The Condition of Catholics Under James I.

without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or

in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the [pg lxxiii] alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still le

f the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where

her give up God or the world,' was his courageous answer, 'I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.' So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtain

. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me: 'Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps

oticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67 He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Pries

thousand more.'68 She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in [pg lxxvi] a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large c

issing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69 who had often been her

,70 but then newly arrived in England.... After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen wit

l health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. Fo

access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never

en, but directing himself in all things by his own lights.... In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas.... In the third book

iii] a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, bu

t all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood