God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England (33 page)

‘On one occasion,’ Gerard recalled,

we were all together in the house where Father Garnet was living – it was the time he was still in the country. We had held several conferences and the superior had seen each of us for a talk in private. Suddenly, one of us raised the question: what would we do if the priest-hunters broke in without warning? (There were many of us there and an insufficient number of hiding-places for all: we were nine or ten Jesuits and some other priests, besides a few laymen who were forced to live in hiding.)

‘Yes,’ said Father Garnet, ‘we ought not to meet all at the same time now that our numbers are growing every day. But we are gathered for God’s glory. Until we have renewed our vows, the responsibility is mine; after that, it is yours.’

Up to the day we renewed our vows, he gave no sign of being worried, but on the day itself, he warned us all to look to ourselves and not to stay on without very good reason.

‘I won’t guarantee your safety any longer,’ he told us.

A number of the party, when they heard this, mounted their horses immediately after dinner and rode off. Five Jesuits and two secular priests stayed behind.
⁶⁸

^fn1
This can still be seen. Baddesley Clinton, near Knowle, is a National Trust property open throughout the year.

^fn2
easel and gall
: this is how Thomas More described the vinegar given to Christ on the cross. In 1535, on the way to his own execution, he reportedly rejected some wine that was offered to him, saying: ‘My master had easel and gall, not wine, given him to drink.’ (R. W. Chambers,
Thomas More
, 1935, p. 348)

^fn3
Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), the Spanish founder of the Society of Jesus.

^fn4
Robert Sutton, seminary priest, executed at Stafford, 27 July 1588.

^fn5
Vestment
in this context usually denotes the chasuble, the sleeveless, sometimes very ornate, outer garment worn by the celebrant at Mass. The
stole
is a long strip of material worn over the shoulders. The
maniple
, which hung from the left arm, was another Eucharistic vestment. Further down the list, the
cope
was a long cloak; the
tunicle
went over the alb; the
altarcloth
was placed over the altar during Mass and the
reliquary
was a box, often of precious metal, containing relics.

^fn6
Francis Page, S.J., executed at Tyburn, 20 April 1602.

^fn7
Probably Richard Blount, S.J., later Jesuit Provincial in England.

^fn8
Contemporaries had a jolly time mocking ‘popish credulity’. One ‘merry jest’ doing the rounds in East Anglia in the mid-seventeenth century centred on a query posed by a Royalist to a prominent Catholic convert:

‘A gentleman that had drunk of many waters and tasted variety of flesh, conversed at last with a holy nun; she grew pregnant upon it, was handsomely delivered and soon after died. The father (formerly extreme dissolute) came to a sight of his sins, repented, proved a serious convert. The child was carefully educated, proved a profitable member of the church and after death was canonised for a Saint. Now, Sir, since this gentleman’s prick was at last a means of his salvation, and brought so much honour to the Rubric of the Catholic Church, why are not they bound in conscience to keep it for a relic?’ (Lippincott,
Merry Passages and Jeasts
, no. 228)

^fn9
A linen fabric.

^fn10
On 21 December 1586, Southwell wrote to Aquaviva: ‘I earnestly do beg your Paternity to have sent unto us those faculties we sought for, especially to consecrate chalices and superaltars. Of this there is very great need, for that by reason of these long searchings of houses, many such things have fallen into the hands of the pursuivants, so we are in great want.’ (Pollen,
Unpublished Documents
, p. 314)

^fn11
The cottage, which was just beyond the London wall, had only three rooms and was used by Garnet ‘when exceptional danger threatened the city’. By day, it was perfectly still and silent. No food was prepared, no conversations were had, no fires were lit ‘even in the most bitter winter weather, for fear the smoke might be seen.’ The cottage was only discovered when a careless priest hazarded a daytime visit. (Caraman,
Garnet
, pp. 68–9, 122–6)

^fn12
The second definition of ‘Jesuit’ in the
Oxford English Dictionary
is ‘a dissembling person; a prevaricator’. (
OED
Online)

^fn13
In his satire ‘The New Cry’, Ben Jonson revealed the popularity in England of
De Furtivis Literarum Notis
(1563) by the Italian cryptographer and polymath Giovanni Battista della Porta:

They all get Porta for the sundry ways

To write in cipher, and the several keys

To ope the character. They’ve found the sleight

With juice of lemons, onions, piss, to write,

To break up seals and close ’em …

(Miola,
Early Modern Catholicism
, p. 230)

^fn14
In his sonnet ‘Upon the Sight of Dover Cliffs from Calais’, the famous convert, Sir Toby Matthew (1577–1655), captured the pain of exile:

Better it were for me to have been blind,

Than with sad eyes to gaze upon the shore

Of my dear country, but now mine no more,

Which thrusts me thus, both of sight and mind.

Better for me to have in cradle pined,

Than live thus long to choke upon the core

Of his sad absence, whom I still adore

With present heart, for hearts are not confined.

Poor heart, that dost in so high tempest sail

Against both wind and tide of thy friend’s will,

What remedy remains that can avail,

But that thou do with sighs the sails fulfil,

Until they split and if the body die,

’Tis well employed; the soul shall live thereby.

(Miola,
Early Modern Catholicism
, p. 216).

^fn15
The title-page of the first edition (secretly published around 1593) is illuminating:

The Societie of the Rosary. Wherin is conteined the begining, increase, & profit of the same. Also the orders & manifold graces annexed unto it, with divers other things therunto appertaining.

A thing, which as it was at the first instituted by the Holy Light of God’s Church S. Dominicke as a present remedy against the Albigenses certaine heretikes of his Age: So undoubtedly will be a necessary remedy for all Christians to embrace in this miserable time.

Gaudo MARIA Virgo, cunctas haereses sola interemisti in universo Mundo
. [Rejoice, Virgin Mary, since thou alone has crushed all heresies throughout the world.]

^fn16
Priests from the reign of Queen Mary, although still law-breakers in the course of their ministry, were in a safer position than the seminarians since they had been ordained before 1558 and were not, therefore,
de jure
traitors.

12

Virgo Becomes Virago

Henry Garnet to General Claudio Aquaviva on the events of mid-October 1591:

This solemn meeting of ours was fixed for the three or four days before the feast of St. Luke, so that having finished our business we might adopt this evangelist as patron of all our work. We chose for this meeting the house which we had hitherto almost always used for this purpose, belonging to the two sisters, the widow and the virgin, illustrious by birth, fidelity and holiness of life, whom I sometimes in my thoughts liken to the two women who used to lodge Our Lord, or to those holy matrons, sisters also, who continually honour and succour your whole family, especially in Rome
.

It was getting near the appointed day when, behold, a Queen’s pursuivant came to the house and knocked at the door. And because he was kept waiting a little while outside until everything that betokened our religion had been put out of sight, this drunken fellow was filled with sudden fury and said that today he had come as a friend, but because they would not receive friends with civility, he would return within ten days with others and they would break open the doors and shatter the very walls of the house. What could be worse!

There was no time to let our friends know of the impending danger and they turned up as arranged. We were in two minds what to do. However, the Lord had already assembled us and everything connected with our gathering would be safeguarded. The only danger was from one filthy fellow, who spent his days snoring in taverns, and it wasn’t likely that he would forewarn us if he really intended to return. If he did come, it was hardly likely to be during the only three days that we were there. Moreover, it was confidently reported that he had gone out of the county, and he couldn’t cross any district near adjoining ours without our friends letting us know at once, and if we had warning, we had a most satisfactory hiding place in a very deep culvert. All things considered, we decided to carry on as usual. After all, we could hardly hope ever to hold a meeting of this sort without the devil issuing some such threats. He had always sent one of his henchmen on previous occasions, at the very time of our being together, and though he had never actually searched the house while we were all in it (in fact it was not known to him), we were about as much put out by his being in the neighbourhood as we should have been by his arrival at the door
.

So we passed the whole of that time in peace and quiet, but when we began dinner on the very feast of St. Luke, having finished all our business, something prompted me to say to them that up to that moment I had risked every danger, but that I could no longer guarantee their safety and that those who wished should leave after dinner. My premonition proved to be sound. Four of the nine left straight after dinner. Two secular priests arrived that very day, making us seven in all, and if those four had not left, there would have been eleven ‘merchants’ spending the night there, and that would have led to great confusion, as the sequel will show
.

Some spent the whole night, almost till dawn, discussing certain serious matters. When morning arrived the whole house had been surrounded without our having the slightest inkling of it and all the roads were guarded as well. Our horses were being prepared for our departure and the servants were busy about many things, some getting breakfast, some cleaning our hose, some airing our cloaks and everything else that was wanted for a journey. (In Catholic houses all these things, when not needed, are put out of sight, so as not to give away their owners or betray the presence of a greater number of men than it is wise should be seen in public). For some inexplicable reason, a gate in the courtyard had been left open. There was a young layman who has since joined our ranks, who was just leaving the house, quite unconscious of any trouble brewing, when he suddenly spied a stranger. He slammed the door after him, took to his heels and hid in a nearby copse. Meanwhile, two Catholic servants, having discerned the situation, came running from the stable armed with farm implements and threatened to use them on the pursuivants unless they moved away from the door. These men (who are so brave if you show fear, but so craven if you stand up to them) dropped their menaces and resorted to requests. One of them asked the lady of the house to open the door and that then he would deal gently with her
.

Only one or two had yet said Mass (though later on in the day they all did so) when the news spread through the house that the pursuivant was there. Doors were bolted, everyone warned, books collected, pictures, rosaries, chalices, vestments and all other signs of our religion were thrown into the culvert together with the men. The mistress of the house was stowed away in a separate hiding-place of her own, both to prevent her being torn from her children and carried off to prison, and also because she is rather timid and finds it difficult to cope with the threats and evil looks of the searchers. On this occasion, as often before when this same pursuivant paid us a visit, her younger sister (the aforementioned virgin) posed as the mistress of the house
.

At length, everything was disposed of with such dispatch that not a sound could be heard through the whole house. Then the pursuivant and a companion were admitted. He expostulated with the lady for keeping him waiting so long. She replied: