July 1980 Print

Martyrs of the English Reformation

by Malcolm Brennan

During the twenty-seven years that elapsed between Henry VIII's final break with Rome and the accession of Queen Elizabeth I, it looked as if England might not be lost to the Catholic Faith. For most of his life Henry had resisted innovations in doctrine (except about papal authority) and liturgy. During the six years of his sickly son's reign the Protestants had a field day, but these years were followed by another six in which Queen Mary attempted to heal the breach with Rome and restore all things Catholic so fas as possible.

The hope that the Church in England would somehow return to the Catholic fold was able to persist through several years of Elizabeth's reign, for she continued to give ambiguous and contradictory signals. True, she had broken again with Rome and had restored the Protestant service of Cranmer, but on the other hand she squelched many an avid reformer and was entertaining the idea of marriage to the Catholic heir to the French throne. Conformity to the new religion was general, yet a preference for the old religion remained strong in the universities, in the legal profession, and among the gentry. These were ministered to by a considerable but unknown number of non-juring priests (those who refused Elizabeth's oaths), who operated in secret, were often threatened, but seldom punished with extreme measures, and their influences persisted until the end of the century. Aside from a few notable outbreaks which the government suppressed severely, it seems to have been Elizabeth's policy to thwart and frustrate Catholics instead of persecuting them, and so to let the Faith die a natural death.

Among the many historical forces at work to prevent this and bring things to a head were two especially. In 1568 Fr. William Allen founded the English seminary at Douai; this was an explicit recognition that Englishmen were heretics and needed to be converted to the true Faith. The other event, two years later, was Pope Saint Pius V's excommunication of Elizabeth, which said in effect that England's situation could no longer be corrected by a few adjustments here and there, such as the Vatican might wish of the Church in any nation, but that the English Church was decisively and indisputably cut off from the Body of Christ. It was no longer a branch or a version of the Universal Church, such as Anglican theologians were soon to claim. The pope declared that it was no longer part of the Church at all.

With this clarification and this opportunity, earnest young men like Saint John Paine were in a position to take decisive action for God and country. Scores and then hundreds of them flocked to Douai and the other seminaries that developed, and they launched a major missionary effort to restore the Faith in their beloved country.

Saint John made his way to Douai in 1574 and was ordained in '76—indicating that he must have been rather advanced in his studies before leaving England. Two weeks after his ordination, spent in making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, he and St. Cuthbert Mayne set out together for England. After a narrow escape, in which they lost a large supply of theological tracts and devotional objects, St. Cuthbert went to Cornwell in the west, where he would soon become the first martyr of the seminary priests, and St. John proceeded to Essex, near London.

Naturally few records of the daily activities of the missionaries have survived; however, the official entry just a few months after St. John's arrival in England: "On the 15th [of July 15761 there came to us, sent by the Rev. John Payne, priest, who not long since left us for England, a distinguished man, and of varied learning, Mr. Godsalve, who has endured with constancy prolonged imprisonment, besides many other bitter trials, for the Catholic faith. While the faith still flourished among Englishmen [i.e., during Queen Mary's reign, seventeen years previously] he had advanced in Holy Orders as far as the diaconate; and all his anxiety this long time past had been to receive the priesthood, and so carry out his original purpose. His is accordingly admitted among us here, to return later to England for the good of many."

Mr. Godsalve also brought a letter from Fr. Paine, which the diarist records: " 'On all sides,' wrote the holy priest, 'in daily increasing numbers, a great many are reconciled to the Catholic Church, to the amazement of many of the heretics. And when any of them (as does happen) fall into the hands of the raging heretics, with such fortitude, with such courage and constancy do they publicly confess the Catholic faith (especially those who are gentlemen) that the heretics are fairly dumbfounded with astonishment, and already begin to give up all hope of putting them down by violence. Greatly also are they troubled by the very name of the Douay priests (now talked of through the whole of England), which on the other hand fills all Catholics with consolation and the greatest hope of the recovery of the Catholic religion. They lay snares, therefore, for all priests, but especially and most eagerly for those sent from thence.' He writes also that the daily increasing number of Catholics makes them already earnestly look for more priests from us. He says the name of the Calvinistic ministers has fallen into the deepest hatred and contempt with nearly all. Finally, both he and other priests sent from us earnestly beseech us in their letters to commend them earnestly every day to God, that they may persevere in the work they have entered on, with fortitude and zeal, against all the storms of the heretics; and especially that they may not be infected by the vices that abound there, nor polluted with the filth around them, and the like; in such a dreadful and unheard of way does the medly of all vices now reign in that unbelieving and unhappy Kingdom, as to fill those who are animated with any zeal for God's service, with shuddering horror."

Early in 1577 St. John was arrested at Ingatestone, the house of Lady Anne Petre, whose wealth and prominence permitted her to offer sanctuary to many priests. In the nineteenth century a 'priest's hole' was discovered in the house, a dead space left by the builders measuring two feet wide, fourteen feet long, and ten feet high, and having a small, secret entrance beneath some loose flooring. Lady Anne's wealth and rank had come from her husband, Sir William Petre, whose career indicates how indecisively the issues had been joined between the old and the new religion. Apparently a man of great ability and charm, but without convictions, Sir William had enriched himself enormously by acting as an agent for Henry VIII in the dissolution of the monasteries. Predictably, he had continued his government service under Edward VI. But surprisingly he continued on in the government of Queen Mary. In fact, he showed himself so good a Catholic that his Church plunder was confirmed to him by a special grant from Pope Paul IV. Although age restricted his activities when Elizabeth came to power, he was still employed occasionally in government business. His widow, Lady Anne Petre, was a woman of strong faith who devoted herself to good works, and Ingatestone became a kind of headquarters for St. John Paine, where he passed as her steward.

The next we hear is that Fr. Paine is out of prison, back in Douai in November 1577, and back again in England by Christmas 1579. The reasons for his comings and goings is not known.

A year and a half later Father Paine was again captured, this time in Warwickshire by George Eliot, the same rogue who captured St. Edmund Campion and some thirty other priests. Eliot, nicknamed 'Judas' Eliot, had been in the employ of Lady Petre and other Catholics and had built up quite a police record for himself for embezzlement, manslaughter, and rape. He found that his crimes would be forgiven and his situation advanced by becoming an agent in the large espionage network of Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state to Elizabeth and staunch enemy of Catholics. Fr. Godsalve was captured in the same roundup and, after examination by Walsingham, the two were sent to the Tower.

Eliot had accused the priests of conspiring to assassinate the Queen. "But as far as I can gather by these examinations," Walsingham wrote, "I think it will prove nothing. And yet it is happy that the parties charged are taken for that they be runagate priests, such as have been bred up at Rome and Douay, and seek to corrupt her Majesty's good subjects within the realm."

If his first general charge would not serve the purpose, Eliot was equal to producing testimony that would, and accordingly he produced a document headed, "Certain notes and remembrances concerning a reconciliation by me exhibited to the Rt. Hon. my good the Earl of Leicester." He deposed: "The said priest Payne went about once to persuade me to kill (Jesus preserve her) the Queen's Majesty, and said that there were diverse matters from the Pope published against her, that it was lawful to kill her Highness with any offense Godward. And said unto me that he had talked beyond the seas with the Earl of Westmoreland, Dr. Allen, and divers others Englishmen touching that matter, who let him to understand that the Pope would yield as much allowance of money as would fully furnish fifty men, to every man a good horse, an arming sword, a privy coat, and a pocket-dagger. These men should be had in readiness against some convenient time that her Majesty went in progress, not all in a livery, but in sundry sorts of apparel. And, for that it was supposed your honour, my Lord Treasurer [Leicester] , and Mr. Secretary Walsingham were like to be there, and that you were all thought to be enemies to the papists, it was appointed that four or five should set upon her Majesty's royal person, and so upon the sudden to destroy her Highness; three upon your Honour, three upon my Lord Treasurer, and three upon Mr. Secretary Walsingham, aft which in a moment even at one instant, to be destroyed as aforesaid. The rest of the said company of fifty to be ready when the deed were done, to come to and fro with their horses amongst the people to dash them out of countenance, that they should not know what part to take."

One reason Eliot had picked St. John to tell this pack of lies about is that earlier, when Eliot was a Catholic, he had enticed a young woman away from the Ropers, Catholic household, and had requested Fr. Paine to marry them. This deposition was Eliot's revenge against the priest for refusing to have any part in Eliot's dark scheme.

Meanwhile, during his captivity, St. Edmund Campion, St. Alexander Briant, and St. Ralph Sherwin were captured, imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, tried, condemned and executed. These proceedings brought great odium upon the government, and the authorities were therefore reluctant to take similar action against Fr. Paine and other captives. They continued to interrogate him, at least twice on the rack, to find some surer grounds for prosecution. At one point Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower, directed the saint to "write what you have said to Eliot and to your host in London, concerning the Queen and the State; and thereof fail not, as you will answer at your uttermost peril."

Since St. John's hands were crippled from a recent session on the rack, he dictated his reply:

 

EVENTUALLY, after nine months of imprisonment, he was aroused in the middle of the night, forbidden to gather his few belongings (Lady Hopton confiscated his meagre purse), and hurried off to Chelmsford in Essex for trial. For all their delay to gather additional evidence, the officials were unable to bring a better case against him than the single testimony of Eliot. And although St. John had refuted Eliot's accusations over and over again, he did not fail to do so again before the court, lest he neglect any proper defense, though hopeless, of his life.

When the jury gave the verdict expected of them, St. John excused them as "poor, simple men, nothing at all understanding what treason is." He received the sentence of death calmly, and he put the whole Elizabethan (and human) legal system in its rightful place with the statement to the court, "if it please the Queen and her Council [notice how he dismisses the present court as puppets] that I shall die, I refer my cause to God."

For the length of the whole day before his execution he was turned over to two Puritan preachers, who "by their foolish babbling" did "much vex and trouble him." Like others before them, they confided that if he would only attend a Protestant service his pardon was assured—thus confirming that although Elizabeth always trumped up civil charges against her Catholic prisoners, their real crime was religious.

"All the town loved him exceedingly," says an anonymous chronicler (perhaps Fr. Robert Persons?), "so did the keepers and most of the magistrates of the shire. No man seemed in countenance to dislike him; but much sorrowed and lamented his death. I, amongst many, coming to him about ten of the clock with the officers, he most comfortably [encouragingly] and meekly uttered words of constancy to me, and with a loving kiss took leave of me."

At the place of his execution the next morning, he knelt in prayer, ascended the ladder, kissed the gallows, and then addressed the crowd. He first declared his belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation—because word had gone around that he was a Jesuit and that Jesuits did not believe Christ to be God. He begged forgiveness of all he had offended, offered forgiveness to his enemies, Eliot in particular and by name.

Then the wrangling began. Officials at this late date tried to confuse him into some slip of the tongue, to misconstrue some innocent remark, or to provoke him into an unguarded statement. Through all this he retained his composure, but not when one of the ministers claimed that St. John's brother had confirmed the charge of conspiracy: "Bone Deus! my brother is, and always hath been, a very earnest Protestant; yet I know he will not say so falsely of me." His brother was not at hand for corroboration, but he later denied the whole fabrication. (This episode, by the way, is the only trace of the saint's family.)

He continued to answer a few objections, such as that he should pray in English. "And they went on," a modern biographer says, "to ask if he did not repent having said Mass, but his soul was now raised by our Lord into the peaceful region of contemplation."

As they turned him off the ladder he very meekly said, " 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' and so did hang, not moving hand or foot." It was the custom in executions for treason to take the hanged man down while still alive, revive him if he had swooned, and then begin to disembowel and dismember him while he was still conscious. But the crowd was sympathetic to St. John Paine. "They very courteously caused men to hang upon his feet, and set the knot to his ear, and suffered him to hang to death, commanding Bull, the hangman of Newgate, to despatch in the quartering of him lest, as they said, he should revive, and rebuked him that he did not despatch speedily."

Dr. Brennan is Professor of English at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.