Bishop David Poole had a full academic and ecclesiastical career in the midst of Henry VIII's Great Marital Matters, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, although it's not clear from that source how he responded to Henry VIII's efforts to obtain a decree of nullity of his first marriage and how the king resolved that issue, but he must have taken the Oaths of Succession and Supremacy to hold the various offices listed below. Evidently, the date of his birth is not recorded, because he firstappears as a fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1520. He devoted himself to civil law, and graduated B.Can.L. on 2 July 1526 and D.Can.L. on 17 Feb. 1527-1528. In 1529 he became an advocate in Doctors' Commons. He was connected with the diocese of Lichfield, where he held many preferments, first under Bishop Geoffrey Blyth, and then under Bishop Rowland Lee. He was made prebendary of Tachbrook in Lichfield Cathedral on 11 April 1531, archdeacon of Salop in April 1536, and archdeacon of Derby on 8 Jan. 1542-3. He had previously received the high appointment of dean of the arches and vicar-general of the archbishop of Canterbury on 14 Nov. 1540.
Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation
Further research and information on the English Reformation, English Catholic martyrs, and related topics by the author of SUPREMACY AND SURVIVAL: HOW CATHOLICS ENDURED THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
Friday, June 2, 2023
Preview: A Bishop Confessor in Elizabeth I's Reign
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Image Source: The English Convent in Bruges, Belgium
The Priory of Nazareth of the Augustinian Canonesses Regular of St John Lateran, to give it its full title, was founded from St Monica’s Priory in Louvain in 1629 and, with the exception of the colleges for training secular priests at Rome and Valladolid, it is the only English Catholic religious house in Continental Europe, the sole survivor of dozens of communities founded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the sons and daughters of recusants. Virtually all of the communities on the Continent went into ‘exile’ in England in the 1790s, fleeing the French Revolutionary armies (a notable exception was the Benedictine Priory of St Edmund at Douai in France, which was forced out by anti-Catholic laws as late as 1904 and is now located at Woolhampton, Berkshire). The Canonesses of the English Convent were no exception; what was exceptional was that the Bruges community, led by their redoubtable Prioress Mother Mary Augustina More (1732-1807) returned to the Low Countries after the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and have been there ever since.
Monday, May 22, 2023
Preview: Commentary on the Coronation on Treasures of the Faith
Treasures of Faith on Divine Mercy Radio (WDMC, 920 AM) in Melbourne, Florida, 10:00 a.m. Central Time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Listen live here; the host, Mike Gisondi, will send me a link to the podcast of the show about a week later.
AND: he did send me the link for the St. Thomas More interview we conducted in March!
Tomorrow, however, we'll be talking about the recent Coronation of King Charles III and how Catholic Liturgy and Tradition was certainly reflected in the service--down to the vestments Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Church of England prelates wore. He had to borrow them from the Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, according to this story (confirmed by Lambeth Palace, the London headquarters of the Archbishop, and a spokesman from the Cathedral) because he could not access appropriate vestments for himself and the other bishops and prelates.
Mike and I will discuss various other aspects of the event, based on some of the comments I made on the Son Rise Morning Show before the Coronation and an update I posted here.
I included the cover of my magnum--and only--opus here because this has been the theme I've been studying, reading about, talking about, and writing about for the past 15 years or so (13 years since Supremacy and Survival was published and a few years before that as I wrote and rewrote it and searched for a publisher!).
The theme: the long-lasting consequences for not just Catholicism but for religion in England after Henry VIII's still-crucial break from Rome. And some of those signs of healing of the break except for one crucial divide: the monarch cannot be a "Roman" Catholic!
The book is readily available from Eighth Day Books here in Wichita, Kansas! And if you want me to sign it before they send, let Warren or any of the staff know and I can easily drop by and autograph it, dedicate it, etc.
Friday, May 19, 2023
Preview: Two Martyrs from Campion's Class of 1581-1582
On Monday, May 22, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time to discuss Father Henry Bowden's "Mementoes" of two martyrs executed on May 28, 1582. Blesseds John Shert and Thomas Ford were among the 20 priests, including St. Edmund Campion, accused of conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I in the fictitious "Rome and Reims" plot.
Please listen live here at about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, or check out the podcast later here.
In 1581, it was not yet Treasonous for an Englishman to return to his native land as a Catholic priest: the 1585 Act Against the Jesuits and the Seminary Priests made it easier to condemn him to death. So when 20 (twenty) priests were arrested in 1581, they had to be charged under existing treason laws. So they were accused of conspiracy, one they'd developed in meetings held in Rome and Reims. Except they hadn't formed any conspiracy, and they testified at trial that they were in England when they were supposed to be in Rome or Reims. Since the guilty verdicts were a foregone conclusion, even after Campion and others had been questioned and tortured, that didn't matter.
On page 175 of Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors, Father Henry Sebastian Bowden recounts Blessed John Shert's last words at Tyburn on May 28, 1582, with the title "Praise and Thanksgiving" and the verse "Offer to God the Sacrifice of Praise and pay thy vows to the Most High" (Psalm 49:14). Blessed Thomas Ford, who had been captured with Campion at Lyford Grange in Berkshire, was still hanging from Tyburn Tree and Shert exclaimed:
"O happy Thomas! Happy art thou that didst run the happy race! O benedicta anima! O blessed soul, thou art in a good case! Thou blessed soul, pray for me."
When he was rebuked for "praying to the dead", he continued:
"O Blessed Lady, Mother of God, pray for me, and the saints of heaven, pray for me."
Then he made an Act of Thanksgiving:
"O Blessed Lord, to Thee be all honor and praise" and rejoiced that he would die "so happy a death for Thy Sake"!
Then he was hanged, drawn, and quartered.
They wanted him to say that he was in England to enforce Pope Pius V's Bull Regnans in Excelsis and further the efforts of the Northern Rebellion. He answered them:
. . . He could not reply as to the legality of the bull of Pius V against Elizabeth, as he was not privy to its circumstances . . .
. . . As to the pope's authorization of the Northern Rebellion, being a private subject, he cannot answer . . .
As Bowden notes, this questioning "was a mere pretext, and Fr. Ford saw through the device . . ."
He, like Saint John Henry Newman centuries later, was a graduate of Trinity College at the University of Oxford. As Bowden notes, Ford began to express "Catholic sympathies," and he "abjured Protestantism and went to Douay" in 1570, and returned to England in 1576. Blessed John Shert was also an Oxford man, earning his degree from Brasenose College. The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this brief outline:
Successively schoolmaster in London, and servant to Dr. Thomas Stapleton at Douai, he entered the seminary in 1576, and was ordained subdeacon. He was ordained priest from the English College, Rome, of which he was the senior of the first six scholars. He left Reims for England 27 August, 1579, and was sent to the Tower 14 July 1581.
Along with Blessed John Shert and Thomas Ford, Blessed Robert Johnson was also executed at Tyburn on May 28. 1582. Father Bowden provides a memento of his martyrdom on page 169: Father Johnson began to pray in Latin and was admonished to "Pray as Christ taught." He replied, "Do you think Christ taught in English?"
The spirit of the martyrs! Keeping their wits about them and being witty too!
Blessed John Shert, pray for us!
Blessed Thomas Ford, pray for us!
Blessed Robert Johnson, pray for us!
Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us!
Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of Blessed Thomas Ford in The English Convent in Bruges (NB: the long wound on his chest and the knife protruding, signifying that he was disemboweled at his execution.)
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
The Rogation Days and the Litanies
I mentioned on my Facebook page how happy I was that the Benedictus monthly Mass book for May included the Litany and Prayers for the Rogation Days, May 15, 16, and 17. The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday, which in our diocese is celebrated on Sunday, are the Rogation Days. As the Fish Eaters website explains:"Rogation" comes from the Latin "rogare," which means "to ask," and Rogation Days are days during which we seek to ask God's mercy, appease His anger, avert the chastisements He makes manifest through natural disasters, and ask for His blessings, particularly with regard to farming, gardening, and other agricultural pursuits. They are set aside to remind us how radically dependent we are on God through His creation, and how prayer can help protect us from nature's often cruel ways. Hence, its mood is somber and beseeching; its liturgical color is purple. . . .
The liturgy for the Rogation Days, during which the priest is vested in purple, begins with Psalm 43:26 --"Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for Thy name's sake" -- which is followed by the Litany of the Saints. At the Litany's "Sancta Maria," all stand and a procession begins, which in older times was (and still is in rural areas) usually around the boundaries of the parish, giving to the procession the name of "beating the bounds."
The Litany is followed by Psalm 69, a series of petitions, and the Mass, with readings from James 5:16-20 and Luke 11:5-14. Prayer for God's blessing of farmers' fields so that they yield a bountiful harvest is common.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Preview: A Martyr and a Confessor in York
. . . After priests the second most feared rebel group were female recusants. There was strict surveillance within the city, monitoring movements and keeping track of church attendance.
Once a month, commissioners conducted a survey of all Catholic prisoners within the prison which outlined females to be manipulators and religious converters as well as the largest group to miss church services. Their imprisonments were often stricter than men, excluding the treatment of priests. . . .
Records show that Catholic women harboured the most priests. In 1593, Ann Thwing was imprisoned for harbouring a priest and was sentenced along with another woman, a Mrs Stapleton. Both women were in York Castle until 1600. Mrs Stapleton was pardoned, Ann’s fate is unknown. In 1599, Eleanore Hunt received a death sentence for harbouring Christopher Wharton, a priest who was also sentenced to death at York Castle.
In 1575, a group of York women – ‘Mrs Dorothy Vavasour’, Frances Hall, Janet Geldad and Isabel Porter – became the first women to stand in front of the High Commission and be charged with ’causes ecclesiastical’. This was the refusal to attend church service.
The following year, the Lord President of Huntingdon, Henry Hastings, was instructed by the council to provide further details into church attendance. His list had 33 names, 23 being women, and included Vavasour, Geldad, Hall and Porter. Also on the list was Margaret Clitherow.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Lady Joan Vaux and Queen Catherine of Aragon
The British Library is home to hundreds of beautiful illuminated Books of Hours, prayerbooks that were hugely popular during the medieval and early modern eras, as they allowed lay people to develop and observe their own routines of personal devotion. These Books of Hours also provide us with significant insights into the lives of their patrons and owners, who often inscribed these manuscripts with their own beliefs, thoughts and recollections, details of significant events in their lives, and interactions with their most intimate circles of friends and family.
One such Book of Hours (Add MS 17012) stands out for the additions made for one of its female owners. Originally written and illuminated in Antwerp around the year 1500, it subsequently came to London, where it belonged to a prominent woman at the early Tudor court. The volume’s female owner used it not simply as her own personal prayerbook and set of devotions, but also as an autograph book, in which she collected signatures and expressions of favour from numerous members of the court, and even the Tudor royal family. . . .
Depicted by Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877-1958): "Erasmus visiting the children of Henry VII accompanied by Joan Vaux")
I thinke the prayers of a frend the
most acceptable unto God and
because I take you for one of myn
assured I pray you remembre me
Katherine the queen
Catherine’s testimony was a powerful factor. A solemn oath carried great weight, even if she was searching her memory of events at the start of the 16th century. Given the intensity of her first few months in a foreign country, it is unlikely that she would have forgotten such details.
The five months that Catherine and Arthur spent together in 1501–02 must have created intense memories for Catherine. For Henry VII’s other surviving son, Henry, Prince Arthur perhaps stirred different recollections. Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine was secured without the truth of events in his brother’s marriage-bed being established. . . .
. . . I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, or whether they were my friends or enemies. This twenty years I have been your true wife or, more, and by me ye have had divers children, although it has pleased God to call them out of this world, which has been no default in me.
And when ye had me at first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man; and whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience. If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonour; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice in your princely hands. . . .
Monday, May 8, 2023
The Tudors and the Greenwich Church of the Observant Friars
This post ties in with our Son Rise Morning Show discussion today of the correspondence between Queen Catherine of England and Blessed John Forest because it demonstrates the close ties between the founder of the Tudor Dynasty, King Henry VII and the church or chapel of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. From the Medieval Manuscripts blog of the British Library, evidence of that linkage:
Greenwich Palace was a favourite of England’s Tudor monarchs. Beside the palace stood the church of the Observant Friars, founded in 1482. Being so close to a royal residence, the church played a regular part in royal ceremonies — Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I were all baptised there. This church had political and religious importance, which is reinforced by two manuscripts digitised for the Library’s Medieval and Renaissance Women project. Egerton MS 2341/1 and Egerton MS 2341/2 contain instructions for the glaziers creating the stained glass for the church’s East window. These instructions demonstrate how that window was designed to strengthen the new Tudor dynasty.
Probably originally a single roll, the two manuscripts are undated. They must have been written after 1489, when Margaret Tudor was born, as she is one of the individuals to be depicted in the window. In turn, they presumably pre-date the death of Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen, in February 1503, as the text refers to her in the present tense. They may have been made in the early 1490s, and before the church was consecrated by April 1494.
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Updates/Clarification on the Coronation Oath Issues, Etc
Friday, May 5, 2023
Preview: A Royal Confessor and an Observant Martyr
This time we'll feature an exchange of letters between one whom Father Henry Sebastian Bowden terms a Confessor, one who suffered for the faith during the English Reformation but was neither martyred nor considered for canonization, and a martyr, both from the reign of Henry VIII.
The Confessor, who writes to her priestly confessor, is Catherine of Aragon, and the Martyr is Blessed John Forest, her "venerated Father" who would suffer a unique martyrdom. On page 159, in "A Royal Penitent", Queen Catherine writes to the Observant Franciscan Father John Forest because she thinks he will be executed soon for his early and lasting opposition to Henry VIII's plans to have the marriage between himself and Catherine dissolved so he may marry Anne Boleyn. (You might recall that the Observant Franciscans at Greenwich, so associated with the royal family, supported the validity of that marriage from the very beginning of the King's Great Matter. The couple was married at the Observant's chapel at the Royal Palace on June 22, 1509, after all.)
The dates of this correspondence, which Bowden might have accessed through Don Bede Camm's The Lives of the English Martyrs, are not certain. Bowden does include Camm's work as one of his sources in his Introduction (p. 7). Father John Morris, SJ, who wrote Forest's entry in Camm's book, dates it to sometime in 1534 when Forest was in prison because of his opposition to Henry's actions.
So, perhaps in 1534, by then in Cambridgeshire at either Buckton Towers* or Kimbolton Castle, Queen Catherine of England and Wales wrote her confessor, lamenting that he will die before her, leaving her without his counsel for he was "the man who had taught me the most in divine things." She says she would be willing to suffer "a thousand torments than follow you after a time." She asks for his prayers, for him to "commend me always to God, now and from your place in heaven" and call herself his "most sorrowful daughter." The verse for her entry is Ruth 1:16: "whither thou goest . . ."
Father John Forest answers her from prison that he "was filled with incredible joy" because he "saw how great is your constancy in the faith." He begs her prayers and commends her to Saint Francis of Assisi and especially Saint Catherine of Siena (whose feast we just celebrated at the end of April); especially "when you hear of my execution, I heartily beg of you to pray for me to her. I send to you my rosary, as I have but three days to live." Father Bowden gives his memento the title "One Only Gospel" with the verse from Galatians 1:18 as Forest reminds her to reject any doctrine of "heretics" and remain true to the Church's teaching.festival every January in her honor, with a Catholic Mass celebrated.
According to Camm's book, Forest was released from prison for a time to the Grey Friar Franciscan house near Smithfield until he was finally brought to trial for heresy and burned at the stake on May 22, 1538 at Smithfield. On page 171, on the anniversary of his martyrdom, Bowden remembers him with the title "A Living Holocaust". According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia:
On 22 May following he was taken to Smithfield to be burned. The statue of Saint Derfel which had been brought from the church of Llanderfel in Wales, was thrown on the pile of firewood; and thus, according to popular belief, was fulfilled an old prophecy, that this holy image would set a forest on fire. The holy man's martyrdom lasted two hours, at the end of which the executioners threw him, together with the gibbet on which he hung, into the fire.He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886.
Blessed John Forest, pray for us! and may the Soul of Queen Catherine of England, rest in peace.