Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

with laws, authority, and punishment. Thus they disputed three several times with the man of God, shewing nothing but barbarous despite, malice, and so deep ignorance in divinity, that divers of the protestants themselves were ashamed thereof, and marvelled exceedingly at the other's learning, meekness, patience, and humility.

And now, by this time, falling from all hope of his yielding to them, and so from all pity and good nature towards him, they practised how to make him and his companions away by some shew or justice, and that not for the new made treasons; that is to say, for mere religion, but for matters of treason so called of old, against her majesty and the state; forging things for this purpose, and finding out three or four false fellows that would not stick to swear the same against a man whom they never knew, or saw in their life, before his apprehension. So they caused an indictment to be drawn up against him, and a number more of most godly, learned priests, comprising him and them all together, that so whatsoever might colourably be avouched or witnessed of the rest, or of any one of them all, either present or absent, all might seem to the simple, and to the jury (deeply biased by fear and authority) to touch. him also, and every one of the others.

The 14th day of November, anno 1581, he, and seven others were brought from the Tower to the King's Bench bar, and a bill of their indictment was read in the hearing of father Campion and the rest, how that, in the 22d year of the reign of our sovereign lady the queen, on the last day of May, in the parts beyond the seas, they had practised the queen's deposition and death; and the stirring up of rebellion within, and invasion of the realm from abroad, and such like stuff. Whereupon he was arraigned with the others, and commanded, as custom is in such cases, to hold up his hand; but both his arms being pitifully benumbed by his often cruel racking before, and he having them wrapped in a furred cuff, he was not able to lift his hand so high as the rest did, and was required of him; but one of his companions, kissing his hand so abused for the confession of Christ, took off his cuff, and so he lifted up his arm as high as he could, and pleaded not guilty, as all the rest did. I protest, said he, before God and his holy angels, before heaven and earth, before the world and this bar whereat I stand, which is but a small resemblance of the terrible judgment of the next life, that I am not guilty of any part of the treason contained in the indictment, or of any other treason whatsoever. Then lifting up his voice, he added, is it possible to find twelve men so wicked and void of all conscience in this city, or land, that will find us guilty together of this one crime, divers of us never meeting, or knowing one the other, before our bringing to this bar?

Nothing more was done that day, only a jury was impaneled for the next Monday, being the 20th of the same month: but three of the first of that impanel being esquires, doubting that justice should have no free course that day, in these mens' cases, whose blood was so earnestly thirsted after, appeared not when the day came. In the mean time, Mr. Campion and his fellow confessors were carried back to the prisons from whence they came.' "The seven that were arraigned, together with Mr. Campion, were Mr. Ralph Sherwine, Mr. Luke Kirby, Mr. Thomas

Cottam, Mr Robert Johnson, and Mr. Edward Rishton, all priests of Douay college; Mr. James Bosgrave, a young jesuit, who, coming over for his health, had fallen into their hands, and Mr. Orton, a lay gentleman. And the next day, in like manner, were arraigned, Mr. John Collington, or Colleton, Mr. Laurence Richardson, Mr. John Hart, Mr. Thomas Ford, Mr. William Filby, Mr. Alexander Brian, and Mr. John Shert, all priests, educated in the same college, though Mr. Shert was made priest at Rome."

On the 20th day of November before mentioned, Mr. Campion and his companions were brought back again to receive judgment; where, notwithstanding what commandment soever, or order taken to the contrary, there was such a presence of people, and that of the more honourable, wise, learned, and best sort, as was never seen or heard of in that court, in our or our fathers' memories before us. So wonderful an expectation there was of some to see the end of this marvellous tragedy, containing so many strange and divers acts of examining, racking, disputing, subornations of false witnesses, and the like: of others, to behold whether the old honour of law and justice, wherein our nation hath, of all the world, had the praise, could, or durst, now stand its ground, notwithstanding any violent impression of power and authority to the contrary. Whether there were any Markhams in the land that would yield up coiffe, office, and life, rather than give sentence against such as they knew, in conscience, to be innocent, and, in truth, not touched by any evidence whatsoever. But this one day gave that assembly, and all the world, full proof of the sad fall of equity, law, conscience, and justice, together with the catholic faith in our poor country.

For nothing there said by the queen's attorney, solicitor, or other councellors, by any of those that were at their racking, or by the suborned false witnesses,' "Eliot, Cradock, Sledd, and Munday," could in any well-informed man's conscience, touch any of them all, as every one of the rest, and especially father Campion, did, point by point, prove and declare as clear as the sun; and his innocence, in particular, was so plain in all men's sight, that what colour soever might be made for the condemnation of the others, yet for father Campion's, none at all: insomuch, that whilst the jury were gone forth, divers wise and well-learned lawyers, and others, conjecturing and conferring one with another what should be the verdict, they all agreed, that whatever might be concluded as to some of the rest, it was impossible to condemn father Campion.

But it was father Campion that especially was designed to die, and for his sake, the rest; and therefore no defence could serve: and the poor jury did that which they understood was looked for at their hands, and brought them in all guilty. Mr. Popham, the attorneygeneral, having plainly signified to them, that it was the queen's will it should be so. The most unjust verdict, says my author, that ever, I think, was given up in this land, whereat already not only England, but all the Christian world, doth wonder, and which our posterity shall lament and be ashamed of. Upon this, sentence followed, that all these holy men should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as in cases of high treason, and so that doleful day was spent. Father Campion,

and his happy associates, rejoiced in God, using divers holy speeches of scripture to their own comfort, and the great edification of others, and so were sent back to their prisons again, where, being laid up in irons for the rest of their time, they expected God's mercy, and the queen's pleasure.'

"The following day, the other priests, who, as we have seen above, were arraigned for the same fictitious plot, received the same unjust sentence, Mr. Colleton only excepted, who was acquitted by the testimony of Mr. Lancaster, witnessing, that he was with him in Gray's Inn, the very day that he was charged with plotting at Rhemes; where, indeed Mr. Colleton, who was sent missioner from Douay, had never been in his life. He was afterwards transported into banishment, and lived to be the first dean of the English chapter, erected by the bishop of Chalcedon.

As to the innocence of all the rest of these gentlemen, with regard to the treasons laid to their charge, and the barefaced injustice used in the condemning of them, my author, in his preface to his accounts of their deaths, has set it in so clear a light, that it seems to be out of all dispute, that the true cause of their execution was not any treason, but their religion. And we learn from Mr. Camden, in his Elizabeth, that for the greatest part of them, the queen herself did not believe them guilty. Plerosque tamen ex misellis his sacerdotibus exitij in patriam conflandi conscios fuisse non credidit. p. 327, edit. 1615."

The time that passed between judgment and execution, which was from the 20th of November till the 1st of December, father Campion spent in preparing for his end, by godly spiritual exercises; shewing so much patience, and using such sweet speeches to his keeper and others that had to deal with him, that the same keeper, having afterwards, one Norton in his custody (who had been a violent persecutor of Mr. Campion and his companions) and comparing together the different behaviours of his prisoners, declared, that he had a saint in his keeping before, but now he had a devil.

In the mean time, the protestants did not desist to tempt Mr. Campion, with proffers of life and liberty, to go over to their side, or at least to make some steps towards them; insomuch, that the lieutenant of the Tower told Mr. Campion's sister, who came to see her brother, three days before his death, that if he would but yield to change his religion, he would secure him a 100l. a year; but Mr. Campion had too well studied that great lesson: what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? to be moved by any such offers.

On the morning of the 1st of December, he was brought to Mr. Sherwine and Mr. Brian, who were to be his companions in death, who waited for him in the Coleharbor prison: and after mutual embraces, they were all three led out to the hurdles prepared for them; father Campion saluting the people, at his coming out, with these words, God save you all, God bless you, and make you all good catholics. They were drawn from the Tower to Tyburn, says my author, there to be martyred for the catholic faith and religion. Father Campion was alone on one hurdle, and the other two together, on another, all mo

lested by ministers and others, calling upon them by the way for their subversion; and by some also, as opportunity served, comforted; and father Campion especially consulted by one in some cases of conscience and religion; and the mire, wherewith he was all spattered, most courteously wiped off his face.

When they were come to the place of execution, where divers of her majesty's honourable counsel, with many other persons of honour, besides an infinite multitude of people, attended their coming, father Campion was first brought up into the cart; where, after some small pause, he began to speak upon that text of St. Paul, 1. Cor. iv. 9, we are made a spectacle to the world, &c., but was interrupted by Sir Francis Knowles, and the sheriffs, urging him to confess his treason against her majesty, and to acknowledge himself guilty to whom he answered, For the treasons which have been laid to my charge, and I am come here to suffer for, I desire you all to bear witness with me, that thereof I am altogether innocent.

'Whereupon, answer was made to him by one of the counsel, that he might not seem to deny the objections against him, having been proved by sufficient evidence. Well, my lord, said he, I am a catholic man, and a priest; in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die and if you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for any other treason, I never committed, God is my judge: but you have now what you desire; I beseech you to have patience, and suffer me to speak a word or two for discharge of my conscience. But not being suffered to go forward, he was forced to speak only to that point which they most urged, protesting, that he was innocent of all treason and conspiracy; desiring credit to be given to his answers, as to the last answer made upon his death and soul: adding, that the jury might easily be deceived, &c., but that he forgave all, as he desired to be forgiven; desiring all them to forgive him, whose names he had confessed upon the rack (for, upon the commissioners oaths, that no harm should come unto them, he uttered some persons with whom he had been.)

Further, he declared the meaning of a letter sent by himself, in time of his imprisonment, to Mr. Pound, a prisoner then also in the Tower, in which he wrote, that he would not disclose the secrets of some houses where he had been entertained: aflirming upon his soul, that the secrets he meant in that letter were not, as it was misconstrued by the enemy, treason or conspiracy, or any matter else against her majesty or the state; but saying of mass, hearing confessions, preaching, and such like duties and functions of priesthood. This he protested to be true, as he would answer before God.

They pressed him to declare his opinion of Pius Quintus, his bull, concerning the excommunication of the queen. To which demand he gave no answer. Then they asked, whether he renounced the pope ? He answered, he was a catholic: whereupon, one inferred, saying, in your catholicism (I noted the term) all treason is contained. In fine, preparing himself to drink his last draught of Christ's cup, he was interrupted in his prayer by a minister, willing him to say some prayer with him; unto whom, looking back with a mild countenance, he

meekly replied, you and I are not one in religion, wherefore I pray you content yourself, I bar none of your prayer, only I desire them of the household of faith to pray with me, and in my agony, to say one creed, (for a signification that he died for the confession of the catholic faith therein contained.)

'Some also called to him to pray in English; to whom he answered, that he would pray in a language he well understood. At the upshot of this conflict he was willed to ask the queen forgiveness, and to pray for her; he meekly answered, wherein have 1 offended her? In this I am innocent: this is my last speech in this give me credit: I have and do pray for her. Then the Lord Charles Howard asked of him, for which queen he prayed, whether for Elizabeth, the queen ? to whom he answered, yea, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen. And the cart being drawn away, he meekly and sweetly yielded his soul unto his Saviour, protesting that he died a perfect catholic.

'Which his mild death, and former sincere protestations of his innocency, moved the people to such compassion and tears, that the adversaries, in their printed books" of his death under Munday's name," ' were glad to excuse the matter.'

6

He suffered at Tyburn, December 1, 1581, Etatis Anno 42.

The gentlemen that were brought up to London at the same time with father Campion, and cast into prison, were Edward Yates, John Cotton, Edward Kaines, William Hildesley, Humphrey Kaines, Philip Low, and John James.

RALPH SHERWINE, PRIEST. *

He was born in Derbyshire, at a place called Radesley, near Langford, and brought up in Exeter college, in Oxford, where he was admitted fellow, in 1568. In 1574, says, Mr. Wood, "Athen Oxon" proceeding in arts, he was made senior of the act, celebrated July 26, the same year, being then accounted an acute philosopher, and an excellent Græcian and Hebrician.' "He left the university in 1575, and with it the protestant religion, which it seems did not sit easy upon his conscience, and 'went over to Douay, to the seminary that was then there, says my author, and after some years study in divinity, was made priest by the bishop of Cambray, on the 23d of March, 1577, together with Mr. Laurence Johnson, that was martyred under the name of Richardson, "and eight others. " And the 2d of August, of the same year, he was sent to Rome, in company with Mr. Rishton, who was afterwards condemned with him, where he studied in the seminary till the year 1580; at which time he returned homeward by the way of Rhemes," "where he made some short stay, upon a design of accompanying, in quality of Chaplain, Dr. Goldwell, bishop of St. Asaph, who then purposed to come over to England to administer confirmation to the catholics; but the bishop falling sick at Rhemes, and proceeding no further in his journey, "Mr. Sherwine went for

* From the same author, an eye-witness of his death.

« AnteriorContinua »