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 mulets 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. home, to recite in the way with his brethren, the little hours of our lady's office and when he was coming home at night, the vespers and complin and that his first care after he came home was to withdraw into his oratory, and to perform his customary devotions of the Jesus psalter, the seven psalms, &c. And such was the sweetness of his temper, and his comportment, that even his protestant school-masters were very fond of him. At length, having tried in vain to pass over to one of the Spanish seminaries, he succeeded better in his attempt to go into Flanders, where he was received in the English college of Douay, in December, 1605. Soon after his arrival at Douay, he received the sacrament of confirmation, in which he took the name of Edmund (which was the name of his uncle, Dr. Arrowsmith,) and by this name he was ever after called. He had performed here a great part of his humanity studies, when he was obliged by the bad state of his health to interrupt the course of them, and to return to his native country; where, in a short time, he recovered, and then his old master sent him back to the college: where, taking the usual oath, he was admitted amongst the pope's alumni; and applying himself close to his studies, though somewhat infirm in health, he made a great progress in learning; but as his too great application threatened a return of his former illness, his superiors thought it most advisable, (he having now gone though a good part of his divinity,) to present him to holy orders, and to send him into England. Upon this he received all the lesser orders in St. Nicholas's church at Douay, June 14, 1612; and before the end of the same year, was advanced to the greater orders at Arras, and there made priest, December 9. And on the 17th of June, of the following year, 1613, he was by Dr. Kellison, lately made president of the college, sent upon the English mission. In England, he quickly recovered his health; and employed his missionary labours in his own country of Lancashire, with great zeal and success. The printed account of his death, published in 1630, gives his character in short, thus: That he was a man of mean presence, but of great innocency in his life, of great sincerity in his nature, of great sweetness in his conversation, and of great industry in his function. And that he was ever of a cheerful countenance, a most probable sign of an upright and unspotted conscience.' A fellow-labourer of his, in a manuscript which I have in my hands, tells us to the same purpose, that though his presence was very mean, yet he was both zealous, witty, and fervent and so forward (in disputing with heretics) that I often wished him, merrily, says he, to carry salt in his pocket to season his actions, lest too much zeal, without discretion, might bring him too soon in danger, considering the vehement sudden storms of persecution that often assailed us. My author goes on: Sometimes I have been in his company, when meeting with ministers sumptuously mounted, I have had much ado to keep him from disputing with them; which if he had done, it would have brought the whole company into danger. In his travels on a time he met with a protestant gentleman, who, seeing him of so mean a presence, and understanding by some in company who and what he was, thought he had got a companion that he might freely jest at and play upon but his jests were so retorted back upon VOL. II. 10 him, that he, swearing a great oath, said, I thought I had met with a silly fellow, but now I see he is either a foolish scholar, or a learned fool. He took much pains, says the same manuscript, with possessed persons: yet seldom or never without the help and assistance of some of his brethren and so freed many from their troublesome guests, and did much good.' He laboured about ten or eleven years upon the mission, in quality of secular priest; and then, in 1624, entered into the Society of Jesus, to which he had an inclination, ever after his making a spiritual exercise at Douay, under the direction of a father of that society. He did not go abroad, to make his noviceship, but retired only for two or three months into Essex, which time he employed in a spiritual retreat. 6 . He was apprehended (says another manuscript in my hands, dated August 16, 1631,) once before his last apprehension, and imprisoned in Lancaster, but released afterwards upon pardon, with divers others. "Probably in 1622, when I find by Mr. Rushworth's historical collections, vol. i. p. 62, the king, in favour of the treaty of marriage then going forward with Spain, released a good many priests, and other catholics out of prison, in and about London; and gave orders to the judges to do the like in their respective circuits." At that apprehension he was brought before Dr. Bridgman, bishop of Chester, where divers ministers were at supper with the bishop; who did all eat flesh, it being in Lent. Dr. Bridgman upon that occasion, made his apology to Mr. Edmund for his eating flesh, saying, he was old and weak, and was dispensed withal. But who dispenses with your lusty ministers there, said Mr. Edmund, for they have no such need? Both before and after supper, the ministers were busy in disputing with Mr. Edmund; and one time divers of them urging him at once, he merrily said to the bishop, Turn all your dogs loose at once against me; and let us have a loose bait.' His second and last apprehension, was a little before the summer assizes, in 1628. What happened to him then, with the whole history of his trial and death, we shall set down word for word out of the printed relation of his martyrdom, printed in the following year. This man "father Arrowsmith" performing his priestly functions in that country, where afterwards he was put to death; and being in labour amongst the rest to reduce a young man to a course of virtue, who was fallen both from God and himself; and having reproved him in particular for an incestuous marriage, &c., was so hated by him, that coming once to suspect to what place the priest repaired, he found means to discover him to a justice of peace, "Captain Rawsthorn" who despatched his warrant for him, and so he was apprehended upon the highway. He was committed to the common jail for not taking the oaths, and upon vehement suspicion also that he was a priest and jesuit. This happened this last summer, not long before the assizes, at which he was tried. At the entrance whereof, sir Henry Yelverton, coming to know that this prisoner was committed for this cause, and being the judge to whose turn it fell to sit upon life and death, he was not slack in laying hold of the occasion, and therefore, the next morning, being |