Scarisbrick on What Might Have Been

In The Catholic Herald, Henry VIII biographer J.J. Scarisbrick writes about a plot to depose Henry VIII and restore Catholicism to England; the plot involved Pope Paul III, Francis I of France, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, and some people in Calais, including Father Gregory Botolph:

With the support of several like-minded colleagues (including perhaps even the governor of Calais himself, Arthur Lord Lisle, illegitimate son of Edward IV and no friend of the upstart Tudors)**, Botolph rode out and put a proposal to the papal legates.

Botolph’s plan was this: if the pope provided a taskforce of mercenaries, Botolph and his friends would open the gates of Calais to them and help them capture the port.

From there, they could commandeer ships and sail to nearby England, seek out the by-then excommunicated king and capture or kill him if he resisted arrest, as he surely would. They could also rescue Pole’s mother.

Such mercenaries were readily available. Since Pope Paul’s grandfather had made the family’s fortune as a condottiero, that is, a captain of professional soldiers for hire, he knew all about them. They would have been armed with muskets – weaponry as yet little known in England – capable of piercing almost any armour at several hundred yards. With only a few swords and perhaps pikes to defend him, Henry would not have stood a chance.

Botolph found his way to the papal legates and put his proposal to them. Farnese thought he was mad and perhaps even a spy. But Cervini believed him and immediately gave him money, horses and a guide to take him to Rome.

He reached the city quickly and sought out Cardinal Pole, who promptly took him to see the pope – whom he convinced of his plan. Indeed, Botolph later boasted that he had so impressed Pope Paul that, during his short stay in Rome, he was able to come and go in the papal apartments as he pleased. Not for nothing did he have the nickname “Sweet Lips”.

Paul, Pole and Botolph agreed the following: Cervini would go ahead with his proposed mission to England under the aegis of the king of France. Once Henry had, as was expected, turned down the generous offer, he would be excommunicated and deposed. In September that year, a papal contingent of some 300 musketeers would carry out its mission and in the inevitable shoot-out probably kill Henry.

**Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle was Henry VIII's official representative in Calais. He was Henry VIII's (illegitimate) uncle. Arthur was close to Henry VIII, serving as Privy Councilor, Vice-Admiral of England, and attending The Field of the Cloth of Gold. As Deputy of Calais he represented his majesty's interests and served his nephew. I'm not sure how that makes him "no friend of the upstart Tudors". It may have made things a little awkward, but Viscount Lisle served his monarch loyally (according to the standards of the time).

Of course, we know things did not turn out as planned, because Botolph talked too much and agents of Henry heard something about what he was saying.

The result was that Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and two of his retinue were executed, along with Giles Heron, husband of St. Thomas More's daughter Cecily, a Carmelite, a Carthusian, a Benedictine, and others on August 4, 1540. 

Botolph's fate is unknown, but he cost several men their lives--as well as alerting the authorities so that the plot could not proceed--because he talked when he shouldn't have.

The Tichborne Traitors

Chidiock Tichborne was a Babington Plot conspirator against Elizabeth I (seen in the Pelican Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard, which symbolizes her love for her country--the pelican mother would pierce its own breast and feed her young with her blood) and he was brutally executed on September 20, 1586 at St. Giles Field, along with other conspirators. The night before he wrote his own elegy and sent it to his wife Agnes:

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

Chidiock's uncle, Nicholas Tichborne, had also betrayed his monarch because of his obdurate recusancy, as Francis Aidan Gasquet describes in his Hampshire Recusants: A Story of Their Troubles in the Time of Queen Elizabeth (1895):

In the year 1589, Nicholas Tichborne of Hartley Maudit, three miles from Alton, died. He had been in the gaol of Winchester for nine years a prisoner, as he says himself in his petition for relief "for not repairing unto my parish church," or as the Sheriff puts it, "in execution for a great sum of money due unto Her Majesty by reason of his recusancy." We have a glimpse of his sad condition in a letter written by him in 1585. In October of that year, orders were sent down to the officials in the various counties to demand from each recusant gentleman or woman one "light horse" for the queen's service, or £25 in money. George Cotton, apparently, was the only one in this part of the country who was " contented " to furnish the horse. Poor Nicholas Tichborne pleaded "non-ability" to do what was required. "I and such other recusants," he writes, "have reported ourselves, notwithstanding our recusancy, to be as good subjects as any other Her Majesty's subjects, which before God I do acknowledge and profess. And hereupon. Her Majesty having present service for certain light horsemen to be sent into Flanders, Her Majesty's will and pleasure is to require of me to have a light horse in readiness, with all the furniture thereunto belonging, by the 26th day of the month of October, or else £25". "I," he continues, "am a younger brother and son of a younger brother," and had only one little farm, "for the maintenance of myself, my poor wife and eight young children." The "lease whereof with all such goods as I had upon the same was sold by Robert White, Esq., late Sheriff of the said county, and the money for the same was paid into the receipt of Her Majesty's Exchequer, to Her Majesty's use in the Michaelmas term in the 25th year of Her Majesty's reign." . . . Tichborne declares that since he has been in prison and all his little property taken away, his family has lived upon the alms of the charitable. He is sorry he is unable to do anything in the way of finding the horse to show " his loyalty and true obedience to Her Majesty . . . He was left consequently in the Winchester Gaol till he died, as I have said, in 1589. The Bishop of the diocese, Dr. Cooper, refused to allow his body to be buried in any church or cemetery, declaring that his conscience would not permit him to suffer a papist to be buried in any of his churches or cemeteries. By the advice of an old Catholic the body was carried to the summit of a hill about a mile from the city and interred in the old disused cemetery of St. James, now known in Winchester as the Catholic Cemetery.

Nicholas' sons, Thomas and Nicholas were executed like Chidiock, but are considered martyrs--they were not part of a conspiracy, but were a Catholic priest present in England (Father Thomas) and a Catholic layman assisting a Catholic priest (Nicholas). They have both been declared Venerable by the Church but have not been beatified in either of the large groups in the 19th and 20th centuries.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia, Venerable Thomas Tichborne:

Born at Hartley, Hampshire, 1567; martyred at Tyburn, London, 20 April, 1602. He was educated at Rheims (1584-87) and Rome, where he was ordained on Ascension Day, 17 May, 1592. Returning to England on 10 March, 1594, he laboured in his native county, where he escaped apprehension till the early part of 1597. He was sent a prisoner to the Gatehouse in London, but in the autumn of 1598 was helped to escape by his brother, Ven. Nicholas Tichborne, and Ven. Thomas Hackshot, who were both martyred shortly afterwards. Betrayed by Atkinson, an apostate priest, he was re-arrested and on 17 April, 1602, was brought to trial with Ven. Robert Watkinson (a young Yorkshire man who had been educated at Rome and ordained priest at Douai a month before) and Ven. James Duckett, a London bookseller. On 20 April he was executed with Ven. Robert Watkinson and Ven. Francis Page, S.J. The last named was a convert, of a Middlesex family though born in Antwerp. He had been ordained at Douai in 1600 and received into the Society of Jesus while a prisoner in Newgate. Ven. Thomas Tichborne was in the last stages of consumption when he was martyred.

Note that Watkinson, Page and Duckett have been beatified (in 1929 by Pope Pius XI). Why not Thomas Tichborne?

And Venerable Nicholas Tichborne:

b. at Hartley Mauditt, Hampshire; suffered at Tyburn, London, 24 Aug., 1601. He was a recusant at large in 1592, but by 14 March, 1597, had been imprisoned. On that date he gave evidence against various members of his family. Before 3 Nov., 1598, he had obtained his liberty and had effected the release of his brother, Venerable Thomas Tichborne, a prisoner in the Gatehouse, Westminster, by assaulting his keeper. He is to be distinguished from the Nicholas Tichborne who died in Winchester Gaol in 1587. [His father, as described above]

With him suffered Venerable Thomas Hackshot (b. at Mursley, Buckinghamshire), who was condemned on the same charge, viz. that of effecting the escape of the priest Thomas Tichborne. During his long imprisonment in the Gatehouse he was "afflicted with divers torments, which he endured with great courage and fortitude."

According to the English government at the time, all four of these men were in some way traitors. Nicholas, the father, refused to accept the Elizabethan religious settlement by not going to the Anglican services held each Sunday in his formerly Catholic church. He and his family lost all of their material possessions because of his refusal. He could be considered a martyr in chains. His wife, Mary (Myll) must have been just as loyal to the Catholic faith and his sons also remained true. Note, however, that Nicholas (the younger) must have wavered a bit, because in 1597 he "gave evidence against various members of his family". Nevertheless, he helped his brother, Father Thomas, escape from prison a year or so later. Then they were both recaptured, tried, and sentenced to death.

Chidiock's father, Peter, was also a recusant, who spent time in jail for not paying his fines and refusing to attend Anglican services. Chidiock, however, joined in the conspiracy to kill Elizabeth I and place Mary, the former Queen of Scots, on the throne. Reports are that the executions by hanging, drawing and quartering were so cruelly carried out on September 20, 1586 that Elizabeth I ordered the next round of conspirators to be hung by the neck until dead before beheading and quartering. Chidiock was only 24 years old; his youth and agony evidently moved the spectators.

The Babington Plot finally sealed Mary of Scotland's fate, and she was executed in February of 1587. 

Some Books Linger With Me: "Hanging Mary"

You might remember the quotation from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: “It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.” Susan Higginbotham's Hanging Mary reminded me of that quotation, and even after I reviewed the novel in April, I couldn't get it off my mind, so I wrote about it some more, submitting a different commentary to The Christian Review, "Part of the Story: Justice, Love, and Loyalty in Hanging Mary":

Susan Higginbotham’s historical novel Hanging Mary is set in Washington, DC during the waning months of the Civil War. Two narrators, Mary Surratt, proprietor of a boarding house and Honora (Nora) Fitzpatrick, one of her boarders, tell the story of John Wilkes Booth’s conspiracy either to kidnap or murder Abraham Lincoln for the sake of the Confederacy—at least as much as they each know from interacting with Booth, Surratt’s son John, and other conspirators who visit the boarding house from the Autumn of 1864 to the Holy Week of 1865 (Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, Good Friday). . . .

Hanging Mary brings up several moral issues. One issue is whether it is just for U.S. civilians to be tried in a military tribunal without recourse to the protections of civilian courts—a question resolved in 1866 by the U.S. Supreme Court: no, it is not ( Ex parte Milligan ).

The web of conspiracy at the Surratt household brings up other tests of love and loyalty. The genre of historical fiction and the narrative structure of this novel foster meditation on the virtues of justice, love, and loyalty. The reader becomes the judge, weighing the evidence: whose love and loyalty are well-placed and whose are not?

Read the rest there.

Book Review: "Hanging Mary"

I spent several hours Saturday and Sunday reading this book, enjoying it, and then thinking about it and discussing it with my husband. Hanging Mary: A Novel is by Susan Higginbotham, the author of several novels set in the Plantagenet (especially Wars of the Roses) and Tudor eras. This novel, however, is set in Washington, DC during 1864 and 1865 as a group of conspirators plan to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln to force an end to the Civil War that favors the losing Confederacy. The conspirators keep dropping by Mary Surratt's boarding house, especially John Wilkes Booth, because Mary's son John, Jr. is involved in the plot. Mary is a widow whose husband left her with great debts but two properties, so as the story begins, she decides to lease the tavern in Surrattville and move to the house in Washington with her daughter Anna and son John (son Isaac is fighting for the Confederacy), take in boarders, and make money to pay off those debts. One of her boarders is a young woman, Nora Fitzpatrick: she and Mary are the narrators of this story, alternating chapters with their different viewpoints.

If you know American history, you know what is going to happen; nevertheless, partly because of the narrative structure, Higginbotham keeps the reader in suspense. The plot is forming before Mary's and Nora's eyes, and each of them sees strands of the web that Booth is weaving, but neither knows the whole story.

The dilemma raised is common to all plots and conspiracies, during the American Civil War or in Tudor England: when do observers on the fringes of a conspiracy become part of the conspiracy? and when do they have an obligation to report the conspiracy?

For example, yesterday I posted on the execution of Thomas Wyatt the Younger. One of keys to the failure of the Wyatt Rebellion was that Edward Courtenay warned his erstwhile fellow prisoner in the Tower of London, Bishop Stephen Gardiner, now Mary I's Chancellor, that there was a plot against the Queen. He did not have all the details, but he could at least provide the information he had.

Mary Surratt resolves that dilemma for herself, believing that Booth--without her son whom she believes is in Canada (and he is)--is going to kidnap the President. She chooses personal loyalty over national considerations. As Nora later notes, she thus removes the one person who might have offered her clemency: Abraham Lincoln. It's also important to note that the star witness for the prosecution of Mary and the other conspirators, Louis Weichmann, a classmate of John Surratt, saw many of the same things and had some concerns, but even though he was a government employee, he never reported them to the appropriate authorities.

As absorbing as this plot and these questions are, the most touching sub-plot to me was Nora Fitzpatrick's budding romance with one of the soldiers she visits at the hospital, Private Flanagan. He has "lost his right arm", although he jokes that he knows "perfectly well where he had last had it"! and has been ill while in hospital. Private Flanagan loves Nora and wants to prepare himself to wed her, that's clear. Nora may not be in love with him, but he is her favorite patient; she helps him learn how to read and write; she encourages him to hope that he might make himself worthy (be able to support her), while she also knows he will always need her help if they marry. When Nora receives bad news about Private Flanagan, Mary Surratt's motherly care of Nora does much to increase Nora's affection and loyalty to her landlady. This sub-plot, per an interview with Higginbotham included in the Kindle edition I read, is fictional, but does much to demonstrate the characteristic compassion and loyalty of the two narrators.

Another aspect of the novel piqued my interest: the Catholicism of the Surratts, Fitzpatricks, the Holohans, and of Louis Weichmann, who is discerning a vocation to the priesthood. Although Protestant Christians in 19th century America did not practice orthodox Lutheranism or Calvinism (neither Martin nor John would recognize their theology, per Mark A. Noll), they did practice orthodox anti-Catholicism. That aspect of their religion never seems to come up in Hanging Mary, but Catholic priests, services, and prayers are often mentioned. While it's part of the record, I was surprised to see mention of Good Friday evening services; I thought that from the Middle Ages and until 1955, when Pope Pius XII reformed the Holy Week liturgy, all the services were held in the morning? Perhaps the service mentioned was Stations of the Cross? One other little liturgical question: why did Mary Surratt touch the "wafer" (I think she, as a Catholic, would have referred to what she receive in Holy Communion as the "Host") while receiving the Eucharist in prison? From the Middle Ages until the late twentieth century, nearly all Catholics received Holy Communion on the tongue, not in the hand (please see chapter 47). But those are little things--but little things a Catholic like me would notice!

I highly recommend this novel: it provides true literary enjoyment, and tension; is thought-provoking, moving, and in every way, excellent! The author encourages purchase from an independent bookseller but Hanging Mary is readily available in several formats from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble too.

Note: I purchased my copy of this book. I look forward to participating in a blog tour for Susan Higginbotham's next book, Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower, coming out this August from Amberley Press.

A Rebel (Beheaded) and A Heretic (Burned)

On April 11, 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger was executed on Tower Hill for leading his eponymous rebellion against Mary I. I have to post on this event for two reasons: using the word eponymous and using this great profile portrait.

The Wyatt Rebellion, as this site notes, failed completely:

The plan itself involved too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ if it was to succeed. The noble conspirators planned to remove Mary, instate Elizabeth as Queen and arrange for her to marry Edward Courtenay – a man Mary had already rejected as a husband. [It sounds like the Gunpowder Plot!]

The plan was for three rebellions to take place in separate parts of the country. They would occur at the same time – in the Midlands, the West Country and Kent. The plan was that the government would not know which one to put down first and each would blossom as a result of their localised success and attract more and more supporters among the common people.

The French Navy would blockade the English Channel with eighty ships so that the Habsburgs would not be able to help Mary.

The plan failed miserably. The Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard, had heard rumours that such a plot existed and informed the Lord Chancellor, Stephen Gardner [sic], of his concerns. Gardner brought in Courtenay for questioning as Renard had mentioned his name. The records stated that Gardner’s questioning was ‘robust’ and Courtenay was not a man who could stand up to this. Edward Courtenay told Gardner all that he knew about the plot so that the government knew about the plot even before it had begun – even if Courtenay would not have known about the details.

The ‘uprisings’ in the Midlands and the West Country were a failure as few of the people there gave Carew and the Duke of Suffolk the support they needed for success. It seems that though there was concern about Mary marrying a foreigner, loyalty to the Queen took precedence. Those in the Midlands did not want to commit treason (Suffolk raised a force of just 140 men) while many in the West were Catholic. . . .

Only two of the leaders were executed for their treason – Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk. Other minor nobles were also executed but some – guilty of treason – were spared. In total about 90 rebels were executed but many of the common people who had joined Wyatt and survived were spared. Two other casualties were Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guildford Dudley. Both had been in prison since the failed attempt to put Lady Jane on the throne and had nothing to do with Wyatt’s rebellion. However Mary felt that she could no longer risk anyone rallying to Lady Jane’s cause – hence her execution – especially as her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had been involved in this plot and had been executed for treason.

I find it interesting that the website does not mention that Queen Mary had rallied her people to defend her and their city. Even John Foxe, who had no reason to present Mary in a good light, recounted her bravery, her devotion, and her resolve in her speech at Guildhall:

I am your Queen, to whom at my coronation, when I was wedded to the realm and laws of the same (the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger, which never hitherto was, not hereafter shall be, left off), you promised your allegiance and obedience to me…. And I say to you, on the word of a Prince, I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth the child, for I was never the mother of any; but certainly, if a Prince and Governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love the child, then assure yourselves that I, being your lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you. And I, thus loving you, cannot but think that ye as heartily and faithfully love me; and then I doubt not but we shall give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow.

The other execution on April 11, 1612. It was the last execution for heresy in England, during the reign of James I. Edward Wightman was actually burned at the stake twice:

Wightman seems to have denied the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that Jesus Christ was God, denied the Resurrection and the legitimacy of Holy Communion and maintained that he himself was both the Holy Spirit and, though not himself divine, the Messiah appointed by God as the saviour of the world. From a modern perspective it seems clear that he had gone completely insane.

Wightman was eventually put on trial in the diocesan court in Lichfield, which in December pronounced him guilty of blasphemy and of promoting the heresies of figures ranging from Simon Magus to the Arians, the Manicheans and the Anabaptists. He was sent to the stake in the square in Lichfield in March 1612. When the flames began to scorch him he cried out in pain and it was thought he wanted to recant. Some of the crowd of spectators rushed to rescue him, though getting burned themselves. He was taken back to prison to recover, but when he was brought before the court again he refused to sign a formal recantation and on Easter Saturday in April he was sent back to the stake and was this time burned to death.

I believe the author of that post is incorrect about the date of Easter Sunday in 1612 on the Julian Calendar. It was not April 11 but April 12 (at least according to this site and this one too).

Priests and Plots: Bye and Main

Sometimes, of course, when Catholic priests were suspected of plotting against the government of England, they were plotting against the government or the monarch. Not every Catholic priest or layman executed by the English government died as a martyr! And although English Catholic men traveled to the Continent to study for the priesthood and for the mission in England, they did not always agree about what that mission was. In the latter part of Elizabeth I's reign, there was division between the Jesuits and some of the secular, non-religious priests called the Appellants over the better way to deal with the issues of Elizabeth's excommunication and rightful authority as Queen in England--dividing spiritual and temporal authority, as it were. The Appellants wanted to appeal to the Queen for mercy, claiming that they were loyal to her in temporal matters while still practicing their Catholic faith.

Fathers William Watson and William Clark, who were executed on December 9, 1603, exemplify these two trends in a fascinating pattern. Because Father Watson had great hopes that James VI of Scotland, when succeeding Elizabeth in England would be ready to accommodate this more subtle distinction between the secular and the spiritual authority of the monarch, he met James in Scotland. When James did not accept this radical notion, Watson concocted the Bye Plot to kidnap James, seize the Tower of London, and establish a Catholic government in England.

Henry Garnet, one of Watson's Jesuit adversaries, found out about the Bye Plot and reported it to the authorities. Watson and his fellow conspirators were captured, tried and executed. Father Robert Parsons and the Jesuits who had been also negotiating with James and his new government, hoped that their cooperation in reporting this plot would encouraged the government to ameliorate conditions for Catholics.

Ironically, Henry Garnet would later be executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot in 1606--a matter more complex than Watson's direct plotting. One of the plotters, Robert Catesby, asked Father Garnet some "hypothetical" moral questions and Garnet warned him against rebellion and the taking of innocent lives; another Jesuit who knew of the plot confessed it to Garnet who told him to do all in his power to prevent it--so Garnet may have been protecting the Seal of Confession. James I was careful not to make a martyr out of Garnet; he was threatened with torture but only tortured once (unlike poor Guy Fawkes in 1605) and was hung until dead before the rest of the traitor's sentence was carried out. Father Garnet has never been declared a martyr by the Catholic Church, although his nephew, also a Jesuit, has been: St. Thomas Garnet.

Also, the investigation of the Bye Plot led to the discovery of the Main Plot, which connived to place Arbella Stuart (pictured above) on the throne after deposing James. Sir Walter Raleigh spent 13 years in the Tower of London for his role in the Main Plot. Arbella reported the attempt of the conspirators to involve her in the plot to the King, so she stayed out of trouble--at least until she married William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp (later the Second Duke of Somerset). Then she was placed under house arrest and after attempting flight to the Continent, imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1610 to 1615, where she died, perhaps of malnutrition (she refused to eat). Seymour/Somerset survived until 1660.

The result for Catholics of the Bye Plot was that James I warned all Catholic priests to leave England immediately with the passage of the "Act for the due execution of the statute against Jesuits, seminary priests, etc." (I Jac. 1, iv), confirming Elizabethan statutes and reinforcing them and their implementation. So Father Watson's attempts both to appeal to Elizabeth I and James I failed and in his desperation--just like that desperation of the Gunpowder plotters two years after--he resorted to violence. 

One question I have, to which I cannot find an answer: was this Father William Watson the same priest whom St. Margaret Ward helped escape from Bridewell prison in 1588?