Blessed John Fingley

On August 8, 1586, Blessed John Fingley or Finglow, one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales was executed. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was:

An English martyr; b. at Barnby, near Howden, Yorkshire; executed at York, 8 August, 1586. He was ordained priest at the English College, Reims, 25 March, 1581, whence the following month he was sent on the English mission. After labouring for some time in the north of England, he was seized and confined in Ousebridge Kidcote, York, where for a time he endured serious discomforts, alleviated slightly by a fellow-prisoner. He was finally tried for being a Catholic priest and reconciling English subjects to the ancient Faith, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

He attended Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge. As an article from the alumni magazine of Caius College in 2007 notes:

Many of our students of the 1580s became Jesuits and Seminary priests, at a time when either to be or to harbour a priest was high treason, for which the penalty was hanging, drawing and quartering. A Caian became head of the Jesuits in England, and another the Rector of the College at Valladolid. Five were certainly executed. One was John Ballard, convicted for his leading role in the Babington plot to assassinate Elizabeth. (It was the discovery of this plot that led directly to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.) One priest was pardoned on the scaffold (probably for recanting in the face of the horrors of hanging, drawing and quartering.) Another escaped from prison to the English College in Rome. There can be no doubt that the Bull of Pius V excommunicating Elizabeth and absolving her subjects of allegiance to her was fatal to them. Virtually all condemned priests were asked on the scaffold whether they were loyal to the Queen. All insisted that they were. Asked to reconcile that proclaimed loyalty with the Pope’s decree, it was impossible that any could find a convincing answer. 

There were four others whose only crime was saying mass and administering the sacraments to their English flock: William Deane, John Hewitt, John Fingley (appointed butler by Dr Legge), and Francis Montfort. Of William Deane, Bishop Challoner writes that he was a man of ‘exceptional gravity and learning’ and that when he came to the place of execution, he began to speak of the causefor which he and his companions were condemned: but his guards stopped his mouth “in such a violent manner, that they were like to have prevented the hangman of his wages.” Deane and Hewitt were beatified in 1929, and Fingley in 1987. 

It was indeed a tragic period. It is difficult – perhaps impossible – for us to recapture an atmosphere in which such secrecy, suspicion, dissembling – and heroism, were part of college life. In these ecumenical times it is perhaps still harder to understand why so many Caians went abroad, returned, were banished and returned again to risk a hideous death simply in order to say the mass (sic).

Obviously, they could have just said Mass on the Continent! They did not "risk a hideous death simply in order to say the mass (sic)"! They returned to celebrate the Mass and the other Sacraments for the Catholic people. Dr. Casey could also have said that it's hard to imagine a government declaring that saying or attending a religious service was an illegal act! 

The Caian who became the head of the Jesuits in England was Richard Holtby (1606-1640). I presume Dr. Casey is referring to Father Francis Edwardes who recanted on the scaffold at Chichester in 1588? Christopher Walpole, SJ, St. Henry Walpole's brother, was the rector at the college in Valladolid. The Dr. Legge he references, who appointed Blessed John Fingley as butler, was Thomas Legge (pictured above). This blog post describes what a college butler does.

Blessed John Fingley, pray for us!

William Shakespeare and Robert Southwell

Brad Miner writes at The Catholic Thing about a new TV series, Will:

Would that I were such a booster of our Faith that I might recommend Willunreservedly just for being respectful of Catholicism, but faith here is mostly a veneer, even though it lacquers everything. And although Will goes further than any previous dramatic presentation in emphasizing Shakespeare’s faith, it goes too far. It takes threads of true history and weaves them into an absurd tapestry of fantasy. Of Shakespeare’s Catholicism, scholars have no doubt. Of his devotion or crypto-activism, however, there is little evidence.

So, then, in fair London where we set our scene: In 1592, actor Richard Burbage (Mattias Inwood) will star in Richard III by Shakespeare (Laurie Davidson) but actually be portraying Richard Topcliffe (Ewen Bremmer), Elizabeth I’s Catholic hunter and torturer: a sort of embarrassment of Richards.

Topcliffe’s main obsession is capturing a cousin of Shakespeare, the Jesuit priest/poet Robert Southwell (Max Bennett). Topcliffe, unaware of Shakespeare’s relationship to Southwell, has actually commissioned the play from Will, thinking it will be a paean to Topcliffe himself.

So the series adapts the "Secret Catholic Code in Shakespeare Plays" theory! It is true that Topcliffe was obsessed with Southwell: he seems to have hated him, to have enjoyed torturing him, and to have continued to attack him through Southwell's trial as Father Henry Garnet described it:

“The Chief Justice asked how old he was, seeming to scorn his youth. He answered that he was near about the age of our Saviour, Who lived upon the earth thirty-three years; and he himself was as he thought near about thirty-four years. Hereat Topcliffe seemed to make great acclamation, saying that he compared himself to Christ. Mr. Southwell answered, ‘No he was a humble worm created by Christ.’ ‘Yes,’ said Topcliffe, ‘you are Christ’s fellow.'”

What vitriol! And this exchange on Southwell's torture:

Southwell: I am decayed in memory with long and close imprisonment, and I have been tortured ten times. I had rather have endured ten executions. I speak not this for myself, but for others; that they may not be handled so inhumanely, to drive men to desperation, if it were possible.

Topcliffe: If he were racked, let me die for it.
Southwell: No; but it was as evil a torture, or late device.
Topcliffe: I did but set him against a wall.
Southwell: Thou art a bad man.
Topcliffe: I would blow you all to dust if I could.
Southwell: What, all?
Topcliffe: Ay, all.
Southwell: What, soul and body too?

This blog notes the salutation to the printed edition of Southwell's Saint Peter's Complaint, published on the Continent after the martyr had suffered, "To My Worthy Good Cosen Master W.S." and the conjecture that the W.S. is indeed William Shakespeare. Southwell remonstrates with his good cousin about the abuse of poetry: "Worthy cosen, Poets, by abusing their talent, and making the follies, and faygnings of love the customary subject of their base endeavours, have so discredited this facultie, that a Poet, a Lover and a Lyar, are by many reckoned but three words of one signification."

America magazine also highlights the series and Southwell's prominent role in it, but errs in one statement: "Among the victims of Elizabeth’s Protestant zeal are the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, canonized by Paul VI in 1970." Not all of the Forty Martyrs suffered under Elizabeth I!

Quoodle Is on the Quover--the Cover!!

Ignatius Press has published a new edition of G.K. Chesterton's The Flying Inn! I'm glad to see the dog, Quoodle on the cover.

Quoodle is introduced in chapter 10, aptly titled, "The Character of Quoodle":

THERE lay about in Lord Ivywood’s numerous gardens, terraces, outhouses, stable yards and similar places, a dog that came to be called by the name of Quoodle. Lord Ivywood did not call him Quoodle. Lord Ivywood was almost physically incapable of articulating such sounds. Lord Ivywood did not care for dogs. He cared for the Cause of dogs, of course; and he cared still more for his own intellectual self-respect and consistency. He would never have permitted a dog in his house to be physically ill-treated; nor, for that matter, a rat; nor, for that matter, even a man. But if Quoodle was not physically ill-treated, he was at least socially neglected, and Quoodle did not like it. For dogs care for companionship more than for kindness itself. . . . 

Now Lady Joan Brett did appreciate dogs. It was the whole of her type and a great deal of her tragedy that all that was natural in her was still alive under all that was artificial; and she could smell hawthorn or the sea as far off as a dog can smell his dinner. . . .

Quoodle can sense Lady Brett's appreciation:

The man who was mowing the garden lawn looked up for a moment, for he had never seen the dog behave in exactly that way before. Quoodle arose, shook himself, and trotted on in front of the lady, leading her up an iron side staircase, of which, as it happened, she had never made use before. It was then, most probably, that she first took any special notice of him; and her pleasure, like that which she took in the sublime prophet from Turkey, was of a humorous character. For the complex quadruped had retained the bow legs of the bull-dog; and, seen from behind, reminded her ridiculously of a swaggering little Major waddling down to his Club.

And Quoodle has a poem composed in his honor!

“They haven’t got no noses
The fallen sons of Eve,
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes,
But more than mind discloses,
And more than men believe.

“They haven’t got no noses,
They cannot even tell
When door and darkness closes
The park a Jew encloses,
Where even the Law of Moses
Will let you steal a smell;

“The brilliant smell of water,
The brave smell of a stone,
The smell of dew and thunder
And old bones buried under,
Are things in which they blunder
And err, if left alone.

“The wind from winter forests,
The scent of scentless flowers,
The breath of bride’s adorning,
The smell of snare and warning,
The smell of Sunday morning,
God gave to us for ours.”

. . . . . .

“And Quoodle here discloses
All things that Quoodle can;
They haven’t got no noses,
They haven’t got no noses,
And goodness only knowses
The Noselessness of Man.”

Notice that Lady Brett does have a noses: "she could smell hawthorn or the sea as far off as a dog can smell his dinner." No wonder Quoodle follows her around in Lord Ivywood's mansion.

More about the design of the cover here. Do you think the dog on the cover could look like "a swaggering little Major waddling down to his Club"?

The Last Carthusian; Giles and Cecily (More) Heron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Medieval! Venerating St. Cuthbert

News from The Catholic Herald about a Catholic shrine in an Anglican Cathedral:

Relics of one of Britain’s earliest saints, St Cuthbert, have gone on display in Durham Cathedral.

The centrepiece of the permanent exhibition at the cathedral – which was built in his honour – is an oak coffin, made in Lindisfarne in AD 698, 11 years after Cuthbert’s death. Other exhibits include the saint’s pectoral cross – Cuthbert was called back from his hermit’s cell to become a bishop – and his ivory comb.

Cuthbert’s body and relics were carried by Lindisfarne’s monks when they fled inland to escape Viking raids. They eventually settled in Durham, which became a place of pilgrimage. Although his shrine was destroyed in the Reformation, his relics survived, and his remains were finally reburied in the cathedral in 1899.

The BBC notes that St. Cuthbert's shrine could help save the Cathedral:

Many cathedrals across the UK are suffering financial pressures with some facing closure.

Durham Cathedral's Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett said the £7.50 admission fee for the Treasures of St Cuthbert exhibition would "keep the cathedral open for everybody".

He said: "These things are different in different parts of the country. It depends on your visitor mix.

"We want to keep the cathedral there for the whole community, but also be able to balance the books."

More about the shrine at the Durham Cathedral website, including this detail about Cromwell's commissioners preparing to destroy the shrine:

He found Cuthbert “lying whole with his face bare and his beard as if it had a fortnight’s growth.”

The goldsmith shouted out “Alas, I have broken one of his legs”

Dr Henley called out “throw down the bones”

But the goldsmith replied that he could not do so because the bones were kept together by skin and tissue.

Dr Ley went to the feretory to see for himself, and then told Dr Henley in Latin:

“He was lying whole”

Dr Henley did not believe this and repeated “Cast down the bones,”

“If you do not believe me, come up and see for yourself,” Dr Ley said.

At which point Dr Henley came up and handled him and saw that he was indeed un-decayed.

The commissioners then ordered the monks to move the body to the vestry until the King decided what should be done.

Which just goes to show that some grave robbers have a conscience! Nevertheless, the commissioners knew what to do with the jewels and gold of the shrine.

Looking Forward to the Weekend

This year's Midwest Catholic Family Conference presents some great speakers: Scott Hahn, Steve Ray, Monica Miller, Rachel Balducci, Tim Staples (who comes every year), Reverend Dennis McManus, and Raymond Arroyo. Mr. Arroyo will make two presentations--one on Saturday about fiction as a means of evangelization and another on Sunday about Mother Mary Angelica, the foundress of EWTN and two religious orders.

Inspired by Raymond Arroyo's Facebook announcement of a good deal on the eBook, I purchased the final installment of his biography his former boss: Mother Angelica: Her Grand Silence: The Last Years and Living Legacy. (Available for a limited time only at the special price.)

As he notes, EWTN fades to the background as Mother Angelica resigns as CEO of her broadcast empire and then after she suffers a stroke that leaves her speechless. She also has to retire as the Abbess of her community after a trip to Japan during which she is severely injured and ends up bedridden. There is a struggle for leadership and control within her community, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, between two sisters. Eventually, both of them leave the community, other sisters left Hanceville, Alabama to found new houses of Poor Clares, the number of postulants decreases, and the community merges with another house of Poor Clares from Charlotte, North Carolina, whose Abbess becomes the leader of the combined house in Hanceville.

Some reviewers (as you may see on Amazon.com) don't like Arroyo airing this "dirty laundry". They think it reflects poorly on Mother Angelica. Canonized saints like St. Alphonsus Liquouri and St. Francis of Assisi have endured struggles in their community, maintaining their vision, and even their influence in the orders they've founded. When her cause for canonization opens in a few years, her faithfulness and suffering will be the foundation of the declaration that she is a Servant of God.

In the course of this book, Arroyo details Mother Angelica's physical sufferings and the dutiful care her sisters give her inside the cloistered convent. He also provides details of reports of spiritual manifestations, visions, and attacks of the devil. Arroyo includes excerpts from the many letters received attesting to her influence on the lives of viewers and listeners to EWTN, where her old series are still rerun. He dedicates a chapter to how he worked for Mother Angelica and how she influenced him. The last chapter describes her very last days of agony during the Holy Week of 2016. The book exhibits great transparency and honesty about her love of God, her faithfulness to His inspirations, and her personality.

I have to admit that her story and her written works have appealed to me much more than her broadcast appearances, her old shows that EWTN airs on television and radio. Arroyo explains her importance for Catholics in the United States and around the world faithfully and loyally.

Apologetics: Tradition at the Spiritual Life Center

At the Spiritual Life Center of the Diocese of Wichita on Tuesday, August 22 at 7:00 p.m.: 

Apologia: The Merit of Tradition
Defending the Faith in the 21st Century
Stephanie A. Mann

Apologizing isn’t saying “I’m Sorry.”

apologia or ἀπολογία (Greek): a speech in defense

An apology, in the classical sense, is a reasoned defense of the faith.

Join Dusty Gates, M.A., and guest presenters for these sessions of apologetic dialogue. Each session will address a different topic, pertinent to 21st century Catholics, which we have the need and obligation to be able to defend and explain: firstly for ourselves, secondly to our families and religious brethren, and thirdly to the greater public who may inquire of us; either as seekers of the faith, or as its attackers.

Protestants and Catholics alike often ask, "Where is that Catholic Church teaching in the Bible?" Thus, even Catholics are influenced by one of the basic tenets of the Protestant Reformation: sola scriptura, citing the Holy Bible as the only source of authority in Christianity. The Catholic Church has consistently taught that there are two sources of authority in the Church: the Tradition of the Church and the Holy Bible, formed and canonized by that Tradition. This month's Apologia at the Spiritual Life Center, presented by Stephanie A. Mann, will explore this teaching and look at how even Protestants have Tradition in their communities' authority for being a Christian.

$10 admission: online, by phone, or at the door. 7pm-8:30pm.

Each session features a one hour presentation on one topic, followed by 15-30 minutes for Q/A and discussion of this topic, and/or any topic pertaining to apologetics.

Seems natural that someone interested in Church History would be interested in Tradition! In preparation for this presentation next month, I've been reading Yves Congar's The Meaning of Tradition. Congar, a Dominican and periti at the Second Vatican Council, wrote two longer works on Tradition: La Tradition et les traditions: essai historique and La Tradition et les traditions: essai théologique, combined in the English translation as Tradition and Traditions: An historical and a theological essay. Ignatius Press provides an excerpt from The Meaning of Tradition, the introduction, here.

One of Henry VIII's "Loose-Ends": Blessed Margaret Pole

Last summer, I participated in a blog-tour for Susan Higginbotham's Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower. I finally received my hard-cover review copy this week!

Higginbotham's popular biography fortunately eschews some the pitfalls of imagining what Pole thought, how she felt, etc. The author tells the story briskly, explaining family relationships, changing fortunes of power and influence--the whole up and down on Fortune's Wheel that noble families experienced toward the end of the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor Dynasty. Margaret Pole, since she was a Plantagenet of the House of York, was in the midst of these changes from her childhood, not as an active participant, but at the beginning, almost as a pawn. Higginbotham notes that young Margaret and her brother had no powerful men to protect them or to support their legitimate claim to the throne, even during Richard III's reign. She survives her family's fall and even her brother's imprisonment in the Tower by Henry VII because of that vulnerability. Henry VII marries her off to a trusted courtier, Richard Pole, and she and he settle down to serve the king and have babies.

I wish the book would have included family trees for the major players. It is well illustrated.

When Henry VIII comes to the throne, he restores the widowed Margaret to her family holdings and gives her the title Countess of Salisbury. Higginbotham describes the households and the personnel of Margaret's estates. I wish she could have reconstructed what a day at one of Margaret's estates was like--what did she do everyday to manage her household, etc.

Her story is interwoven with Katherine of Aragon's and Mary Tudor's and thus with the whole King's Great Matter. Higginbotham's retelling of this sad story is aided by her restraint, but sometimes by necessity, Margaret Pole fades to the background. The family connections become the focus, as again, Margaret did not actively oppose Henry VIII's destruction of his marriage and family, his campaign of terror against any who did oppose him: the Carthusians, Thomas More, John Fisher, and a few other brave souls, or even his religious changes. Her sons participated in some of the trials. I do appreciate Higginbotham's comment that Margaret Beaufort, Henry VIII's grandmother, would have been shocked and dismayed to see John Fisher, the holy and scholarly Bishop of Rochester, so horribly treated and executed.

On her own estates, Margaret maintained the status quo of Catholic life, holding off any "Protestant" ideas in the person of an Evangelical cleric, but she did not participate in any resistance against Henry VIII's changes to religious practice.

Higginbotham believes that Pole's sons were involved in the Exeter Conspiracy and did make statements about the king soon dying of his leg wound or the need to have a new monarch. Reginald Pole did place his mother and family in an incredibly dangerous position with his attack on Henry's Supremacy, citing him as another Nero and warning him about suffering Richard III's fate. But Margaret, in all her statements, knowing Henry VIII's power to make and unmake, was clear that she would not participate in any rebellion against the monarch who had restored her lands and title. She would not be a traitor. Those who questioned her recognized that she was formidable in her own defense. Higginbotham includes the chilling detail that Henry VIII, wanting to leave London with his fifth queen, Catherine Howard, on a progress to the North needed to take care of any loose-ends, and thus Margaret was beheaded by an incompetent headsman, suffering great violence and pain. Well, when you know that Henry will find out more about his fifth wife soon after that progress, you know that more loose-ends will have to be dealt with.

One issue I have with the book: I think that Higginbotham should have recognized the importance of Hazel Pierce's scholarly biography, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership. She cites Pierce often enough and should have explained what makes her book distinctive to that earlier work. When I first saw this book announced by Amberley, the subtitle indicated a correction to a recent historical novel by Philippa Gregory, The King's Curse, and the cover did not cut off the top of the figure representing Margaret. Perhaps when the book had that purpose its relevance and impact was greater. It is well-written and achieves the purpose of telling the story of Margaret Pole, offering another perspective on the multiple horrors of Henry VIII's reign, but it lacks a certain significance.

St. James Priory and the Dudley Family

In honor of the Feast of St. James the Greater, some words about the Cluniac Priory of St. James in the West Midlands founded by Gervase Paganell in honor of St. Thomas of Canterbury, according to Gervase's father's wishes. Paganell was the First Lord Dudley, but he rebelled against Henry II during the Great Revolt of Henry's sons in 1173-74 and never returned to his castle after Henry had it destroyed. This website for the Friends of Dudley Castle describes how the Cluniac monks took over the role of the feudal lord in the nearby community:

For 50 years the barons stayed away from Dudley and the Prior of St James took on the responsibility of running the town's civil and religious life. Gervase had just founded the Borough (town) and being new it was a little unsteady in its development. The Prior being a scholarly man helped it to get through these early problems. As every market town had at least one annual fair he got permission to hold one in Dudley on July 15th. This was St James Day, the Apostle that the Priory was dedicated to. Close to where the fountain stands today, stocks were built. These were a wooden contraption in which to lock up people who were not law-abiding. Just to remind the market people God was always watching them a stone cross stood next to the stocks.

Thanks to this help the town began to grow and prosper but it was in other ways that the Priory helped with the town's growth. Medieval society was not one in which much thought was given to protecting peoples welfare. The church began to take on this role. The monks built a hospital (on the west range of the cloister, next to the great west door). In those days hospitals were not only for the sick. One role it took was a place where travellers could have a bed for the night and a meal, (normally free of charge). Another was a place where old people could retire, (they would help pay for this by handing over their property to the monks). But of course there was a place for the sick and a monk (like Brother Cadmon in the fictional stories) was a herbalist who made medicines. Given the knowledge at the time many of these people were terminal cases and a small part of the building was reserved for the dying. It was a small, quiet room with paintings on the walls of the various saints who would protect the person on his/her entering the next world.

Please read the rest there. The ruins are of course picturesque, and this news story describes how an app can help visitors understand the background of Priory Park, in which they are situated. Yes, there's an app for that; more information about Priory Park here.

When the Priory was suppressed by Henry VIII, John Dudley, later the Duke of Northumberland received the buildings and land. When was executed in 1553, the Priory buildings fell into disrepair.

Image credit for Priory Ruins.

St. James the Greater, pray for us!

Tyndale, More, and Venomous Words

The Pathway, a publication of the Missouri Baptist Convention, is running a series of stories commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. In this post, the focus is on William Tyndale and Thomas More:

In 1529, the year before Tyndale printed the Pentateuch, Thomas More—an English lawyer who was on the king’s council and who would soon be named Lord Chancellor of England—wrote a lengthy dialogue attacking evangelical heretics like Luther and Tyndale. Soon Tyndale responded with a brief answer to More’s dialogue. And, again, More replied with a Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, a work that trudged along for half a million venomous words.

Ironically, Tyndale may have considered More, the famous author of The Utopia, a friend of reform little more than a decade earlier. Indeed, he seems betrayed by More’s attacks. But, although he was friendly with famous Christian humanists and was no particular lover of the pope, More always believed that the hierarchical Roman church was the only guarantor of truth and order in the world. If the church falls, the world will collapse into chaos. Thus, the church must be defended vehemently.

It is no wonder then that some—though not all—historians have argued that More himself employed Henry Phillips, who betrayed Tyndale to his death. In October 1536, after being imprisoned for more than a year, Tyndale—a martyr for Reformation truths—was strangled and then burned at the stake.

But by the time of Tyndale’s death, More had been dead for a year—a Catholic martyr beheaded by the authority of King Henry VIII.

I'm glad to see the author clear More of employing Henry Phillips. But he needed to make it clear: If Tyndale had been imprisoned for more than a year by October 1536, that means the betrayal took place in 1535: Thomas More had been in the Tower of London since April of 1534 and had been out of office since 1532.

The author also doesn't give the full context of the exchange of publications between More and Tyndale: although Ben Hawkins refers to More's "half a million venomous words" in his Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, he does not describe the venom of Tyndale's response to the Dialogue—some of those 500,000 venomous words may indeed be Tyndale’s, because More took each argument in Tyndale’s 1531 An Answer to Thomas More’s Dialogue and answered it point by point.

In his Reformation Divided, Eamon Duffy looks at the Confutation and notes the effort and detail with which More labored on this work. As this reviewer sums up Duffy's effort to explain More's effort:

Duffy takes for his study perhaps the chief offender among More’s works, his voluminous Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer (1531), a work five times longer than the book it purported to confute. Critics, Duffy remarks, have found the Confutation a “shapeless, repetitious and boring work whose immense bulk and inflamed rhetoric reflects the collapse of More’s control over his material, and hence his failure as artist, persuader and polemicist.” Even C. S. Lewis deemed it “the longest, the harshest, and the dullest” of all More’s controversial writings.4 Duffy, however, successfully counters the perception that More’s religious polemics were failures even as literary works. More was adapting learned literary debate for a vernacular readership. Some of the vast bulk of his compositions results from his decision to quote his opponents at length so that it could be evident that he was not misrepresenting their arguments. More claimed, in fact, that Tyndale’s Answer could be reproduced in its entirety simply by leaving out More’s own responses in the Confutation. “One test of the value of any literary innovation,” Duffy points out, “is whether or not the form is adopted by other serious writers.” The form More introduced was indeed to have “a decisive influence” on the shape of religious controversies in the next generation of both Catholic and Protestant polemicists, as the works of William Rastell, Thomas Harding, and John Jewel attest.

I've submitted a review of Reformation Divided to another publication and will let you know when it's in print!