung and eviscerated during his execution--unlike the stylized portraits of the sixteenth century or the idealized images of the martyrs, the picture of him on the left is more realtistic (if we believe the reconstruction). Mr. Grimston seems stalwart and, I guess, normal, balding and wrinkled. I can imagine him taking a swing at the pursuivants on the road to York, trying to fight them off to give Father Show a chance. They were beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987, among the Eighty-Five Martyrs of England and Wales.

Another Confessor of St. Margaret Clitherow

Blessed Francis Ingleby: English martyr, born about 1551; suffered at York on Friday, 3 June, 1586 (old style). According to an early but inaccurate calendar he suffered 1 June (Cath. Rec.Soc. V, 192). Fourth son of Sir William Ingleby, knight, of Ripley, Yorkshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir William Malory, knight, of Studley, he was probably a scholar of Brasenose College, Oxford, in and before 1565, and was a student of the Inner Temple in 1576. On 18 August, 1582 he arrived at the English College, Reims, where he lived at his own expense. He was ordained subdeacon at Laon on Saturday, 28 May, deacon at Reims, Saturday, 24 September, and priest at Laon, Saturday 24 December, 1583 and left for England Thursday, 5 April 1584. (These four dates are all new style). He laboured with great zeal in the neighbourhood of York, where he was arrested in the spring of 1586, and lodged in the castle. He was the one of the priests for harbouring whom the St. Margaret Clitherow was arraigned. At the prison door, while fetters were being fastened on his legs he smilingly said, "I fear me I shall be overproud of my boots." He was condemned under 27 Eliz. c. 2 for being a priest. When sentence was pronounced he exclaimed, "Credo videre bona Domini in terra viventium". [From Psalm 26: "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living", one of the Psalms in the Office of the Dead.] Fr. Warford says he was short but well-made, fair-complexioned, with a chestnut beard, and a slight cast in his eyes. Blessed Francis is one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987. The Portal, the magazine published by the Ordinariate of Our Lady in Walsingham in England, has more about the martyr in their May 2012 issue.

May 11, 1537: Hanging in Chains

Two of the Carthusians of the Charterhouse of London began their agonizing and slow death by being hung in chains from the York city battlements: Blessed John Rochester and Blessed James Walworth. They were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on the 20th of December in 1886 or 1888 (I've found two sources with two dates!).

After the first three Carthusian priors were executed on May 4, 1535, the next three leaders in line, Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate, were executed on June 19 that same year and these two monks were taken from London to the Charterhouse of St. Michael in Hull.

In the wake of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Rochester and Walworth were tried in York by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk and found guilty of treason.

The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this detail about Blessed John Rochester:

Priest and martyr, born probably at Terling, Essex, England, about 1498; died at York, 11 May, 1537. He was the third son of John Rochester, of Terling, and Grisold, daughter of Walter Writtle, of Bobbingworth. He joined the Carthusians, was a choir monk of the Charterhouse in London, and strenuously opposed the new doctrine of the royal supremacy. He was arrested and sent a prisoner to the Carthusian convent at Hull. From there he was removed to York, where he was hung in chains. With him there suffered one James Walworth (?Wannert; Walwerke), Carthusian priest and martyr, concerning whom little or nothing is known. He may have been the "Jacobus Walwerke" who signed the Oath of Succession of 1534. John Rochester was beatified in 1888 by Leo XIII.


When Rowan Williams, who is resigning at the end of this year as Archbishop of Canterbury, remembered the Carthusian martyrs at the Charterhouse in London in 2010, he quoted H.F.M. Prescott's The Man on a Donkey and her description of Robert Aske's sufferings while hanging in chains, dying slowly by hunger, thirst, and exposure:

And towards the end of that extraordinary novel, we watch and listen to Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, in his last anguished moments, hanging in chains from the Keep of the Castle in York: "God did not now nor would in any furthest future prevail. Once he had come and died. If he came again, again he would die, and again and so forever, by his own will, rendered powerless against the free and evil wills of men. Then Aske met the full assault of darkness without reprieve of hoped for light, for God ultimately vanquished was no God at all. But yet, though God was not God, as the head of the dung worm turns, so his spirit turned blindly, gropingly, hopelessly loyal, towards that good, that holy, that merciful - which though not God, though vanquished - was still the last dear love of a vanquished and tortured man." . . . Robert Aske hangs in chains still, but (as Hilda Prescott's novel portrays it) a discovery has been made as he falls from level to level of despair and desire 'For now, yet with no greater fissure between then and now, and as a man's eyes are aware where no star was of the first star of night, now he was aware of One, vanquished God, Saviour who could as little save others as himself. But now, beside him and beyond, was nothing - and he was silence and light.'

Blessed martyrs of the Carthusians, pray for us!

Blessed Christopher Wharton, 1600 in York

Blessed Christopher Wharton is one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1987:

Born at Middleton [or Myddelton], Yorkshire, before 1546; martyred at York, 28 March, 1600. He was the second son of Henry Wharton of Wharton and Agnes Warcop, and younger brother of Thomas, first Lord Wharton. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated M.A., 3 February, 1564, and afterwards became a fellow. In 1583 he entered the English College at Reims to study for the priesthood (28 July). He was ordained priest in the following year 31 March, but continued his studies after ordination till 1586, when on 21 May he left Reims in company with Ven. Edward Burden [now Blessed Edward Burden]. No details of his missionary labours have been preserved; but at his trial Baron Savile, the judge, incidentally remarked that he had known him at Oxford some years after 1596. He was finally arrested in 1599 at the house of Eleanor Hunt, a widow, who was arrested with him and confined in York castle. There, with other Catholic prisoners, he was forcibly taken to hear Protestant sermons. He was brought to trial together with Mrs. Hunt at the Lent Assizes 1600, and both were condemned, the former for high treason, the latter for felony. Both refused life and liberty at the price of conformity, and the martyr suffered with great constancy, while Eleanor Hunt was allowed to linger in prison till she died. Dr. Worthington, writing of Ven. [Blessed] Christopher Wharton, specially commends his "humility, fervent charity, and other great virtues".

Note the gap between 1564 and 1583 while the future martyr was serving as fellow at Trinity College: what might have been happening in his studies and his life that moved him to leave Oxford and travel to Reims? Did he, like St. Edmund Campion before him and Blessed John Henry Newman after him, study the Fathers of the Church? This site notes that he was "influenced by others" and thus became a Catholic. Both he and those "others" were already taking incredible chances, as it was an act of treason against Queen Elizabeth I, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, to proselytize or convert. Then he left home and began the life of the hunted, persecuted Catholic missionary priest.

The Myddlelton Grange Retreat House linked above has a relic of the martyr: his skull. Its progress to the Retreat House is described thus:

His severed head was put on one of the gates of York, but was rescued by Catholics, who kept it safe in Knaresborough. Later, this area was served by Benedictine priests who eventually took the skull into safe keeping at Downside Abbey near Bath. 402 years after his death, Blessed Christopher’s skull was returned to this place by the Abbot of Downside, at the dedication of the chapel of St. Mary & St. Margaret Clitheroe.

Prayer to Blessed Christopher Wharton

Loving and Merciful God,
you raise up men and women in every age
to give witness to your love.
Through the intercession of Blessed Christopher Wharton,
priest and martyr,
may I learn more each day of your great love for me,
and in so doing,
may I never be afraid to offer the same witness of love
to my sisters and brothers.
By the prayers of this holy martyr,
grant my heartfelt prayer…
(here add your personal petition or prayer…),
and open my heart that I may recognise my sanctity as your child.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Jesus, Prince of Martyrs, have mercy on us.
Mary, Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.
Holy Martyrs of Yorkshire, pray for us.
Blessed Christopher Wharton, pray for us.
All holy men and women, pray for us.

Church of the English Martyrs, York

Since we are remembering St. Margaret Clitherow today, and have featured some other Catholic Martyrs of York recently, it only seems right to highlight the parish church in York dedicated to the English Martyrs.

The Parish of the English Martyrs is part of the Middlesbrough Diocese and yesterday, March 24, was the last stop on a pilgrimage in honor of St. Margaret Clitherow:

[The pilgrimage] will commence at 1.30pm with a Solemn Mass in the Church of St Wilfrid, which is close to York Minster. Following Mass, the procession will set off from outside St Wilfrid's at around 3pm, and will pass through The Shambles and over Ouse Bridge to the Church of the English Martyrs where, at about 4pm, there will be veneration of the relic of St Margaret followed by Benediction. Bishop Terence Drainey will be presiding at the Mass, which will be celebrated by Fr Michael Brown. The Rudgate Singers will provide the musical setting, which will be a modern one: Missa Summi et Aeterni Sacerdotis by Jeffrey Ostrowski. This may be unfamiliar to many people, but I don't think anyone will be disappointed. There will also be music by Victoria, Bruckner, Scarlatti, De Wael (another modern composer) and Gombert. During the veneration of the relic, the congregation will be invited to sing Faith of Our Fathers, Firmly I Believe and Truely (sic), and God of Mercy and Compassion. For Benediction the Rudgate Singers will sing the Perosi version of the O Salutaris, Bruckner's Tantum Ergo and Allegri's Adoremus. The Recessional will be the Worcester version of Laudes Regiae.

Here is a flickr series of pictures of the church, with this excellent detail about its history: "The mission began in 1881, with worship in a room in St. Mary's Court, off Blossom Street. In 1889 the congregation moved to 17 Blossom Street, where it occupied theupper story of a school building. This served until the present church and presbytery were built in Dalton Terrace (church opened on 4 May 1932). The architects were Williams & Jopling of Hull, who at the same time built St Vincent de Paul, Hull, to a very similar design, but smaller. The church and presbytery were built at a cost of about £12,000; the church seated 520 people.There are two parish halls; the small hall was built first, and the large hall later (inthe 1950s).The sanctuary was reordered by Weightman and Bullen in 1967, when the high altar, altar rails and pulpit were removed. A new forward altar was introduced, with parquet flooring to the chancel and seating around the apse, and a new terrazzo floor in the nave alleys."

The Pearl of York: St. Margaret Clitherow

She was pressed to death on Good Friday in 1586. The reason for this unique form of execution is that St. Margaret Clitherow refused to plead at her trial, to avoid her family having to testify against or for her. She was accused of harboring priests and protecting them, and she certainly had broken the law. Her husband was Anglican and paid fines on her behalf since she did not attend the Church of England. She did have Catholic priests in their home to teach her children and other Catholic children--remember that many in the north of England remained true to the Catholic Faith--and provided a hiding place. When these activities were discovered, St. Margaret was arrested and put on trial. Because she would not plead the judge proclaimed this sentence:

You must return from whence you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back on the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so to continue for three days without meat or drink, and on the third day to be pressed to death, your hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back. . . . [except that they did not prolong her torture to force her to plead in the trial against her, but proceeded with an execution by pressing or crushing]

Ten days were allowed to pass between her sentencing and execution. On the day of her execution she was calm and forgiving. When asked to pray for the Queen, she asked God to turn Her Majesty to the Catholic faith. They placed the board upon her and the hired executioners placed the huge stones upon her. Within a quarter of an hour she was dead. The sheriffs left the body under the door from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. They then buried her body in some waste ground, where they hoped it would never be found.

Last year I published this review of a book that considered her martyrdom and her sufferings as a Catholic in Elizabethan York in the context of the debate between Catholics about what relief from recusancy fines they could obtain by some outward indications of conformity. (The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan Englandby Peter Lake and Michael Questier).

Earlier this year, one of the bloggers for The Catholic Herald presented the notion that St. Margaret Clitherow should be included among the eminent Britons honoured by a postage stamp.

St. Margaret Clitherow shares a feast day with St. Margaret Ward and St. Anne Line, on August 30 in the dioceses of England.

Blessed Edmund Sykes, Martyr at York

Today, another martyr in York during the reign of Elizabeth I: Blessed Edmund Sykes's story demonstrates both weakness and renewed strength, as he briefly lapsed while ill and in prison:

Born at Leeds; martyred at York Tyburn 23 March, 1586-7; was a student at the College at Reims where he was ordained 21 Feb., 1581, and sent to the English Mission on 5 June following. He laboured in his native Yorkshire with such zeal and sacrifice, that his strength failed. Arthur Webster, an apostate, took advantage of his illness to betray him, and he was committed to the York Kidcot by the Council of the North. In his weakness he consented to be present at the heretical service but he refused to repeat the act and remained a prisoner. After confinement for about six months, he was again brought before the Council and sentenced to banishment. On 23 Aug., 1585, he was transferred to the Castle of Kingston-upon-Hull, and within a week shipped beyond the seas. He made his way to Rome, where he was entertained at the English College for nine days from 15 April, 1586, his purpose being to atone for his lapse by the pilgrimage, and he also entertained some thoughts of entering religion. There he understood that it was God's will that he should return to the English mission, and reaching Reims on 10 June, he left again for England on 16. After about six months he was betrayed by his brother, to whose house in Wath he had resorted, and was sent a close prisoner to York Castle by the Council. He was arraigned at the Lent Assizes, condemned as a traitor on the score of his priesthood, and on 23 March, 1586-7 was drawn on the hurdle from the castle yard to York Tyburn, where he suffered the death penalty. [My emphasis: why did his brother betray him? Opposition to Catholicism? Fear for his own life and his family's well-being?]

A parish is dedicated to him at Leeds, although the website does not indicate any shrine to the martyr. The Diocese of Leeds announced ten amalgamated parishes in June of 2010, I suppose reflecting either a priest shortage or population shifts. Please note that one of the parishes has been dedicated to Blessed John Henry Newman (might be the first?).

Blessed Edmund Sykes is among the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales.

Blessed John Amias and Blessed Robert Dalby

On March 16, 1589, these two priests suffered being hung, drawn and quartered in York.

Robert Dalby was from Hemingbrough in the East Riding of Yorkshire and lived at first as a Protestant minister. Becoming a Catholic, he entered the English College at Rheims on 30 September 1586 to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest at Châlons on 16 April 1588. It was on 25 August that year that he set out for England. He was arrested almost immediately upon landing at Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast and imprisoned in York Castle.

There is some doubt about the early life of Blessed John Amias. One story is that he was indeed John Amias or Amyas, born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, England, where he married and raised a family, exercising the trade of cloth-merchant. On the death of his wife, he divided his property among his children and left for the Continent to become a priest. There is also a possibility that he was really William Anne (surname), youngest son of John and Katherine Anne, of Frickley near Wakefield.

Regardless of his actual name, on 22 June 1580, a widower calling himself "John Amias" entered the English College at Rheims to study for the priesthood. He was ordained a priest in Rheim Cathedral on 25 March 1581. On 5 June of that year Amias set out for Paris and then England, as a missionary, in the company of another priest, Edmund Sykes. Of his missionary life we know little. Towards the end of 1588 he was seized at the house of a Mr. Murton at Melling in Lancashire and imprisoned in York Castle.

Yorkshire, as I've commented before on this blog and in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, was one of those districts of England where recusancy and Catholicism was particularly strong. This History of York describes the Catholic Resistance during Elizabeth I's reign, providing some details of the trouble the queen had in asserting her authority.

Blessed Thomas Atkinson

Blessed Thomas Atkinson had returned to England as a missionary priest in 1588 and was executed in York on March 11, 1616 when he was 70 years old:

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

He was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987 as one of the Eight-five Martyrs of England and Wales. Obviously, as he had served his Catholic flock for decades, quietly and unnoticed, he was no danger to the state. But he was captured during a period of James I's reign when fear of Catholicism was heightened and the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, was much in favor of persecuting Catholics.

Two Yorkshire Martyrs

These two martyrs also died on August 22, in the year 1582, in York.

Blessed William Lacy or Lacey, born and raised in Yorkshire, had been married twice and widowed twice before he went to Rome, studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1581. Lacy had suffered imprisonment for his Catholicism in Yorkshire, paid many fines for not attending Anglican services, and had lost his official post as coroner. Upon his return home he was arrested in York on July 22, 1582 and suffered greatly in prison. He was loaded with heavy irons, confined in an underground dungeon, and subjected to numerous examinations before arraignment on August 11--he was found guilty under the Elizabethan statute that made his presence in England as a priest an act of treason.

He and Blessed Richard Kirkman met in prison. Kirkman was born at Addingham, in the West Riding. He went to Douai in 1577 to study for the priesthood and was ordained at the English College in Reims on Holy Saturday in 1579. He returned to England in August of that year and was arrested a year later on August 8. Before execution, he was moved to an underground dungeon.

Neither priest had much opportunity to serve the Catholics in northern England. Blessed William Lacy is honored on December 1 every year at the Venerable English College in Rome. The students gather in the chapel to sing Te Deum Laudamus before Alberti's Martyrs' Picture (above). Blessed Richard Kirkman is remembered as one of the Martyrs of Douai at Allen Hall in Chelsea, London.

July 4, 1594 in Dorchester; July 4, 1597 in York

While we in the USA celebrate our Declaration of Independence, I bring to your notice two sets of Catholic martyrs from the reign of Elizabeth I.

On July 4, 1594, Father John Cornelius, SJ, Mr. John Carey, Mr. Patrick Salmon, and Mr. Thomas Bosgrave were executed in Dorchester, England. Father Cornelius had found a patron in Sir Thomas Arundell of Cornwall when a young man. Arundell arranged for him to attend the University of Oxford, but Cornelius traveled in 1580 to the Continent to study for the priesthood first at Rheims and then at the English College in Rome. Then he returned to England and served as chaplain to Lady Arundell. He was arrested at Chideock Castle by the sheriff of Dorsetshire, as were John Carey and Patrick Salmon, Irish servants of the castle. Thomas Bosgrave was arrested when he offered Father Cornelius a hat on his way to gaol--that constituted aiding and abetting a Catholic priest in Elizabethan England!

Father Cornelius was taken to London, questioned and tortured by authorities to find out who else had helped him and other priests he knew and then returned to Dorchester to stand trial with the three laymen on July 2, 1594. All were found guilty and were brought to the scaffold. Carey, Salmon and Bosgrave were hung as felons before Father Cornelius was hung, drawn and quartered as traitor. More about the Chideock Martyrs here, including the painting above at the Church of Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, and St. Ignatius. The Church is celebrating Chideock Martyrs Day today with Prayers at the Martyrs Cross, Ruins Field and Mass for the Chideock Martyrs.

On July 4, 1597, one priest and three laymen were executed in York: Father William Andleby, Mr. Thomas Warcop, Edward Fulthrop, and Henry Abbott. Father Andleby was a convert--he had been born in Yorkshire, studied at St. John's College in Cambridge and had traveled to the Spanish Netherlands to fight for the Protestants there against the Catholic King of Spain. He visited William Allen at Douai to debate the exiled founder of the Catholics schools for English exiles. He ended up convinced that Dr. Allen was right, that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ and studied at Douai to become a priest! After ordination in 1577 he returned to England as a missionary priest--he left as a soldier and came back as a priest! For twenty years he served Catholics in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire until his arrest, trial and execution.

Two of the three laymen received the same sentence of being hung, drawn, and quartered because they were judged guilty of treason: Edward Fulthrop, a Yorkshire gentleman had reconciled to the Catholic Church and Henry Abbot of Holden had persuaded another to join the Catholic Church--although it was an act of entrapment by an Anglican minister. Thomas Warcop was hanged for sheltering Father William Andleby. It's a brave man who becomes a Catholic in England after almost 30 years of recusancy laws that have increased in penalty and enforcement.

All eight were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. Their stories offer us great examples of holiness and fidelity to Jesus Christ and His Church. Thinking of their martyrdoms as we celebrate our Declaration of Independence in 1776 reminds us that the freedom of the exercise of religion documented in the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights thirteen years later was hard won and a long time coming as an idea applied in modern culture. (Another topic for another blog: why don't we celebrate Constitution Day as an important secular holiday?)