The Condition of Catholics Under James I.

perior. Besides him, the only others of our Society then in England were Father Edmund Weston,23 confined at

at we met at last. I stayed some time with the Fathers, and we held frequent consultations as to our future proceedings. The good Superior gave us excellent instructions as to the method of helping and gaining souls, as did also Father Southwell, who muc

e same fashion as that of gentlemen of moderate means. The necessity of this was shown by reason and subsequent events; for, from my former position, I was more at ease in this costume, and could maintain a less embarrassed bearing, than if I had assumed a character to which I was unaccustomed. Then, too, I had to appear in public and meet many Protestant gentlemen, with who

him to nearly every gentleman's house in the county. Before the eight months were passed, I gained over and converted many to the Church: among whom were my host's

to disclose to another what I am going to say. Since, then, you have pressed me to answer as if I had to give an account of your soul, I will tell you, that you can, if you please, live in the religion now professed by the Queen and her whole kingdom, for so you will live more at ease, and be exempt from all the vexations the Catholics have to undergo. But by no means die out of the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, if you would save your soul.' Such was the answer of this poor man, but such was not his practice; for, putting off his conversion from day to day, it fell out that, when he least expected, on his return home from dining with the pseudo-Archbishop of Canterbury, he dropped down dead as he was entering his apartment, without the least sign of repentance, or of Christian hope of that eternal bliss which he had too easily promised to

nger any hope for her present life, to allow her all freedom to prepare for the one to come. With his permission, then, we promised to bring in an old Priest on the following night: for those Priests who were ordained before Elizabeth's reign were not exposed to such dangers and penalties as the others. We therefore made use of his ministry, in order that this lady might receive all the rites of the Church. Having [pg xxviii] made her confession and been anointed with great devotion, she received the Holy Viaticum; and behold in half an hour's time she so far recovered, as to be wholly out of danger; the disease and its cause had vanished, and she had only to recover her strength. The husband seeing his wife thus snatched from the jaws of death, wished to know the reason. We told him that it was one of the effects of the holy Sacrament of Extreme Unction, that it restored bodily health when Divine Wisdom saw that it was expedient for the good of the soul. This was the cause of his conversion; for admiring the power and efficacy of the Sacraments of the true Church, he allowed himself to be persuaded to seek in that Church the health of his own soul. I, being eager to strike the iron while it was hot, began without delay to prepare him for confession; but not wishing just then that he should know me for a

d [pg xxix] mothers of families, equal, and some even superior, in station to the above mentioned. For prudence sake

ronger, I told him that there were certain spiritual exercises, by means of which a well-disposed person could discover a short road to perfection, and be best prepared to make choice of a state of life. He most earnestly begged to be allowed to make them. I acceded to his request, and he made great spiritual profit thereby, not only in that he made the best choice, which was that he would enter the Society of Jesus as soon as possible, but also because he made the best and most proper arrangements to carry his purpose into execution, and to preserve meanwhile his present fervour. After his retreat he expressed the greatest wish that I should come and live with him, and I had no rest until I promised to su

o the manner of life of the Society, both as regards dress and the arrangement of my time.... While in this residence (and I was there all but two years) I gave much time to my studies. At tim

ike a little king, in ease and independence, surrounded by his children, to whom, as well as to his wife, he was tenderly attached. As he kept clear of Priests from the Seminaries, he lived unmolested, feeling nothing of the burden and heat of the day; for the persecutors troubled chiefly those who harboured the Seminarists, not caring to inquire after those who kept the old Priests, that is, those who had taken Orders before the reign of Elizabeth.... In his house there was living my host's mother, a most excellent widow lady, happy in her children, but still happier in her private virtues. She had four sons and four daughters. These latter, without exception, devoted their virginity to God. Two had already jo

ce Young writes to Lord Keeper Puckering,29 "Mrs. Jane Wiseman her house is the only resort for these wicked persons. She was at Wisbech with the Seminaries and Jesuits there, and she did repent that she had not gone bare-footed thither, and she is a great reliever of them, and she made a rich vestment and sent it them, as your Lordship doth remember as I think, when you and my Lord of Buckhurst [pg xxxii] sent to Wisbech to search, for that I had letters which did decypher all her doings." She was condemned in 1598 to the peine forte et dure for refusing to plead when indicted for harbouring Father Jones, alias Buckley, the Franciscan martyr. "However, on account of her rank and the good name which she ha