Robert Southwell was the third son of Richard Southwell, Esq., of Horsham, St. Faith's, Norfolk. The curious in genealogy, while investigating family lines associated with the Southwell pedigree, have found connected with it, in degrees more or less near, the names of Paston, Sidney, Howard, Newton, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Of his early years there is but slight record, save that, when still very young, he was sent to Douai to be educated. From Douai he passed to Paris and thence to Rome, where, in 1578, before he had yet reached the age of seventeen, he was received into the order of the Society of Jesus. On completion of his novitiate and termination of the courses of philosophy and theology, he was made prefect of studies of the English College at Rome. Ordained priest in 1584, and, as appears from his letter addressed, February 20, 1585, to the general of the order, seeking the "perilous" errand wherein his future martyrdom seems rather to have been anticipated than merely referred to as a simple possibility,* he left Rome on the 8th of May, 1586, a missionary to his native land, or, in other words, took up his line of march for the scaffold and for heaven. We have, naturally enough, but scant record of the young priest's journey to and arrival in England; for, as the mere landing in England by a Catho

Turnbull, p. xvi.

punishable with death, Southwell' return to his native country was sut rounded as much as possible by se crecy. Although yearning to visit hi home and embrace his family, h carefully abstained from going nea them-of doing that which, in hi quaint phrase of the day, “maketh my presence perilous." But he was aware that his father was in danger of losing, if he had not already lost, his faith; and these fears were almost confirmed by the facts that he had formed a marriage with a lady of the court, and that his wealth gave him entrance to court circles which were necessarily violently Protestant. Deeply solicitous for his father's spiritual condition, he therefore addressed him a letter of admonition and advice, not less remarkable for its tone of affection than for its energy and eloquence. We cite it in another place.

HUNTED DOWN.

At a time when, as Mr. Grosart says, "it was a crime to be a Catholic: it was proof of high treason to be a priest it was to invite 'hunting' as of a wild beast to be a Jesuit," we cannot reasonably look for many recorded traces of Father Southwell's presence and journeyings to and fro while in England. He could only move in disguise or under the darkness of night; he was liable to be thrown into prison anywhere on the merest suspicion of any irresponsible accuser. The few Catholics who were ready to give him shelter and hospitality did so with the halter around their necks; for confiscation and death were the penalty, as they well knew, for "harboring" a priest. It is nevertheless certain that his refuge in London was the mansion. of the Countess of Arundel, whose husband, Philip Howard, Earl of

Arundel, was imprisoned in the Tower, and died there, the noblest ictim to the jealous and suspicious sranny of Elizabeth, non sine veneni izione, as his epitaph still testiSes."

Hundreds of Southwell's letters to is superiors still exist, but they are from necessity written in such reberal terms and in so guarded a manner as to afford but little historial information. Here is one of them, as given by Bishop Challoner his Memoirs of Missionary Priests: 1. "As yet we are alive and well, being unworthy, it seems, of prisons. We have oftener sent, than received, letters from your parts, tho' they are not sent without difficulty; and some, we know, have been lost."

2. "The condition of Catholic recusants here is the same as usual, deplorable and full of fears and dangers, more especially since Our adversaries have look'd for wars. As many of ours as are in chains rejoice and are comforted in their prisons; and they that are at liberty set not their heart upon it, nor expect it to be of long continuance. All by the great goodness and mercy of God arm themselves to suffer anything that can come, how hard soever it may be, as it shall please our Lord; for whose greater glory, and the salvation of their souls, they are more concerned than for any temporal losses."

3. "A little while ago, they apprehended two priests, who have suffered such cruel usages in the prison of Bridewell as can scarce be believed. What was given them to eat was so little in quantity, and, withal, so filthy and nauseous, that the very sight was enough to turn their stomachs. The labors to which they obliged them were continual and immoderate, and no less in sickness than in health; for, with hard blows

and stripes, they forced them to accomplish their task how weak soever they were. Their beds were dirty straw, and their prison most filthy. Some are there hung up for whole days by the hands, in such a manner that they can but just touch the ground with the tips of their toes. This purgatory we are looking for every hour, in which Topcliffe and Young, the two executioners of the Catholics, exercise all kinds of torments. But come what pleaseth God, we hope we shall be able to bear all in him that strengthens us. I most humbly recommend myself to the holy sacrifices of your reverence and of all our friends. (January 15, 1590.)”

PURSUIT AND ESCAPE.

*

In a work published so lately as 1871, we catch a few fugitive glances of Father Robert Southwell. Father Gerard spoke of him at the time (1585) as "excelling in the art of helping and gaining souls, being at once prudent, pious, meek, and exceedingly winning."

A descent was made by the pursuivants upon a house in the country, where the two fathers happened to be together, and but for the devotion of the domestics the two missionaries would have been captured. They escaped, however, and journeyed away together. The peculiar danger they were then subjected to was that arising from intercourse with the gentry. Father Gerard tells of a gentleman who violently suspected him, and adds: "After a day or so he quite abandoned all mistrust, as I spoke of hunting and falconry with all the details that none but a practised person could command." He concludes: "For many make sad blunders in attempting this, as Father Southwell, who was afterwards my

The Condition of Catholics under James I. Father Gerard's narrative. London. 1872.

companion in many journeys, was wont to complain. He frequently got me to instruct him in the technical terms of sport, and used to complain of his bad memory for such things; for on many occasions when he fell in with Protestant gentlemen he found it necessary to speak of these matters, which are the sole topics of their conversations, save when they talk obscenity or break out into blasphemies and abuse of the saints or the Catholic faith."

With danger of possible arrest at every house and on every road, followed by swift and barbarous execution, Father Southwell for six long years carried his life in his hand.

PROTESTANT OPINION.

Granted," says his Protestant biographer (Grosart, xlix.), "that in our Southwell's years 1588 is included, and that the shadow of the coming of the Armada lay across England from the very moment of his arrival; granted that, in the teeth of their instructions, there were priests and members of the Society of Jesus who deemed they did God service by plotting' for the restoration of the old faith and worship' after a worldly sort; granted that politically and civilly the nation was, in a sense, in the throes of since-achieved liberties; granted that Mary, all too sadly, even tremendously, earned her epithet of Bloody'; granted that the very mysticism, not to say mystery, of the higher' sovereignty claimed for him who wore the tiara, acted as darkness does with sounds the most innocent; granted nearly all that Protestantism claims in its apology as defence-it must be regarded as a stigma on the statesmanship and a stain on the Christianity of the reformed Church of England, as well as a sorrow to all right-minded and right-hearted,

that the convictions' of those who could not in conscience 'change' at the bidding of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, or James were not respected; that 'opinion,' or, if you will, 'error,' was put down (or attempted to be put down) by force, and that the headsman's axe and hangman's rope were the only instrumentalities thought of. The State Trials remain to bring a blush to every lover of his country for the brutal and 'hard' mockery of justice in the higher courts of law whenever a priest was concerned-as later with the Puritans and Nonconformists."

FALSE BRETHREN AND THE MAN-HUNTER.

With malignant pursuit that never slackened, and that old peril of S. Paul, "false brethren," Southwell's arrest was, of course, a mere question of time. His day came at last, after six years of labor and danger in the field. The circumstances are as follows, from Turnbull, verified by other authorities. There was resident at Uxenden, near Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, a Catholic family by the name of Bellamy, occasionally visited by Southwell for the purpose of religious instruction. One of the daughters, Ann, had in her early youth exhibited marks of the most vivid and unshakable piety; but having been committed to the gatehouse of Westminster, her faith gradually departed, and along with it her virtue: for, having formed an intrigue with the keeper of the prison, she subsequently married him, and by this step forfeited all claim which she had by law or favor upon her father. In order, therefore, to obtain some fortune, she resolved to take advantage of the act of 27 Elizabeth, which made the harboring of a priest treason, with confiscation of the offender's goods. Accordingly she sent a messenger to Southwell, urging him

to meet her on a certain day and hour at her father's house; whither he, either in ignorance of what had happened, or under the impression that she sought his spiritual assistance through motives of penitence, went at the appointed time. In the meanwhile, having apprised her husband of this, as also the place of concealment in her father's house and the mode of access, he conveyed the information to Topcliffe, an implacable persecutor and denouncer of the Catholics, who, with a band of his satelLites, surrounded the premises, broke open the house, arrested his reverence, and carried him off in open day, exposed to the gaze of the populace. Topcliffe carried Southwell to his own (Topcliffe's) dwelling, and there, in the course of ten weeks, tortured him with such pitiless severity that the unhappy victim, complaining of it to his judges, declared that death would have been preferable. A letter, qualified by Grosart as "fawning, cruel, and abominable," written by this human bloodhound, Topcliffe, and addressed to no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth, reports the capture and torture of Southwell, and states, with details, how he proposes further to torture him.

The letter is dated Westminster, June 22, 1592, and advises the queen : I have him here within my strong chamber in Westminster churchyard (ie. the gatehouse). I have made him assured for starting or hurting of himself by putting upon his arms a Dair of ;* and so to keep him either from view or conference with any but Nicolas, the underkeeper of the gatehouse.

- Upon this present taking of him it is good forthwith to enforce him to answer truly and directly; and. so to prove his answers true in haste, to the

• So printed in Strype.

end that such as he be deeply concerned in his treachery may not have time to start, or make shift to use any means in common prisons; either to stand upon or against the wall will give warning. But if your highness' pleasure be to know anything in his heart, to stand against the wall, his feet standing upon the ground, and his hands put as high as he can reach against the wall (like a trick at Tremshemarn), will enforce him to tell all; and the truth proven by the sequel.* . . . It may please your majesty to consider, I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly considered."†

The reader will here readily recognize a partial description of one of the modes of torture then most common in use throughout the reign of Elizabeth. It seems that it was "her highness' pleasure" to know some-, thing that was in this poor martyr's heart, for Southwell was afterwards' again repeatedly tortured. The intimate personal relations existing be tween the virgin queen and this man Topcliffe, whose very name was a stench in the nostrils of Protestants of respectable behavior, were maintained long after the Southwell capture, as we learn from the best authority. The cruelty of Elizabeth was only surpassed by her mendacity, as her mendacity was only exceeded by her mean parsimony, and when she travelled or made progress from one country to another it was always at the expense of her good and loyal subjects. Eventually the announcement of a visit from their

Topcliffe here describes what he facetiously likens to a Tremshemarn trick with great delicacy. It was, in fact, a piece of horrible torture. by which the prisoner was hung up for whole days by the hands so that he could just touch the ground with the tips of his toes.

+ See Annals of the Reformation, Strype, Oxford, 1824 ed., vol. vii. p. 185. If the reader has any curiosity to see more remnikable proof of the infamy of this man, Topcliffe, he may peruse another letter in Strype, vol. vii. p. 53.

good queen, received outwardly with such declarations as might naturally follow the promise of the call of a 'special envoy from heaven, was in reality looked upon as the coming of a terrible calamity. It was at that time considered at the English courtwhere, as we all know, all the civil and religious virtues had taken refuge an excellent jest to so direct the course of the queen's progress as to make her visits fall at the residences of well-known Catholic gentleman. It is only necessary to say that the anniversary of all such events yet lives in the traditions of the descendants of such families as that of a day of horror. The royal retinue treated the house like a captured place, and it was well for the proprietor if confiscation or death, or both, were not the sole reward of his generous hospitality.

Mr. Topcliffe gives us valuable information on this point. On the 30th of August, 1578, he writes to the Earl of Shrewsbury: "The next good news (not in account the highest), her majesty hath served God with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council the two notorious papists, young Rookwood (the master of Ewston Hall, where her majesty did lie upon Sunday now a fortnight), and one Downs, a gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich, the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich as prisoners; two of the Lovells, another Downs, one Benings, one Parry, and two others.

Her majesty, by some means I know not, was lodged at his (Rookwood's) house, Ewston, far unmeet for her highness, but fitter for the blackguard; nevertheless her excellent majesty gave to Rookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house,

and her fair hand to kiss; after which it was braved at. But my lord chamberlain, nobly and gravely understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him, demanded of him how he durst presume to attempt her real presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the court, and yet to attend her council's pleasure; and at Norwich he was committed,"* etc. etc. In the beginning of the letter Topcliffe "joys at her majesty's gracious favor and affiance in your lordship-next some comfort I received of her for myself that must ever lie nearest my own heart." Tender Topcliffe! But we must have "no scandal about Queen Elizabeth," and our most delicate susceptibilities for the fair fame of the royal virgin may be quieted by the certainty that the comfort nearest the human bloodhound's "own heart" was something substantial-a country house, an estate, or the like.

Lodge says that this Topcliffe was respectably connected, but that he could only find that he was distinguished as a most implacable persecutor of Roman Catholics. In a letter of Sir Anthony Standen, in which he praises the agreeable manners of the Earl of Essex, he writes: "Contrary to our Topcliffian customs, he hath won more with words than others could do with racks." From another letter of the period it appears that Topcliffzare in the quaint language of the court signified to hunt

a recusant.

But to return to Southwell. Transferred to a dungeon in the Tower, "so noisome and filthy that, when he was brought out at the end of the month, his clothes were

*He was afterwards condemned and executed as a traitor.