had begged that he might obtain the chance he had often asked for, of
being heard in a disputation. This request was now suddenly granted.
The conference was public, and came off in the Norman Chapel of the
Tower, which was crowded. Two Deans, Nowell of St. Paul’s, and Day
of Windsor, were appointed to attack Campion; he was to answer all
objections as he could, but was forbidden to raise any of his own.
Charke, the bitter Puritan preacher of Gray’s Inn, and Whitaker, the
Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, were the notaries. The lion
to be baited did not even know that there was to be a conference, until
he was brought to it under a strong guard. Time for preparation had
been denied him; he was allowed the use of only such authorities as his
memory could furnish; pale and weary and rack-worn as he was, he was
given only a low stool to sit upon. The well-fed theological worthies
were ranged before him, their chairs standing on raised platforms, and
their tables spread with books of reference, pens and paper.
One who was there tells us how easy and ready were his answers; how
modest his mien; how that high-spirited nature so bore the scorn,
the abuse, and the jests heaped upon him, as to win great admiration
from the majority of those who heard him for the first time. He began
by asking very pertinently whether this was a just answer to his
challenge, first to rack him, then to deprive him of books, notes and
pen, lastly, to call upon him to debate? and he added (wishing to be
fully understood by the audience), that what he had asked for was
quite another sort of hearing: a hearing under equal conditions before
the Universities. During the course of this first conference he was
twice most unfairly tripped up: once over a quotation, in which he was
right, though he could not then and there prove it; and again over a
page of the Greek Testament, in such small type that he could not read
it, and had to put it by when it was handed to him: thereby drawing
down upon himself the ridiculous taunt that he knew no Greek. This
he took silently, and with a smile. At the end of the six hours he
had more than stood his ground. The Deans complained afterwards that
a number of gentlemen present, “neither unlearned nor ill-affected,”
considered that Master Campion had the best of it. Some common people
who thought so too, and said so in the streets, paid dearly for their
boldness. One of these gentlemen favourably impressed was Philip, Earl
of Arundel, then in the flush of worldly pride and pleasure. He was the
real victory of the Jesuit apostle, for he received at that time and
in that place the first ray of divine grace, strong enough to change
gradually in him the whole motive and course of that intensity of life
which never failed the Howards. As he stood leaning forward in the
foreground of the daïs, in that solemn interior, tall and young, with
his great ruff and embroidered doublet, and his brilliant dark eyes
held by the pathetic figure of Master Campion, how little could he have
foreseen his own weary term of suffering in that gloomy fortress, and
his sainted death there, at the end of the years!
There were three other conferences under like conditions, but in other
quarters, with four fresh adversaries. Campion was again “appointed
only to answer, never to oppose”; that is, to answer miscellaneous and
disjointed objections against the Catholic Church, without ever being
allowed “to build up any harmonious apology for his own system.” The
last conference was notable for its browbeating and threatening of a
too successful adversary. The Bishop of London privately came to the
conclusion that the verbal tournament was doing no good whatever to the
sacred cause of Protestantism. The Council agreed, and ended it.
Towards the end of October Campion was racked for the third time, and
with the utmost severity, so that he thought they meant, this time,
to kill him; but his fortitude was unshaken. A rough and honest first
cousin to the Queen, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, growled that it were
easier to pluck the heart out of Campion’s breast than to wrest from
him one word against his conscience. His arms and legs went quite numb
after this final torture. The keeper, who was won over by his endearing
prisoner, and was always as gentle with him as he dared to be, inquired
next day how they felt. “Not ill,” said Father Edmund, with all of his
old brave brightness, “not ill, because not at all!”
Never once until now had he been accused of any conspiracy. But he
was a troublesome person: he must be silenced somehow. With a tardy
inspiration, the Council bent all their strength to get out of Campion
some acknowledgment that he had been mixed up with the Spanish-Roman
expedition, and the Irish rising of the preceding year. Not a shadow
of proof could, of course, be produced for such a charge. Then, as a
final and sure means of indicting him on some other count than that
of religion, and of urging his execution upon the Queen, Walsingham,
with Burghley’s connivance, hatched a treasonable plot out of his own
inventive head, and got false witnesses to accuse Edmund Campion
of it, and swear his life away. The “Plot of Rheims and Rome” was
described as an attempt to raise a sedition, and dethrone and kill
the Queen. It had an imaginary but recent date: 1580. Everybody or
anybody, when found convenient, could be accused of so elastic a plot.
It was first charged against some twenty priests and laymen in this
year 1581; but it was brought up against the Earl of Arundel four years
afterwards, despite the fact that the supposed interests of the Church
were the last things likely to win his attention at the time assigned.
On All Saints’ Day arrived in England a suitor for the hand of Queen
Elizabeth: Francis, Duke of Alençon, King of the Netherlands, the
short-lived heir to the throne of King Henry the Third of France. With
that King, while Duke of Anjou, and with Alençon for nine years past
(as for three yet to come), Elizabeth had carried on negotiations which
ended in smoke; but she now announced that she “would marry at last.”
Little Froggy, as she endearingly called him, was ugly to a degree,
and many years younger than her Majesty; he was brother-in-law to
the Queen of Scots, who was her Majesty’s prisoner at Sheffield. The
dominant, ultra-bigoted party took extreme alarm at the near prospect
of toleration for Catholics which such a royal match suggested to
them. To reassure them, it might just now be most useful, thought the
Council, to hang a Jesuit or two.
On the 14th of the month Campion and eight others were arraigned before
the grand jury in Westminster Hall. For “treasonable intents” of the
Queen’s deprivation and murder, these “secret and privy practices of
sinister devices,” befitting one “led astray by the devil,” had “Edmund
Campion, clerk,” made his re-entry into England, the Pope, meanwhile,
being not only aware of his act, but its “author and onsetter”! He was
commanded, as were all those lumped with him in a common accusation,
to plead Guilty or Not Guilty. Up went all the right arms of these
“devotaries, and dead men to this world, who travelled only for souls,”
as Campion himself called them: all but his, so disabled by the rack
that he could not stir it from the furred cuff in which it lay. But a
quick-witted comrade turned and took off the cuff, “humbly kissing the
sacred hands so wrung for the confession of Christ,” and lifted it high
to cry its own mute Not Guilty with the rest. The Spanish Ambassador,
Don Bernardino de Mendoza, standing close by with his secretary, saw,
with a pang of pity, that all the finger-nails were gone from Campion’s
swollen hands. The trial proper began on the 20th, before “such a
presence of people of the more honourable, wise, learned, and best sort
as was never seen or heard of in that court in ours or our fathers’
memories before us ... so wonderful an expectation there was to see the
end of this marvellous tragedy ... [of] such as they knew in conscience
to be innocent.” They all heard Ralph Sherwin say, in a loud clear
voice: “The plain ground of our standing here is religion, and not
treason.”
Chief Justice Wray presided, a Catholic at heart, and wretched ever
after over this unwilling day’s work. The prosecuting officers for the
Crown were the Queen’s serjeant, Edmund Anderson; Popham, afterwards
Chief Justice; and Egerton, afterwards the first Lord Ellesmere. The
chief witnesses were George Eliot, Anthony Munday, and two creatures
named Sledd and Caddy: probably as evil a quartette as existed in
contemporary England, and worthy forerunners of Oates and Bedloe.
“They had nothing left to swear by,” as Campion reminded the jury:
“neither religion nor honesty.” In no special order, but with much
ardour and diligence, all the old tiresome trivial accusations were
brought forward and pressed in, Campion being spokesman throughout for
the defence, and his alert mind, despite his weakened body, meeting
them all, and routing them. He was charged with having “seduced the
Queen’s subjects from their allegiance” ... and “reconciled them
to the Pope.” He caught up the word. “We ‘reconcile’ them to the
Pope! Nay, then, what reconciliation can there be to him, since
reconciliation is only due to God? This word [‘reconcile’] soundeth not
to a lawyer’s usage, and therefore is wrested against us inaptly. The
reconciliation that we endeavoured was only to God: as Peter saith,
_reconciliamini Domino_, be ye reconciled unto the Lord.” Campion was
informed: “Yourself came as Procurator from the Pope and Dr. Allen,
to break these matters to the English Papists.” So he rejoined that
in his homeward voyage from Rome, undertaken by his vow of obedience
as a Jesuit, “the which accordingly I enterprised, being commanded
thereto,” he had “dined with Dr. Allen at Rheims, with whom also
after dinner I walked in his garden ... and not one jot of our talk
glanced to the Crown or State of England.... As to the [Pope], he
flatly with charge and commandment excused me from matters of State
and regiment.” ... Followed a change of tactics. “Afterclaps make
those excuses but shadows.... For what meaning had that changing of
your name? Whereto belonged your disguising in apparel? What pleasure
had you to royst it [in] a velvet hat and a feather, a buff leather
jerkin, and velvet venetians?... Can that beseem a professed man of
religion which hardly becometh a layman of gravity? No: there was
a further matter intended.... Had you come hither for love of your
country, you would never have wrought a hugger-mugger; had your intent
been to have done well, you would never have hated the light.” To which
Campion replied that St. Paul, in order “that living he might benefit
the Church more than dying,” betook himself “to sundry shifts ... but
that especially the changing of his name was very oft and familiar” ...
and that “he sometimes thought it expedient to be hidden, lest, being
discovered, persecution should ensue thereby, and the gospel be greatly
forestalled.... If these shifts were then approved in Paul, why are
they now reproved in me?—he an Apostle, I a Jesuit ... the same cause
common to us both.... I wished earnestly the planting of the gospel; I
knew a contrary religion professed; I saw if I were known I should be
apprehended. I changed my name, I kept secretly: I imitated Paul. Was I
therein a traitor?... The wearing of a buff jerkin, a velvet hat, and
suchlike, is much forced against me.... I am not indicted upon the
Statute of Apparel!... Indeed, I acknowledge an offence to Godwards for
so doing, and thereof it doth grievously repent me, and [I] therefore
do now penance, as you see me.” This charming rejoinder (again, how
More-like!) was in allusion to his rough gown of Irish frieze, and a
huge black nightcap covering half of his newly shaven face.
After all this mere hectoring, some pieces of “evidence” were
produced. One of these was an intercepted letter which Campion
himself had written from the Tower after his first and comparatively
moderate racking, while it was still possible to use his hands; it
was addressed to the admirable and truly holy, but fussy, Mr. Thomas
Pounde, who, wild with alarm at the pretended “betrayals,” had written
to remonstrate with Fr. Campion. The Queen’s Counsel now read this
passage from Campion’s humble reply: “It grieveth me much to have
offended the Catholic cause so highly as to confess the names of some
gentlemen and friends in whose houses I had been entertained. Yet in
this I greatly cherish and comfort myself: that I never discovered any
secrets there declared; and that I will not, come rack, come rope!” The
comment of the reader in court was an obvious one. “What can sound more
suspiciously or nearer unto treason than this letter?... It must needs
be some grievous matter and very pernicious, that neither rack nor
rope can wring from him!” But Campion’s even more obvious answer was
that there he spoke as one “by profession and calling a priest,” vowed
to silence in regard to what was made known in the Confessional, and
yet pressed, on the rack, to divulge secrets thus communicated to him.
“These were the hidden matters ... in concealing of which I so greatly
rejoiced, to the revealing whereof I cannot nor will not be brought,
come rack, come rope!” Well chosen was this answer of Campion’s. It has
been pointed out that if he had stated here that he had told on no one
who was not already found out, he would have loosed the informers and
man-hunters afresh on the whole Catholic community, until his other
friends, who had not been found out, were run down. Instead of that he
drew off attention by reminding the court that he could not repeat what
had been sacramentally confided to him. Most of his hearers were either
Catholic or had been Catholic, and acquiesced. He spoke truth, but he
skipped explanations: and such is, more often than not, the highest
wisdom in this complex world.
There were now read out certain papers containing oaths to be
administered to persons ready to renounce their obedience to her
Majesty, and to be sworn of the Papal allegiance alone. These were
said to have been found in houses where “Campion had lurked, and for
religion been entertained;” hence they were of his composing. He
objected that the administering of oaths was repugnant to him, and
exceeded his authority: “neither would I commit an offence so thwart
to my profession, for all the substance and treasure in the world.”
He went on to say (assuming for his purpose that the precious papers
were not forged, though they really were so), that there was no proof
of their connection with himself, nor was it even pretended that they
were in his handwriting. Anderson replied with singular perversity or
dulness: “You, a professed Papist, coming to a house and then such
reliques found after your departure—how can it otherwise be implied
but that you did both bring them and leave them there? So it is flat
they came there by means of a Papist: _ergo_, by your means!” The
logician in Campion dashed to the fore. Could it be shown that no other
Papist ever visited that house but himself? If not, they were urging
a conclusion before framing a minor! which is imperfect, he added,
and proves nothing. Apparently Serjeant Anderson was sufficiently
enraged by now. His highly judicial retort is on record. “If here, as
you do in Schools, you bring in your minor and conclusion, you will
prove yourself but a fool. But minor or conclusion, I will bring it
to purpose anon!” Eliot then rose as witness, and gave his account of
the Sunday sermon at Lyford: how Master Campion spoke of enormities in
England, and of a day of change soon coming, welcome to the shaken
and dispersed Catholics, but dreadful to the heretical masters of the
land. “What day should that be,” broke in the Queen’s Counsel, “but
that wherein the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Florence have
appointed to invade this realm?” Campion turned his eyes on Eliot.
“Oh, Judas, Judas!... As in all other Christian commonwealths, so in
England, many vices and iniquities do abound ... whereupon, as in every
pulpit every Protestant doth, I pronounced a great day, not wherein
any temporal potentate should minister, but wherein the terrible Judge
should reveal all men’s consciences and try every man.... Any other
day than this, God He knows I meant not.” So much for the astonishing
“evidence” of this most astonishing of all trials, one only, under
Pontius Pilate, excepted.
[Illustration: “Not Guilty!” _p. 151._]
The chief count against the defendant was the old, old one of the Bull
of Deposition, and the denied authority of the Queen in spirituals:
that wretched family skeleton trotted out once more! “You refused to
swear to the Supremacy, a notorious token of an evil willer to the
Crown.” Campion, who was surely what Antony Wood quaintly calls him,
“a sweete Disposition, and a well-polish’d Man,” stated his position
once more, lucidly, and with perfect temper. He began by referring to
what passed at the Earl of Leicester’s London house. “Not long since
it pleased her Majesty to demand of me whether I did acknowledge her
to be my Queen or no. I answered that I did acknowledge her Highness
not only as my Queen, but also as my most lawful governess. And being
further required by her Majesty whether I thought the Pope might
lawfully excommunicate her or no, I answered: ‘I confess myself an
insufficient umpire between her Majesty and the Pope for so high a
controversy, whereof neither the certainty is yet known, nor the best
divines in Christendom stand fully resolved!... I acknowledge her
Highness as my governor and sovereign; I acknowledge her Majesty both
in fact and by right to be Queen; I confess an obedience due to the
Crown as to my temporal head and primate.’ This I said then; so I say
now. If then I failed in aught, I am now ready to supply it. What would
you more? I will willingly pay to her Majesty what is hers; yet I
must pay to God what is His. Then as for excommunicating her Majesty,
it was exacted of me (admitting that excommunication were of effect,
and that the Pope had sufficient authority so to do), whether then I
thought myself discharged of my allegiance or no? I said that this
was a dangerous question, and that they that demanded this demanded
my blood. Admitting (why admitting?) I would admit his authority, and
then he should excommunicate her, I would then do as God should give
me grace: but I never admitted any such matter, neither ought I to
be wrested with any such suppositions.” To all this no rejoinder was
made. It was the identical position taken up by many another harassed
martyr. The prosecution next turned to the remaining prisoners, using
the same weak, wrong, skirmishing tactics,—Campion often putting in
a word to hearten one, to defend another, to guide a third. At a
certain point he exclaimed: “So great are the treasons that I and the
others have wrought, that the gaoler who has us in charge told me at
night that would we but go to the Anglican services they would pardon
us straightway!” Serrano, who reports this, adds: “They answered
things in general.” At the close of the proceedings, their issue being
prearranged, Campion was allowed to make a speech to the jurors. He
eloquently begged them to seek for certainties, and to remember the
character of the “evidence” brought before them. Alas! he was appealing
to bought men, who dared not be true.
The pleadings had taken three hours; the jury deliberated, or seemed to
do so, for an hour or more. Public opinion in the Hall, as at the Tower
conferences, was overwhelmingly in favour of Campion. But “the poor
twelve,” as Allen calls them, came back, fearful to be found “no friend
of Cæsar,” bringing in a verdict against the whole company as “guilty
of the said treasons and conspiracies.” The Lord Chief Justice spoke:
“Campion, and the rest, what can you say why you should not die?” Then
Campion broke out into a brief appeal to the future and the past, a
lyric strain such as was not often heard beneath those ancient rafters,
so sadly used to the spectacle of noble hearts in jeopardy. “It was
not our death that ever we feared! But we knew that we were not lords
of our own lives, and therefore for want of answer would not be guilty
of our own deaths. The only thing that we have now to say is, that if
our religion do make us traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but
otherwise we are and have been as true subjects as ever the Queen had.
In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors, all the ancient
priests, Bishops and Kings: all that was once the glory of England,
the Island of Saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.
For what have we taught (however you may qualify it with the odious
name of treason), that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned
with these old lights, not of England only, but of the world, by their
degenerate descendants, is both gladness and glory to us! God lives.
Posterity will live. Their judgment is not so liable to corruption as
that of those who are now going to sentence us to death.” After which
the Lord Chief Justice pronounced the formula in use for all prisoners
condemned to capital punishment. “Ye must go to the place whence ye
came, there to remain until ye shall be drawn through the open city of
London upon hurdles to the place of execution, and there be hanged and
let down alive ... and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight;
then your heads to be cut off, and your bodies to be divided in four
parts, to be disposed of at her Majesty’s pleasure. And may God have
mercy on your souls!” Some of the company raised a storm of protest,
but Campion’s voice rose above theirs, crying: “We praise Thee, O God!”
Sherwin seconded him with the shouted anthem of Eastertide: “This is
the day that the Lord hath made: let us rejoice and be glad therein!”
Like expressions of triumph were presently taken up, to the amazement
of bystanders. Then the doomed men were parted, and were all taken
away, Edmund Campion being put in a barge on the Thames, and rowed back
to the Tower, where he was heavily shackled with irons, and left alone.
XIII
VICTORY: DECEMBER 1, 1581