ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 30th of April
BLESSED WILLIAM SOUTHERNE, PRIEST AND MARTYR
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| Colleges at the University of Douai, 16th century |
[Blessed William is also commemorated on April 26.] He was an alumnus and priest of the English college of Douay, and the last that suffered in the reign of king James the first. I have met with but few particulars relating to the life and death of this holy man. Raissius in his catalogue of the priests of Douay college who have suffered in England, printed at Douay, 1630 (p. 82,) informs us (from the letters which the college had received from persons of undoubted credit on the spot) that this apostolic priest during his mission was mostly employed in converting and assisting the poor that being apprehended. He was condemned to die for being a priest for that he refused the oath of allegiance, and we know that when the sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he fell upon his knees and gave hearty thanks to God: that after condemnation he was forced to lie in a dark and loathsome dungeon for six days, because no-one could be found during that time who would perform the office of the hangman. It is also related that he suffered at Newcastle; and that his head - being set up on a spear on one of the town gates - was for some days after, by many, observed to smile.
Mr Knaresborough, in his manuscript collections, adds, that he has been told that Mr Southerne's mission lay chiefly among the poorer sort of catholics at Bassage, in Staffordshire, an estate belonging to the Fowlers of St Thomas; and that he was seized at the altar and hurried away in his vestments to a neighbouring justice of peace, who committed him to Stafford jail; and this happening at the beginning of the assizes, he was immediately convicted and sentenced. That he was carried to Newcastle-under- Line, and was there strangled, and butchered, according to sentence. That his head is said to have been brought back to Stafford, and fixed upon a spear, on one of the gates in terrorem. He suffered April 30, 1618.
THE PLIGHT OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND LAYPEOPLE AROUND THIS TIME
About the end of July of this same year, (as we learn from the Douay Diary,) upon occasion of the treaty of marriage which was then afoot between prince Charles and the infanta of Spain at the intercession of the Spanish Ambassador, no less than sixty priests who were confined in divers prisons throughout the kingdom, were permitted to exchange their prisons for perpetual banishment, and were transported beyond the seas.
From the year 1618, till the death of king James the first, who died March the 27th, 1625, I have not met with any mention of priests or others put to death in England for the catholic religion: unless we suppose F. Thomas Dyer, monk, of the venerable order of St Bennet [St Benedict], to have suffered in this interval.
Certain it is, that he suffered some time before the year 1630, because he has place in Raissius's catalogue published in that year and as he there is set down after F. Maurus Scot, who was executed in 1612, I suppose that he suffered between the years 1612 and 1630. But where, or when in particular it was, I have not found - nor anything else relating either to his life or death.
Whilst the match with Spain was in agitation, the catholics flattered themselves with hopes of being more mildly treated; and we learn from Rushworth's collections, vol. 1. p. 14, that the king, upon being informed that the court of Spain, before they would consent to make any advance in that affair, expected he should propose some conditions in favour of his catholic subjects despatched over "anno 1620." Sir Walter Ashton, following a letter to the king of Spain, promising on the word of a king, that no priest or lay catholic should thenceforth be condemned on any capital law; and that as the laws inflicting pecuniary measures for recusancy - though he could not at present rescind them - he promised to mitigate their execution, as thereby to oblige his catholic subjects. And farther, if the marriage should take effect, he promised his daughter-in-law should find him ready to indulge all favours which she should request for those of her religion.
But though the persecution upon this occasion relented, this intermission or remission was not of any long continuance: for in the year 1623 the match was entirely broke off, and the laws were ordered to be put in execution against all priests and papists recusants: many priests were apprehended and committed to prison: the lay-gentlemen were obliged all over the kingdom to pay their 20l per month for their recusancy, and the poorer sort their shilling every Sunday and as to all other pains and penalties, death only excepted, the persecuting statutes were executed for the remainder of this reign, with as much severity as in any part of queen Elizabeth's days.
In the year 1624, Dr William Bishop, titular bishop of Chalcedon. departed this life in the seventy-first year of his age, leaving behind him this character, that he was both generally esteemed and loved, both by the laity and clergy, secular as well as regular. That he was a person of an apostolic spirit and life, who had both laboured and suffered very much in the cause of the faith; having been twice imprisoned, and as often banished for his religion, which he had also maintained by divers learned tracts against Mr Perkins and Dr Abbot. He was the son of John Bishop, Esq., of Brayles, in the county of Warwick; was sent to the university of Oxford, in the year 1570, where he was a student in Gloucester Hall. But after three or four years' studying there, being dissatisfied with the protestant religion, he not only left the university, but also his estate, relations, and country, and went over to the college lately instituted at Douay. Here and at Rheims he spent some years and was then sent to Rome, and after some time upon the English mission. Immediately upon his landing in England he was apprehended and imprisoned, and some time after sent into banishment in 1585; upon this occasion he went to Paris, and there having gone through the usual exercises of the school, he was made doctor of Sorbonne, and after divers years more spent in apostolical labours upon the mission, and a second imprisonment and banishment, he was at length (by pope Urban VIII., in 1622), created bishop of Chalcedon. He died in or near London, April 13th, 1624, and was succeeded by Dr Richard Smith.
In a manuscript relation concerning this great man, kept in the archives of the English college of Douay, there is this remarkable history of him: That upon his last return into England, after he was consecrated bishop in Flanders, he was privately advised by a principal magistrate, one of the king's privy council, (considering the present disposition of the parliament and the fury of the puritan faction, continually making remonstrances against the growth of popery,) to delegate his authority to some others in quality of his vicars, and to retire beyond the seas, at least for a time, till the storm blew over - but that he returned this generous answer, worthy of a Basil, or an Ambrose, That he was not afraid of the threats of the parliament; that as he had twice already suffered imprisonment for Christ, he was very willing to suffer it a third time, or if they should order any thing worse for him, he was ready to undergo it. That he did not come into England with a disposition to run away, as soon as he should see the wolf coming, but rather as a good shepherd, to lay down his life for his sheep.
After the decease of king James the first, his son Charles, the first of that name, ascended the throne. This prince, in his own nature, seems not to have been inclined to persecution, at least not so far as to come to the shedding of blood for religion; yet such was the iniquity of the times, and the importunity of the parliaments, ever complaining of the growth of popery and urging the execution of the laws, that he gave way to all manner of severities against his catholic subjects, and issued out proclamation upon proclamation for the executing the laws against them, so that the generality of catholics had a very bad time of it under his government. The first that suffered death by the penal statutes under this king was Father Arrowsmith.
¹I have by me copies of several letters, representing the most cruel treatment of the catholics at this time, especially in the north.
²By the Douay Diary, he was made priest at Laon, in May, 1563.
From Arnoldus Raissius's catalogue of the Douay martyrs
Source: Bishop Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Volume 1
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