Saint Robert
Southwell, prêtre et martyr
Aristocrate né en 1561 dans le Norfolk,
Robert est envoyé au collège en exil de Douai, bien que son père se soit adapté
à la nouvelle situation religieuse anglaise. De là, il entre au collège de
Clermont, à Paris où il rencontre des jésuites parmi lesquels Thomas
Darbyshire. Il demande à entrer dans la Compagnie de Jésus, mais comme on
diffère de le recevoir, il se rend à pied à Rome où il est admis dans la
Compagnie en 1578. Il y est ordonné en 1584 et, malgré son jeune âge, envoyé
pour la mission anglaise dès 1586. Pendant six ans et sachant bien qu’il risque
la peine de mort, il déploie un ministère très actif à partir de Londres,
diffusant anonymement lettres et poèmes qui exercèrent une réelle influence sur
la littérature de l’époque. Echappant sans cesse à la vigilance de ceux qui le
traquent, il devient une légende vivante. Finalement découvert en juin 1592, il
est incarcéré à la tour de Londres puis transféré à la prison de Newgate. Il
est si cruellement torturé pendant trois ans que son père implore vainement la
mort de son fils auprès de la reine Elisabeth. Enfin condamné à mort le 20
février 1595, il est conduit le lendemain à Tyburn Hill où il est autorisé à
parler à la foule : il déclare alors prier pour le salut de la reine et de
son pays. Il est pendu alors qu’il recommande son âme à Dieu et lorsque sa tête
est brandie devant la foule, personne n’ose crier "traître !",
selon l’usage.
SOURCE : http://www.paroisse-saint-aygulf.fr/index.php/prieres-et-liturgie/saints-par-mois/icalrepeat.detail/2015/02/21/12891/-/saint-robert-southwell-pretre-et-martyr
Saint Robert Southwell
prêtre de la
Compagnie de Jésus et martyr en Angleterre (✝ 1595)
Canonisé le 25 octobre 1970 par le pape Paul VI pour représenter les catholiques martyrisés en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles entre 1535 et 1679.
À Londres, en 1595, saint Robert Southwell, prêtre de la Compagnie de Jésus et martyr. Après huit ans de ministère clandestin dans la ville et les alentours, auteur de divers ouvrages et de poésies spirituelles, il fut arrêté, emprisonné à la Tour de Londres, soumis au moins neuf fois à la torture et, après trois ans, condamné à mort comme prêtre et pendu à Tyburn.
Saint Robert Southwell
Le P. Robert Southwell (1561-1595) était un des nombreux poètes anglais, mais aussi un des martyrs anglais les plus célèbres. Il a été exécuté pendant le règne de la reine Elisabeth I.
Il était né dans une famille aisée, et se rendit sur le continent pour étudier dans une école catholique. En mai 1576 il s’inscrivit au Collège Anglais de Douai en Flandre; plus tard il alla étudier à Paris où il fit la connaissance du P. jésuite Thomas Darbyshire. Southwell demanda d’entrer dans la Compagnie, mais il a été refusé, d’abord parce qu’il était trop jeune, et ensuite parce que le noviciat était fermé à cause de combats dans les environs. Avec une grande détermination le jeune anglais a marché jusqu’à Rome, où il a été accepté au noviciat de Sant Andrea en 1578. Il étudia la philosophie et la théologie au Collège Romain et fut ordonné en 1584. Pendant les 2 années qui suivirent, il fut préfet des études au Collège Anglais à Rome et aida à préparer des hommes à devenir prêtres pour l’Angleterre. Finalement il a été désigné pour la mission dans son pays natal et quitta Rome le 8 mai 1586 en même temps que le P. Garnet.
Les deux jésuites débarquèrent sur une côte isolée, pour éviter l’arrestation dans un port. Le P. Southwell fut désigné pour exercer son ministère dans et autour de Londres. Il vécut d’abord dans la famille Vaux et ensuite chez la Comtesse d’Arundel, dont le mari Sir Philip Howard était détenu dans la Tour parce qu’il était catholique. Le ministère du P. Southwell comprenait aussi la visite d’une douzaine de prisons situées dans la ville et d’aider des prêtres qui venaient de rentrer au pays. Quand le P. Garnet, son compagnon de voyage, arriva aussi à Londres, le P. Southwell se mit à visiter les catholiques des comtés des environs. Il aida aussi à imprimer des catéchismes catholiques et d’autres livres de dévotion, imprimés sur une presse secrète, créée par le P. Garnet; c’était la seule source de littérature catholique dont disposaient les catholiques anglais. Le P. Southwell rassembla plusieurs lettres qu’il avait écrites à Sir Philip pour l’encourager, et elles ont été publiées sous le titre de «Une lettre de réconfort»
Pendant 6 années de ministère fertile il put travailler, jusqu’au jour où il a été trahi par une femme catholique, qui avait été forcée de tendre un piège au jésuite. Il s’agit de Anne Bellamy qui avait été emprisonnée parce qu’elle refusait d’assister à des services protestants. Elle avait été rendue enceinte par un certain Richard Topcliffe, un chasseur de prêtres connu pour torturer ses prisonniers. Topcliffe lui promit de l’épouser et d’obtenir le pardon pour sa famille si elle réussissait à convaincre le P. Southwell de se rendre à un endroit où un piège lui serait tendu. Quand elle sortit de prison, elle écrivit au P. Southwell pour lui demander de la rencontrer à la maison de ses parents. Le P. Southwell s’y rendit, pensant qu’elle désirait recevoir les sacrements. Au lieu de cela, il y était attendu par Topcliffe et ses hommes, mais il réussit à se glisser dans une chambre secrète avant qu’ils ne réussissent à s’emparer de lui, mais finalement il se livra plutôt que d’impliquer la famille.
Topcliffe se réjouit grandement d’avoir capturé le P. Southwell, qu’il considérait comme la plus grande prise de sa carrière. Celui-ci fut amené enchaîné à la résidence de Topcliffe près de la prison de Gatehouse et enfermé dans la chambre à torture privée que Topcliffe y possédait. Plusieurs jours de tortures cruelles ne purent forcer le P. Southwell à révéler un seul nom d’un catholique ou d’un prêtre. Il resta ferme dans son refus, malgré 13 séances de tortures; finalement ses bourreaux l’enfermèrent parmi les indigents, où il était exposé au froid, à la faim et à la soif. Son père réussit à lui rendre visite dans cette prison des indigents et fut horrifié à la vue de l’état dans lequel se trouvait son fils. Il supplia la reine de le traiter comme le gentleman qu’il était : soit de le relâcher, soit de le condamner à mort. La reine autorisa son transfert à la Tour, où il était mieux traité, mais ne pouvait recevoir aucune visite. Il continua, par ailleurs, à écrire des poèmes qui exprimaient ses sentiments les plus profonds et qui furent rassemblé plus tard et publiés sous le titre de ‘La plainte de St Pierre’.
Pendant 2½ ans le P. Southwell a enduré l’isolement de son emprisonnement, finalement il adressa une pétition à Lord Burghley pour que, soit on le relâche, soit on lui autorise des visites, soit on le juge. On lui accorda la dernière demande et il a été jugé le 20 février 1595 à Westminster Hall. Il admit sans peine qu’il était prêtre catholique, mais nia toute participation à un complot contre la reine. On le jugea coupable de haute trahison et il a été exécuté le jour suivant. Pour le trajet de 3 heures jusqu’à Tyburn, on l’attacha à une claie et le traîna par les rues jusqu’au gibet. Comme le nœud coulant de la corde était mal placé il ne mourut pas de suite quand la charrette s’éloigna. Le bourreau eut pitié de lui et se pendit à ses pieds pour terminer son agonie. Il avait 34 ans, et fut ensuite décapité et écartelé.
D'autres martyrs d’Angleterre
Initialement regroupé et édité par: Tom Rochford, SJ
Traducteur: Guy Verhaegen
Saint Robert Southwell
prêtre de la
Compagnie de Jésus et martyr en Angleterre (✝ 1595)
Né en 1561 dans le
Norfolk en Angleterre, poète jésuite ayant étudié en France et à Rome, ordonné
en 1585, il devient préfet des études du collège anglais de Rome. De retour en
Angleterre en 1586 comme missionnaire au moment de la persécution, il est arrêté
en 1592, torturé, il est jugé en 1595 et condamné à être pendu à Tyburg.
Canonisé le 25 octobre 1970 par le pape Paul VI pour représenter les catholiques martyrisés en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles entre 1535 et 1679.
À Londres, en 1595, saint Robert Southwell, prêtre de la Compagnie de Jésus et martyr. Après huit ans de ministère clandestin dans la ville et les alentours, auteur de divers ouvrages et de poésies spirituelles, il fut arrêté, emprisonné à la Tour de Londres, soumis au moins neuf fois à la torture et, après trois ans, condamné à mort comme prêtre et pendu à Tyburn.
Martyrologe
romain
Le P. Robert Southwell (1561-1595) était un des nombreux poètes anglais, mais aussi un des martyrs anglais les plus célèbres. Il a été exécuté pendant le règne de la reine Elisabeth I.
Il était né dans une famille aisée, et se rendit sur le continent pour étudier dans une école catholique. En mai 1576 il s’inscrivit au Collège Anglais de Douai en Flandre; plus tard il alla étudier à Paris où il fit la connaissance du P. jésuite Thomas Darbyshire. Southwell demanda d’entrer dans la Compagnie, mais il a été refusé, d’abord parce qu’il était trop jeune, et ensuite parce que le noviciat était fermé à cause de combats dans les environs. Avec une grande détermination le jeune anglais a marché jusqu’à Rome, où il a été accepté au noviciat de Sant Andrea en 1578. Il étudia la philosophie et la théologie au Collège Romain et fut ordonné en 1584. Pendant les 2 années qui suivirent, il fut préfet des études au Collège Anglais à Rome et aida à préparer des hommes à devenir prêtres pour l’Angleterre. Finalement il a été désigné pour la mission dans son pays natal et quitta Rome le 8 mai 1586 en même temps que le P. Garnet.
Les deux jésuites débarquèrent sur une côte isolée, pour éviter l’arrestation dans un port. Le P. Southwell fut désigné pour exercer son ministère dans et autour de Londres. Il vécut d’abord dans la famille Vaux et ensuite chez la Comtesse d’Arundel, dont le mari Sir Philip Howard était détenu dans la Tour parce qu’il était catholique. Le ministère du P. Southwell comprenait aussi la visite d’une douzaine de prisons situées dans la ville et d’aider des prêtres qui venaient de rentrer au pays. Quand le P. Garnet, son compagnon de voyage, arriva aussi à Londres, le P. Southwell se mit à visiter les catholiques des comtés des environs. Il aida aussi à imprimer des catéchismes catholiques et d’autres livres de dévotion, imprimés sur une presse secrète, créée par le P. Garnet; c’était la seule source de littérature catholique dont disposaient les catholiques anglais. Le P. Southwell rassembla plusieurs lettres qu’il avait écrites à Sir Philip pour l’encourager, et elles ont été publiées sous le titre de «Une lettre de réconfort»
Pendant 6 années de ministère fertile il put travailler, jusqu’au jour où il a été trahi par une femme catholique, qui avait été forcée de tendre un piège au jésuite. Il s’agit de Anne Bellamy qui avait été emprisonnée parce qu’elle refusait d’assister à des services protestants. Elle avait été rendue enceinte par un certain Richard Topcliffe, un chasseur de prêtres connu pour torturer ses prisonniers. Topcliffe lui promit de l’épouser et d’obtenir le pardon pour sa famille si elle réussissait à convaincre le P. Southwell de se rendre à un endroit où un piège lui serait tendu. Quand elle sortit de prison, elle écrivit au P. Southwell pour lui demander de la rencontrer à la maison de ses parents. Le P. Southwell s’y rendit, pensant qu’elle désirait recevoir les sacrements. Au lieu de cela, il y était attendu par Topcliffe et ses hommes, mais il réussit à se glisser dans une chambre secrète avant qu’ils ne réussissent à s’emparer de lui, mais finalement il se livra plutôt que d’impliquer la famille.
Topcliffe se réjouit grandement d’avoir capturé le P. Southwell, qu’il considérait comme la plus grande prise de sa carrière. Celui-ci fut amené enchaîné à la résidence de Topcliffe près de la prison de Gatehouse et enfermé dans la chambre à torture privée que Topcliffe y possédait. Plusieurs jours de tortures cruelles ne purent forcer le P. Southwell à révéler un seul nom d’un catholique ou d’un prêtre. Il resta ferme dans son refus, malgré 13 séances de tortures; finalement ses bourreaux l’enfermèrent parmi les indigents, où il était exposé au froid, à la faim et à la soif. Son père réussit à lui rendre visite dans cette prison des indigents et fut horrifié à la vue de l’état dans lequel se trouvait son fils. Il supplia la reine de le traiter comme le gentleman qu’il était : soit de le relâcher, soit de le condamner à mort. La reine autorisa son transfert à la Tour, où il était mieux traité, mais ne pouvait recevoir aucune visite. Il continua, par ailleurs, à écrire des poèmes qui exprimaient ses sentiments les plus profonds et qui furent rassemblé plus tard et publiés sous le titre de ‘La plainte de St Pierre’.
Pendant 2½ ans le P. Southwell a enduré l’isolement de son emprisonnement, finalement il adressa une pétition à Lord Burghley pour que, soit on le relâche, soit on lui autorise des visites, soit on le juge. On lui accorda la dernière demande et il a été jugé le 20 février 1595 à Westminster Hall. Il admit sans peine qu’il était prêtre catholique, mais nia toute participation à un complot contre la reine. On le jugea coupable de haute trahison et il a été exécuté le jour suivant. Pour le trajet de 3 heures jusqu’à Tyburn, on l’attacha à une claie et le traîna par les rues jusqu’au gibet. Comme le nœud coulant de la corde était mal placé il ne mourut pas de suite quand la charrette s’éloigna. Le bourreau eut pitié de lui et se pendit à ses pieds pour terminer son agonie. Il avait 34 ans, et fut ensuite décapité et écartelé.
D'autres martyrs d’Angleterre
Initialement regroupé et édité par: Tom Rochford, SJ
Traducteur: Guy Verhaegen
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Robert Southwell, SJ M (RM)
Born at
Horsham Saint Faith's, Norfolk, England, in 1561 or 1562; died at Tyburn,
London, England, February 21, 1595; beatified in 1929; canonized on October 25,
1970, by Pope Paul VI as one of the 40 representative martyrs of England and
Wales.
The Church has been
built on the blood of martyrs--the living stones. Before there were cathedrals,
there were the catacombs; since then objects of value have been piled about our
altars, but the most precious is contained beneath each altar in the mandatory
"tomb"--the shrine with the relics of a martyr--and upon the tomb the
chalice with the precious Blood of Christ. We would do well to recall the many
previous Masses that were celebrated in haste and secrecy--for us, like the
martyrs, each Mass might be the viaticum. Receive the Source of Life with joy,
attention, and thanksgiving.
When King Henry VIII could not
induce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, to allow their marriage to be declared
invalid because she was his brother's widow, Henry declared himself head of the
Church in England. He persuaded the Parliament to declare that it was high
treason for anyone to deny Henry's right to this title. On this account
monasteries were closed and Church property confiscated--both real and
monetary, including the innumerable foundations designed to maintain schools
for the people, who were largely illiterate. A long procession of saints and
beati were executed under Henry VIII.
(Of course, we should always
remember that Roman Catholics are not alone in being persecuted. While the
English kings and queens hanged and quartered Catholics, Protestants were
burned in France and Spain. There was the difference that Protestants in Spain
and France were trying to destroy the ancient traditions of the people, while
Catholicism in England did not show itself incompatible with the order of
society.)
Robert Southwell's lineage included
most of the country gentry of Suffolk and Norfolk, but his father Richard was
born on the wrong side of the sheets though his grandfather, also Richard, did
eventually marry Robert's grandmother, a poor relation of his first wife.
Richard Southwell, Sr., had been a
courtier to Henry VIII and received his share of the booty from the pillaging
of monasteries, including the ancient Benedictine priory of Horsham Saint
Faith. Richard changed his political and religious affiliations a few times
during the reigns of Edward and Mary of Scotland. The saint's father had
married Queen Elizabeth's governess; thus, Richard Senior's grandson Robert was
born in the old Benedictine priory.
Robert is the mystic among the
English martyrs, though circumstances made him a man of action and bold
adventure. Fire, sweetness, purity, and gentleness were features of Robert
Southwell's nature.
Once as a child, he was stolen by
gypsies, who were numerous in the great woods surrounding Saint Faith's. His
nurse found him again. Robert referred to this misadventure often. "What
had I remained with the gipsy? How abject, how void of all knowledge and
reverence of God! In what shameful vices, in how great danger of infamy, in how
certain danger of an unhappy death and eternal punishment!" On his return
to England as a missionary, the first person he visited was his old nurse, whom
he tried to lead back to the Roman Catholic Church.
His father sent him to Douai to be
educated by the Jesuits, either because he was a Catholic at that time or
because of the reputation of the order's schools. There Robert met John Cotton,
who later operated a safehouse in London.
Robert was inspired with intense
enthusiasm for the Society of Jesus and begged entry at once, though he was too
young. He was bitterly disappointed, but on the feast of Saint Faith
(fortuitously on October 17, 1578) he was received into the order in Rome as a
novice. He spent his novitiate in Tournai, but took his vows and, in 1584, was
ordained to the priesthood in Rome, where for a time he was prefect in the
English College.
At this time he began to attract a
good deal of attention by his poems. He corresponded with Mr. Parsons, the
leader of the Jesuit mission in England. He was worried that many who had been
faithful Catholics were now sliding into the Church of England to avoid the
fine for every service from which they absented themselves. Many families held
out until they were financially ruined; then they would attempt to make their
way to the continent and live on alms.
Though Robert Southwell knew how
his journey to England would end, with Father Henry Garnet, he returned in 1586
to serve among those Catholics who were still willing to venture life and
welfare by hearing a Mass and receiving the Sacraments. Before his departure he
wrote to the general of hte Jesuits, Claudius Acquaviva, "I address you,
my Father, from the threshold of death, imploring the aid of your prayers . . .
that I may either escape the death of the body for further use, or endure it
with courage."
Most of the remaining Catholics
were to be found in the countryside. Most were content to long for better days
and hope that a priest could be smuggled into their sickroom before their
deaths. On the other hand, among the actively militant there was a wonderful
cohesion and a mutual helpfulness and affection that recalled the days of the
primitive Church. But thes little congregations that assembled before dawn in a
secret room of some remote manor house never knew if a traitor might be in
their midst.
Southwell rode about the
countryside in disguise, saying Mass, hearing confessions, celebrating
marriages, baptizing, re-admitting apostates, giving the Sacraments to the
dying. He even managed to visit Catholics in prison and say Mass there. Time
after time he miraculously managed to elude his pursuers.
Much of Southwell's correspondence
during this period has been preserved and provides many insights into the
events and attitudes of hte period. These were hard times. In one letter he
requests permission to consecrate chalices and altar slabs (usually reserved to
the bishop)--so much had been taken away in the constant searching of the homes
of Catholics that such things were becoming scarce.
His letters home also reveal
Robert's anxiety about the salvation of his father and one of his brothers,
Thomas. The soul of the poet is evident when he writes his brother:
"Shrine not any longer a dead soul in a living body: bail reason out of
senses' prison, that after so long a bondage in sin, you may enjoy your former
liberty in God's Church, and free your thought from servile awe of uncertain
perils. . . . Weigh with yourself at how easy a price you rate God, Whom you
are content to sell for hte use of your substance. . . . Look if you can upon a
crucifix without blushing; do not but count the five wounds of Christ once over
without a bleeding conscience."
Thomas was won back to the faith
and died in exile in the Netherlands. His father died in prison after Robert's
martyrdom, but it is unknown whether he, too, suffered for the faith.
As chronicled in Robert's letters,
the persecution intensified after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Captured
Catholics used their trials in defense of the faith. Robert tried to remain at
large for as long as possible by adopting disguises and using the alias of Mr.
Cotton--a poor, unkempt, and socially awkward young man.
Robert was a priest in London from
1584 to 1592. About 1590, Robert Southwell became chaplain to Anne, countess of
Arundel, wife of the imprisoned Saint Philip Howard, who was being told lies
about her now-faithful husband. To Southwell, Earl Philip wrote from prison
that his greatest sorrow was that he would never see his wife again. "I
call Our Lord to witness that as no sin grieves me so much as my offenses to
that party [Anne], so no worldly things makes me loather to depart hence than
that I cannot live to make that party satisfaction, according to my most ardent
and affectionate desire. Afflictio dat intellectum (affliction gives
understanding)."
During the time that Fr. Southwell
was concealed in Arundel House in London, he corresponded with Philip Howard
because of their mutual affection for Anne Dacre and because of their shared
faith and shared interest in poetry. Southwell holds a place in English
literature as a religious poet. Ben Jonson remarked to Drummond that
"Southwell was hanged, yet so he [Jonson] had written that piece of his
'The Burning Babe' he would have been content to destroy many of his."
Many of Southwell's poems, apologetic tracts, and devotional books were
published on a private printing press installed at Arundel House.
At Arundel House, the soon-to-be
martyr also found himself often lost in mystical experiences that are later
revealed in his poetry. There is an unforgettable power in his poetic image of
Christ as the unwearied God throughout eternity supporting the earth on His
fingertip and enclosing all creation in the hollow of His hand, but Who, in His
humanity, breaks down and falls beneath the weight of a single person's sin.
Robert Southwell was betrayed by
Anne Bellamy. After giving her absolution during her confinement with a family
in Holborn, he told her that he would offer Mass in the secret room in her
father Richard's home in Harrow on June 20, 1592. She reported this to Richard
Topcliffe, one of the most notorious for hunting down priests. Robert Southwell
was arrested while still wearing his vestments. Southwell was immediately
tortured upon arrival at Topcliffe's Westminster home--for two days he was hung
up by the wrists against a wall, so that he could barely touch the floor with
the tips of his toes.
When he was at the point of death,
his tormentors revived him, hung him up again, and prodded him to reveal the
names of other priests and for information to condemn Lady Arundel. All he
would confess was that he was a Jesuit priest. He gave no information, not even
the color of the horse on which he had riden, that would allow them to find
other Catholics. Southwell's steadfastness led several of the witnesses,
including the Treasurer Sir Robert Cecil, to whisper that he must indeed be a
saint.
He was taken from Topcliffe's house
to a filthy cell in the Gatehouse and left for a month. His father, seeing him
covered with lice, begged the queen to treat his son as the gentleman he was.
She obliged by having Southwell moved to a cleaner cell and permitting his
father to send him clean clothes and other necessities, including a Bible and
the writings of Saint Bernard.
Robert Southwell was moved to the
Tower of London, where he was imprisoned for three years and tortured 13 times
(according to Cecil). Many of his poems on death, including "Saint Peter's
Complaint," were written in the Tower. Not once was he given the
opportunity to confess his sins or say Mass.
He was allowed only one visit--from
his sister. Communication with Saint Philip Howard was limited to notes
smuggled between their cells. Because Arundel's dog would sometimes follow the
warder into Southwell's cell, the lieutenant of the Tower mocked that he
supposed the dog had gone to get the priest's blessing. Howard replied,
"Marry! it is no news for irrational creatures to seek blessings at the
hands of holy men. Saint Jerome writes how those lions which had digged with
their paws Saint Paul the Hermit's grave stood after waiting with their eyes upon
Saint Antony expecting his blessing."
Finally, Southwell entreated Cecil
to bring him to trial or permit him visitors. To which Cecil answered, "if
he was in so much haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire."
Shortly thereafter he was taken to Newgate Prison and placed in the underground
dungeon called Limbo before being brought to trial at Westminster on February
20, 1595. He was condemned for being a priest. When the Lord Chief Justice
Popham offered the services of an Anglican priest to prepare him for death, he
declined saying that the grace ofGod would be more than sufficient for him.
Like many martyrs before him,
Southwell drew the admiration of the crowds because he walked as though he
whole being were filled with happiness at the prospect of being executed the
next day. On the morrow, the tall, slight man of light brown hair and beard was
taken to the "Tyburn Tree," a gallows, where the custom was for the
condemned to be drive underneath the gallows in a cart, a rope secured around
his neck, and the cart driven from under him. According to the sentence, the
culprit would hang until he was dead or cut down before reaching that point.
Standing in the cart, Father
Southwell began preaching on Romans 14: "Whether we live, we live unto the
Lord: or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or
whether we die, we are the Lord's. . . . I am brought hither to perform the
last act of this miserable life, and . . . I do most humbly desire at the hands
of Almighty God for our Savior Jesus' sake, that He would vouchsafe to pardon
and forgive all my sins. . . ." He acknowledged that he was a Catholic
priest and declared that he never intended harm or evil against the queen, but
always prayed for her. He end with "In manus tuas, Domine (into Your
hands, Lord), I commend my spirit." Contrary to the sentence, he was dead
before he was cut down and quartered (Benedictines, Delaney, Undset).
Venerable Robert
Southwell
Poet, Jesuit, martyr; born at Horsham St.
Faith's, Norfolk, England, in 1561; hanged at
Tyburn, 21 February, 1595. His grandfather, Sir Richard Southwell, had been a
wealthy man and a prominent courtier in the reign of Henry VIII. It was Richard Southwell who in
1547 had brought the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, to the block, and
Surrey had vainly begged to be allowed to "fight him in his shirt".
Curiously enough their respective grandsons, Father Southwell and Philip, Earl of Arundel, were to be the most
devoted of friends and fellow-prisoners for the Faith. On his mother's side the Jesuit was descended from the Copley and Shelley families, whence a remote connexion may be
established between him and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Robert Southwell was
brought up a Catholic, and at a very early
age was sent to be educated at Douai, where he was the pupil
in philosophy of a Jesuit of extraordinary austerity of life, the famous Leonard Lessius. After spending a short
time in Paris he begged for admission into the Society of Jesus--a boon at first
denied. This disappointment elicited from the boy of seventeen some passionate
laments, the first of his verses of which we have record. On 17 Oct., 1578,
however, he was admitted at Rome, and made his simple vows in 1580. Shortly after his noviceship, during which he was
sent to Tournai, he returned to Rome to finish his studies, was ordained priest in 1584, and became prefect of studies in the English College. In 1586
he was sent on the English mission with Father Henry Garnett, found his first refuge
with Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and was known under the name of Cotton.
Two years afterwards he became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel and thus established relations with her imprisoned husband, Philip, Earl of Arundel, the ancestor of the
present ducal house of Norfolk, as well as with Lady Margaret Sackville, the
earl's half-sister. Father Southwell's prose elegy, "Triumphs over
Death", was addressed to the earl to console him for this sister's
premature death, and his "Hundred Meditations on the love of God",
originally written for her use, were ultimately transcribed by another hand, to
present to her daughter Lady Beauchamp. Some six years were spent in zealous and successful missionary work, during which Father Southwell lay hidden
in London, or passed under various disguises
from one Catholic house to another. For his better protection he affected an interest in
the pursuits of the country gentlemen of his day (metaphors taken from hawking
are common in his writings), but his attire was always sober and his tastes
simple. His character was singularly gentle, and he has never been accused of
taking any part either in political intrigues or in religious disputes of a
more domestic kind. In 1592 Father Southwell was arrested at Uxendon Hall,
Harrow, through the treachery of an unfortunate Catholic girl, Anne Bellamy, the daughter of the owner of the house. The notorious Topcliffe, who effected the capture, wrote exultingly to the queen:
"I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly used". But the
atrocious cruelties to which Southwell was subjected did not shake his fortitude. He was examined thirteen times
under torture by members of the Council, and was long confined in a dungeon
swarming with vermin. After nearly three years in prison he was brought to trial and the usual punishment of hanging and
quartering was inflicted.
Father Southwell's writings, both
in prose and verse, were extremely popular with his contemporaries, and his
religious pieces were sold openly by the booksellers though their authorship
was known. Imitations abounded, and Ben Jonson declared of one of Southwell's
pieces, "The Burning Babe", that to have written it he would readily
forfeit many of his own poems. "Mary Magdalene's Tears", the Jesuit's earliest work, licensed in 1591, probably represents a deliberate
attempt to employ in the cause of piety the euphuistic prose style, then so popular. "Triumphs over
Death", also in prose, exhibits the same characteristics; but this
artificiality of structure is not so marked in the "Short Rule of Good
Life", the "Letter to His Father", the "Humble Supplication
to Her Majesty", the "Epistle of Comfort" and the "Hundred
Meditations". Southwell's longest poem, "St. Peter's Complaint"
(132 six-line stanzas), is imitated, though not closely, from the Italian
"Lagrime di S. Pietro" of Luigi Tansillo. This with some other
smaller pieces was printed, with license, in 1595, the year of his death.
Another volume of short poems appeared later in the same year under the title
of "Maeoniae". The early editions of these are scarce, and some of
them command high prices. A poem called "A Foure-fold Meditation",
which was printed as Southwell's in 1606, is not his, but was written by his
friend the Earl of Arundel. Perhaps no higher
testimony can be found of the esteem in which Southwell's verse was held by his
contemporaries than the fact that, while it is probable that Southwell had read Shakespeare, it is practically certain that Shakespeare had read Southwell and imitated him.
Thurston, Herbert. "Venerable Robert Southwell." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912. 21 Feb. 2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14164a.htm>.
Thurston, Herbert. "Venerable Robert Southwell." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912. 21 Feb. 2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14164a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for
New Advent by Janet Grayson.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of
New York.
St. Robert Southwell: Poet and Martyr
A line that is so
overused that it has almost become trite is Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be.” Yet, it
hits at the existential struggle of the modern world. Hamlet’s struggle
embodies the difficulty of living in a world cut off from its own past. Hamlet
receives a revelation of a great rupture from the past; he is disgusted with
the injustice of the present; he struggles with despair. He does not take his
life, but he does sacrifice it for the honor of his family. Though Shakespeare
understood what was at stake in the rise of Protestantism in England, he
himself confronted the crisis in a manner very different from Hamlet.
Shakespeare knew very well the price of confronting the patricide of England: members
of his own family had been executed for keeping the Faith. One of the members
of his family stood out for his courageous confrontation of Elizabeth’s attack
on the Church: St. Robert Southwell.
Historians such as
Christopher Devlin, S.J., Michael Wood, and John Klaus have argued that
Southwell was Shakespeare’s cousin. While this fact is not noted by Southwell’s
traditional biographers, they do note Shakespeare’s familiarity with and
admiration for Southwell’s writing. The familial link between the two poets was
originally based upon on an inference from the dedication of Southwell’s St.
Peter’s Complaint, “The Author to His Loving Cousin,” which in some later
manuscripts reads rather “To My Worthy Good Cousin Master W.S.” Klaus in his Shakespeare,
the Earl, and the Jesuit provides firm genealogical evidence for this claim
and also establishes a personal convergence of the two figures through their
common friendship with the Earl of Southampton. Regardless of their
personal relation, Southwell’s dedication to his cousin on the duty of poets
hits at the very nature of poetry.
Rather than being used to
express amorous passions, poetry is meant to express praise to God. Poets who
by “abusing their talent” write only about the “feignings of love” discredit
the work of the poet. Wood, in his In Search of Shakespeare, notes this
is meant as a criticism of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and ironically
points out that his next play after the dedication was Midsummer Night’s
Dream. Southwell shows the ultimate power of poetry in that God
Himself “delivered many parts of the Bible in verse.” The poet takes up the
craft in imitation of the Creator, particularly when it is shown “how well
verse and virtue suit together.” In his note to reader which follows, Southwell
echoes this point:
It is the sweetest note
that man can sing
When grace in virtues key tunes nature’s string
Poetry
points the way, but virtue must also be lived. This truth is powerfully
expressed in that “Christ himself, by making an hymn the conclusion of his last
supper, and the prologue to the first pageant of his passion, gave his Spouse a
method to imitate…and to all men a pattern, to know the true use of this
measured style.” Poetry is no game; it is not fulfilled in the expression of
passing passions and emotions. The ultimate duty of the poet is to follow the
divine pattern set forth, not only in verse, but also in deed. In Southwell’s
England, this was no pious remark; it was a challenge to follow Christ to the
end.
Within the context of the
Elizabethan persecution of Catholics, poetry became a powerful force for
expressing the lament of the soul and the expectation of vindication by God.
Both Southwell and Shakespeare responded to the patricidal attack on English
faith and culture in their writings. While Shakespeare kept his Catholic faith
secret throughout his career, Southwell sacrificed everything in the attempt to
make right what was wrong.
Southwell’s life resembles
that of the better-known martyr, Edmond Campion, with the notable exception
that Southwell was raised a Catholic. Both figures studied at Douai, entered
the Jesuits, taught at the English College in Rome, were sent back on mission
to England, served Catholics there through successful clandestine heroics, were
captured and brutally tortured, and finally received a glorious martyrdom at
Tyborne (Feb. 21, 1595 in Southwell’s case). Unlike Campion, whose life itself
shines as one of the glories of English Catholicism (beginning with his
celebrity status at Oxford while still a Protestant), Southwell’s major legacy
is his writing, which was extremely popular in England following his martyrdom.
This is not to dismiss the greatness of his life, seen in his moving support to
his family, convincing them to stop cooperating with Elizabeth’s religious
policies, his long ministry working out of the house of the Countess of
Arundel, and his absolute refusal to say one word of cooperation to his savage
torturers. Yet, it is his poetry, much of which was written in prison, which
masterfully captures the state of spiritual exile of English Catholics during
his time, but also their steadfastness and joy in their faith.
That state of exile is
expressed beautifully in Vale
of Tears, a poem named from a line of the Salve Regina.
The poem is noteworthy for its contemplation of the beauty of nature and for
using the natural images it casts to portray a deeper reality of the spiritual
life. Nature speaks in unbroken beauty and majesty, while an overpowering
feeling of something disjointed and amiss, as in these lines describing the Vale:
Resort there is of none but
pilgrim wights,
That pass with trembling foot and panting heart;
With terror cast in cold and shivering frights,
They judge the place to terror framed by art.
Yet nature’s work it is, of
art untouch’d,
So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye,
With such disorder’d order strangely couch’d,
And with such pleasing horror low and high,
That who it views must needs
remain aghast,
Much at the work, more at the Maker’s might;
And muse how nature such a plot could cast
Where nothing seemeth wrong, yet nothing right.
Southwell used the image of
a deep and foreboding valley to introduce these lines about the brokenness of
the human soul:
All pangs and heavy
passions here may find
A thousand motives suiting to their griefs,
To feed the sorrows of their troubled mind,
And chase away dame Pleasure’s vain reliefs.
To plaining thoughts this
vale a rest may be,
To which from worldly joys they may retire;
Where sorrow springs from water, stone and tree;
Where everything with mourners doth conspire.
Sit here, my soul, main
streams of tears afloat,
Here all thy sinful foils alone recount;
Of solemn tunes make thou the doleful note,
That, by thy ditties, dolour may amount.
While beauty remains in the
world, even after sin, it is no longer unspoilt. The beauty of this world will
always be tinged with sadness, with tears. The soul is truly a pilgrim and
cannot see this world as its home, but rather as a site through which one
passes on the way to the beauty which will truly last.
Southwell’s most famous poem, The Burning Babe, is one in a series of Christmas poems. It was a poem so admired that the playwright Ben Jonson said he would trade all that he had written to have written it himself. Here it is in its entirety:
As I in hoary winter’s
night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorchëd with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
Alas, quoth he, but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defilëd souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callëd unto mind that it was Christmas day.
In this poem, Southwell
fulfills the potential of poetry to serve the praise of God, juxtaposing the
love of Christ with the sins of man.
It is this backdrop which
inspired Shakespeare to take up the poem by Southwell in Macbeth,
possibly his darkest play. Macbeth clearly manifests the satanic forces
of violence destructively at work in society. Using Southwell’s poetry in this
context is an affirmation of Southwell’s poetic vision, the spiritual power of
poetry to give praise even in the context of death and destruction. Macbeth, in
his soliloquy before the murder of the king Duncan, realizes the treachery and
injustice of his contemplated deed, and refers to the pity which it will invoke
in terms of a naked babe:
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
The burning babe, praised
by Southwell, is called upon by Shakespeare as the witness to the treachery and
death of the innocent king and, one might say, to the treachery and death of
all the innocents betrayed for the faith in the usurpation of the old Catholic
way of life.
These two poems represent
the ways in which Southwell saw the power of poetry in Christian life. In Vale
of Tears he captures the beauty of human life, in this case the natural
world, though it is in a state of sorrow and even somewhat in disorder. This
reflects the truth that Christian life is a pilgrimage: even beauty is passing
and human life moves in sorrow toward its goal beyond this world. This message
poignantly captures the state of his native England, where the medieval
tradition of Merry England was turned on its head by the Reformation and where
the faith was systematically persecuted. The Burning Babe passes more
explicitly into the use of poetry of praise of God, which Southwell sees most
perfectly expresses in the psalms. This mode keeps alive the heart of the world
that he saw passing away by expressing the Catholic faith in an artistically
dynamic way.
Southwell, by his life and
even more so by his death, shows us the true duty of a poet. Not only to express
the truth, beauty, and goodness of the world, and their opposites, but also to
embody this truth and to be willing to lay one’s life down on its behalf. The
greatest poetry passes through the created world and into the holiness that
lies beyond, into the poetry of the soul’s loving communication with the
Creator. Southwell shows us how to present, embrace, and defend the
truth, no matter the cost.
February
21, 2013
Saint Robert
Southwell, the martyr who brought beauty to England
The poet priest knew that for Church to survive,
she needed not only Sacraments but an intellectual life and a culture.
There’s a delightful sense of satisfaction that
comes of shattering a useless stereotype. When faced with someone who’s certain
that Christians are weak, milquetoast types, I delight in referencing St.
Gabriel Possenti, who drove an army out of town using the guns he stole from
their holsters. Aquinas and Albert and Augustine obliterate the modern claim
that Christians must all be intellectual lightweights. Really, I don’t think
there’s a single saint who fits nicely in any box the world would like to fashion.
But St. Robert Southwell, a poet, a priest, and a martyr, defies expectations
on every front.
Robert Southwell was born in 1561 in Protestant
England. Though his family was Catholic, their fortune came from a monastery
seized by Henry VIII, and Robert’s father and grandfather both wavered between
Catholicism and Protestantism. Still, Robert was sent to Europe for a Catholic
education when he was 15 and not long after petitioned the Jesuits to accept
him. When he was denied, the gentle and artistic Southwell walked to Rome to
ask more forcefully. His determination paid off and his request was approved.
Ordained at 23, Southwell asked his superiors to
send him to England, a country already running red with the blood of priests.
In the footsteps of St. Edmund Campion, he set off for England as his superior
shook his head, murmuring, “Lambs sent to the slaughter.”
For the next three years, Southwell moved from
house to house reconciling sinners and celebrating Mass. He was then installed
at the home of St. Philip Howard, in prison for his faith and later to be
martyred. Fr. Southwell became the chaplain to Howard’s wife, the countess of
Arundel, while frequently leaving the relative safety of her house to bring
Christ all over England.
Like every hidden priest in England, Southwell knew
that his primary duty was to offer the Sacraments to the faithful. But he had a
particular gift that the Church needed desperately. The purpose of the priests
in England wasn’t just to minister to the souls who were still there but to
maintain a Catholic Church in England. The hope was that one day the
persecutions would subside and the Catholic Church could emerge as something
authentically English, not something foreign introduced from without. In order
for the Church to survive, she needed not only Sacraments but an intellectual
life and a culture. These Southwell could give. Set up with a printing press,
the man some believe was a cousin of William Shakespeare began to write and to
publish both poetry and prose. His work flew to the farthest reaches of the
kingdom, giving hope and joy to recusant Catholics (those who had refused to
abandon their faith) who’d been approaching despair.
We moderns have forgotten the power of art, the
power of literature. We settle for trite films and banal novels, not realizing
that a people starved for beauty will truly starve. Southwell understood this,
and in his poetic genius (a genius still recognized by secular scholars today)
he sustained his people.
But he was a priest before he was a poet and
Southwell spent the six years of his ministry in England celebrating
Sacraments, traveling under cover of darkness, and hiding beneath floorboards
as did the others. Finally he was betrayed and brought before the sadistic
Richard Topcliffe to be broken.
His whole life, Southwell had been a remarkably
handsome man, described as almost feminine in his beauty. Faced with a
delicately beautiful poet, his captors were not expecting to find steel beneath
his soft exterior. But Topcliffe, Elizabeth’s expert torturer, tormented him at
least 13 times and each time was met only with the information that he was a
Jesuit priest who had come to England to preach the Catholic faith and was
willing to die for it. Southwell then spent two and a half years in solitary confinement
in the Tower of London, after which he was finally given a trial of sorts and
sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
St. Robert Southwell was a sensitive man of
strength, a Christian genius, a poet whose art strengthened the failing. But with
all the gifts nature could offer, he longed for only one thing: Christ and him
crucified. He yearned to be martyred, to pour out his blood for the glory of
God, and his request was granted. In death he gained not only the crown of
martyrdom but also an enduring legacy as the poet who reminded English
Catholics of their heritage and strengthened them to endure. On his feast day,
February 21, let’s ask his intercession for an authentic masculinity among
Christians, one that values beauty, wisdom, and sensitivity as well as courage
and strength. St. Robert Southwell, pray for us.
SOURCE : https://aleteia.org/2017/02/16/saint-robert-southwell-the-martyr-who-brought-beauty-to-england/
San Roberto Southwell Sacerdote gesuita, martire
Horsham
Saint Faith, Inghilterra, 1561 - Tyburn, Londra, Inghilterra, 21 febbraio 1595
Martirologio Romano: Sempre a Londra, san Roberto
Southwell, sacerdote della Compagnia di Gesù e martire, che svolse per molti
anni il suo ministero in questa città e nella regione limitrofa e compose inni
spirituali; arrestato per il suo sacerdozio, per ordine della stessa regina fu
torturato con grande crudeltà e a Tyburn coronò il suo martirio con
l’impiccagione.
Il santo oggi festeggiato
appartiene alla folta schiera di martiri cattolici uccisi dagli anglicani in
Inghilterra, proprio al tempo dell’affermazione nell’isola della Chiesa
nazionale nata dallo strappo tra il re Enrico VIII ed il Romano Pontefice. Il
ricordo di questi eroici testimoni della fede non andò perduto e parecchi di
essi sono stati beatificati dai papi tra l’Ottocento ed il Novecento. Una
quarantina di essi sono anche stati canonizzati da Papa Paolo VI il 25 ottobre
1970, tra i quali il personaggio oggetto della presente scheda agiografica.
Robert Southwell nacque nel 1561 a Horsham Saint Faith, nel Norfolk, regione
dell’Inghilterra). In età giovanile fu mandato in Francia per gli studi, poiché
tutte le istituzioni accademiche inglesi erano ormai divenute protestanti:
studiò dunque presso il Collegio Inglese a Douai ed il parigino Collegio di
Clermont. Qui entrò a contatto con i gesuiti e maturò la decisione di entrare
nella Compagnia. L’ammissione gli fu rifiutata a causa dell’età ancor troppo
giovane, ma il Southwell ben lontano dal demordere intraprese a piedi un
pellegrinaggio a Roma, ove fu accolto e poté entrare nel noviziato di
Sant’Andrea il 17 ottobre 1578.
Terminò poi il noviziato a Tournai, in Belgio, ma fece nuovamente ritorno a
Roma per intraprendere gli studi filosofici e teologici. Fu proprio nella
“Città Eterna” che nel 1584 Robert Southwell ricevette finalmente l’ordinazione
presbiterale. Per due anni svolse il suo apostolato nel Collegio Inglese di
Roma, sino a quando fu destinato alla missione inglese e fece così ritorno in
patria di nascosto nel luglio 1586, insieme con il confratello Padre Enrico
Garnet.
Raggiunse Londra e da qui si cimentò nell’aiutare altri sacerdoti cattolici ad
entrare in Inghilterra e trovare una sistemazione. Amministrò inoltre i
sacramenti nei paesi circostanti la capitale e scrisse libri ed opuscoli sulla
fede cattolica per conto di una stamperia segreta fondata proprio dal Garnet.
Una donna, o più precisamente la testimonianza da lei portata contro il
sacerdote gesuita, si rivelò fatale per il destino di Padre Southwell: nel
luglio 1592, infatti, fu rilasciata dal carcere una certa Anna Bellamy, che
durante la prigionia si era convertita all’anglicanesimo.
Dopo settimane di orrende torture, non riuscendo a convincerlo a svelare nulla
sugli altri preti cattolici presenti in Inghilterra, il religioso venne
trasferito alla Torre di Londra, ove rimase imprigionato per due anni e mezzo.
Infine il 20 febbraio 1595 fu processato per alto tradimento, al quale segurono
la condanna ed il giorno seguente l’impiccagione a Tyburn. Fu dichiarato santo
da Paolo VI nel 1970.
Autore: Fabio Arduino
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