ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY
Saints celebrated on the 12th of February
BLESSED JOHN MUNDEN, PRIEST AND MARTYR
Mr. Munden was born at Maperton, in Dorsetshire, and educated in the university of Oxford; where he was admitted fellow of New College, in 1562, and had the character of being a very good civilian. Being discovered to be a Catholic, he was deprived of his fellowship in 1566; and after many years, going abroad, he applied himself to the study of divinity, at Rheims [Reims], where he arrived in 1580; where he also, according to some authors, he was made priest: but in the account in Dr. Bridgewater, of his examination before secretary Walsingham, he answers, that he was made priest at Rome, though he was not of the college or seminary there; and I find him in the Douay diary as returning priest from Rome, in 1582.
About the end of February, 1582-3, as he was going up from Winchester to London, he met upon Hounslowheath with one Mr. Hammond, lawyer, who knowing him to be a priest, obliged him to go back with him to Staines, where he delivered him up to the justices or magistrates of the place. These sent him to London, to Wolsey, the Latin secretary; who, the following day, sent him to Sir Francis Walsingham, principal secretary of state.
The secretary asked him, where he was made priest! whether he were of any seminary who had sent him back into England! who had furnished him with money for his journey! &c. To all which, Mr. Munden returned a sincere answer. Then the secretary inveighed most bitterly against the seminarists, and against the translation of the New Testament, lately published at Rheims; and as if he were resolved that Mr. Munden should pay for all these misdemeanours of the seminaries, he began to propose to him the questions, which were the common forerunners of death.
1. What he thought of Dr. Saunders's going into Ireland? Mr. Munden answered, he knew not what Dr. Saunders went about, and therefore could not say whether he did right or wrong in going thither; let him answer for himself.
2. The secretary asked him what he would do, or what any good subject ought to do, in case of an invasion of the kingdom upon account of religion and what he thought of the deposing power! Mr. Munden begged to be excused from answering questions, that were above his capacity; for that, as his chief study had been the civil law, he was not divine enough to resolve such queries.
3. He asked, whether he esteemed queen Elizabeth to be the true queen of England! he answered, yes. But, said Walsingham, Do you allow her to be queen, as well de jure, as de facto? I do not rightly understand, said Mr. Munden, the meaning of those terms. How now, traitor, said Walsingham, do you boggle at answering this! And therewithal gave him such a blow on one side of the head, as perfectly stunned him, and made him reel; so that for some days after, he complained of a difficulty of hearing on that side. After this injury, and many other reproaches and affronts, the secretary sent for a pursuivant, and ordered him to conduct Mr. Munden to the Tower, and to take his horse and furniture. In the Tower he was, at first, very ill lodged, being put into irons for twenty days, and obliged for some time to lie upon the bare floor. However, he was not without comfort, as well interior from God, who forsakes not his servants on these occasions, as exterior from a good priest, a fellow-prisoner, his ghostly father; who also helped very much to support him and encourage him under another kind of trial, which he here met withal; when being called forth to be again examined by Popham, the attorney-general, this gentleman, not contented with other injuries, charged him with having led a lewd life in his own country: for although this was no more than a groundless calumny, Mr. Munden was, nevertheless, very much concerned at the accusation, not for his own sake, but for fear of the scandal that would by this means be cast upon religion: but the good man, his director, comforted him, putting him in in mind of that beatitude in St. Matthew, "Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and shall persecute you, and shall speak all kind of evil against you falsely, for my sake, be glad and rejoice, for your reward is exceeding great in heaven." Adding withal, that the prophets and apostles, and even Christ our Lord himself, had been calumniated and slandered; and that it was always the way, both of ancient and modern heretics, as he showed by examples, to seek to asperse in this manner the reputation of the ministers of God, and of his true church: but that truth and innocence would, in these cases, sooner or later, prevail, to the confusion of their enemies.
Mr. Munden was about twelve month a prisoner in the Tower, before he was called to the bar to take his trial. But on the 6th and 7th of February, 1583-4, he was tried and condemned in Westminster Hall, at the same time, and for the same cause, with the other four whom we have last treated of. When sentence was pronounced upon him, he, with the rest of those holy men, joined in reciting the hymn Te Deum laudamus, with a serene and cheerful countenance: and so great was the inward joy he conceived in his soul upon this occasion, that he could not help discovering it in his voice, in his face, and in the the court that day. This joy continued with him till his happy death and when his confessor came to examine him the night before he was to suffer, he found him in the same state of great sweetness of interior consolation, standing in no need of his comfort; but rather, he who came to comfort him, went away himself exceedingly comforted by him.
He was drawn with the rest at Tyburn, on the 12th of February [1584, aged 42], according to Mr. Stow.
Source: Bishop Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Volume 1
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