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11 - Blessed Edmund Campion by Louise Imogen Guiney · Blessed Edmund Campion

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of Blessed Edmund Campion. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit librevox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Paula Messina. Blessed Edmund Campion by Louise Emmaginguyny, Chapter eleven.
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  Speaker 1: At Lyford Grange and after fifteen eighty one. On the
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  Speaker 1: morning of July twelveth Father Edmund and brother Ralph, faithful
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  Speaker 1: to agreement, were in their saddles again, leaving the pious
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  Speaker 1: household refreshed but lamenting. Of the two priests who formed
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  Speaker 1: part of it. One father Collington or Coleton, escorted them
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  Speaker 1: some distance on their way. Campion had already been waylaid
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  Speaker 1: at an inn near Oxford by many friendly tutors and undergraduates,
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  Speaker 1: when up galloped the other chaplain of Lyford, Father Ford.
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  Speaker 1: He was a Trinity College man who had entered Dewey
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  Speaker 1: just after Campion's arrival there and was to follow him
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  Speaker 1: closely to martyrdom. Ford brought news that a large party
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  Speaker 1: of Catholics had come over to Lyford to visit the nuns,
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  Speaker 1: and distressed if missing Father Campion were clamoring for his return.
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  Speaker 1: The Oxford group had been begging their old Champion to
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  Speaker 1: preach to them, which he would not do in so
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  Speaker 1: public a place. They now added their entreaties to those
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  Speaker 1: of the Deputy of the Strangers, and offered to join
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  Speaker 1: these at Lyford. Surely, he who had given a whole
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  Speaker 1: day to a few godly nuns who needed him but little,
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  Speaker 1: could not refuse a Saturday and Sunday to so many
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  Speaker 1: soiled souls of every stripe and color, thirsting for the
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  Speaker 1: waters of life. His suit was insistent. Campion was inclined
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  Speaker 1: to give in, but referred his admirers to Brother Emerson
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  Speaker 1: as his provisional superior. He in turn was overborne. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed much safer, after all for the precious Father to
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  Speaker 1: be among friends while he Ralph went on alone to
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  Speaker 1: fetch the books from mister Richard Houghten's in Lancashire. So
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  Speaker 1: back to Lyford, Campion went to the poor little lay
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  Speaker 1: brother's everlasting regret. On the following Sunday morning, the ninth
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  Speaker 1: after Pentecost, Campion preached at the grange on the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: of the Day, the peculiarly touching gospel of Jesus weeping
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  Speaker 1: over Jerusalem, the changed and faithless city which stoned the prophets,
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  Speaker 1: and knew not in her day the things that were
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  Speaker 1: to her peace. No one present ever forgot that heart
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  Speaker 1: shaking sermon, laden as it was with pathos and presentiment.
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  Speaker 1: There was an audience of sixty, including the Oxonians. Unfortunately
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  Speaker 1: it included also George Eliot, a man of the most
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  Speaker 1: evil personal repute, an apostate, and a government spy armed
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  Speaker 1: with plenary powers. He was then under a charge of murder,
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  Speaker 1: and was anxious to whitewash himself in the eyes of
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  Speaker 1: the council by some conspicuous public service. He had once
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  Speaker 1: been a servant of the Ropers at Canterbury, and Missus
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  Speaker 1: Yates's honest cook, who had known Eliot there in his
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  Speaker 1: decent days, let him in without question, whispering what a
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  Speaker 1: treat was in store for him in the preaching of
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  Speaker 1: none other than Father Campion. Though the warrant for the
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  Speaker 1: apprehension of the Jesuit was in Eliot's pocket, he little
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  Speaker 1: thought to capture him so easily, and so soon a
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  Speaker 1: perservant had accompanied him to the gate. Eliot went back
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  Speaker 1: to this person nominally to dismiss him as a heretic,
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  Speaker 1: really to speed him to a magistrate at Abingdon for
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  Speaker 1: a force of an hundred men to arrest Campion in
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  Speaker 1: the Queen's name. Then he went piously upstairs to mass
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  Speaker 1: Edmund Campion's lost mass so far as we know that,
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  Speaker 1: and the sermon passed by in peace, and Elliot himself left.
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  Speaker 1: Immediately after dinner. An alarm was given by a watchman
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  Speaker 1: posted in a turret, who saw the enemy far off.
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  Speaker 1: Campion sprang up and started to leave at once and alone,
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  Speaker 1: saying that his chances of escape might be fair, and
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  Speaker 1: that his remaining would only involve the household into comfort
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  Speaker 1: and danger. But they all clung to him, assuring him
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  Speaker 1: that Lyford was full of cunning secret passages and hiding coals.
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  Speaker 1: And into one of these in the wall above the gateway,
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  Speaker 1: he was forthwith, hurried by Ford and Collington, who laid
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  Speaker 1: themselves down by his side and crossed their hands over
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  Speaker 1: their breasts. Back came Eliot, with the magistrate, a civil squire,
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  Speaker 1: and the neighborly Berkshire yeomen, who loathed the work. He
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  Speaker 1: made them turn the whole house topsy turvy nor desist
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  Speaker 1: till even fall. Then, finding nothing, they withdrew. However, they
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  Speaker 1: returned almost in the same breath, egged on by Eliot,
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  Speaker 1: who now would have the walls sounded. The Abingdon magistrate
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  Speaker 1: apologized to missus Yate, not for the queen's warrant, but
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  Speaker 1: for his associate, the madman, as he called him, who
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  Speaker 1: was carrying it out. The lady was an invalid, Thinking
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  Speaker 1: not altogether of herself, she railed and wept. The magistrate
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  Speaker 1: kindly soothed her fears and allowed her to sleep where
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  Speaker 1: she pleased, undisturbed by his men and their din. She
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  Speaker 1: chose to have a bed made up close to the
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  Speaker 1: hiding place. She was conducted thither with the honors of war,
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  Speaker 1: and the sentinel was posted at the room door. The
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  Speaker 1: tapping and smashing went merrily on elsewhere until late at night,
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  Speaker 1: when by her orders, the sheriff's baffled underlings made a
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  Speaker 1: fine supper, and, being worn out, fell asleep over their cups,
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  Speaker 1: even as they were expected to do. Poor missus Yate
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  Speaker 1: was either by nature the silliest of women, or else
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  Speaker 1: her nerves were upset by illness and trying circumstances. For
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  Speaker 1: she sent for Father Campion, as well as for all
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  Speaker 1: her other guests who were in that part of the house,
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  Speaker 1: and requested him, as he stood by her bedside, of
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  Speaker 1: all possible things, to preach to them just once more.
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  Speaker 1: One could not, in courtesy refuse a hostess, however unreasonable,
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  Speaker 1: who was risking so much for him, Nor would it
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  Speaker 1: have been like him to refuse. Alan tells us that
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  Speaker 1: it was his invariable habit to preach once a day
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  Speaker 1: at the least, often twice and sometimes thrice, whereby, through
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  Speaker 1: God's goodness, he converted sundry in most shires of this
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  Speaker 1: realm of most wisdom and worship. Besides young gentlemen, students,
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  Speaker 1: and others of all sorts. Father Campion discharged his task.
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  Speaker 1: As the little congregation broke up. Someone stumbled in the
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  Speaker 1: dark and several fell. The snoring sentinel awoke searchers with
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  Speaker 1: lanterns and axes swarmed up from below. There was nothing
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  Speaker 1: to be seen. Lyford was not honey combed in vain
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  Speaker 1: with hidden passages. The men at arms had been fooled
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  Speaker 1: too often and were angry with Eliot. Yet that functionary
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  Speaker 1: knew that something was still really afoot, that the alarm
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  Speaker 1: was not a false one. On going down the stairs again,
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  Speaker 1: he struck his hand upon the wall over it. We
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  Speaker 1: have not broken through here, he said a loyal servant
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  Speaker 1: of the Yates, who was at his side, and who
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  Speaker 1: knew it was just there. The refugees lay muttered that
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  Speaker 1: enough wall had been ruined already, and then went deadly pale.
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  Speaker 1: While Eliot's eye was still on him. The latter called
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  Speaker 1: in triumph for smith's hammer, and banged it into the
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  Speaker 1: thin timber partition and into the narrow cell, and thus
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  Speaker 1: was father Edmund Campion taken at life Red Grange at
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  Speaker 1: dawn of Monday, July seventeenth, in the year fifteen eighty one.
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  Speaker 1: He was quite calm, quite cheerful. With him were apprehended
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  Speaker 1: the two priests, seven gentlemen and two yeomen. Forster, the
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  Speaker 1: Sheriff of Berkshire, hitherto absent, arrived, as he was an
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  Speaker 1: Oxonian and almost a Catholic, and kindly disposed towards Campion.
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  Speaker 1: He waited to hear from the council what was to
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  Speaker 1: be done. On the fourth day, orders came to send
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  Speaker 1: the chief prisoners up to London under a strong guard,
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  Speaker 1: leaving the old moated house and its many occupants. Now
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  Speaker 1: distracted with grief, Campion took horse at the door and
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  Speaker 1: rode slowly off Eliot, prancing in triumph at the head
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  Speaker 1: of the company, though the common people saluted him as
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  Speaker 1: Judas all along the way. The first halt was at Abingdon.
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  Speaker 1: Sympathetic Oxford scholars had come down to see the lost
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  Speaker 1: of the great light of the university. Under such black eclipse.
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  Speaker 1: Eliot accosted his victim at table. Mister Campien, I'm know
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  Speaker 1: well you are wroth with me for this work. He
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  Speaker 1: drew out a beautiful answer, sincere composed half playful a
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  Speaker 1: saint's answer. Nay, I forgive thee and in token thereof
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  Speaker 1: I drink to thee yea, and if thou wilt repent
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  Speaker 1: and come to confession, I will absolve thee. But large
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  Speaker 1: penance thou must have. At Henley, Campion saw in the
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  Speaker 1: crowd Father Parson's servant and greeted him as he could
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  Speaker 1: without betraying him. Father Parsons was near at hand, but
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  Speaker 1: was wisely kept indoors. A young priest, mister Philbey the Younger,
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  Speaker 1: as he was called, a native of Oxford, is said
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  Speaker 1: to have here attempted to speak to Campian, He was
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  Speaker 1: at once seized upon as a traitorous comforter of Jesuits,
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  Speaker 1: and added to the cavalcade. At Colebrook, less than a
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  Speaker 1: dozen miles from London, came fresh instructions from the council
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  Speaker 1: Sheriff Forster had treated his prisoners most honorably. They were
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  Speaker 1: now to be made a public show. Their elbows were
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  Speaker 1: tied from behind, their wrists roped together in front, and
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  Speaker 1: their feet fastened under the horses. Their leader was decorated
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  Speaker 1: with a paper pinned to his hat. Father Parsons had
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  Speaker 1: of late, on which enlarge lettering was inscribed Campion, the
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  Speaker 1: seditious Jesuit. And in this guise he was paraded through
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  Speaker 1: the chief streets of the great city on market day.
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  Speaker 1: The mob roared with delight, but the wiser sort, says Holland,
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  Speaker 1: shed lamented to see the land fall into such barbarism
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  Speaker 1: as to abuse in this manner a gentleman, famous throughout
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  Speaker 1: Europe for his scholarship and his innocency of life. In
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  Speaker 1: this before any trial or any proof against him, his
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  Speaker 1: case being prejudged, and he punished as if already condemned.
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Brinkley somehow obtained as a souvenir of a fellow prisoner,
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  Speaker 1: that thick, dark felt hat which had been so ignominiously
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  Speaker 1: labeled in the cause of Christ. Years afterwards, when in
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  Speaker 1: Belgium he put it into a reliquary out of love
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  Speaker 1: and veneration towards that most Holy Martyr of God, his
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  Speaker 1: father and Patron. A piece of it is at Roehampton
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  Speaker 1: in the Jesuit Novitiate. On reaching the tower, the life
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  Speaker 1: reed captives were given up to the governor, Sir Owen Hopton.
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  Speaker 1: Taking his cue, he had Campion thrust at once into
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  Speaker 1: little Ease, the famous tower hole, not high enough for
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  Speaker 1: a man to stand upright in, no long enough for
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  Speaker 1: him to lie down in. After four days of this misery,
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  Speaker 1: he was suddenly taken out, put in a boat at
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  Speaker 1: the trader's gate steps, and rode to the town house
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  Speaker 1: of the Earl of Leicester. This nobleman and Edmund Campion,
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  Speaker 1: who had seen so much of each other for several years,
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  Speaker 1: had been placed by events in silent conflict. There stood
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  Speaker 1: the Earl of Bedford with two secretaries of state. There
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  Speaker 1: stood Campion's host, who, for one reason or another, had
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  Speaker 1: never haunted Catholics with the fixed fury of Wallingsham and Bergley,
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  Speaker 1: and thereby did not displease his irresolute royal Mistress. There
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  Speaker 1: a theatrical circumstance was that royal Mistress herself a gleaming,
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  Speaker 1: stately vision and a great chair head, and front of
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  Speaker 1: a not unfriendly little inquisition. To the questions heaped upon him,
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  Speaker 1: Campion gave frank answers on the matter of allegiance. He
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  Speaker 1: seemed to satisfy the company, who told him there was
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  Speaker 1: no fault in him, save that he was a papist.
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  Speaker 1: That he modestly interrupted is my greatest glory. The Queen
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  Speaker 1: smiled upon him and offered him liberty and honors, but
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  Speaker 1: under conditions which his conscience forbade him to accept. When
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  Speaker 1: he was courteously dismissed, Luster, probably with a kind motive,
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  Speaker 1: sent a message to Hopton to keep up the flatteries
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  Speaker 1: of the new policy. Hopton put on an almost affectionate
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  Speaker 1: consideration for his important prisoner, and so fast as he
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  Speaker 1: was prompted by artful degrees, he suggested to him a pension,
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  Speaker 1: a high place at court, and even the promise eventually
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  Speaker 1: of the miter and revenues of the rimacial See of Canterbury.
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  Speaker 1: Well did the council know all along the value of
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  Speaker 1: the stubborn and unpurchasable confessors of Christ. To cap the
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  Speaker 1: matter in Campion's case, it was publicly announced both by
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  Speaker 1: Hopton and by Wallingsham, who knew the untruth of their announcement,
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  Speaker 1: that the Jesuit was at the point of recantation and
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  Speaker 1: Protestant orthodoxy, and in full sight of the future Archbishopric,
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  Speaker 1: to the great content of the Queen, it flew all
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  Speaker 1: over London that he would presently preach at Paul's Cross,
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  Speaker 1: and there burned the di chem Raciones with his own hand. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: Hopton returned to First Principles and Doors and inquired point
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  Speaker 1: blank of Campion whether he would give up his religion
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  Speaker 1: and conform. The reply is easily imagined. A continued course
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  Speaker 1: of wheedling was wasteful business, so thought the coup, And
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  Speaker 1: three days after his strange and sudden sight of the
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  Speaker 1: Queen's grace at lester House, Edmund Campion, first kneeling down
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  Speaker 1: at the door and invoking the Holy Name for steadying
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  Speaker 1: of his manhood, was stripped and fastened to the rollers
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  Speaker 1: of the tower Rack blandishments had failed to move him.
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  Speaker 1: They would try mortal pain and see what that could do. Torture, nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: was as much against the laws of England then, though
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  Speaker 1: not against the laws of some less humane countries, as
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  Speaker 1: it is now. End of Chapter eleven,