X.

X.“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the[pg lxxiii]alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a[pg lxxiv]Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother.‘If I must either give up God or the world,’was his courageous answer,‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me:‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management[pg lxxv]of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of‘guilty or not guilty,’she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her:‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in[pg lxxvi]a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying,‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for[pg lxxvii]two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr....”“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.”...“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense[pg lxxviii]a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”XI.“In the meantime, I was so fully taken up in the prison with business, and with the visits of Catholics, that in the next room, which was Brother Emerson's, there were often six or eight persons at once, waiting their turn to see me. Nay, many of my most intimate and attached friends have oft-times had to wait[pg lxxix]many hours at a stretch, and even then I have been obliged to ask them to come another time....”“While I remained in this prison, I sent over numbers of boys and young men to Catholic Seminaries abroad. Some of these are, at this present, Priests of the Society, and engaged on the English mission: others still remain in the Seminaries, in positions of authority, to assist in training labourers for the same field. On one occasion I had sent two boys on their way to St. Omers, and had given them letters of recommendation, written with lemon-juice, so that the writing was not visible on the paper. In the paper itself I wrapped up a few collars, so that it might seem that its only use was to keep the collars clean. The boys were taken, and on being questioned, confessed that I had sent them. They let it out also that I had given them this letter, and had told them, when they came to a certain College of ours, on their way to St. Omers (for they had to pass by Ostend, which is not the usual way, and thus they came to be taken), to bid the Fathers steep the paper in water, and they would be able to read what I had written. On this information, then, the paper was steeped by the authorities, and two letters of mine were read, written on the same paper. One was written in Latin to our Belgian Fathers; this I had consequently signed with my own proper name. The other was addressed to our English Fathers at St. Omers. The letters having been thus discovered, I was sent for to be examined.“Young, however, was no longer to be my examiner. He had died in his sins, and that most miserably. As he lived, so he died:72he lived the devil's confessor, he died the devil's martyr; for not only did he die in the devil's service, but he brought on his death through that very service. He was accustomed to work night and day to increase the distress of the Catholics, and to go forth frequently in inclement weather, at one or two o'clock in the morning, to search their houses. By these labours he fell into a consumption,73of which he died. He died, moreover, overwhelmed[pg lxxx]with debt, so that it might be clear that he abandoned all things for the devil's service. Notwithstanding all the emoluments of his office, all the plunder he took from the persecuted Catholics, and the large bribes they were constantly giving him to buy off his malicious oppression, his debts were said to amount to no less a sum than a hundred thousand florins [10,000l.]; and I have heard even a larger sum mentioned than this. Perhaps he expected the Queen would pay his debts; but she did nothing of the sort. All she did was once to send a gentleman from Court to visit him, when he was confined to his bed, and near death; and this mark of favour so delighted him, that he seemed ready to singNunc dimittis. But it was a false peace, and the lifting up of the soul that goes before a fall; and like another Aman, he was bidden not to a banquet, but to execution, and that for ever. So with his mouth full of the Queen's praises, and his great obligations to Her Majesty, he died a miserable death, and anguish took the place of his joy. The joy of the hypocrite is but for an instant.“This man's successor in the office of persecuting and harassing the servants of God, was William Wade, now Governor of the Tower of London, but at that time Secretary to the Lords of the Council. For the members of the Council choose always to have a man in their service to whose cruelty anything particularly odious may be attributed, instead of its being supposed to be done by their warrant. This Wade then sent for me, and first of all showed me the blank paper that I had given to the boys, and asked me if I recognized it. I answered,‘No, I did not.’And in fact I did not recognize it, for I did not know the boys had been taken. Then he dipped the paper in a basin of water, and showed me the writing, and my name subscribed in full. When I saw it, I said:‘I do not acknowledge the writing. Any one may easily have counterfeited my handwriting and forged my signature; and if such boys as you speak of have been taken, they may perhaps in their terror say anything that their examiners want them to say, to their own prejudice and that of their friends; a thing I will never do. At the same time, I do not deny that it would be a good deed to send such boys abroad to be better educated; and I would gladly do it if I had the means;[pg lxxxi]but closely confined as I am in prison, I cannot do anything of the kind, though I should like to do it.’“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 cassock and cloak,74which 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 God's work for which he had been sent?’[pg lxxxii]“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 prison75near 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.’[pg lxxxiii]“‘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 Sanders76when 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 passion, 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 God 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.[pg lxxxiv]“I replied:‘In truth, under the necessity of rebutting 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 Passion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of God 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 man77would 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.[pg lxxxv]“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, asserting 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 God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God 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 God 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[pg lxxxvi]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 Passion 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 assist 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 God 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[pg lxxxvii]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 Mass, 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 Mass 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 hitherto.’“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.’“‘From him?’I said;‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’“‘No,’said the gaoler,‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well.“But he does not bear his imprisonment,”said Master Topcliffe,“as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.”So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’“‘Very well,’I replied.‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything[pg lxxxviii]in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”XIII.“There was in the prison with me a certain Priest,78to whom I had done many good services. When he first came to England, I had lodged him in an excellent house with some of my best friends; I had made Catholics of his mother and only brother; I had secured him a number of friends when he was thrown into prison, and had made him considerable presents. I had always shown him affection, although, perceiving that he was not firm and steady in spirit, but rather hankered too much after freedom, I did not deal confidently with him, as with others in the prison, especially Brother Emerson and John Lilly. Nevertheless, this good man, from some motive or other, procured my removal;[pg lxxxix]whether in the desire and expectation that, if I were gone, all whom he saw come to me would thenceforth come to him, or in order to curry favour with our enemies, and obtain liberty or some such boon for himself, is not certain. Be that as it may, he reported to our enemies that he was standing by when I handed a packet of letters dated from Rome and Brussels to a servant of Father Garnett's, of the name of Little John, about whom I have before spoken. This latter, after having been arrested in my company, as I have related, and subjected to various examinations, but without disclosing anything, had been released for a sum of money which some Catholic gentlemen had paid. For his services were indispensable to them and many others, as he was a first-rate hand at contriving Priests' hiding-places. The Priest then reported that I had given this man letters, and that I was in the habit of receiving letters from beyond the sea addressed both to my Superior and to myself.“Acting on this information, the persecutors sent a Justice of the Peace to me one day, with two Queen's messengers, or pursuivants as they call them. These came up to my room on a sudden with the head gaoler; but by God's providence they found no one with me at the time except two boys, whom I was instructing with intention to send them abroad; one of whom, if I remember right, escaped, the other they imprisoned for a time. But they found nothing else in my room that I was afraid of being seen; for I was accustomed to keep all my manuscripts and other articles of importance in some holes made to hide things. All these holes were known to Brother Emerson; and so after my removal he took out everything, and among the rest a reliquary that I have with me now, and a store of money that I had in hand for the expenses of my house in town, of which I have before spoken, to the amount of thirteen hundred florins [130l.]. This money he sent to my Superior, who took charge of the house from that time till I was got out of prison.“When these officials came in they began to question me; and when the examination was over, which it soon was, as they could get nothing from me of what they wanted to know, they began to search the room all over, to find letters or something else, that might serve their turn and injure me. While the Justice[pg xc]of the Peace was rummaging my books, one of the pursuivants searched my person, and opening my doublet, he discovered my hairshirt. At first he did not know what it was, and said:‘What is this?’“‘A shirt,’I replied.“‘Ho, ho!’said he,‘it is a hairshirt.’And he caught hold of it, and wanted to drag it off my body by force.“This insolence of the varlet, to confess my imperfection honestly, excited me more than anything that I have ever had to endure from my enemies, and I was within a little of thrusting him violently back; but I checked myself by God's grace, and claimed the Justice's protection, who immediately made him give over. So they sought, but found nothing in my room that they sought for except myself; and me they took at once, and went straight to the Tower of London with me, and there handed me to the Governor, whose title is King's Lieutenant. He was a Knight of the name of Barkley. He conducted me at once to a large high tower of three stories, with a separate lock-up place in each, one of a number of different towers contained within the whole inclosure. He left me for the night in the lowest part, and committed the custody of my person to a servant in whom he placed great confidence. The servant brought a little straw at once, and throwing it down on the ground, went away, fastening the door of my prison, and securing the upper door both with a great bolt and with iron bars. I recommended myself therefore to God, Who is wont to go down with His people into the pit, and Who never abandoned me in my bondage, as well as to the most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy, and to my Patron Saints and Guardian Angel; and after prayer I lay down with a calm mind on the straw, and slept very well that night.“The next day I examined the place, for there was some light, though dim; and I found the name of Father Henry Walpole, of blessed memory,79cut with a knife on the wall, and not far from there I found his oratory, which was a space where there had been a narrow window, now blocked up with stones. There he had written on either side with chalk the names of the[pg xci]different choirs of Angels, and on the top, above the Cherubim and Seraphim, the name of Mary Mother of God, and over that the name of Jesus, and over that again, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the name of GOD. It was truly a great consolation to me to find myself in this place, hallowed by the presence of so great and so devoted a martyr, the place, too, in which he was frequently tortured, to the number, as I have heard, of fourteen times. Probably they were unwilling to torture him in public and in the ordinary place, because they did it oftener than they would have it known. And I can well believe that he was racked that number of times, for he lost through it the proper use of his fingers. This I can vouch for from the following circumstance. He was carried back to York, to be executed in the place where he was taken on his first landing in England, and while in prison there he had a discussion with some ministers which he wrote out with his own hand.80A part of this writing was given to me, together with some meditations on the Passion of Christ, which he had written in prison before his own passion. These writings, however, I could scarcely read at all, not because they were written hastily, but because the hand of the writer could not form the letters. It seemed more like the first attempts of a child, than the handwriting of a scholar and a gentleman, such as he was. Yet he used to be at Court before the death of Father Campion, in whose honour he also wrote some beautiful verses in the English tongue, declaring that he and many others had received the warmth of life from that blessed martyr's blood,81and had been animated by it to follow the more perfect counsels of Christ.“When, therefore, I found myself in Father Walpole's cell I rejoiced exceedingly thereat; but I was not worthy to be the successor of such a man in his place of suffering. For on the[pg xcii]day following my gaoler, either because he thought to do me a favour, or in consequence of his master's orders, brought me into the upper room, which was sufficiently large and commodious for a prisoner. I told him that I preferred to stay in the lower dungeon, and mentioned the reason, but as he showed himself opposed to this, I asked him to allow me sometimes to go there and pray. This he promised me, and in fact frequently permitted. Then he inquired of me if he could go for me anywhere to any friends of mine who would be willing to send me a bed. For it is the custom in this prison that a bed should not be provided, but that a prisoner should provide himself a bed and other furniture, which afterwards goes to the Lieutenant of the Tower, even though the prisoner should be liberated. I replied that I had no friends to whom I could send, except such as I left in the prison from which I had been brought;82these, perhaps, if he would call there, would give me a plain bed by way of alms. The gaoler therefore went to the Catholics detained in the Clink, who immediately sent me a bed such as they knew I wished for; that is, a mattrass stuffed with wool and feathers after the Italian fashion. They sent also a cloak and some linen for me; and asked him always to come there for anything I wanted, and promised to give money or anything else, provided he brought a note signed by me of things I needed. They also gave him money at that time for himself, and besought him to treat me kindly.”

X.“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the[pg lxxiii]alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a[pg lxxiv]Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother.‘If I must either give up God or the world,’was his courageous answer,‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me:‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management[pg lxxv]of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of‘guilty or not guilty,’she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her:‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in[pg lxxvi]a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying,‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for[pg lxxvii]two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr....”“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.”...“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense[pg lxxviii]a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”XI.“In the meantime, I was so fully taken up in the prison with business, and with the visits of Catholics, that in the next room, which was Brother Emerson's, there were often six or eight persons at once, waiting their turn to see me. Nay, many of my most intimate and attached friends have oft-times had to wait[pg lxxix]many hours at a stretch, and even then I have been obliged to ask them to come another time....”“While I remained in this prison, I sent over numbers of boys and young men to Catholic Seminaries abroad. Some of these are, at this present, Priests of the Society, and engaged on the English mission: others still remain in the Seminaries, in positions of authority, to assist in training labourers for the same field. On one occasion I had sent two boys on their way to St. Omers, and had given them letters of recommendation, written with lemon-juice, so that the writing was not visible on the paper. In the paper itself I wrapped up a few collars, so that it might seem that its only use was to keep the collars clean. The boys were taken, and on being questioned, confessed that I had sent them. They let it out also that I had given them this letter, and had told them, when they came to a certain College of ours, on their way to St. Omers (for they had to pass by Ostend, which is not the usual way, and thus they came to be taken), to bid the Fathers steep the paper in water, and they would be able to read what I had written. On this information, then, the paper was steeped by the authorities, and two letters of mine were read, written on the same paper. One was written in Latin to our Belgian Fathers; this I had consequently signed with my own proper name. The other was addressed to our English Fathers at St. Omers. The letters having been thus discovered, I was sent for to be examined.“Young, however, was no longer to be my examiner. He had died in his sins, and that most miserably. As he lived, so he died:72he lived the devil's confessor, he died the devil's martyr; for not only did he die in the devil's service, but he brought on his death through that very service. He was accustomed to work night and day to increase the distress of the Catholics, and to go forth frequently in inclement weather, at one or two o'clock in the morning, to search their houses. By these labours he fell into a consumption,73of which he died. He died, moreover, overwhelmed[pg lxxx]with debt, so that it might be clear that he abandoned all things for the devil's service. Notwithstanding all the emoluments of his office, all the plunder he took from the persecuted Catholics, and the large bribes they were constantly giving him to buy off his malicious oppression, his debts were said to amount to no less a sum than a hundred thousand florins [10,000l.]; and I have heard even a larger sum mentioned than this. Perhaps he expected the Queen would pay his debts; but she did nothing of the sort. All she did was once to send a gentleman from Court to visit him, when he was confined to his bed, and near death; and this mark of favour so delighted him, that he seemed ready to singNunc dimittis. But it was a false peace, and the lifting up of the soul that goes before a fall; and like another Aman, he was bidden not to a banquet, but to execution, and that for ever. So with his mouth full of the Queen's praises, and his great obligations to Her Majesty, he died a miserable death, and anguish took the place of his joy. The joy of the hypocrite is but for an instant.“This man's successor in the office of persecuting and harassing the servants of God, was William Wade, now Governor of the Tower of London, but at that time Secretary to the Lords of the Council. For the members of the Council choose always to have a man in their service to whose cruelty anything particularly odious may be attributed, instead of its being supposed to be done by their warrant. This Wade then sent for me, and first of all showed me the blank paper that I had given to the boys, and asked me if I recognized it. I answered,‘No, I did not.’And in fact I did not recognize it, for I did not know the boys had been taken. Then he dipped the paper in a basin of water, and showed me the writing, and my name subscribed in full. When I saw it, I said:‘I do not acknowledge the writing. Any one may easily have counterfeited my handwriting and forged my signature; and if such boys as you speak of have been taken, they may perhaps in their terror say anything that their examiners want them to say, to their own prejudice and that of their friends; a thing I will never do. At the same time, I do not deny that it would be a good deed to send such boys abroad to be better educated; and I would gladly do it if I had the means;[pg lxxxi]but closely confined as I am in prison, I cannot do anything of the kind, though I should like to do it.’“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 cassock and cloak,74which 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 God's work for which he had been sent?’[pg lxxxii]“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 prison75near 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.’[pg lxxxiii]“‘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 Sanders76when 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 passion, 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 God 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.[pg lxxxiv]“I replied:‘In truth, under the necessity of rebutting 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 Passion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of God 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 man77would 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.[pg lxxxv]“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, asserting 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 God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God 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 God 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[pg lxxxvi]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 Passion 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 assist 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 God 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[pg lxxxvii]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 Mass, 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 Mass 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 hitherto.’“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.’“‘From him?’I said;‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’“‘No,’said the gaoler,‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well.“But he does not bear his imprisonment,”said Master Topcliffe,“as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.”So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’“‘Very well,’I replied.‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything[pg lxxxviii]in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”XIII.“There was in the prison with me a certain Priest,78to whom I had done many good services. When he first came to England, I had lodged him in an excellent house with some of my best friends; I had made Catholics of his mother and only brother; I had secured him a number of friends when he was thrown into prison, and had made him considerable presents. I had always shown him affection, although, perceiving that he was not firm and steady in spirit, but rather hankered too much after freedom, I did not deal confidently with him, as with others in the prison, especially Brother Emerson and John Lilly. Nevertheless, this good man, from some motive or other, procured my removal;[pg lxxxix]whether in the desire and expectation that, if I were gone, all whom he saw come to me would thenceforth come to him, or in order to curry favour with our enemies, and obtain liberty or some such boon for himself, is not certain. Be that as it may, he reported to our enemies that he was standing by when I handed a packet of letters dated from Rome and Brussels to a servant of Father Garnett's, of the name of Little John, about whom I have before spoken. This latter, after having been arrested in my company, as I have related, and subjected to various examinations, but without disclosing anything, had been released for a sum of money which some Catholic gentlemen had paid. For his services were indispensable to them and many others, as he was a first-rate hand at contriving Priests' hiding-places. The Priest then reported that I had given this man letters, and that I was in the habit of receiving letters from beyond the sea addressed both to my Superior and to myself.“Acting on this information, the persecutors sent a Justice of the Peace to me one day, with two Queen's messengers, or pursuivants as they call them. These came up to my room on a sudden with the head gaoler; but by God's providence they found no one with me at the time except two boys, whom I was instructing with intention to send them abroad; one of whom, if I remember right, escaped, the other they imprisoned for a time. But they found nothing else in my room that I was afraid of being seen; for I was accustomed to keep all my manuscripts and other articles of importance in some holes made to hide things. All these holes were known to Brother Emerson; and so after my removal he took out everything, and among the rest a reliquary that I have with me now, and a store of money that I had in hand for the expenses of my house in town, of which I have before spoken, to the amount of thirteen hundred florins [130l.]. This money he sent to my Superior, who took charge of the house from that time till I was got out of prison.“When these officials came in they began to question me; and when the examination was over, which it soon was, as they could get nothing from me of what they wanted to know, they began to search the room all over, to find letters or something else, that might serve their turn and injure me. While the Justice[pg xc]of the Peace was rummaging my books, one of the pursuivants searched my person, and opening my doublet, he discovered my hairshirt. At first he did not know what it was, and said:‘What is this?’“‘A shirt,’I replied.“‘Ho, ho!’said he,‘it is a hairshirt.’And he caught hold of it, and wanted to drag it off my body by force.“This insolence of the varlet, to confess my imperfection honestly, excited me more than anything that I have ever had to endure from my enemies, and I was within a little of thrusting him violently back; but I checked myself by God's grace, and claimed the Justice's protection, who immediately made him give over. So they sought, but found nothing in my room that they sought for except myself; and me they took at once, and went straight to the Tower of London with me, and there handed me to the Governor, whose title is King's Lieutenant. He was a Knight of the name of Barkley. He conducted me at once to a large high tower of three stories, with a separate lock-up place in each, one of a number of different towers contained within the whole inclosure. He left me for the night in the lowest part, and committed the custody of my person to a servant in whom he placed great confidence. The servant brought a little straw at once, and throwing it down on the ground, went away, fastening the door of my prison, and securing the upper door both with a great bolt and with iron bars. I recommended myself therefore to God, Who is wont to go down with His people into the pit, and Who never abandoned me in my bondage, as well as to the most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy, and to my Patron Saints and Guardian Angel; and after prayer I lay down with a calm mind on the straw, and slept very well that night.“The next day I examined the place, for there was some light, though dim; and I found the name of Father Henry Walpole, of blessed memory,79cut with a knife on the wall, and not far from there I found his oratory, which was a space where there had been a narrow window, now blocked up with stones. There he had written on either side with chalk the names of the[pg xci]different choirs of Angels, and on the top, above the Cherubim and Seraphim, the name of Mary Mother of God, and over that the name of Jesus, and over that again, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the name of GOD. It was truly a great consolation to me to find myself in this place, hallowed by the presence of so great and so devoted a martyr, the place, too, in which he was frequently tortured, to the number, as I have heard, of fourteen times. Probably they were unwilling to torture him in public and in the ordinary place, because they did it oftener than they would have it known. And I can well believe that he was racked that number of times, for he lost through it the proper use of his fingers. This I can vouch for from the following circumstance. He was carried back to York, to be executed in the place where he was taken on his first landing in England, and while in prison there he had a discussion with some ministers which he wrote out with his own hand.80A part of this writing was given to me, together with some meditations on the Passion of Christ, which he had written in prison before his own passion. These writings, however, I could scarcely read at all, not because they were written hastily, but because the hand of the writer could not form the letters. It seemed more like the first attempts of a child, than the handwriting of a scholar and a gentleman, such as he was. Yet he used to be at Court before the death of Father Campion, in whose honour he also wrote some beautiful verses in the English tongue, declaring that he and many others had received the warmth of life from that blessed martyr's blood,81and had been animated by it to follow the more perfect counsels of Christ.“When, therefore, I found myself in Father Walpole's cell I rejoiced exceedingly thereat; but I was not worthy to be the successor of such a man in his place of suffering. For on the[pg xcii]day following my gaoler, either because he thought to do me a favour, or in consequence of his master's orders, brought me into the upper room, which was sufficiently large and commodious for a prisoner. I told him that I preferred to stay in the lower dungeon, and mentioned the reason, but as he showed himself opposed to this, I asked him to allow me sometimes to go there and pray. This he promised me, and in fact frequently permitted. Then he inquired of me if he could go for me anywhere to any friends of mine who would be willing to send me a bed. For it is the custom in this prison that a bed should not be provided, but that a prisoner should provide himself a bed and other furniture, which afterwards goes to the Lieutenant of the Tower, even though the prisoner should be liberated. I replied that I had no friends to whom I could send, except such as I left in the prison from which I had been brought;82these, perhaps, if he would call there, would give me a plain bed by way of alms. The gaoler therefore went to the Catholics detained in the Clink, who immediately sent me a bed such as they knew I wished for; that is, a mattrass stuffed with wool and feathers after the Italian fashion. They sent also a cloak and some linen for me; and asked him always to come there for anything I wanted, and promised to give money or anything else, provided he brought a note signed by me of things I needed. They also gave him money at that time for himself, and besought him to treat me kindly.”

X.“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the[pg lxxiii]alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a[pg lxxiv]Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother.‘If I must either give up God or the world,’was his courageous answer,‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me:‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management[pg lxxv]of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of‘guilty or not guilty,’she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her:‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in[pg lxxvi]a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying,‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for[pg lxxvii]two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr....”“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.”...“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense[pg lxxviii]a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”XI.“In the meantime, I was so fully taken up in the prison with business, and with the visits of Catholics, that in the next room, which was Brother Emerson's, there were often six or eight persons at once, waiting their turn to see me. Nay, many of my most intimate and attached friends have oft-times had to wait[pg lxxix]many hours at a stretch, and even then I have been obliged to ask them to come another time....”“While I remained in this prison, I sent over numbers of boys and young men to Catholic Seminaries abroad. Some of these are, at this present, Priests of the Society, and engaged on the English mission: others still remain in the Seminaries, in positions of authority, to assist in training labourers for the same field. On one occasion I had sent two boys on their way to St. Omers, and had given them letters of recommendation, written with lemon-juice, so that the writing was not visible on the paper. In the paper itself I wrapped up a few collars, so that it might seem that its only use was to keep the collars clean. The boys were taken, and on being questioned, confessed that I had sent them. They let it out also that I had given them this letter, and had told them, when they came to a certain College of ours, on their way to St. Omers (for they had to pass by Ostend, which is not the usual way, and thus they came to be taken), to bid the Fathers steep the paper in water, and they would be able to read what I had written. On this information, then, the paper was steeped by the authorities, and two letters of mine were read, written on the same paper. One was written in Latin to our Belgian Fathers; this I had consequently signed with my own proper name. The other was addressed to our English Fathers at St. Omers. The letters having been thus discovered, I was sent for to be examined.“Young, however, was no longer to be my examiner. He had died in his sins, and that most miserably. As he lived, so he died:72he lived the devil's confessor, he died the devil's martyr; for not only did he die in the devil's service, but he brought on his death through that very service. He was accustomed to work night and day to increase the distress of the Catholics, and to go forth frequently in inclement weather, at one or two o'clock in the morning, to search their houses. By these labours he fell into a consumption,73of which he died. He died, moreover, overwhelmed[pg lxxx]with debt, so that it might be clear that he abandoned all things for the devil's service. Notwithstanding all the emoluments of his office, all the plunder he took from the persecuted Catholics, and the large bribes they were constantly giving him to buy off his malicious oppression, his debts were said to amount to no less a sum than a hundred thousand florins [10,000l.]; and I have heard even a larger sum mentioned than this. Perhaps he expected the Queen would pay his debts; but she did nothing of the sort. All she did was once to send a gentleman from Court to visit him, when he was confined to his bed, and near death; and this mark of favour so delighted him, that he seemed ready to singNunc dimittis. But it was a false peace, and the lifting up of the soul that goes before a fall; and like another Aman, he was bidden not to a banquet, but to execution, and that for ever. So with his mouth full of the Queen's praises, and his great obligations to Her Majesty, he died a miserable death, and anguish took the place of his joy. The joy of the hypocrite is but for an instant.“This man's successor in the office of persecuting and harassing the servants of God, was William Wade, now Governor of the Tower of London, but at that time Secretary to the Lords of the Council. For the members of the Council choose always to have a man in their service to whose cruelty anything particularly odious may be attributed, instead of its being supposed to be done by their warrant. This Wade then sent for me, and first of all showed me the blank paper that I had given to the boys, and asked me if I recognized it. I answered,‘No, I did not.’And in fact I did not recognize it, for I did not know the boys had been taken. Then he dipped the paper in a basin of water, and showed me the writing, and my name subscribed in full. When I saw it, I said:‘I do not acknowledge the writing. Any one may easily have counterfeited my handwriting and forged my signature; and if such boys as you speak of have been taken, they may perhaps in their terror say anything that their examiners want them to say, to their own prejudice and that of their friends; a thing I will never do. At the same time, I do not deny that it would be a good deed to send such boys abroad to be better educated; and I would gladly do it if I had the means;[pg lxxxi]but closely confined as I am in prison, I cannot do anything of the kind, though I should like to do it.’“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 cassock and cloak,74which 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 God's work for which he had been sent?’[pg lxxxii]“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 prison75near 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.’[pg lxxxiii]“‘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 Sanders76when 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 passion, 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 God 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.[pg lxxxiv]“I replied:‘In truth, under the necessity of rebutting 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 Passion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of God 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 man77would 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.[pg lxxxv]“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, asserting 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 God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God 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 God 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[pg lxxxvi]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 Passion 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 assist 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 God 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[pg lxxxvii]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 Mass, 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 Mass 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 hitherto.’“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.’“‘From him?’I said;‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’“‘No,’said the gaoler,‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well.“But he does not bear his imprisonment,”said Master Topcliffe,“as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.”So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’“‘Very well,’I replied.‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything[pg lxxxviii]in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”XIII.“There was in the prison with me a certain Priest,78to whom I had done many good services. When he first came to England, I had lodged him in an excellent house with some of my best friends; I had made Catholics of his mother and only brother; I had secured him a number of friends when he was thrown into prison, and had made him considerable presents. I had always shown him affection, although, perceiving that he was not firm and steady in spirit, but rather hankered too much after freedom, I did not deal confidently with him, as with others in the prison, especially Brother Emerson and John Lilly. Nevertheless, this good man, from some motive or other, procured my removal;[pg lxxxix]whether in the desire and expectation that, if I were gone, all whom he saw come to me would thenceforth come to him, or in order to curry favour with our enemies, and obtain liberty or some such boon for himself, is not certain. Be that as it may, he reported to our enemies that he was standing by when I handed a packet of letters dated from Rome and Brussels to a servant of Father Garnett's, of the name of Little John, about whom I have before spoken. This latter, after having been arrested in my company, as I have related, and subjected to various examinations, but without disclosing anything, had been released for a sum of money which some Catholic gentlemen had paid. For his services were indispensable to them and many others, as he was a first-rate hand at contriving Priests' hiding-places. The Priest then reported that I had given this man letters, and that I was in the habit of receiving letters from beyond the sea addressed both to my Superior and to myself.“Acting on this information, the persecutors sent a Justice of the Peace to me one day, with two Queen's messengers, or pursuivants as they call them. These came up to my room on a sudden with the head gaoler; but by God's providence they found no one with me at the time except two boys, whom I was instructing with intention to send them abroad; one of whom, if I remember right, escaped, the other they imprisoned for a time. But they found nothing else in my room that I was afraid of being seen; for I was accustomed to keep all my manuscripts and other articles of importance in some holes made to hide things. All these holes were known to Brother Emerson; and so after my removal he took out everything, and among the rest a reliquary that I have with me now, and a store of money that I had in hand for the expenses of my house in town, of which I have before spoken, to the amount of thirteen hundred florins [130l.]. This money he sent to my Superior, who took charge of the house from that time till I was got out of prison.“When these officials came in they began to question me; and when the examination was over, which it soon was, as they could get nothing from me of what they wanted to know, they began to search the room all over, to find letters or something else, that might serve their turn and injure me. While the Justice[pg xc]of the Peace was rummaging my books, one of the pursuivants searched my person, and opening my doublet, he discovered my hairshirt. At first he did not know what it was, and said:‘What is this?’“‘A shirt,’I replied.“‘Ho, ho!’said he,‘it is a hairshirt.’And he caught hold of it, and wanted to drag it off my body by force.“This insolence of the varlet, to confess my imperfection honestly, excited me more than anything that I have ever had to endure from my enemies, and I was within a little of thrusting him violently back; but I checked myself by God's grace, and claimed the Justice's protection, who immediately made him give over. So they sought, but found nothing in my room that they sought for except myself; and me they took at once, and went straight to the Tower of London with me, and there handed me to the Governor, whose title is King's Lieutenant. He was a Knight of the name of Barkley. He conducted me at once to a large high tower of three stories, with a separate lock-up place in each, one of a number of different towers contained within the whole inclosure. He left me for the night in the lowest part, and committed the custody of my person to a servant in whom he placed great confidence. The servant brought a little straw at once, and throwing it down on the ground, went away, fastening the door of my prison, and securing the upper door both with a great bolt and with iron bars. I recommended myself therefore to God, Who is wont to go down with His people into the pit, and Who never abandoned me in my bondage, as well as to the most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy, and to my Patron Saints and Guardian Angel; and after prayer I lay down with a calm mind on the straw, and slept very well that night.“The next day I examined the place, for there was some light, though dim; and I found the name of Father Henry Walpole, of blessed memory,79cut with a knife on the wall, and not far from there I found his oratory, which was a space where there had been a narrow window, now blocked up with stones. There he had written on either side with chalk the names of the[pg xci]different choirs of Angels, and on the top, above the Cherubim and Seraphim, the name of Mary Mother of God, and over that the name of Jesus, and over that again, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the name of GOD. It was truly a great consolation to me to find myself in this place, hallowed by the presence of so great and so devoted a martyr, the place, too, in which he was frequently tortured, to the number, as I have heard, of fourteen times. Probably they were unwilling to torture him in public and in the ordinary place, because they did it oftener than they would have it known. And I can well believe that he was racked that number of times, for he lost through it the proper use of his fingers. This I can vouch for from the following circumstance. He was carried back to York, to be executed in the place where he was taken on his first landing in England, and while in prison there he had a discussion with some ministers which he wrote out with his own hand.80A part of this writing was given to me, together with some meditations on the Passion of Christ, which he had written in prison before his own passion. These writings, however, I could scarcely read at all, not because they were written hastily, but because the hand of the writer could not form the letters. It seemed more like the first attempts of a child, than the handwriting of a scholar and a gentleman, such as he was. Yet he used to be at Court before the death of Father Campion, in whose honour he also wrote some beautiful verses in the English tongue, declaring that he and many others had received the warmth of life from that blessed martyr's blood,81and had been animated by it to follow the more perfect counsels of Christ.“When, therefore, I found myself in Father Walpole's cell I rejoiced exceedingly thereat; but I was not worthy to be the successor of such a man in his place of suffering. For on the[pg xcii]day following my gaoler, either because he thought to do me a favour, or in consequence of his master's orders, brought me into the upper room, which was sufficiently large and commodious for a prisoner. I told him that I preferred to stay in the lower dungeon, and mentioned the reason, but as he showed himself opposed to this, I asked him to allow me sometimes to go there and pray. This he promised me, and in fact frequently permitted. Then he inquired of me if he could go for me anywhere to any friends of mine who would be willing to send me a bed. For it is the custom in this prison that a bed should not be provided, but that a prisoner should provide himself a bed and other furniture, which afterwards goes to the Lieutenant of the Tower, even though the prisoner should be liberated. I replied that I had no friends to whom I could send, except such as I left in the prison from which I had been brought;82these, perhaps, if he would call there, would give me a plain bed by way of alms. The gaoler therefore went to the Catholics detained in the Clink, who immediately sent me a bed such as they knew I wished for; that is, a mattrass stuffed with wool and feathers after the Italian fashion. They sent also a cloak and some linen for me; and asked him always to come there for anything I wanted, and promised to give money or anything else, provided he brought a note signed by me of things I needed. They also gave him money at that time for himself, and besought him to treat me kindly.”

X.“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the[pg lxxiii]alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a[pg lxxiv]Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother.‘If I must either give up God or the world,’was his courageous answer,‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me:‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management[pg lxxv]of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of‘guilty or not guilty,’she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her:‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in[pg lxxvi]a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying,‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for[pg lxxvii]two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr....”“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.”...“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense[pg lxxviii]a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”

“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.

“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the[pg lxxiii]alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.

“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a[pg lxxiv]Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.

“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother.‘If I must either give up God or the world,’was his courageous answer,‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.

“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me:‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.

“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management[pg lxxv]of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.

“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of‘guilty or not guilty,’she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her:‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in[pg lxxvi]a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.

“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying,‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”

“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for[pg lxxvii]two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr....”

“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.

“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.

“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.”...

“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense[pg lxxviii]a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.

“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”

XI.“In the meantime, I was so fully taken up in the prison with business, and with the visits of Catholics, that in the next room, which was Brother Emerson's, there were often six or eight persons at once, waiting their turn to see me. Nay, many of my most intimate and attached friends have oft-times had to wait[pg lxxix]many hours at a stretch, and even then I have been obliged to ask them to come another time....”“While I remained in this prison, I sent over numbers of boys and young men to Catholic Seminaries abroad. Some of these are, at this present, Priests of the Society, and engaged on the English mission: others still remain in the Seminaries, in positions of authority, to assist in training labourers for the same field. On one occasion I had sent two boys on their way to St. Omers, and had given them letters of recommendation, written with lemon-juice, so that the writing was not visible on the paper. In the paper itself I wrapped up a few collars, so that it might seem that its only use was to keep the collars clean. The boys were taken, and on being questioned, confessed that I had sent them. They let it out also that I had given them this letter, and had told them, when they came to a certain College of ours, on their way to St. Omers (for they had to pass by Ostend, which is not the usual way, and thus they came to be taken), to bid the Fathers steep the paper in water, and they would be able to read what I had written. On this information, then, the paper was steeped by the authorities, and two letters of mine were read, written on the same paper. One was written in Latin to our Belgian Fathers; this I had consequently signed with my own proper name. The other was addressed to our English Fathers at St. Omers. The letters having been thus discovered, I was sent for to be examined.“Young, however, was no longer to be my examiner. He had died in his sins, and that most miserably. As he lived, so he died:72he lived the devil's confessor, he died the devil's martyr; for not only did he die in the devil's service, but he brought on his death through that very service. He was accustomed to work night and day to increase the distress of the Catholics, and to go forth frequently in inclement weather, at one or two o'clock in the morning, to search their houses. By these labours he fell into a consumption,73of which he died. He died, moreover, overwhelmed[pg lxxx]with debt, so that it might be clear that he abandoned all things for the devil's service. Notwithstanding all the emoluments of his office, all the plunder he took from the persecuted Catholics, and the large bribes they were constantly giving him to buy off his malicious oppression, his debts were said to amount to no less a sum than a hundred thousand florins [10,000l.]; and I have heard even a larger sum mentioned than this. Perhaps he expected the Queen would pay his debts; but she did nothing of the sort. All she did was once to send a gentleman from Court to visit him, when he was confined to his bed, and near death; and this mark of favour so delighted him, that he seemed ready to singNunc dimittis. But it was a false peace, and the lifting up of the soul that goes before a fall; and like another Aman, he was bidden not to a banquet, but to execution, and that for ever. So with his mouth full of the Queen's praises, and his great obligations to Her Majesty, he died a miserable death, and anguish took the place of his joy. The joy of the hypocrite is but for an instant.“This man's successor in the office of persecuting and harassing the servants of God, was William Wade, now Governor of the Tower of London, but at that time Secretary to the Lords of the Council. For the members of the Council choose always to have a man in their service to whose cruelty anything particularly odious may be attributed, instead of its being supposed to be done by their warrant. This Wade then sent for me, and first of all showed me the blank paper that I had given to the boys, and asked me if I recognized it. I answered,‘No, I did not.’And in fact I did not recognize it, for I did not know the boys had been taken. Then he dipped the paper in a basin of water, and showed me the writing, and my name subscribed in full. When I saw it, I said:‘I do not acknowledge the writing. Any one may easily have counterfeited my handwriting and forged my signature; and if such boys as you speak of have been taken, they may perhaps in their terror say anything that their examiners want them to say, to their own prejudice and that of their friends; a thing I will never do. At the same time, I do not deny that it would be a good deed to send such boys abroad to be better educated; and I would gladly do it if I had the means;[pg lxxxi]but closely confined as I am in prison, I cannot do anything of the kind, though I should like to do it.’“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 cassock and cloak,74which 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 God's work for which he had been sent?’[pg lxxxii]“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 prison75near 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.’[pg lxxxiii]“‘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 Sanders76when 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 passion, 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 God 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.[pg lxxxiv]“I replied:‘In truth, under the necessity of rebutting 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 Passion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of God 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 man77would 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.”

“In the meantime, I was so fully taken up in the prison with business, and with the visits of Catholics, that in the next room, which was Brother Emerson's, there were often six or eight persons at once, waiting their turn to see me. Nay, many of my most intimate and attached friends have oft-times had to wait[pg lxxix]many hours at a stretch, and even then I have been obliged to ask them to come another time....”

“While I remained in this prison, I sent over numbers of boys and young men to Catholic Seminaries abroad. Some of these are, at this present, Priests of the Society, and engaged on the English mission: others still remain in the Seminaries, in positions of authority, to assist in training labourers for the same field. On one occasion I had sent two boys on their way to St. Omers, and had given them letters of recommendation, written with lemon-juice, so that the writing was not visible on the paper. In the paper itself I wrapped up a few collars, so that it might seem that its only use was to keep the collars clean. The boys were taken, and on being questioned, confessed that I had sent them. They let it out also that I had given them this letter, and had told them, when they came to a certain College of ours, on their way to St. Omers (for they had to pass by Ostend, which is not the usual way, and thus they came to be taken), to bid the Fathers steep the paper in water, and they would be able to read what I had written. On this information, then, the paper was steeped by the authorities, and two letters of mine were read, written on the same paper. One was written in Latin to our Belgian Fathers; this I had consequently signed with my own proper name. The other was addressed to our English Fathers at St. Omers. The letters having been thus discovered, I was sent for to be examined.

“Young, however, was no longer to be my examiner. He had died in his sins, and that most miserably. As he lived, so he died:72he lived the devil's confessor, he died the devil's martyr; for not only did he die in the devil's service, but he brought on his death through that very service. He was accustomed to work night and day to increase the distress of the Catholics, and to go forth frequently in inclement weather, at one or two o'clock in the morning, to search their houses. By these labours he fell into a consumption,73of which he died. He died, moreover, overwhelmed[pg lxxx]with debt, so that it might be clear that he abandoned all things for the devil's service. Notwithstanding all the emoluments of his office, all the plunder he took from the persecuted Catholics, and the large bribes they were constantly giving him to buy off his malicious oppression, his debts were said to amount to no less a sum than a hundred thousand florins [10,000l.]; and I have heard even a larger sum mentioned than this. Perhaps he expected the Queen would pay his debts; but she did nothing of the sort. All she did was once to send a gentleman from Court to visit him, when he was confined to his bed, and near death; and this mark of favour so delighted him, that he seemed ready to singNunc dimittis. But it was a false peace, and the lifting up of the soul that goes before a fall; and like another Aman, he was bidden not to a banquet, but to execution, and that for ever. So with his mouth full of the Queen's praises, and his great obligations to Her Majesty, he died a miserable death, and anguish took the place of his joy. The joy of the hypocrite is but for an instant.

“This man's successor in the office of persecuting and harassing the servants of God, was William Wade, now Governor of the Tower of London, but at that time Secretary to the Lords of the Council. For the members of the Council choose always to have a man in their service to whose cruelty anything particularly odious may be attributed, instead of its being supposed to be done by their warrant. This Wade then sent for me, and first of all showed me the blank paper that I had given to the boys, and asked me if I recognized it. I answered,‘No, I did not.’And in fact I did not recognize it, for I did not know the boys had been taken. Then he dipped the paper in a basin of water, and showed me the writing, and my name subscribed in full. When I saw it, I said:‘I do not acknowledge the writing. Any one may easily have counterfeited my handwriting and forged my signature; and if such boys as you speak of have been taken, they may perhaps in their terror say anything that their examiners want them to say, to their own prejudice and that of their friends; a thing I will never do. At the same time, I do not deny that it would be a good deed to send such boys abroad to be better educated; and I would gladly do it if I had the means;[pg lxxxi]but closely confined as I am in prison, I cannot do anything of the kind, though I should like to do it.’

“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 cassock and cloak,74which 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 God'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 prison75near 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 Sanders76when 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 passion, 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 God 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 rebutting 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 Passion of Christ, that have not been corrupted by mistranslation; and by these I call the truth of God 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 man77would 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.[pg lxxxv]“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, asserting 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 God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God 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 God 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[pg lxxxvi]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 Passion 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 assist 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 God 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[pg lxxxvii]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 Mass, 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 Mass 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 hitherto.’“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.’“‘From him?’I said;‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’“‘No,’said the gaoler,‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well.“But he does not bear his imprisonment,”said Master Topcliffe,“as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.”So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’“‘Very well,’I replied.‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything[pg lxxxviii]in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”

“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, asserting 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 God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God 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 God 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[pg lxxxvi]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 Passion 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 assist 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 God 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[pg lxxxvii]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 Mass, 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 Mass 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 hitherto.’

“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.’

“‘From him?’I said;‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’

“‘No,’said the gaoler,‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well.“But he does not bear his imprisonment,”said Master Topcliffe,“as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.”So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’

“‘Very well,’I replied.‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’

“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.

“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything[pg lxxxviii]in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”

XIII.“There was in the prison with me a certain Priest,78to whom I had done many good services. When he first came to England, I had lodged him in an excellent house with some of my best friends; I had made Catholics of his mother and only brother; I had secured him a number of friends when he was thrown into prison, and had made him considerable presents. I had always shown him affection, although, perceiving that he was not firm and steady in spirit, but rather hankered too much after freedom, I did not deal confidently with him, as with others in the prison, especially Brother Emerson and John Lilly. Nevertheless, this good man, from some motive or other, procured my removal;[pg lxxxix]whether in the desire and expectation that, if I were gone, all whom he saw come to me would thenceforth come to him, or in order to curry favour with our enemies, and obtain liberty or some such boon for himself, is not certain. Be that as it may, he reported to our enemies that he was standing by when I handed a packet of letters dated from Rome and Brussels to a servant of Father Garnett's, of the name of Little John, about whom I have before spoken. This latter, after having been arrested in my company, as I have related, and subjected to various examinations, but without disclosing anything, had been released for a sum of money which some Catholic gentlemen had paid. For his services were indispensable to them and many others, as he was a first-rate hand at contriving Priests' hiding-places. The Priest then reported that I had given this man letters, and that I was in the habit of receiving letters from beyond the sea addressed both to my Superior and to myself.“Acting on this information, the persecutors sent a Justice of the Peace to me one day, with two Queen's messengers, or pursuivants as they call them. These came up to my room on a sudden with the head gaoler; but by God's providence they found no one with me at the time except two boys, whom I was instructing with intention to send them abroad; one of whom, if I remember right, escaped, the other they imprisoned for a time. But they found nothing else in my room that I was afraid of being seen; for I was accustomed to keep all my manuscripts and other articles of importance in some holes made to hide things. All these holes were known to Brother Emerson; and so after my removal he took out everything, and among the rest a reliquary that I have with me now, and a store of money that I had in hand for the expenses of my house in town, of which I have before spoken, to the amount of thirteen hundred florins [130l.]. This money he sent to my Superior, who took charge of the house from that time till I was got out of prison.“When these officials came in they began to question me; and when the examination was over, which it soon was, as they could get nothing from me of what they wanted to know, they began to search the room all over, to find letters or something else, that might serve their turn and injure me. While the Justice[pg xc]of the Peace was rummaging my books, one of the pursuivants searched my person, and opening my doublet, he discovered my hairshirt. At first he did not know what it was, and said:‘What is this?’“‘A shirt,’I replied.“‘Ho, ho!’said he,‘it is a hairshirt.’And he caught hold of it, and wanted to drag it off my body by force.“This insolence of the varlet, to confess my imperfection honestly, excited me more than anything that I have ever had to endure from my enemies, and I was within a little of thrusting him violently back; but I checked myself by God's grace, and claimed the Justice's protection, who immediately made him give over. So they sought, but found nothing in my room that they sought for except myself; and me they took at once, and went straight to the Tower of London with me, and there handed me to the Governor, whose title is King's Lieutenant. He was a Knight of the name of Barkley. He conducted me at once to a large high tower of three stories, with a separate lock-up place in each, one of a number of different towers contained within the whole inclosure. He left me for the night in the lowest part, and committed the custody of my person to a servant in whom he placed great confidence. The servant brought a little straw at once, and throwing it down on the ground, went away, fastening the door of my prison, and securing the upper door both with a great bolt and with iron bars. I recommended myself therefore to God, Who is wont to go down with His people into the pit, and Who never abandoned me in my bondage, as well as to the most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy, and to my Patron Saints and Guardian Angel; and after prayer I lay down with a calm mind on the straw, and slept very well that night.“The next day I examined the place, for there was some light, though dim; and I found the name of Father Henry Walpole, of blessed memory,79cut with a knife on the wall, and not far from there I found his oratory, which was a space where there had been a narrow window, now blocked up with stones. There he had written on either side with chalk the names of the[pg xci]different choirs of Angels, and on the top, above the Cherubim and Seraphim, the name of Mary Mother of God, and over that the name of Jesus, and over that again, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the name of GOD. It was truly a great consolation to me to find myself in this place, hallowed by the presence of so great and so devoted a martyr, the place, too, in which he was frequently tortured, to the number, as I have heard, of fourteen times. Probably they were unwilling to torture him in public and in the ordinary place, because they did it oftener than they would have it known. And I can well believe that he was racked that number of times, for he lost through it the proper use of his fingers. This I can vouch for from the following circumstance. He was carried back to York, to be executed in the place where he was taken on his first landing in England, and while in prison there he had a discussion with some ministers which he wrote out with his own hand.80A part of this writing was given to me, together with some meditations on the Passion of Christ, which he had written in prison before his own passion. These writings, however, I could scarcely read at all, not because they were written hastily, but because the hand of the writer could not form the letters. It seemed more like the first attempts of a child, than the handwriting of a scholar and a gentleman, such as he was. Yet he used to be at Court before the death of Father Campion, in whose honour he also wrote some beautiful verses in the English tongue, declaring that he and many others had received the warmth of life from that blessed martyr's blood,81and had been animated by it to follow the more perfect counsels of Christ.“When, therefore, I found myself in Father Walpole's cell I rejoiced exceedingly thereat; but I was not worthy to be the successor of such a man in his place of suffering. For on the[pg xcii]day following my gaoler, either because he thought to do me a favour, or in consequence of his master's orders, brought me into the upper room, which was sufficiently large and commodious for a prisoner. I told him that I preferred to stay in the lower dungeon, and mentioned the reason, but as he showed himself opposed to this, I asked him to allow me sometimes to go there and pray. This he promised me, and in fact frequently permitted. Then he inquired of me if he could go for me anywhere to any friends of mine who would be willing to send me a bed. For it is the custom in this prison that a bed should not be provided, but that a prisoner should provide himself a bed and other furniture, which afterwards goes to the Lieutenant of the Tower, even though the prisoner should be liberated. I replied that I had no friends to whom I could send, except such as I left in the prison from which I had been brought;82these, perhaps, if he would call there, would give me a plain bed by way of alms. The gaoler therefore went to the Catholics detained in the Clink, who immediately sent me a bed such as they knew I wished for; that is, a mattrass stuffed with wool and feathers after the Italian fashion. They sent also a cloak and some linen for me; and asked him always to come there for anything I wanted, and promised to give money or anything else, provided he brought a note signed by me of things I needed. They also gave him money at that time for himself, and besought him to treat me kindly.”

“There was in the prison with me a certain Priest,78to whom I had done many good services. When he first came to England, I had lodged him in an excellent house with some of my best friends; I had made Catholics of his mother and only brother; I had secured him a number of friends when he was thrown into prison, and had made him considerable presents. I had always shown him affection, although, perceiving that he was not firm and steady in spirit, but rather hankered too much after freedom, I did not deal confidently with him, as with others in the prison, especially Brother Emerson and John Lilly. Nevertheless, this good man, from some motive or other, procured my removal;[pg lxxxix]whether in the desire and expectation that, if I were gone, all whom he saw come to me would thenceforth come to him, or in order to curry favour with our enemies, and obtain liberty or some such boon for himself, is not certain. Be that as it may, he reported to our enemies that he was standing by when I handed a packet of letters dated from Rome and Brussels to a servant of Father Garnett's, of the name of Little John, about whom I have before spoken. This latter, after having been arrested in my company, as I have related, and subjected to various examinations, but without disclosing anything, had been released for a sum of money which some Catholic gentlemen had paid. For his services were indispensable to them and many others, as he was a first-rate hand at contriving Priests' hiding-places. The Priest then reported that I had given this man letters, and that I was in the habit of receiving letters from beyond the sea addressed both to my Superior and to myself.

“Acting on this information, the persecutors sent a Justice of the Peace to me one day, with two Queen's messengers, or pursuivants as they call them. These came up to my room on a sudden with the head gaoler; but by God's providence they found no one with me at the time except two boys, whom I was instructing with intention to send them abroad; one of whom, if I remember right, escaped, the other they imprisoned for a time. But they found nothing else in my room that I was afraid of being seen; for I was accustomed to keep all my manuscripts and other articles of importance in some holes made to hide things. All these holes were known to Brother Emerson; and so after my removal he took out everything, and among the rest a reliquary that I have with me now, and a store of money that I had in hand for the expenses of my house in town, of which I have before spoken, to the amount of thirteen hundred florins [130l.]. This money he sent to my Superior, who took charge of the house from that time till I was got out of prison.

“When these officials came in they began to question me; and when the examination was over, which it soon was, as they could get nothing from me of what they wanted to know, they began to search the room all over, to find letters or something else, that might serve their turn and injure me. While the Justice[pg xc]of the Peace was rummaging my books, one of the pursuivants searched my person, and opening my doublet, he discovered my hairshirt. At first he did not know what it was, and said:‘What is this?’

“‘A shirt,’I replied.

“‘Ho, ho!’said he,‘it is a hairshirt.’And he caught hold of it, and wanted to drag it off my body by force.

“This insolence of the varlet, to confess my imperfection honestly, excited me more than anything that I have ever had to endure from my enemies, and I was within a little of thrusting him violently back; but I checked myself by God's grace, and claimed the Justice's protection, who immediately made him give over. So they sought, but found nothing in my room that they sought for except myself; and me they took at once, and went straight to the Tower of London with me, and there handed me to the Governor, whose title is King's Lieutenant. He was a Knight of the name of Barkley. He conducted me at once to a large high tower of three stories, with a separate lock-up place in each, one of a number of different towers contained within the whole inclosure. He left me for the night in the lowest part, and committed the custody of my person to a servant in whom he placed great confidence. The servant brought a little straw at once, and throwing it down on the ground, went away, fastening the door of my prison, and securing the upper door both with a great bolt and with iron bars. I recommended myself therefore to God, Who is wont to go down with His people into the pit, and Who never abandoned me in my bondage, as well as to the most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy, and to my Patron Saints and Guardian Angel; and after prayer I lay down with a calm mind on the straw, and slept very well that night.

“The next day I examined the place, for there was some light, though dim; and I found the name of Father Henry Walpole, of blessed memory,79cut with a knife on the wall, and not far from there I found his oratory, which was a space where there had been a narrow window, now blocked up with stones. There he had written on either side with chalk the names of the[pg xci]different choirs of Angels, and on the top, above the Cherubim and Seraphim, the name of Mary Mother of God, and over that the name of Jesus, and over that again, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the name of GOD. It was truly a great consolation to me to find myself in this place, hallowed by the presence of so great and so devoted a martyr, the place, too, in which he was frequently tortured, to the number, as I have heard, of fourteen times. Probably they were unwilling to torture him in public and in the ordinary place, because they did it oftener than they would have it known. And I can well believe that he was racked that number of times, for he lost through it the proper use of his fingers. This I can vouch for from the following circumstance. He was carried back to York, to be executed in the place where he was taken on his first landing in England, and while in prison there he had a discussion with some ministers which he wrote out with his own hand.80A part of this writing was given to me, together with some meditations on the Passion of Christ, which he had written in prison before his own passion. These writings, however, I could scarcely read at all, not because they were written hastily, but because the hand of the writer could not form the letters. It seemed more like the first attempts of a child, than the handwriting of a scholar and a gentleman, such as he was. Yet he used to be at Court before the death of Father Campion, in whose honour he also wrote some beautiful verses in the English tongue, declaring that he and many others had received the warmth of life from that blessed martyr's blood,81and had been animated by it to follow the more perfect counsels of Christ.

“When, therefore, I found myself in Father Walpole's cell I rejoiced exceedingly thereat; but I was not worthy to be the successor of such a man in his place of suffering. For on the[pg xcii]day following my gaoler, either because he thought to do me a favour, or in consequence of his master's orders, brought me into the upper room, which was sufficiently large and commodious for a prisoner. I told him that I preferred to stay in the lower dungeon, and mentioned the reason, but as he showed himself opposed to this, I asked him to allow me sometimes to go there and pray. This he promised me, and in fact frequently permitted. Then he inquired of me if he could go for me anywhere to any friends of mine who would be willing to send me a bed. For it is the custom in this prison that a bed should not be provided, but that a prisoner should provide himself a bed and other furniture, which afterwards goes to the Lieutenant of the Tower, even though the prisoner should be liberated. I replied that I had no friends to whom I could send, except such as I left in the prison from which I had been brought;82these, perhaps, if he would call there, would give me a plain bed by way of alms. The gaoler therefore went to the Catholics detained in the Clink, who immediately sent me a bed such as they knew I wished for; that is, a mattrass stuffed with wool and feathers after the Italian fashion. They sent also a cloak and some linen for me; and asked him always to come there for anything I wanted, and promised to give money or anything else, provided he brought a note signed by me of things I needed. They also gave him money at that time for himself, and besought him to treat me kindly.”

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