The Condition of Catholics Under James I. Part 5

"He replied to me with a torrent of abuse for denying my signature and handwriting, and said: 'In truth, you have far too much liberty; but you shall not enjoy it long.' Then he rated the gaoler soundly for letting me have so much liberty.

"I was sent for on two or three other occasions, to be examined; and whenever I came out of this prison, I always wore a Jesuit's ca.s.sock and cloak,(74) which I had had made as soon as I came among Catholic fellow-prisoners. The sight of this dress raised mocks from the boys in the streets, and put my persecutors in a rage. On the first occasion, they said I was a hypocrite. I replied: 'When I was arrested, you called me a courtier, and said that I had dressed myself in that fashion in order to disguise my real character, and to be able to deal with persons of rank in safety, and without being recognized. I told you then, that I did not like a layman's dress, and would much rather wear my own. Well, now I am doing so; and you are in a rage again. In fact, you are not satisfied with either piping or mourning, but you seek excuses for inveighing against me.'

"To this they answered: 'Why did you not go about in this dress before, instead of wearing a disguise, and taking a false name? A thing no good man would do.'

"I replied: 'I am aware you would like us not to do so, in order that we might be arrested at once, and not be able to do any good in the work of rescuing and gaining souls. But do you not know that St. Raphael personated another, and took another name, in order that, not being known, he might better accomplish G.o.d's work for which he had been sent?'

"At another time I was examined before the Dean of Westminster, the dignitary who has taken the place of the former Abbot of the great royal monastery there. Topcliffe and some other Commissioners were present.

Their object was to confront me with the good widow, my host's mother, of whom I have before spoken, and who was confined at this time in a prison(75) near the church at Westminster, for she was not yet condemned to death; that happened later. They wanted to see if she recognized me. So when I came into the room where they brought me, I found her already there. When she saw me coming in with the gaolers, she almost jumped for joy; but she controlled herself, and said to them: 'Is that the person you spoke of? I do not know him; but he looks like a Priest.'

"Upon this she made me a very low reverence, and I bowed in return. Then they asked me if I did not recognize her?

"I answered: 'I do not recognize her. At the same time, you know this is my usual way of answering, and I will never mention any places, or give the names of any persons that are known to me (which this lady, however, is not); because to do so, as I have told you before, would be contrary both to justice and charity.'

"Then Topcliffe said: 'Tell the truth; have you reconciled any persons to the Church of Rome?'

"I quite understood his bloodthirsty intention, that being a thing expressly prohibited under penalty of high treason; but then I knew I was already as much compromised on account of my Priesthood, and therefore I answered boldly: 'Yes, in truth, I have received some persons, and am sorry that I have not done this good service to more.'

" 'Well,' said Topcliffe, 'how many would you like to have reconciled, if you could? A thousand?'

" 'Certainly,' I said, 'a hundred thousand, and many more still, if I could.'

" 'That would be enough,' said Topcliffe, 'to levy an army against the Queen.'

" 'Those whom I reconciled,' said I, 'would not be against the Queen, but all for her; for we hold that obedience to superiors is of obligation.'

" 'No such thing,' said Topcliffe, 'you teach rebellion. See, I have here a Bull of the Pope, granted to Sanders(76) when he went to Ireland to stir up the Queen's subjects to rebellion. See, here it is. Read it.'

"I answered: 'There is no need to read it. It is likely enough that the Pontiff, if he sent him, gave him authority. But I have no power to meddle at all in such matters. We are forbidden to have anything to do with such things. I never have, and never will.'

" 'Take and read it,' he said; 'I will have you read it.'

"So I took it, and seeing the name of Jesus on the top, I reverently kissed it.

" 'What,' said Topcliffe, 'you kiss a Bull of the Pope, do you?'

" 'I kissed,' said I, 'the name of Jesus, to which all love and honour are due. But if it is a Bull of the Pope, as you say, I reverence it also on that score.'

"And so saying, I kissed the printed paper again. Then Topcliffe, in a furious pa.s.sion, began to abuse me in indecent terms.... At this insolence, to own the truth, I somewhat lost command of myself; and though I knew that he had no grounds which seemed probable even to himself for what he said, but had uttered it from pure malice, I exclaimed: 'I call the Great and Blessed G.o.d to witness, that all your insinuations are false.'

"And, as I spoke, I laid my hand on the book that was open before me on the table. It was a copy of the Holy Bible, but according to their corrupt translation into the vulgar tongue. Then Topcliffe held his peace; but the Dean took up the word. 'Are you willing,' said he, 'to be sworn on our Bible?' The better instructed Catholics, who can show the dishonesty of that translation, usually refuse this.

"I replied: 'In truth, under the necessity of reb.u.t.ting this man's false charges at once, I did not take notice what version this was. However, there are some truths, as, for instance, the Incarnation and Pa.s.sion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of G.o.d to witness. There are many other things falsely rendered, so as to involve heresies; and these I detest and anathematize.'

"So saying, I laid my hand again upon the book, and more firmly than before. The old man was angry and said: 'I will prove that you are a heretic.'

"I replied: 'You cannot prove it.'

" 'I will prove it,' he said, 'thus: Whoever denies Holy Scripture is a heretic; you deny this to be Holy Scripture: _Ergo_.'

"I replied: 'This is no true syllogism; it shifts from general to particular, and so has four terms.'

"The old man answered: 'I could make syllogisms before you were born.'

" 'Very likely,' I said; 'but the one you have just produced is not a true one.'

"However, the good old man(77) would not try a new middle term, and made no further attempt to prove me a heretic. But one urged one thing, and another another, not in the way of argument, but after their usual plan, asking me such questions as they knew very well I did not like to answer; and then, in the end, they sent me back to prison."

XII.

"On another occasion they examined me, and all the other Catholics that were confined in the same prison with me, in a public place called Guildhall, where Topcliffe and several other Commissioners were present.

When they had put their usual questions, and received from me the usual answers, they came to the point, intending, I imagine, to sound us all as to our feelings towards the State, or else to entrap us in some expressions about the State that might be made matter of accusation. They asked me, then, whether I acknowledged the Queen as the true Governor and Queen of England.

"I answered: 'I do acknowledge her as such.'

" 'What,' said Topcliffe, 'in spite of Pius V.'s excommunication?'

"I answered: 'I acknowledge her as our Queen, notwithstanding I know there is such an excommunication.'

"The fact was, I knew that the operation of that excommunication had been suspended for all in England by a declaration of the Pontiff, till such time as its execution became possible.

"Topcliffe proceeded: 'What would you do in case the Pope sent an army into England, a.s.serting that the object was solely to bring back the kingdom to the Catholic religion, and protesting that there was no other way left of introducing the Catholic faith, and, moreover, commanding all in virtue of his Apostolical authority to aid his cause? Whose side would you then take, the Pope's or the Queen's?'

"I saw the malicious man's cunning, and that his aim was, that whichever way I answered I might injure myself, either in soul or body; and so I worded my reply thus: 'I am a true Catholic, and a true subject of the Queen. If, then, this were to happen, which is unlikely, and which I think will never be the case, I would act as became a true Catholic and a true subject.'

" 'Nay, nay,' said he; 'answer positively and to the point.'

" 'I have declared my mind,' said I, 'and no other answer will I make.'

"On this he flew into a most violent rage, and vomited out a torrent of curses; and ended by saying: 'You think you will creep to kiss the Cross this year; but before the time comes, I will take good care you do no such thing.'

"He meant to intimate, in the abundance of his charity, that he would take care I should go to Heaven by the rope before that time. But he had not been admitted into the secrets of G.o.d's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though G.o.d had permitted him to execute his malice on others, whom the Divine Wisdom knew to be worthy and well prepared, as on Father Southwell and others, whom he pursued to the death, yet no such great mercy of G.o.d came to me from his anger. Others indeed, for whom a kingdom was prepared by the Father, were advanced to Heaven by our Lord Jesus through his means; but this heavenly gift was too great for an angry man to be allowed to bestow on me. However, he was really in some sort a prophet in uttering these words, though he meant them differently from the sense in which they were fulfilled.

"What I have mentioned happened about Christmas. In the following Lent, he himself was thrown into prison for disrespect to the members of the Queen's Council, on an occasion, if I mistake not, when he had pleaded too boldly in behalf of his only son, who had killed a man with his sword in the great hall of the Court of Queen's Bench. This took place about Pa.s.sion Sunday. We, then, who were in prison for the Faith, seeing our enemy, Aman, about to be hanged on his own gibbet, began to lift up our heads, and to use what liberty we had a little more freely, and we admitted a greater number to the Sacraments, and to a.s.sist at the services and holy rites of the Church. Thus it was that on Good Friday a large number of us were together in the room over mine, in fact, all the Catholics in the prison, and a number of others from without. I had gone through all the service, and said all the prayers appointed for the day, up to the point where the Priest has to lay aside his shoes. I had put them off, and had knelt down, and was about to creep towards the Cross and make the triple adoration of it; when, lo! just as I had moved two paces, the head gaoler came and knocked at the door of my room underneath, and as I did not answer from within, he began to batter violently at the door and make a great noise. As soon as I heard it, I knew that the chief gaoler was there, because no other would have ventured to behave in that way to me: so I sent some one to say that I would come directly, and then, instead of going on with the adoration of the material Cross, I hastened to the spiritual cross that G.o.d presented to me, and taking off the sacred vestments that I was wearing, I went down with speed, for fear the gaoler might come up after me, and find a number of others, who would thus have been brought into trouble. When he saw me, he said in a loud tone of voice: 'How comes it that I find you out of your room, when you ought to be kept strictly confined to it?'

"As I knew the nature of the man, I pretended, in reply, to be angry, that one who professed to be a friend should have come at such a time as that, when, if ever, we were bound to be busy at our prayers.

" 'What,' said he, 'you were at Ma.s.s, were you? I will go and see.'

" 'No such thing,' I said; 'you seem to know very little of our ways.

There is not a single Ma.s.s said to-day throughout the whole Church. Go up if you like; but understand that, if you do, neither I nor any one of the Catholics will ever pay anything for our rooms. You may put us all, if you like, in the common prison of the poor who do not pay. But you will be no gainer by that; whereas, if you act in a friendly way with us, and do not come upon us unawares in this manner, you will not find us ungrateful, as you have not found us. .h.i.therto.'

"He softened down a little at this; and then I said: 'What have you come for now, I pray.'

" 'Surely,' said he, 'to greet you from Master Topcliffe.'