EDMUND ARROWSMITH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 178, 25 August 1876, Page 7

EDMUND ARROWSMITH.

(Concluded.} When the Court reassembled, the jury appeared and gave their verdict of "Guilty of high treason." Father Arrowsmith's ODly answer to the usual question of the Court was silently to lift up his eyes and hands to heaven while the brutal sentence was delivered by the Judge, who added of his own to the revolting language of the law — " Know shortly thou shalt die aloft, between heaven and earth, as unworthy of either ; and may thy soul go to hell with thy followers. I would that all«the priests in England might undergo the same sentence ! " The long- wished for crown was won, the one desire of the Seminarist, the Missioner, the Jesuit. Father Arrowsmith sank on his knees and, with bowed, down head, Deo gratias ! burst from his lips. And then he repeated this thanksgiving in English, that all might know his joy. The ferocious Judge sent the sheriff to bid the gaoler to load Mm with the heaviest fetters he could get and to shut him up alone and in a dark dungeon. The gaoler, who seems to have had a kind heart, said there was no cell of the sort, and the answer he received -was to put him into the worst one that he had. Father Edmund could hardly walk with the weight of iron at his ankles, the "Widow's Mite," so these shackles were called, and had almost to be carried to a den so narrow that no one could lie down at full length, therein, and into which hardly a ray of light could enter. As he was borne along he recited in a clear, loud voice the Miserere psalm. Guards were kept at the door, and not a soul was allowed to enter his prison, under a penalty of J3IOO, save Justice Lee, who came to accept in private the challenge which Father Arrowsmith had offered him before the Court. But Edmund knew how once before a minister had boasted falsely of a controversial victory, gained under like odds, or rather not gained at all, by the same divine over a Catholic gentleman in prison. He simply declined the offer, and Mr. Lee went off boasting, much as Casaubon boasted against Baronius, that hie adversary was a weak, silly fellow, and not conversant with Greek. He had not, however, liked the hideous gloom in which his enemy was fettered, and called loudly for & candle, "lest that traitor should desperately mischief me in the dark." There Edmund lay, with, nothing but his marj^r's reward to cheer him, from two o'clock on Tuesday till mid-day on Thursday,

hardly any, if any, food or drink being allowed to pass his lips. Good people hoped that King Charles would send a royal pardon. But his Majesty was too busy with his rebellious Commoners and their petition of rights. Yet unexpected hindrances arose. Tha whole trial had been so entirely against thft forms of law, that when Telverton had drawn up the Sheriff's warrant and sent it to his brother Whitelock to sign, that prudent Judge said Yelverton had better sign it himself first ; nor would Whitelock even then have anything to do with it, but warned Sir Henry it would bring him into trouble. However, by dint of altering some words and warning the officer to conceal the illegalities, that difficulty was got over. But no one would serve as executioner. A butcher offered, for J35, to send his man, but the servant took to his heels and he nev;er saw him more. A promise of life was offered to any felon if no would take the office, but all refused the brjbe, till a deserter, whom Father Edmund had saved from starvation when in prison, offered for 40s. to do the deed. He had to be protected from his fellows lest they should handle Mm roughly. The judge, anxious toaee the death of his victim, contrary to custom, ordered that the execution should take place at an earlier date than the day that had been originally fixed. " Sir Henry seems to have wished the martyrdom to have been as private as possible, and ordered it at mid-day, when the Lancaster folks would be at dinner. It was at eight in the morning of August the 28th, when the sheriff came to tell the martyr that he must die that day. " I beseech my Saviour to make me worthy of it," was his reply. There was another priest in the prison at the time, one John Southworth, whose crown"had been delayed, but not taken away ; for seven years later he was found working side by side with the future martyr, Father Henry Morse of the Society of Jesus/during an outburst of the plague in London, and twenty-nine years after, it 1654, he died at Tyburn, when Cromwell was practically ruler of England. At the time of Father Edmund's condemnation, John Southworth stood reprieved, and they had arranged together that he should give absolution to his brother-priest before his death. But the guards and the bolts had hindered all possibility of this* till, crossing the castle yard, Father Arrowsmith looked round for his last chance, and saw his friend standing and looking at him from a large window above. He raised his hands — the signal which had been agreed upon — received his last absolution, and passed out joyfully into the open street. A dense multitude was there awaiting him. As the gaolor was handing his prisoner over to the sheriff, a Catholic gentleman burst from the crowd, and reverently embraced him, kissing tenderly the marks of the wounds he had received in his capture. Father Arrowsmith was tied down on the hurdle, with hi 3 head, out of scorn, towards the horses' tails, and so along this Via Dolorosa he was dragged, the javelin-men marching beside him to keep the Catholics from the martyr. Before him strutted the executioner, bearing a big club, while Protestant ministers intruded their polemics on the few minutes left the Father to prepare for death. Father Arrowsmith had written out on a sheet of paper acts of .love of God and of contrition, under the title of "Two Keys of Heaven," and holding them in his hands, he kept his eyes and his heart fixed upon them. He feared, no doubt, lest the natural terror of the moment, the noise of the crowd, the wearisome interruptions of the preachers should prevent his soul and thoughts from adhering to his Lord and God. The journey was a short one, and at a quarter of a mile from the prison the gibbet was reached. The unwearying Mr. Justice Lee was at Father Edmund's side, and called his attention to the fire whose flames roared over the cauldron, to the knife and the block, and the massive gallows and the rope. " Look you, Master Eigby," the name by which the martyr was known, "see what is prepared for your torment and death unless you are ready to conform to the laws and accept the king's mercy." It was a sight to make the heart sick, and Father Edmund did. not need a further tempter. " Good sir," he said, smiling, " tempt me no more. The mercy which I look for is in heaven, through the death and Passion of my Saviour Jesus Christ, and I most humbly beseech Him to make me worthy of His death." No sooner was the martyr freed from his'rough hurdle than he knelt down under the shadow of the gibbet and offered his life to the King of Martyrs in. satisfaction for his sins. The parson was at his elbow to criticize his last prayer. " You attribute nothing to Christ's merits and Passion." "O, sir, say not so ! Christ's merits are always presupposed." And so for a quarter of an hour he continued praying aloud so that every word was noted by loving ears, and was exposed to the cavils of the unrelenting ministers. At last the sheriff bade Mm to make haste. " God's will be done," he said, as he sprang to his feet, kissed reverently the ladder, and then began to mount it, begging all good Catholics as he went -up to join their prayers to his. Lee assured Mm there were 1 none present, and offered liimself to pray with Mm. " I neither wish for your prayers, nor will I pray with you," answered Father Edmund, " I will have nothing to do with you, and if what you say be true that there are no Catholics here, I wish to die as ni*ny deaths as here are people, on condition that they were all Catholics. He paused on his ascent to pray for King Charles and Ms realm, and especially for his persecutors, expressing freely Ms pardon for them, and begging pardon of any he might have wronged. Not daring to show himself on the spot, but still unwilling to miss the cruel sight, Judge Yelverton had taken a place at a 1 window whence, by help of glasses, he could see everything that passed, and there he swore he would remain till he had witnessed, the end of Ms victim. The martyr's prayer went up for him, but the grace, if given, fell on too hard a soil. Father Edmund had got high up on the ladder, and then he turned round to say his last words to the great crowd around and beneath Mm — " Bear witness you, who are. come to »cc my end,

that I die a steadfast Roman Catholic ; and for Jesus Christ's sate, let not tny death be a hindrance to your well-doing, and going forward in the Catholic religion, "but rather may it encourage you thereto. For Jesus Christ's sake have a care of your souls, than •which nothing is more precious ; and become members of the true Church, as you tender your salvation, for hereafter that alone will do you good. I beseech you request my brethren, for His sake Who redeemed us all, to be careful to supply my want and insufficiency, as I hope they will. Nothing grieves me so much as this England, which I pray God soon to convert." He held a paper, the same, no doubt, that he had brought with him, and read some prayers from it, and then, with the rope round his neck, and the cap drawn down over his face, he waited for his death. " Pray, sir," cried the unwearying tempter, " accept the King's mercy. Take the oath of allegiance and your life shall be granted. Good sir, accept your life. I desire you to live. See, here is one come from the judge to offer you mercy. You may live if you will conform to the Protestant religion." It was the full explanation of the sentence of high treason — it was the writing plain for all to see, that Edmund was there to die only for his faith. He lifted up his cap and sternly told Lee, "O, sir, how far I am from that ! tempt me no more, I am a dying man." And as he went on to exhort the sheriff and all around him to embrace the one true faith, the people at a distance began to cry out the cry of Calvary, "No more of that, no more of that. Away with him, away with him." Once more Father Arrowsmith covered his face ; " Bone Jesu," came from his lips ; the ladder turned, the body fell, and in a moment the revolting butchgry began. The blood that spurted out at the quartering was carefully scraped up and thro«ro into the fire. The sevex'ed head was on the castle towers, and the quarters were carried from the cauldron to be viewed by the inhuman judge. A present of two stags had just been brought in, and the English gentleman and the guardian of his country's laws placed it side by side with the martyr's remains, and cracked his jokes at the comparison. The quarters were hung up at the castle, and when next day Sir Henry left the town, and looked back to take a last view of them, the head was not visible enough, and his last orders were that it should be raised some six yards higher on the battlements. The very next January, Sir Henry Telverton was at table at his house, in Aldergate Street, London, when he felt as if a heavy blow had been struck him on the head : he turned in a fury on his servant, and while the man was protesting that neither he nor any one dse had touched him, the Judge felt a second stroke. He was carried to his bed, and died in great excitement the next morning, crying out, •' That dog Arrowsmith has killed me." The Catholics succeeded in securing some relics of Edmund Arrowsmith. His clothes were obtained by a priest of the name of Leigh, and they and the executioner's knife were deposited in the safe keeping of Sir Cuthbert Clifton. Portions of his body were got from the keeper of Lancaster Castle. Rumours went abroad that the father of the martyr-priest Southworth, then in Lancaster Castle, had seen just at the moment of Father Arrowsmith's death, /a most resplendent brightness, such a one as in all his life he never saw before, which did show itself from the prison unto the gallows, as if it had been a glistening glow, the sun at that time being obscured with clouds, and the most part of the day likewise." A. little Catholic girl, whose father and mother lived in the same part of the castle as Father Arrowsmith, had stood by him as he ■was laid on the hurdle, and he asked her by her name whether she wanted anything of him. She said, brave soul, she only wished for his company, and so he told her she must keep firm to her faith, and she would certainly be for ever blessed in heaven. That night, Margery was sleeping in a room with* one of the keeper's wives, and suddenly the woman heard her cry out, " Lord! Mr. Rigby (Father Arrowsmith's alias), what a stately place is this where you now live, which is so bright, composed of silver and gold; would God I might remain with you, for methinks the place is most sweet, like flowers or perfumes ! " Margery did not recollect next morning that she had had a dream, but her sleeping words were not forgotten. In the church of St. Oswald's, at Ashton, the wonder working hand of the brave martyr reposes in a silver shrine. It is dried, "but perfect, except where the piety of the faithful have carried off portions of it as relics. F. G.