honest plain friar. Mayo declared, that he knew him at Graveline, in the monastery of the poor Clares, and that he was one of the priests of that monastery, and that also he knew him at the convent of the English Franciscans at Douay. Gage made oath, that the prisoner lived for some time at London, with a lady, a near relation of his, where he had often heard him say mass; and that he remembered his complaining to him of his kinswoman's rising so late, that he could seldom begin mass before twelve o'clock. F. Bell excepted against all the witnesses as infamous apostates, who having broken their faith to God, deserved none with men. And as to the jury, he said, he hoped they were christians; that he was certainly not a priest of the Levitical order of Aaron and that it would not be wisdom, if any one had a call from God to the priesthood, to neglect the fountain-head, and to take up with troubled water.' The recorder told him, he spoke mysteriously; and asked if he had any thing else to say? He answered, no. Upon which, the jury going out, after a short deliberation, pronounced him guilty; for which verdict the holy man returned them

thanks.

In the afternoon he was brought again to the bar, and asked what he had to say, why sentence should not pass upon him. Upon which occasion he expressed himself in the following manner: My accusers have given in their depositions against me, and my jury has pronounced me guilty: I return them my most hearty thanks, for I shall most willingly, and with the greatest joy, die with Christ, and his apostles and martyrs, my cause being the same as theirs. And since I am going to speak of a matter of equal or greater importance than was that of which the prophets spoke of old, let me invoke heaven and earth with them: be astonished, O ye heavens! and be thou covered with confusion, O earth! to see a christian state, at least that pretends to profess Christ and his gospel, to make that priesthood high treason which was founded and established by Christ and his gospel; that priesthood, I say, which supports the gospel, and is supported by it. It was for this reason I asked in the morning whether the gentlemen of the jury were christians, intimating that christians might perhaps condemn the priests of the order of Aaron, but not those of the institution of Christ; as on the other hand, Jews would condemn christian priests, but not their own. What before appeared to you mysterious I now explain. Whoever has a call from God to the priesthood, let him seek it there, where there is a certain and undoubted succession never interrupted from Christ's time, viz: in the Roman communion; and not there, where the succession is called in question, or rather, where without all question it has certainly failed, as it has amongst protestants; for it is certain, there is no true priesthood in the protestant church.'

Thus far they heard him with patience; but here one of the bench interrupted him, telling him, that the laws under which a man is born, are to be obeyed. It is true, said father Bell, and if I had been born among pagans, I should have obeyed their laws, if they were not contrary to the law of God. "But as for these unchristian laws, by which priests are put to death," know for certain, That the makers of them

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have long since received their just rewards; and let all such look to themselves in time, and to their own consciences, who are, or shall hereafter, by reason of their office, be in the occasion of putting them in execution.' Serjeant Green the recorder, pronounced sentence in the usual form, at which father Bell is said to have joyfully intoned the Te Deum, and to have returned hearty thanks to the court; who also, on their part, seemed to pity his case, and exhorted him to conformity; he told them he had much more reason to pity their case, and that he begged of God's mercy, they might not have far more grievous torments to suffer in the next world, than those he was to endure in this.

During the three days which father Bell remained in prison, between the sentence of death and the execution, he was visited by great numbers of catholics, as well English as foreigners; some coming to beg his blessing, others to get something of him, which they might keep as a relic, &c., all admiring the cheerfulness and joy which appeared in his words and countenance. Amongst the rest, the imperial envoy came more than once to see him: to whom the man of God declared, that he would not exchange his present condition for that of the emperor, his master. The French ambassador also sent to him to desire his prayers; and he being one of whom the parliament at that time had great regard to, Monsieur Charles Marchant, his chief chaplain, was in great hopes by this means, to have put a stop to the execution: but father Bell frankly told this good priest, when he spoke to him in prison upon that subject, that instead of a friend, as he had hitherto esteemed him, he should look upon him as his capital enemy, if by his means he should be deprived of the crown which he had so long desired; and therefore conjured him to lay aside all thoughts of hindering his death, which would be to him the gate of life.

On the 11th of December, the holy man was brought out of prison, laid upon a hurdle, and drawn by four horses to Tyburn, the serenity and sweetness of his countenance, speaking all the way the interior disposition of his soul. When he came to the place of execution, he said, Now I see verified in me, what was foretold me, by happy Thomas Bullaker. Who, it seems, when father Bell was complaining to him in prison, that as he was the elder brother in religious profession, he ought rather to have gone before him, replied, God will have me to go first, but you shall soon follow me. Then being put up into the cart, and having leave of the sheriff, (who treated him with a great deal of humanity,) to speak to the people, he delivered himself to them in these, or the like words: Dear countrymen, give ear to me, and as you desire to be delivered from your present miseries, put an end to your sins: for, without all doubt, your enormous crimes, are the cause of the calamities under which you groan. But above all, I exhort you to renounce heresy, in which you have been so long engaged; for this (with grief I speak it,) has cut you off like putrid members from the true body of Christ, and like dead branches from the tree of his church. But if you resolve to persist in loving darkness more than light, long afflictions will attend you and cer

tainly, many calamities and miseries threaten this city, and the whole kingdom, unless they desist from persecuting priests and catholics. See and consider, I beseech you, the afflictions with which God has begun, visibly, to punish you; and be assured, that all these punishments are tokens of his love, and a manifest testimony that he would not destroy you, but as it were by constraint. I say it again, all these chastisements, civil wars, and calamities are inflicted upon you by him, to the end, that he may at length, from shipwreck, bring you into the haven of the catholic church. Abuse then no longer his goodness and mercy; do not force him to destroy you, by continuing to provoke his divine justice, by obstinacy in your evils.'

Here being interrupted by the sheriff, he said no more, but turning himself to one of the malefactors who were to suffer with him, he spoke to him some words of exhortation and comfort, and had the satisfaction to see him resolved to die a member of the catholic church. He also addressed himself to the hangman with a cheerful countenance, and embracing him, gave him wholesome advice for the salvation of his soul; with which, and many other things he spoke, the people being much moved, the officers hastened the execution, and ordered the cart to be drawn away. He hanged for the space of one Miserere, and then was cut down, dismembered, bowelled, and quartered. In stripping him, they found under his secular coat, the habit of his order, which it seems, he was accustomed to wear; upon which occasion, the people cried out, with astonishment, see what mortified men these are, who so much despise the pleasures of the world! Guards were appointed to hinder the catholics from carrying off any thing by way of relic; yet this did not prevent some from dipping their handkerchiefs, or other things in his blood. He suffered December 11, 1643, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, the twenty-fifth of his religious profession, and ninth of his mission.

N. B. That a little before father Bell's trial and execution, there happened to be taken at Yarmouth, in Norfolk, one Mr. Walter Windsor, a catholic gentleman, or, as some say, a priest; whose papers being seized, there was found amongst them, a letter from the archbishop of Cambray, to some priests upon the mission, with a copy of a brief of pope Urban the VIII., sent to the said archbishop, by which he was directed to nominate and empower certain priests, then upon the mission, to make diligent inquiry into the cause and manner of death of several priests, lately executed upon the penal statutes, and to transmit the account thereof to Rome. Now the persons deputed for this business, by the archbishop's letter, were these: for London, and all the counties on the south of the river Trent, George Gage, D. D., prothonotary apostolical; father Thomas Dade, provincial of the Dominicans ; father Bennet Cox, O. S. B., and father Francis Bell, definitor, O. S. F. For York, and the northern counties, Mr. Phillips, confessor to the queen; Mr. George Catherick: father Robert Haddock, provincial of the benedictines; and father William Anderton, O. S. F. These were commissioned personally to such places where informations were likely to be had, and to call before them persons of credit and integrity, who had been acquainted with the said priests, and the particulars of their

trials and behaviours at the place of execution; and to take their depositions upon oath, and to put them down in writing, with the names of the deponents, and to certify the same in due form to the archbishop. Now, these papers coming to the hands of the parliament at this conjuncture, are by some supposed to have hastened the execution of father Bell, who was one of the persons nominated in the archbishop's letter. Certain it is, at least, that they were published by order of parliament, the very day that father Bell was brought upon his trial: being printed by Husband, printer to the parliament, December 7, 1643.

This year the parliament made and published several rigorous acts and ordinances against delinquents, as they called them, and papists; by which all, whether catholics or others, that had already, or should hereafter assist the king against the parliament, were to have their whole estate seized and sequestered into the hands of committees, named to that purpose; and all catholics, as such, without any other offence, were to forfeit two-thirds of their whole estates, real and personal, unless they would take an oath, by which they abjured the pope, transubstantiation, purgatory, worship of the host, &c. With what rigour these acts were put in execution, we shall see hereafter.

1644.-This year the civil wars continuing, two priests of the venerable order of St. Benedict, lost their lives by the savage cruelty of the parliament soldiers, of whom thus writes father B. W., in his manuscript; Father Boniface Kempe, alias Kipton, professed at Mountserrat, in Spain, with father Ildephonse Hesketh, in the civil wars in 1644, were taken by parliament soldiers, and driven on foot before them, in the heat of summer; by which cruel and outrageous usage they were so heated and spent, that they either forthwith or soon after died.'

This same year also, as Mr. Austin writes, (under the name of William Birchley,) in his Christian Moderator, Mr. Price, a catholic gentleman, was murdered at Lincoln, in hatred of his religion. The story he relates thus: 'I remember an officer of my acquaintance, under the earl of Manchester, told me, that at their taking of Lincoln from the cavaliers, in the year 1644, he was an eye-witness to this tragedy. The next day after the town was taken, some of our (the parliament) common soldiers, in cold blood, meeting with Mr. Price, of Washingley, in Huntingdonshire, a papist, asked him, Art thou Price, the papist? I am, said he, Price, the Roman catholic: whereupon, one of them immediately shot him dead."

Likewise, two reverend priests were executed this year at Tyburn for their character, viz: Mr. John Duckett, of the secular clergy, and father Ralph Corby of the Society of Jesus.

JOHN DUCKETT, PRIEST.*

JOHN DUCKETT was the third son of James Duckett, (by his wife, Mrs. Francis Girlington,) a gentleman of an ancient family, but small

From three manuscript relations sent me from Douay, "one by Mr. Duckett himself," and from the college diary.

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estate. He was born at Underwinder, in the parish of Sedbergh, in Yorkshire, anno 1613. He performed his studies in the English college of Douay, and received all his orders there, being made priest in September, 1639. After he was ordained, he went to Paris, in company of Mr. Francis Gage, (afterwards Dcctor of Sorbon, and president of Douay college,) and there remained three years, in the college of Arras. The Douay diary takes notice, that he was much addicted to mental prayer, so that whilst he was yet a student in the college, he was known to have employed whole nights in those heavenly communications however, as he was very humble and discreet, when he was going upon the English mission, not content with having before conferred at Paris, with some very spiritual persons, who approved of his way of prayer, (though what passed therein betwixt his soul and God, was so sublime, that they owned it was above their comprehension,) for farther security, he called at Newport, on purpose to consult his kinsman, the reverend father Duckett, son of James Duckett, the martyr, and prior of the English Carthusians there, and to put himself under his direction, to the end, that he might proceed more safely in the internal way, and avoid the delusions of the enemy, to which contemplatives are often exposed. Here he spent about two months, in preparing himself, by spiritual exercises, for the great work of the conversion of souls.

His mission was in the bishopric of Durham, where he had been about a year, when he was taken in the following manner: he was called from Drusame, the place of his residence, to baptize two children, upon the feast of the visitation of our blessed Lady, July 2; and as he was going on his way, in the company of two catholic laymen, some parliament soldiers, who had intelligence of it, way-layed him, and apprehended him and his companions between Whissingham and Lenchester, and carried them to Sunderland, where there was sitting at that time, a committee of the sequestrators. These examined him, whether he was a priest, or no? He declined giving them a positive answer, and told them, If he were brought thither as a delinquent, he expected to see what proofs could be alledged against him and if none were produced, he conceived, that by the course of the law, he was quit. But as they had strong suspicions, of his being what he was, from the books and holy oils which were found about him, they committed him to prison; and a little while after, sending for him again, still pressed him to give a direct answer, and threatened to put lighted matches betwixt his fingers, and to burn him therewith, till he would confess what he was. But let us hear Mr. Duckett's own relation of this part of his history, and of the motives, upon which he at length confessed himself a priest. They committed me to prison, says he, making no doubt of my being a priest, by reason of my holy oils, and such like things they found about me; afterwards I was called again, and being I would not answer directly, that I was no priest, they threatened to put fired matches betwixt my fingers, till I would confess what I was. But when their threats would not prevail, they sent me to jail again, and put irons on About an hour after, they called me again; in the mean time, they were examining the other two that were taken with me; who, when

me.