Читать книгу The Condition of Catholics Under James I - Gerard John - Страница 11

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“On another occasion they examined me, and all the other Catholics that were confined in the same prison with me, in a public place called Guildhall, where Topcliffe and several other Commissioners were present. When they had put their usual questions, and received from me the usual answers, they came to the point, intending, I imagine, to sound us all as to our feelings towards the State, or else to entrap us in some expressions about the State that might be made matter of accusation. They asked me, then, whether I acknowledged the Queen as the true Governor and Queen of England.

[pg lxxxv]

“I answered: ‘I do acknowledge her as such.’

“ ‘What,’ said Topcliffe, ‘in spite of Pius V.'s excommunication?’

“I answered: ‘I acknowledge her as our Queen, notwithstanding I know there is such an excommunication.’

“The fact was, I knew that the operation of that excommunication had been suspended for all in England by a declaration of the Pontiff, till such time as its execution became possible.

“Topcliffe proceeded: ‘What would you do in case the Pope sent an army into England, asserting that the object was solely to bring back the kingdom to the Catholic religion, and protesting that there was no other way left of introducing the Catholic faith, and, moreover, commanding all in virtue of his Apostolical authority to aid his cause? Whose side would you then take, the Pope's or the Queen's?’

“I saw the malicious man's cunning, and that his aim was, that whichever way I answered I might injure myself, either in soul or body; and so I worded my reply thus: ‘I am a true Catholic, and a true subject of the Queen. If, then, this were to happen, which is unlikely, and which I think will never be the case, I would act as became a true Catholic and a true subject.’

“ ‘Nay, nay,’ said he; ‘answer positively and to the point.’

“ ‘I have declared my mind,’ said I, ‘and no other answer will I make.’

“On this he flew into a most violent rage, and vomited out a torrent of curses; and ended by saying: ‘You think you will creep to kiss the Cross this year; but before the time comes, I will take good care you do no such thing.’

“He meant to intimate, in the abundance of his charity, that he would take care I should go to Heaven by the rope before that time. But he had not been admitted into the secrets of God's sanctuary, and did not know my great unworthiness. Though God had permitted him to execute his malice on others, whom the Divine Wisdom knew to be worthy and well prepared, as on Father Southwell and others, whom he pursued to the death, yet no such great mercy of God came to me from his anger. Others indeed, for whom a kingdom was prepared by the Father, were advanced to Heaven by our Lord Jesus [pg lxxxvi] through his means; but this heavenly gift was too great for an angry man to be allowed to bestow on me. However, he was really in some sort a prophet in uttering these words, though he meant them differently from the sense in which they were fulfilled.

“What I have mentioned happened about Christmas. In the following Lent, he himself was thrown into prison for disrespect to the members of the Queen's Council, on an occasion, if I mistake not, when he had pleaded too boldly in behalf of his only son, who had killed a man with his sword in the great hall of the Court of Queen's Bench. This took place about Passion Sunday. We, then, who were in prison for the Faith, seeing our enemy, Aman, about to be hanged on his own gibbet, began to lift up our heads, and to use what liberty we had a little more freely, and we admitted a greater number to the Sacraments, and to assist at the services and holy rites of the Church. Thus it was that on Good Friday a large number of us were together in the room over mine, in fact, all the Catholics in the prison, and a number of others from without. I had gone through all the service, and said all the prayers appointed for the day, up to the point where the Priest has to lay aside his shoes. I had put them off, and had knelt down, and was about to creep towards the Cross and make the triple adoration of it; when, lo! just as I had moved two paces, the head gaoler came and knocked at the door of my room underneath, and as I did not answer from within, he began to batter violently at the door and make a great noise. As soon as I heard it, I knew that the chief gaoler was there, because no other would have ventured to behave in that way to me: so I sent some one to say that I would come directly, and then, instead of going on with the adoration of the material Cross, I hastened to the spiritual cross that God presented to me, and taking off the sacred vestments that I was wearing, I went down with speed, for fear the gaoler might come up after me, and find a number of others, who would thus have been brought into trouble. When he saw me, he said in a loud tone of voice: ‘How comes it that I find you out of your room, when you ought to be kept strictly confined to it?’

“As I knew the nature of the man, I pretended, in reply, to [pg lxxxvii] be angry, that one who professed to be a friend should have come at such a time as that, when, if ever, we were bound to be busy at our prayers.

“ ‘What,’ said he, ‘you were at Mass, were you? I will go and see.’

“ ‘No such thing,’ I said; ‘you seem to know very little of our ways. There is not a single Mass said to-day throughout the whole Church. Go up if you like; but understand that, if you do, neither I nor any one of the Catholics will ever pay anything for our rooms. You may put us all, if you like, in the common prison of the poor who do not pay. But you will be no gainer by that; whereas, if you act in a friendly way with us, and do not come upon us unawares in this manner, you will not find us ungrateful, as you have not found us hitherto.’

“He softened down a little at this; and then I said: ‘What have you come for now, I pray.’

“ ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘to greet you from Master Topcliffe.’

“ ‘From him?’ I said; ‘and how is it that he and I are such great friends? Is he not in such a prison? He cannot do anything against me just now, I fancy.’

“ ‘No,’ said the gaoler, ‘he cannot. But he really sends to greet you. When I visited him to-day, he asked me how you were. I replied that you were very well. “But he does not bear his imprisonment,” said Master Topcliffe, “as patiently as I do mine. I would have you greet him, then, in my name, and tell him what I have said.” So I have come now for the purpose of repeating his message to you.’

“ ‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘Now tell him from me, that by the grace of God I willingly bear my imprisonment for the cause of the Faith, and I could wish his cause were the same.’

“Thereupon the gaoler went away, rating his servant, however, for not having kept me more closely confined. And thus Topcliffe really accomplished what he had promised, having checked me in the very act of adoration, although without thinking of what he said, and with another intent at the time. Thus was Saul among the prophets. However, he did not prevent my going up again and completing what I had begun.

“The man who had charge of my room would not do anything [pg lxxxviii] in our rooms without my leave. And after my first gaoler, who soon died, the others who succeeded were well disposed to oblige me. One of them, who had the gaolership by inheritance, I made a Catholic. He immediately gave up his post and sold the right of succession, and became the attendant of a Catholic gentleman, a friend of mine, and afterwards accompanied his son to Italy, and got a vocation to the Religious state. At present he is a prisoner in the very prison where he had been my gaoler. The next who had the charge of me after him, being a married man with children, was kept by fear of poverty from becoming a Catholic; but yet he was afterwards so attached to myself and all our friends, that he received us into his own house, and sometimes concealed there such Catholics as were more sorely pressed than others by the persecution. And when I was to be got out of the Tower of London, with serious risk to all who aided the enterprise, he himself in person was one of the three who exposed themselves to such great danger. And although he was nearly drowned the first night of the attempt, he rowed the boat the next night as before, as I shall hereafter relate. For not long after what I just now mentioned, I was removed from that prison to the Tower of London; the occasion of which was the following.”