resigning themselves to a long and tedious process which promised to last many years, an unexpected consolation was granted them in the equipollent beatification of fifty-four of the number.

In the Pontificate of Gregory XIII. a series of frescoes representing English saints and martyrs were painted in the church of the English College at Rome, at the expense of George Gilbert, a gentleman who had been the devoted friend of the Blessed Edmund Campion. To these pictures were added, by permission of the Pope, others, representing the modern martyrs who suffered under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth between the years 1535 and 1583. These frescoes were painted by Circiniani, the well-known artist who also depicted the sufferings of the primitive Christians in a most realistic manner on the walls of San Stefano Rotondo. Our frescoes had indeed unfortunately perished at the French Revolution, but happily a book of engravings of them was brought out with the Pope's privilege (cum privilegio Gregorii XIII.), and it is to this book. that we owe the Beatification of Sir Thomas More and his companions.

The fact that these martyrs were allowed to be represented on the walls of a church together with canonized saints, was declared to be equivalent to granting them an ecclesiastical cultus, and to form. one of the cases excepted from the decree of Urban VIII. The title-page of the book speaks of them as "Holy martyrs who for Christ's sake and for professing the truth of the Catholic faith, have suffered death in England both in ancient and

of the enforcement of the laws enjoining attendance

at the Protestant churches.1 success flowed with them. and three weeks later not maintained the field.

For a week the tide of Then fortune changed, one of the Northerners

Section IV. The Excommunication.

Three months after the Rising came the excommunication of the Queen. Pope Pius V. had not been unaware of the discontent which had been fermenting in England, but,—and this is a point very much to be remembered, he was far removed from regular and reliable sources of information. Letters from the English Catholics to him, and his answers, might take two, three, or even four months on their way, and thus it was very difficult for him to know exactly what to do, still more so to choose the right moment for action. In the year 1568 he had sent Doctor Nicholas Morton, once prebendary of York, to report on the state of affairs in England, and Morton had started back a few months before the actual outbreak, with the news that an insurrection was not impossible. But while he was on his way Sir William Cecil had brought the discontent prematurely to a head, and the Rising was over and crushed, before the Pope had so much as heard of the likelihood of its breaking out.

When he did hear of that probability, he took a step characteristic of the man and the time. Those were days in which a wonderful renewal of fervour was taking place in Rome. The utmost zeal was 2 P. 156

1 Spanish Calendar, 1568–1579, p. 212.

being evinced for restoring ancient observance, and the greatest benefits were resulting from the return to pristine severity and mediæval practices. Hence the idea that the remedy for England was a drastic measure of primitive discipline. The previous Pope, Pius IV., had taken the advice of the Catholic powers as to the excommunication of Elizabeth, and finding them most hostile to any such measure, had decided to proceed no further. But Pius V., far less cautious than Popes usually are, was also, alas! far too sanguine in trusting the few English exiles who happened to be in Rome. He summoned these men to a court held to inquire into Elizabeth's offences, which were of course as plain and as grave as they could possibly be. He thereupon issued his Bull, Regnans in excelsis, on the 25th of February, 1570, by which he both excommunicated her and deprived her of her realm, believing that the sentence would at once be put into execution. Only after this was done did he hear of the collapse of the Rising. Thus the clauses which concerned the deprivation, resulted in complete failure1 and did actual harm. The excommunication in itself, however, did no little good to the Church at large, and to the Catholics in this country in particular. For whereas we have seen that the greatest of all snares for the English Catholics had been their blind obedience to their sovereign, even in matters of faith and conscience, the excommunication of that sovereign did much

1 There were indeed complications in England for a couple of years after the excommunication, but they had no influence on the general course of our history. (See The Month, February, 1902.)

more recent times." Thus Pope Gregory XIII. had allowed these servants of God to be honoured as true martyrs for the faith, and Pope Leo XIII. graciously confirmed this concession. A decree of the Congregation of Rites, on the 4th of December, 1886, decided that fifty-four martyrs who were. clearly represented in the frescoes were worthy of equipollent beatification, and on the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, December the 29th of the same year, Pope Leo confirmed the decree.

Moreover, on the 9th of the same month the Pope signed the introduction of the cause of 261 English Martyrs, who were henceforth honoured as Venerable, and whose cause, with the exceptions hereafter to be noted, must proceed according to the ordinary formalities prescribed by Urban VIII.

The joy caused among English Catholics by the decree of Beatification was indeed deep and sincere. It was felt, however, that if the martyrs were to be duly honoured their lives must be made better known, and it was soon after the proclamation of the Roman decree that the Fathers of the London Oratory, who had done so much for the cause, projected this series. of lives which, owing to various difficulties, has only now reached its completion. But of this we must speak later.

There was one disappointment with regard to the decree of 1886. The names of the three Benedictine Abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester, who, with some of their monks, were represented as martyrs in the frescoes, were omitted from it just at the last moment, owing to a scruple of the

b

Promoter of the Faith. These martyrs were not mentioned by name in the inscription beneath their picture, which merely spoke of "Three Reverend Abbots of the Order of St. Benedict with some of their monks." The Promoter of the Faith feared that this was not sufficient to identify the martyrs, and so the names were omitted, so much at the last moment that some copies of the decree with their names included actually got into circulation. But a further examination of the question brought such satisfactory evidence, that nine years later (May 13, 1895), a decree was promulgated which included. among the Beati not only the three Abbots and their monks, but also Sir Adrian Fortescue, of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland.

This raised the number of Beati to sixty-three, but reduced the number of Venerabiles to 253.

The decrees themselves will be found printed in full at the end of this Introduction.

It must be carefully noted that a decree of equipollent Beatification like ours is permissive in character. It confirms an ancient cultus and formally permits the faithful in England to honour their martyrs with public veneration. Such a decree of course is of grave significance, and is not granted lightly. Nevertheless the searching and stringent inquiries which are necessary, according to the ordinary process, have not been undertaken in such a case, and though, of course, a great deal of investigation has been made with regard to each individual among the sixty-three martyrs involved,