Robert Symons, beseeching God to touch his heart with his powerful grace, that he might truly repent of his perjury, and do penance for his sin: declaring withal, that if he had ten thousand times as many lives as there were persons present in that crowd, he would most willingly, lay them all down for his religion.

Being asked, whether he was a jesuit, or a secular priest? He answered he was a secular priest, but had made a vow of entering into the holy order of St. Bennet, if it could be done; and therefore, he desired of the sheriff, that his head might be set up on St. Bennet's gate.

The sheriff and the ministers asked him, if he believed there was any merit in good works, and whether he expected to be saved by his good works. He answered, that good works were certainly meritorious, and great means of salvation, through the passion of Christ, without which, no one could be saved: but as for himself, he acknowledged himself a most unprofitable servant, or rather most wicked, and good for nothing; and therefore, had his whole recourse to the death and blood of his redeemer, and desired to hide himself in his wounds. Then he called for a glass of water to refresh his mouth, by reason of the great heat and the dust: and asking what o'clock it was, and being told it was about eleven; then, says he, it is near dinner time: Sweet Jesus! admit me, though most unworthy, to be a guest this day at thy heavenly table.

Near the gallows, but behind the back of the martyr, there was a great fire prepared to burn his bowels, and by it, the block on which he was to be quartered. Mr. Tunstal turned his face towards these objects, which would have shocked another person, and kept his eyes for some time fixed on them; and making the sign of the cross on the fire, remained a while in contemplation. Then the hangman fitted the rope to his neck, which the martyr devoutly kissed, and blessed with the sign of the cross, saying, Glory be to thee, O Lord. He also desired the executioner to give him notice when he was to be turned off, that he might die, with the holy name of Jesus in his mouth. They told him, that he might give the sign himself, if he pleased: but this, he said, he would not do, because he would by no means, hasten his own death.

After this, he again made the sign of the cross, and lifting up his hands, begged the catholics that were there present, to recommend his departing soul to God; and addressed himself to his Savour in these words of the church, Bone Jesu, verbum Patris, splendor æternæ gloriæ, &c. Good Jesus, the word of the Father, the brightness of eternal glory, &c. Adding at the end, Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit and often repeating the name of Jesus, till the executioner gave him notice; now Mr. Tunstal, and turned him off, having these words in his mouth, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy on me.

And thus expired this constant confessor of Christ, having never shown from the beginning to the end the least token of fear, nor so much as changed his colour. The lookers on, who were very numerous, and amongst them many persons of note, were all sensibly affected with the sight of his death: many shed tears, all spoke kindly and compassionately of him, and appeared edified with his saintlike behaviour.

He was permitted to hang till he was dead; then was cut down, bowelled, and quartered. His head was placed on St. Bennet's gate, in Norwich, according to his request, his quarters on the walls of the city, where they hung for some time, but then were privately taken down. He suffered July 13, 1616. The judge who condemned him, died before he had finished his circuit; and most of the jury came to untimely ends, or great misfortunes.

The year 1617, passed without any executions of catholics for religion.

WILLIAM SOUTHERNE, PRIEST.—1618.*

He was an alumnus and priest of the English college of Douay, and the last that suffered in the reign of king James the first. I have met with but few particulars relating to the life and death of this holy man. Raissius in his catalogue of the priests of Douay college who have suffered in England, printed at Douay, 1630, p. 82, informs us, from the letters which the college had received from persons of undoubted credit on the spot, that this apostolic priest during his mission was mostly employed in converting and assisting the poor: that being apprehended, he was condemned to die for being a priest: that he refused the oath of allegiance; that when the sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he fell upon his knees and gave hearty thanks to God: that after condemnation he was forced to lie in a dark and loathsome dungeon for six days, because no one could be found during that time who would perform the office of the hangman. That he suffered at Newcastle; and that his head being set up on a spear on one of the town gates, was for some days after, by many, observed to smile.

Mr. Knaresborough, in his manuscript collections, adds, That he has been told, that Mr. Southerne's mission lay chiefly among the poorer sort of catholics at Bassage, in Staffordshire, an estate belonging to the Fowlers of St. Thomas; and that he was seized at the altar, and hurried away in his vestments to a neighbouring justice of peace, who committed him to Stafford jail; and this happening at the beginning of the assizes, he was immediately prosecuted, convicted and sentenced. That he was carried to Newcastle-underLine, and was there strangled, and butchered, according to sentence. That his head is said to have been brought back to Stafford, and fixed upon a spear, on one of the gates in terrorem.' He suffered, April 30, 1618.

About the end of July of this same year, (as we learn from the Douay diary,) upon occasion of the treaty of marriage, which was then on foot between prince Charles and the infanta of Spain, at the intercession of the Spanish Ambassador, no less than sixty priests, who were confined

* From Arnoldus Raissius's catalogue of the Douay martyrs.

in divers prisons throughout the kingdom, were permitted to exchange their prisons for perpetual banishment, and were transported beyond the

seas.

From the year 1618, till the death of king James the first, who died, March the 27th, 1625, I have not met with any mention of priests or others put to death in England for the catholic religion: unless we suppose F. Thomas Dyer, monk, of the venerable order of St. Bennet, to have suffered in this interval. Certain it is, that he suffered some time before the year 1630, because he has place in Raissius's catalogue published in that year: and as he there is set down after F. Maurus Scot, who was executed in 1612, I suppose that he suffered between the years 1612 and 1630. But where, or when in particular it was, I have not found: nor any thing else relating either to his life or death.

66 anno

Whilst the match with Spain was in agitation, the catholics flattered themselves with hopes of being more mildly treated; and we learn from Rushworth's collections, vol. 1. p. 14, that the king, upon being informed that the court of Spain, before they would consent to make any advance in that affair, expected he should propose some conditions in favour of his catholic subjects, despatched over 1620," Sir Walter Ashton with a letter to the king of Spain, 'promising on the word of a king, that no priest or lay catholic should thenceforth be condemned on any capital law; and that as the laws inflicting pecuniary mulcts for recusancy, though he could not at present rescind them, yet he promised to mitigate their execution, as thereby to oblige his catholic subjects. And farther, if the marriage should take effect, he promised his daughter-in-law should find him ready to indulge all favours which she should request for those of her religion.

But though the persecution upon this occasion relented, this intermission or remission was not of any long continuance: for in the year 1623, the match was entirely broke off, and the laws were ordered to be put in execution against all priests and papists recusants: many priests were apprehended and committed to prison: the lay-gentlemen were obliged all over the kingdom to pay their 201. per month for their recusancy, and the poorer sort their shilling every Sunday: and as to all other pains and penalties, death only excepted, the persecuting statutes were executed for the remainder of this reign, with as much severity* as in any part of queen Elizabeth's days.

In the year 1624, Dr. William Bishop, titular bishop of Chalcedon, departed this life in the seventy-first year of his age, leaving behind him this character, that he was both generally esteemed and loved, both by the laity and clergy, as well secular as regular. That he was a person of an apostolic spirit and life, who had both laboured and suffered very much in the cause of the faith; having been twice imprisoned, and as often banished for his religion, which he had also maintained by divers

I have by me copies of several letters, representing the most cruel treatment of the catholics at this time, especially in the north.

learned tracts against Mr. Perkins and Dr. Abbot. He was the son of John Bishop, Esq., of Brayles, in the county of Warwick; was sent to the university of Oxford, in the year 1570, where he was a student in Glocester Hall. But after three or four years' studying there, being dissatisfied with the protestant religion, he not only left the university, but also his estate, relations, and country, and went over to the college lately instituted at Douay. Here and at Rhemes he spent some years and was then sent to Rome, and after some time upon the English mission. Immediately upon his landing in England he was apprehended and imprisoned, and some time after sent into banishment in 1585; upon this occasion he went to Paris, and there having gone through the usual exercises of the school, he was made doctor of Sorbon, and after divers years more spent in apostolical labours upon the mission, and a second imprisonment and banishment, he was at length by pope Urban VIII., in 1622, created bishop of Chalcedon. He died in or near London, April 13th, 1624, and was succeeded by Dr. Richard Smith.

In a manuscript relation concerning this great man, kept in the archives of the English college of Douay, there is this remarkable history of him. That upon his last return into England, after he was consecrated bishop in Flanders, he was privately advised by a principal magistrate, one of the king's privy council, (considering the present disposition of the parliament and the fury of the puritan faction, continually making remonstrances against the growth of popery,) to delegate his authority to some others in quality of his vicars, and to retire beyond the seas, at least for a time, till the storm blew over: but that he returned this generous answer, worthy of a Basil, or an Ambrose; That he was not afraid of the threats of the parliament; that as he had twice already suffered imprisonment for Christ, he was very willing to suffer it a third time, or if they should order any thing worse for him, he was ready to undergo it. That he did not come into England with a disposition to run away, as soon as he should see the wolf coming, but rather as a good shepherd, to lay down his life for his sheep.

After the decease of king James the first, his son Charles, the first of that name, ascended the throne. This prince, in his own nature, seems not to have been inclined to persecution, at least not so far as to come to the shedding of blood for religion; yet such was the iniquity of the times, and the importunity of the parliaments, ever complaining of the growth of popery, and urging the execution of the laws, that he gave way to all manner of severities against his catholic subjects, and issued out proclamation upon proclamation for the executing the laws against them. So that the generality of catholics had a very bad time of it under his government. The first that suffered death by the penal statutes under this king was

* By the Douay diary, he was made priest at Laon, in May, 1583.

EDMUND ARROWSMITH, PRIEST, S. J.-1628.*

EDMUND ARROWSMITH was born (as two several manuscripts in my hands expressly affirm,) at a place called Haddock, in the parish of Winwick, five miles from Warrington, and seven from Wigan, in 1585. His father was Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman or farmer in that country, his mother, Margery, was a gentlewoman of the ancient family of the Gerards. Both his parents were catholics, and great sufferers for their religion, as were also their fathers before them; for Thurstan Arrowsmith, grandfather to our Edmund, after the loss of goods, and frequent vexations from the pursuivants, suffered a long imprisonment, and died in bonds, a confessor of Christ: and Mr. Nicholas Gerard, his grandfather by the mother's side, being a constant professor of the catholic faith, was by order of Sir Thomas Gerard, his own brother, forcibly carried to the protestant church, (at a time when he was labouring under a violent fit of the gout, so that he could not stir,) and there placed over against the minister. But instead of joining with the minister or congregation in their service, he sung psalms in Latin, with so loud a voice, that the minister could not be heard, which obliged them to carry him away out of church.

As to the father and mother of Mr. Edmund, my Latin manuscript relates, that after divers other troubles, and losses sustained for their conscience, they had their house searched by the pursuivants, who with their swords tried every bed and every hole, in which they suspected any priest, or priestly utensils might be hid; and then they and all their family were tied two and two together, and drove to Lancaster jail, leaving at home four little children, one of whom was our Edmund, whom the pursuivants had taken out of bed in their shifts, and left standing in the cold, not suffering any of the family to dress them, till some neighbours compassionating their case, came in and did this charitable office for the helpless infants. After this and some other imprisonments, from which he redeemed himself by money, the father of our confessor went abroad with his brother Peter, to be out of the way of these vexations; and they both served for a time in the wars in Holland; Peter died at Brussels, of a wound received in the wars, and was there honourably interred. Robert, the father of our Edmund, went to Rhemes or Douay, there to visit his other brother, Dr. Edmund Arrowsmith, a man of great learning and piety, priest and professor in the college; and after some time returned again to England, and there made a pious end, having foretold his own death some time before.

Mrs. Arrowsmith being left a widow, and in low circumstances, a venerable priest in that country, to ease her burden, took the boy Edmund (then called Brian from the name by which he was christened) into his service, to bring him up to learning. My Latin manuscript tells us, that whilst he frequented the schools, his daily practice was, as he went to school in the morning, to a place about a mile distance from

From a Latin manuscript of his life, preserved in Douay college, from a printed relation, published a little more than a year after his martyrdom, and from three other manuscripts sent me from Douay.