Tanzey. _Tanacetum vulgare._
Dedicated to _St. Philip Beniti_.
~August 24.~
_St. Bartholomew_, Apostle. _The Martyrs of Utica_, A. D. 258. _St.
Ouen_, or _Audoen_, Abp. A. D. 683. _St. Irchard_, or _Erthad_, Bp.
_St. Bartholomew the Apostle._
Mr. Audley says, “There is no scriptural account of his birth, labour,
or death. It is commonly said, he preached in the Indies, and was flayed
alive by order of Astyages, brother to Palemon, king of Armenia. I have
heard this day called black Bartholomew. The reason, I suppose, for this
appellation is, on account of the two thousand ministers who were
ejected on this day, by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662. As it respects
France, there is a shocking propriety in the epithet, for the horrid
Massacre of the Protestants commenced on this day, in the reign of
Charles IX. In Paris only, ten thousand were butchered in a fortnight,
and ninety thousand in the provinces, making, together, one hundred
thousand. This, at least, is the calculation of Perefixe, tutor to Louis
XIV. and archbishop of Paris: others reduce the number much lower.”[264]
The “Perennial Calendar” quotes, that--“In that savage scene, the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, planned with all the coolness of
deliberation, five hundred gentlemen, protestants, and ten thousand
persons of inferior rank were massacred in one night at Paris alone, and
great numbers in the provinces. The Roman pontiff, on hearing of it,
expressed great joy, announcing that the cardinals should return thanks
to the Almighty for so signal an advantage obtained for the holy see,
and that a jubilee should be observed all over Christendom.” Dr. Forster
adds, that “nothing like this scene occurred till the bloody and
terrible times of the French Revolution. It is shocking to reflect that
persons professing a religion which says, ‘Love your enemies, do good to
them that despitefully use you,’ should persecute and slay those whose
only offence is difference of opinion. ‘The Quakers and Moravians seem
to be almost the only Christian sects of any note and character whose
annals are unstained by the blood of their fellow-creatures, and who
have not resorted to persecution in defence and promulgation of their
particular doctrines. Must we, therefore, not judge a good tree from
this distinguished good fruit?’”
* * * * *
It was an ancient custom at Croyland Abbey, until the time of Edward IV.
to give little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew’s day, in
allusion to the knife wherewith Bartholomew was flead. Many of these
knives of various sizes have been found in the ruins of the abbey, and
the river. A coat borne by the religious fraternity of the abbey,
quarters three of them, with three whips of St. Guthlac, a scourge
celebrated for the virtue of its flagellations. These are engraved by
Mr. Gough in his history of Croyland Abbey, from drawings in the minute
books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers, he says, one was
preserved, and these form a device in a town piece called the “Poore’s
Halfepeny of Croyland, 1670.”
_St. Ouen._
He was in great credit with king Clotaire II. and his successor Dagobert
I. of France, who made him keeper of his seal and chancellor, and he
became archbishop of Rouen, in Normandy. Butler refers to a long history
of miracles performed by the intercession and relics of St. Ouen. The
shrine of this saint, at Rouen, had a privilege which was very enviable;
it could once in a year procure the pardon of one criminal condemned to
death in the prisons of that city: the criminal touched it, and pardon
was immediate.
In all civilized countries justice has been tempered with mercy; and,
where the life could not be spared, the pain of the punishment has been
mitigated. Wine mingled with myrrh was known amongst the Jews for this
purpose, and was offered to the Saviour of mankind by the very persons
who hurried him on to his painful and ignominious death. In many cities
of Italy a condemned criminal is visited by the first nobility the night
before his execution, and supplied with every dainty in meat and in
drink that he can desire; and some years ago, in the parish of St.
Giles in the Fields, wine mixed with spices was presented to the poor
condemned wretches in that part of their progress from Newgate to
Tyburn.[265]
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