The Year 1643
This year two venerable priests were put to death at Tyburn, both of the Order of St. Francis; the first was
HENRY HEATH, Priest, O.S.F *
Henry heath was bom at Peterborough about the year 1600. His parents were Protestants, who brought him up to learning, and sent him to St. Penned s College in Cambridge, remained about five years. The life he led there, whilst yet a Protestant, was far more religious than that of his companions; and his ardour for learning was so great that he rose at two in the morning, winter and summer, to his studies. Being now made bachelor of arts, and chosen librarian of the college, and having before observed, as he thought, some defects in the principles of his religion, he was resolved, having gotten books and opportunity, to examine the matter more thoroughly. Wherefore, being willing to hear both sides speak in their own cause, he first read Bellarmine, and then Whitaker against him. But behold, instead of satisfying his doubts by this inquiry, he discovers another defect, viz., the unfair dealing1 of Whitaker in citing his authors, whereas he found Bellarmine always faithful in his quotations. This made him think better of the Catholic religion, and eager to look farther into it. Upon this he reads the ancient Fathers, and finding them to deliver the Catholic faith, he is inflamed with the love of the old religion, and seeks to communicate the same sentiments to his fellow-collegians; four of whom by his means not only left the college, but soon after the world too, and all became religious men, three in the holy Order of St. Francis^ and the fourth in the Society of Jesus. Mr. Heath upon those proceedings perceived that Cambridge would quickly be too warm for him, and therefore quitted the university, and came up to London in order to be reconciled to the Catholic Church. With this view he applies to the Spanish ambassador, but meets with no countenance. Then he addresses himself to a Catholic gentleman, [Mr. George Jarnagaii], who also rejects him, suspecting his sincerity. In these straits not knowing how to meet with a priest, or which way to turn himself, he remembers what he had read of the devotions of Catholics to the saints, and especially to the Blessed Virgin, and what helps they received by applying to her for her intercession, and is resolved to make a trial of this devotion; when behold, on a sudden the same Mr. Jarnagan^ who had a little while before rejected him with reproach, meets with him, treats him most courteously, and conducts him to Vlr. George Muscot^ a strenuous labourer in the Lord’s vineyard, afterwards President of Doway College, who heard his confession, reconciled him to God and His Church, and sent him over to Doway recommended to Dr. Kellison^ then President of the College, who received him kindly, and admitted him amongst the convictors of that community.
Mr. Heath had not been long at Doway ^ when seeing at the college some of the English friars who had been lately established in that city, and being informed of their rule and manner of life, he found a strong call to embrace that penitential institute. He communicated his desires to his confessor, and by him to the president and seniors; who approved of his vocation, and recommended him to the superiors of the English Franciscans; who willingly received him, first to the habit, and then after a year’s noviceship (in which he gave great proofs of a most solid virtue) to his religious profession. In religion he took the name of Brother Paul of St. Magdalen^ and for about nineteen years that he lived in the convent, he led a life of extraordinary perfection.
He fasted four or five of the seven days of the week for many years together, upon bread and small beer; he constantly wore a rough hair-cloth, and an iron chain or girdle under his habit; he used frequent disciplines besides those of the order; when he slept, he seldom indulged himself even the poor convenience of the straw bed allowed by the rule, but spreading a blanket upon the floor, laid himself down in his habit upon it; and after rising at midnight with the rest of the community to matins, he frequently prolonged his prayer till prime in the morning. As to his interior, it appears by certain regulations which he made for himself, and which were found written in his own hand after his death, that he obliged himself constantly to make a meditation after matins, to practise aspirations of the love of Jesus a hundred times in the day; to mortify upon every occasion his eyes, his tongue, his passions, and affections; to support the defects of all without murmur; to suffer incommodities and want of necessaries with a pure resignation; to regard God and His service only, and not to seek the affection and esteem of creatures; to abstain from recreations; to retrench all unnecessary discourse, &c.y to which he added these three rules: ‘ ist. Of renouncing all right and authority, in everything whatsoever, even in my good name, and corporal conveniences; that I may willingly suffer myself to be spoiled of all things for God^s sake. 2dly. Offering myself as a servant to every creature, that I may do him all good, expecting no profit thereby, although I may, but crosses and afflictions. 3dly. To live as absolutely dead to the defects of others, that I may continually find out and lament my own defects.’
His constant attention to God did not hinder him from making great progress in the sciences both human and divine; for the attaining to which he had both good opportunities and great abilities; no less than thirty treatises in different subjects of his compiling are still preserved in his own handwriting in his convent as lasting monuments of his learning. He was for many years first reader, or professor of divinity, and gained great esteem in the university. He was also twice Gtiardian, or superior of his convent, and was preferred to other honourable employs in his order, as that of Gustos Custodum, Commissary Provincial in the parts of Flanders^ &c., of all which he acquitted himself with great prudence and vigilancy. In the mean time, his charity for his poor countrymen that were gone astray from the fold of Christ was very remarkable; and he laboured with great zeal and success in reclaiming as many of them as came in his way from their errors and sins.
It was in the year 1641 that Father Heath seems to have taken the resolution of quitting his convent, and entering upon the English mission, and this in hopes of meeting there with the crown of martyrdom. Two priests had been put to death in 1641, and sevei> more were sentenced to die for the same cause, that is, for their being in orders, and exercising their functions in England. Amongst the latter was Father Colman., a Franciscan^ a contemporary of Father Heath, and his intimate friend. It was in the month of December, 1641, that these confessors received the sentence of death, and the news no sooner reached Douay, but Father Heath took up his pen, and wrote an excellent letter to these seven condemned priests, who daily looked for the dead warrant. Take here a part of the letter in his own words, which clearly demonstrate the spirit of the writer, and the desire he had of bearing part in their sufferings.
‘ O yc most glorious men! most noble friends, and most courageous soldiers of Christ Jesus! How great is my unhappiness, that I am not permitted to come to you, that I may be partaker of your chains, and offer myself to be consumed with that ardent love of Jesus Christ, which in your trials hath made you so constant and victorious over human fears. O good Jesus I what is the crime I am guilty of, for which I am not to be permitted to enjoy your company, seeing there is nothing in this world I desire more? nor indeed is it possible that anything can satisfy me, so long as I am kept from you. Wherefore I humbly beseech you, for the love of God, to pray for me, that I may come to you, and never be separated from you.*
About the same time, he wrote to his Provincial for his consent, that he might go upon the mission. This letter runs in much the same strain as the former. ‘ Alas I most dear sir,’ says he, ‘ I only require this, your obedientials; after this, nothing stays me; if I can get your consent but in one word, I will not endure to be kept from you a moment’s time. Why, sir, you cannot allow that soldier to be a man of courage, who, hearing that the army is drawn up in battle array, the drums and trumpets sounding to the charge, and yet shall indulge himself at home in sloth and cowardice. I am unfit, I deny not, and altogether unworthy to discharge this apostolic duty, or presume to suffer for the name of Christ; but His apostle has assured us, that virtue is perfected in infirmity, and that God has chosen the foolish, that He may confound the wise. Our most benign Lord inspire you to hasten your consent, and I shall eternally remain your poor child, Paul of St. Magdalen.'
His provincial returned him an answer, that after some time he might be permitted to leave his convent and go upon the mission, but that as yet he could not be spared. Upon this he applies himself to Father Angelas Mason, the Commissary Provincial residing in Flanders^ and casting himself upon his knees, with abundance of tears besought him to send him away, for that he found such strong desires of going upon the mission, that he perfectly languished away, and could not rest night or day; and that he thought the likeness of the hangman putting the rope about his neck was always before his eyes; which last words (says this superior) he spoke with such a feeling, and with such an emphasis in their delivery, that had you seen him you would have said the man did verily think himself standing under the gallows in the hands of the executioner. But though Father Mason (who afterwards wrote the life and martyrdom of Father Heathy in his Certamen Seraphicum) was very much affected with his words, yet he could not be induced to yield for the present to Father Heath's petition; who being strongly persuaded that his desire to go to England was a call from God, was resolved to try one other expedient, which, as we shall see, procured what he desired.
He was wonderfully devoted to the Blessed Virgin, and had seldom or never failed to obtain of God Almighty what he had particularly recommended to her prayers and intercession. Of this my author* alleges these wonderful instances. When he was Guardian of the convent, a pestilential fever had taken root there, and had carried off some of the religious; others were ill, and himself not without some suspicion of having contracted the infection; but what added to his affliction, was that the wants of the community were at the same time extraordinary great, with little prospect of relief from any quarter. Here he applied himself to this Mother of Consolation, and immediately his tears were dried up, and his fears dissipated; his sick brethren recovered, and a plentiful and seasonable supply of necessaries for the support of his convent (reduced at that time almost to the extremities of want) was brought in by the citizens. His father had hitherto continued Protestant, proof against all arguments, and now upon the brink of his grave; Father Heath recommends his almost desperate condition to the care of the Virgin Mary; when behold on a sudden the feeble old man, aged four score, crosses the sea, and unexpectedly calls for his son in his convent at Doway, there to abjure his errors, and to be taken into the Catholic Church. These, with other great favours. Father Heath had received from the hand of God, by the prayers of the Virgin Mary, and therefore was resolved to try this expedient in the present exigency, and to make a pilgrimage for this purpose to our Lady of Montacute, a place of great devotion in Brabant. Fie took Gand
From an epistle or prayer found in Father Heath’s own hand.
in his way, where he applied himself to Father Marchant, the Commissary General of his order, but all in vain; so to Montacute he goes, and there makes his supplication to the Blessed Virgin. Now see the fruit of these devotions; he takes his journey back by Gand^ and there again applies himself to Father Marchant, humbly entreating him for leave to go upon the English mission, to labour there in the conversion of his country, and lay down his life in defence of the truth. What rhetoric he employed now with the Commissary (who had before given him a flat denial) the compiler of his' life has not acquainted us. But certain it is that he expressed himself to him in a most pathetic manner, and made such a vigorous assault, that the good old Father was glad to capitulate, and surrender at last upon terms. We have here Father Mar chant' s relation in his own words: ‘ This man,’ says he, ‘ inebriated with the Spirit, some, months since came to our presence, desiring according to his rule, to go to the English that were gone astray from the faith, alleging no other reason than this; that he might shed his blood, that he might be slain with and for the English^ his brethren according to the flesh. I was against it; I commended indeed his spirit, though moved with too much fervour. At last I signed his obedientials, upon condition his immediate superior would join his approbation.’ Now this was the English Commissary, Father Mason ^ to whom Father Heath had formerly applied, and had been refused. He goes to him therefore now again, and shews him his letter of leave signed by Father Mar chant, but is still answered, that he cannot be spared. However, the Commissary promises to take the matter into consideration, and recommend it to God. He did so; and though he had resolved to refuse his consent, yet after all (and he calls God to witness that what he says is the real truth) he felt a secret impulse strongly determining him to join his approbation.
Father Heath having now gained his point, made haste back to his convent, to bid adieu to his brethren, and to set forward upon his journey to England with all convenient speed. His friends were surprised to see what a change the joy of his heart had now made in his very looks, by an unusual gaiety and cheerfulness which shone in his countenance. They would have provided him secular apparel, and money for his journey, but this he modestly refused, and set out from Doway penniless and barefoot in his friar’s habit. When he came to Dunkirk, he procured a tailor to metamorphose his friars’ weed into a coat, waistcoat, and breeches, and to turn his capuche into a kind of a sailor’s cap, in which he sewed up some writings in defence of the Catholic religion, and thus equipped he goes on board.
Here he meets with a German gentleman, who being much taken with the modest and humble deportment of the good man, not only paid for his passage, and provided him necessaries during his voyage, but also kindly offered him money to bear his charges from Dover to London^ which Father Heath modestly refused, and so made the best of his way barefoot, begging a bit of bread for God’s sake, when hunger compelled him to it.
At London he arrives wearied, as well he might, having travelled barefoot forty miles that day, and it being the winter season. It is now time to take up his quarters and give some little rest and refreshment to the body. But how shall this be done, for money he has none, nor acquaintance? However, he ventures to call at the Star Inn near London Bridge, but the people of the house finding he had no money turned him out of doors at eight o’clock in a cold winter night, and where now to put his head, and what course to take till morning, he knew not. At length, wearied with standing in the streets, he resolved to lie down at some citizen’s door, where he might meet with some little shelter from the cold air, and accordingly he laid himself down and composed himself to rest, designing in the morning to call upon Father Colniaii in Newgate.
After some time the master of the house coming home stumbles upon him, and taking him to be a shoplifter calls the watch, sends for a constable, and upon a strict search, discovers the writings that were concealed in his cap. Upon this he is committed to the Compter, and the next day is carried before my Lord Mayor, where his writings and himself being examined, he owned himself to be a priest, and so was sent to Newgate. After some days he was examined by a committee of the Parliament, to whom he also owned himself a priest; and being asked to what intent he came into England, he frankly told them he came upon a very lawful and commendable business, viz., the conversion of his countrymen from sin and heresy. What heresy? said they. Even the Protestant heresy, said he, the Puritan heresy, the Anabaptist heresy, the heresy of the Brownists, and many others. Being told that his coming over was against the laws of the nation, he answered that the preaching of the Apostles was also against the laws of the nations to which they preached, and that his coming over to preach the Gospel in England could no more be treason than the preaching of Christ and His Apostles.
Soon after this he was brought to the bar, being indicted upon the 27th of Elizabeth for being a priest and returning into England and therefore guilty of high treason. The trial was soon over, for as he had acknowledged himself a priest, he was brought in guilty of the indictment, and accordingly received sentence, as in cases of high treason, which, as soon as he had heard, making a low reverence to the bench, he said, ‘ My Lords, I give you thanks for the singular honour you have done me, for now I shall die for Christ.’
During the short interval betwixt his condemnation and execution, the prison was continually thronged with crowds of visitants from all parts of the town, as well Protestants as Catholics: amongst the former were reckoned above forty ministers, who came to confer with him in matters of religion. Some of them seemed very much to pity him, and all in general spoke well of him as a man of great parts and learning. As to the Catholics, they came to confess to him, or to consult him in matters of conscience, so that with one and the other he could scarce get a moment’s time for a little repose.
On the day of execution, being called for by the officers of justice, he readily obeyed the summons, and immediately went down into the street where the sledge was placed, with a modest cheerfulness in his looks. He offered to lay himself down on the ground, to be drawn in that manner over the stones and through the mire, but this was not allowed; so he was laid on the sledge, and drawn according to sentence to Tyburn. When he came thither he readily and cheerfully got up into the cart under the gallows, saying with an audible voice. Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. The rope being about his neck, and having obtained leave to speak, he protested that his return into England was for no other design but that he might spend his life and labours in the conversion of his country; and that this was the only cause for which he was brought to that place to suffer an ignominious death. But a minister interrupted him, saying, that he was not condemmed for religion, but for seducing the people. Father Heath calmly replied. With no other justice can I be called a seducer by you than with what my Lord Jesus Christ was called a seducer by the Jews. Here he was commanded to be silent and he readily obeyed; and not being able to obtain what he desired, viz., to hang naked like his crucified Saviour, joining his hands before his breast, his eyes shut, he employed about half an hour in profound recollection and silent prayer, without any other sensible motion but now and then a devout sigh. After that he had recited aloud the Church hymn for a martyr. Martyr Dei, qui unicum, &c., it being the day of St. Anicetus, Pope and Martyr; for his last prayer he made use of these short aspirations: My Jesus, pardon me my sms! Jesus, convert England! Jesus, have mercy on this country! O England, turn thyself to the Lord thy God! After which the cart was drawn away and he left hanging, his hands lifted up towards heaven and his eyes cast down, and in this posture he quietly expired. After his death he was cut down, bowelled and quartered, and his quarters fixed upon four of the city gates, and his head upon London Bridge.
N.B. — He reconciled in the very cart one of the malefactors that were executed with him.
He suffered on the 17th of April, 1643, in the forty-third year of his age, and the twentieth of his religious profession.
Father Heath, a little before the sentence of death was passed upon him, wrote out of prison the following letter to a priest, his intimate friend: —
‘ Very Reverend Father,
‘ Y^our consolations have rejoiced my soul. The judges have not yet given sentence. I beseech the Divine goodness that it may answer my desires, that I may suffer death for my Lord Jesus Christ. Alas, father! what other thing can I desire than to suffer with Christ, to be reproached with Christ, to be crucified with Christ, to die a thousand deaths that I may live for ever with Christ? for if it be the glory of a soldier to be made like his lord, God forbid I shoidd glory in anything hut in the Cross of my crucified Lord. Let, then, the executioners come, let them come, let them tear my body in pieces, let them gnaw my flesh with their teeth, let them pierce me through and through and grind me to dust. For I know, I know full well, how profitable it will be for me to die for Christ. The moment of this suffering doth work an eternal weight of glory in heaven. May your reverend paternity be pleased to pray for me a miserable sinner, who will ever be in the wounds of Christ, until death be swallowed up in victory. — Your reverence’s most humble servant,
‘ F. Paul of St. Magdalen.'
It is also remarked of Father Heath, in Mr. Ireland's Diary of Doway College, that he declared in prison, though he always was convinced that the martyrs found much joy and consolation when they were to suffer for Christ; yet he never could have imagined this delight to be so exceeding great, as he now found by his own experience.
’Tis likewise the tradition of the English Franciscans in Doway, that when Father Heath was executed at Tyburn, the first that had the news of it in the convent was his aged father, then a lay brother amongst them, informed by a vision of his son.
ARTHUR BELL, Priest, O.S.F.^
ARTHUR BELL, who in religion was called Father Francis^ was born August 13, 1590, at Temple Brought on, of his father, in the parish of Hanhury, six miles from Worcester. His parents were both virtuous, and of good families, his mother being sister to Francis Daniel, Esq. of Acton Place, near Long Melford, in Suffolk. He was brought up in the fear of God, and in grammar learning, privately at home in his mother’s house, who was left a widow when he was eight years of age; afterwards he lived for some years with his uncle Daniel in Suffolk. At the age of twenty-four, he went over to the English College of St. Omers, where he employed a year in the study of rhetoric, and then was sent by the Fathers of the Society to the English College of St. Alban the Martyr in Valladolid, where he studied his philosophy and some part of his divinity, and was made priest, and not long after took the habit of St. Francis in the convent of Segobia, August 9, 1618; and having very much edified the whole community during the year of his probation, he was by the unanimous votes of all admitted to his solemn vows and profession, September 8, 1619. Not long after. Father Gennings, being about the restoring of the English Franciscan province, and having authority from the General to call to him for this purpose the English friars, wherever they were to be found, sent for Father Bell from Spain to the English Convent newly erected at Doway, where he employed two years more in the study of divinity and then was made confessor, first of the poor Clares at Graveline, and afterwards of the nuns of the Third Order of St. Francis, at that time residing in Brussels, till about the year 1630, when he was chosen guardian for the first time of the Convent of the English Franciscans at Doway, and made definitor of the province, discharging at the same time the office of lector or professor of the Hebrew tongue. But before he had gone, through the usual term of his guardianship, he was called to Brussels by Joseph Bergaigne, the Commissary General of the order (afterwards Archbishop of Cambray), and for the restoring the province of Scotland, was appointed its first provincial, and sent in that quality to the general chapter then held in Spain.. After his return he was sent by the2 same Commissary General upon the English mission, where he arrived September 8, 1634. He laboured with great zeal for nine years in the mission in converting souls to Christ, and then received the crown of martyrdom for his reward, which for the space of twenty years he had earnestly prayed for.
He was apprehended on the 6th of November y 1643, at Stevenage in Hertfordshire y by the Parliament soldiers, upon suspicion of his being a spy; who, upon a strict search, found in his bags some papers, in which he had written out the lessons of the office of the Blessed Sacrament and a form of blessing the cord of the Confraternity of St. Francis y &c., which, after sending for the schoolmaster of the town to interpret them, appeared (not only to these military men, but afterwards to the committee of the Parliament) dangerous matters, especially the form of blessing the cord, which they imagined to be some spell or conjuration. That day, and the following night he passed under the guard of four soldiers, and the next morning was searched again, when they found about him a letter in Spanish y addressed to, or designed for the Spanish ambassador, then residing in London y in which was made mention of his being of the Order of St. Francis; so that now they resolve to secure him, no longer as a spy, but as a suspected priest. This drew many officers and others to the place where he was detained. One of them asked him what religion he was of } He readily answered, I am a Catholic. What! said the other, a Roman Catholic? How do you mean a Roman? said Father Bell. I am an Englishman. There is but one Catholic Church, and of that I am a member. They all said he was in the right to own his religion. That, said he, I will do, with the grace of God, to my last breath. Another asked him if he believed the Pope to be the head of the Catholic Church? He answered in the affirmative; upon which there arose a dispute concerning the Church and the Pope, but in a confused manner, as is usual to this kind of disputants, who are ever running from one point to another. They brought their Bibles to confute him, but in vain; for he shewed them that they had shamefully corrupted even their very Scriptures. In conclusion he told them their arguing against Church authority and infallibility, and grounding all things in religion upon the weak and uncertain bottom of private judgment and private interpretation of the Scriptures (liable, as they acknowledged, to error), was not a way to invite him to their religion, for that it would be a very unequal change to part with a Church (which he was assured was an infallible guide, by the divine promises, as recorded in Scripture) for a religion which owned itself liable to error, and could give no assurance to its followers that it was not leading them on in the broad way of eternal damnation. Such an exchange as this, said he, would be like that which your soldiers have obliged me to make, who have taken away my clothes that were whole, and given me nothing but rags in their place. In fine, at parting, he told them plainly and sincerely that no salvation could be hoped for out of the Catholic Church, and that he wished them all to be even as he was, excepting his present state of confinement.
From Stevenage he was carried before the committee then sitting in Hertfordshire^ to whom all his papers were delivered; with a particular caution to look well to him, for that he had a spell amongst his papers, by means of which he could get out of any prison or dungeon; for such they supposed to be that form of the benediction of the cord of St. Francis^ which was found amongst his papers. Here he was examined, whether he had ever been beyond the seas? He answered. Yes. Whether he had taken holy orders there? He answered, that as this was by their laws deemed a crime, he was not to be his own accuser. Upon this he was given over to Jones the City Marshal, to be by him conducted the next day to town; who stripped him of what the soldiers had left, and set him on horseback, half naked as he was, in his rags, and so carried him to London^ making him a subject of mockery to the people, in all the towns and villages through which they passed; whilst Father Belf as appears by his own written relation, so far from taking this in evil part, thought this cavalcade of his too great a pomp for one whose profession ohligeth him to take up his cross every day^ and follow Christ. When they were arrived in town, the Marshal (who before in searching him had found the key of his trunk) found means to get the trunk itself into his hands, and seized upon it, and all its contents as a lawful prize. ’Tis true the Committee of the Parliament, by whom Father Bell was shortly after examined, upon hearing the case, ordered the Marshal to return his goods; for as he was not yet convicted he had certainly a right to keep what was his. But the Marshal, though he promised to return them, never did it. ‘ I shall never hear any more, says Father Belf of my goods, till the day of judgment; and then I fear I shall be blamed for transgressing holy poverty, by having so many goods to lose; for I firmly believe these men were appointed by God to put me in mind of my vocation. Thanks be to God for it.’ Such were the dispositions of this holy man.
In his examination before the Committee of the Parliament, being questioned concerning the Spanish letter that was found about him, he acknowledged that he was a poor penitent of the Order of
St. Francis, but would not satisfy them as to the point of his priesthood; so he was committed to Newgate in order to take his trial at the next sessions. But before these things were transacted, his brethren had made choice of him to be, for the second time, guardian or superior of their convent at Doway, which office had been vacant ever since the martyrdom of Father Heath, who was actually guardian when he came over into England, where he so quickly met with the crown he sought. Father Bell had not been full four-and-twenty hours in Newgate when his Provincial's letter was brought to him, requiring of him in virtue of obedience to fill up the vacancy; and not long after he received the patents for that office from Father Marchant, the Commissary General. His answers both to the one and the other are worthy to be recorded. To his Provincial he writes as follows: —
‘ Reverend Father,
‘ I received your command with all humility and readiness at the very time that I was putting it in execution; for I took possession of Father Paul's place in Newgate about twenty hours before yours came to my knowledge. As to what remains, I beg your prayers that I may persevere to the end; and I beg of all Christians, with St. Andrew, that they would not hinder my suffering, &c. ‘ Your poor Brother,
‘ Father Bell.'
To the Commissary General he returned the following answer: —
‘ Most Reverend Father, obedience and reverence. — I received the command of your most reverend paternity with humility, and am disposed with all possible readiness to put it in execution as soon as this present impediment which stands in the way shall be removed. Now the impediment is this. On the 6th of November, O.S., I was apprehended on my way to London, by the Parliamentary soldiers, and being examined, and found to be a Catholic, I was put under the custody of four soldiers night and day. And after I had been stript of all things, sword, money, clothes, and even my very shirt, and clad in an old tattered coat of some poor soldier, I was brought before the Parliament at London, where being again examined, I was found out by certain arguments to be a friar minor, which I did not deny; and being withal suspected to be a priest according to the order of the Roman Church, I was for this reason committed to the prison of Newgate. I am to be tried on the 5th of December, what will then be done with me my Lord Jesus Christ knows, with whom I am ready to go to the cross, and to death, if His mercy will vouchsafe to extend itself so far as to be willing to accept of the sacrifice of such and so great a sinner; but if I am still necessary to His people, the will of our Lord be done. I have begged death for Christ. This will I continue to beg for. My sinful life has been a long time hateful to me. Pardon me, I know what is for my profit; to die is my gain. I humbly beg your prayers, and those of my brethren, that if (as I wish) it be my lot to die, I may depart with obedience in the grace of Christ; and with St. Andrew I beseech all Christian people not to be a hindrance to my death. If I shall not be condemned to die, I will labour by all lawful means to procure my liberty, that I may be able to obey, as it is my duty, the command I have received. God preserve your reverence, &c.
'Newgate, November 22, 1643.’
Father Bell was not tried on the 5th of December as he expected, but on the 7th of that month. The witnesses that appeared against him were Wadsworth, Mayo, and Thomas Gage, all apostates from the Catholic religion, and the last also from his religious vows. Wadsworth deposed that he knew him twenty years before at Brussels, in the habit of St. Francis, and that he was esteemed by all as an 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 he also knew him at the convent of the English Franciscans at Doway. 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. Father 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 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 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. Sergeant 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 whom the Parliament at that time had great regard to. Monsieur Charles Mar chant, 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 I ith 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, certainly, 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 those 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 anything by way of relic; yet this did not prevent some from dipping their handkerchiefs or other things in his blood.
He suffered, December ii, 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 BelVs 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 VHIth, 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., protonotary 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; htmgprmttdhy Husband, printer to the Parliament,Z)^c^mZ>^r 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.
Footnotes
Chapter 35 of 45