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by Wayne Pounds
Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo
The reader who visits The National Archives in its verdant setting near Kew Gardens and asks to see the manuscript containing the unique copy of the above named poem will have to wait three days for it to be retrieved from its resting place in Chester, four-hundred feet down in the old salt-mine which provides a deep-storage facility for older manuscripts. The dungeon-like depth and darkness of the mine are resonant. Since its confiscation by Elizabethan authorities over four hundred years ago, the poem in question—“A challenge vnto ffox the martirmonger written vpon occasion of this miraculouse martirdom of the foresaide Peter Elcius with a comforte vnto all afflicted Catholyques"—has slept long and deep, and if the life of a text is circulation it has had no life.
And yet this 510-line poem is a work of unmistakable significance and (Sidney’s word) energia. It gives voice to a member of a minority silenced by the Elizabethan regime, a silence maintained by 400 years of a protestant-whig historiography and assented to by a century of English professionals like ourselves who de-privilege discursive forms, even poetic ones, that do not fit our formulae. It points to one of the routes of manuscript circulation from the prison culture in the 1580s, adding to our understanding of what John Bossy has taught us to call the “Catholic community.” It stretches the envelope of what we have hitherto understood as sixteenth-century poetics, forcing us to reconsider our notions of genres active in the 1580s, specifically subsets of the genre of religious poetry, for it does not fit into the recognized types of versified scripture and meditative poetry.
The poem, of course, is not wholly unknown. In the nineteenth century Richard Simpson and Henry Foley published selections from its eighty-five stanzas, Simpson (1859) twelve and Foley (1875-83) twenty-one, and in the twentieth Louise Imogen Guiney (1939) five and Robert Miola (2007) sixteen. Because of overlaps in the editors’ choices, the total comes to only thirty-four stanzas. The presentation here of the poem in its entirety as it appears in the unique manuscript of 1582 will thus be its first experience of the public sphere, of light and air and dialogue.
The 1582 dating of the manuscript as endorsed in the Calendar of State Papers is firm: the narrative of Peter Elcius, which forms part of the inset, was published in Cologne that year, as referred to in the headnote:
The copy of a letter wrytten by ffather ffrancis de Castro pryest, on of the socyety of Jesus, vnto father Lawrence Zara. Translated firste out of Spanishe into latin and now oute of latin into Englishe by a copy printed with pryveliedge by Birckman at Colloin ao 1582
and the leaves were seized by the authorities the same year (Calendar of State Papers, Dom. Eliz. Addenda, 1582). Some slight leeway may remain, however, because already by this date the Jesuit mission fields were integrated by a system of epistolary news circulation, so that a copy of the Elcius letter could have reached London before its publication in Cologne. While it must be noted that these pages of the Calendar of State Papers Addenda (vol. CLVII, no. 48), are under the heading “Undated, 1582,” a terminus ob quo is provided by the death of Elcius in January 1581 (date given within the narrative), and a probable terminus ad quem by the conclusion, as argued by Simpson and reinforced by my own research, that no events referred to in the poem are later than 1581 (“Keepsake,” p. 377).
Physically, the manuscript consists of thirteen leaves measuring 10” x 7” taped into a folio collecting a miscellanea of letters and reports. The inset leaves of the poem and its two framing documents have pencilled numbers in the upper right corner (recto only) from 98 to 109, and with the exception of 98-99, which are blank, are written on both sides. Leaf 100r-100v is a cover-letter to “Mr. F”; leaves 101r-104v translate a letter narrating the fate of one Peter Elcius, recently executed in Morocco; leaves 105r-107v contain part one of the poem, and leaves 108r-110v part two. A tear at the top affects all six leaves of the poem, growing gradually larger with each leaf. The tears have been carefully repaired but words are missing from each of the last three leaves. Ink has seeped through at several points in the last half dozen leaves, rendering decipherment increasingly difficult, a situation rendered worse by the writer or copyist’s attempt to preserve paper by using small script and crowding the margins.
Two difficulties beset the poem, explaining why it has received so little attention. The greater is the deterioration described above (see Appendix I for an image). Fortunately, Richard Simpson transcribed the poem in the 1850s when, judging from the fact that he noted few difficulties in decipherment, the deterioration seems to have been less advanced, and his transcript rests in the archives of Downside Abbey. The lesser difficulty is attribution—the lack of a name to attach it to, for in spite of the demotion of the “author,” we still require the writer’s name. The study of history requires us to name agents, and in literary canons as well the works of anonymous authors tend to suffer neglect. “A Challenge and a Comfort,” as I shall abbreviate the present poem, is traditionally attributed to the lay-Jesuit confessor Thomas Pounde (1539-1614), who spent thirty some years in Elizabethan prisons and who by his talents, physical energy, "obstinacie," and the forcibleness of his personality became a recognized hub of what has been called the "literary prison culture within Elizabethan Catholicism.” The present essay argues for this attribution, even while recognizing that the poem is a production of recusant prison culture in 1582 and that it keeps its gaze so firmly on the material world around the poet (no lyricism, no visions) that a new argument about authorship would not greatly alter its significance.
The central argument for attributing the poem to Pounde is a tradition which derives from the nineteenth-century Catholic scholar Richard Simpson, whose “1874 “The Politics of Shakespeare’s Historical Plays” and subsequent studies of Shakespeare inaugurated New Historicism avant le lettre. Scholars like Foley, Gillow, and Guiney accepted the attribution, and this remains the only tradition. Simpson seems to have arrived at his conclusion by a process of elimination, according to who had the ability to write the poem and the opportunity. That Pounde practiced verse was known from the two masques he performed in the mid-1560s, which show that in his idle youth he was writing in Elizabeth's court. Epistolary evidence also attests Pounde's reputation as a versifier --for example, a 1582 letter from "Stephanus Captivus" (Stephen Rousham, in the Tower from May 1582 to November 1583) to Pounde thanking him for "havinge received youre goulden cordiall coumforte" and sending him some Latin verse "to give it a new Inglishe liverye." Both Foley (pp. 596-97) and Simpson reprint the letter and state that the golden cordial of comfort was probably Pounde's “A challenge vnto ffox.”
The question of attribution is affected by two other evidential matters, both of them centering on Francis Tregian the elder (1548-1608), a prominent Cornishman ruined by his having retained the seminarian Cuthbert Mayne (executed 1577) as a priest in his household—an event which marks the beginning of the Elizabethan’s regime’s violent onslaught against Catholic dissent. The probability is high that the poem is dedicated to him and that he wrote the marginal annotations which appear in the manuscript and which indicate a communal model of textual production, showing that for a brief historical moment the poem was alive, fluid, and open to an audience that participated in a process of collecting, reading, and writing.
The poem is preceded by a cover letter that begins, “To the ryght worshipfull my loving brother Mr F health & welthe in our Savyor.” For both Richard Simpson and Henry Foley, Mr F was Francis Tregian (the last name often written “Trudgian,” after the Cornish pronunciation), a certainty which may suggest that they knew more of the friendship between Pounde and Tregian than is revealed in either of their biographies of Pounde. Without their presumable insiders’ knowledge, the linkage involves elements of conjecture. What is certain is that Pounde and Tregian were together for nine months in the loose confinement of the Marshalsea, Pounde from March 1576 to Sept. 1580 and Tregian from Sept 1577 until at least June 1578, and that given their shared literary interests would have known each other there. In 1582 Pounde was in the Tower and Tregian in the Fleet, separated by little more than the width of the Thames, and Tregian had the privilege of receiving visitors. Clandestine manuscripts and books circulated among all the London prisons, so that there is nothing surprising in Pounde’s manuscript being conveyed from the Tower to the Fleet.
The remainder of the story of transmission must rest on conjecture. What is known of the provenance of the confiscated poem fits the presence of Tregian among its readers, for Foley says the letters and papers “found their way into the [PRO] collection from the Sheriff of Wilts, the county in which they were seized” (p. 567). Imagining Tregian in the Fleet annotating the poem at moments of leisure (it is known that he had a private room and books—e.g., a note cites a page number in a work by the regime’s clerical hitman, William Fulke), one conjectures him hearing that a search for prohibited books and papers was afoot (such as the one recorded for July 1582, CSP Dom. Eliz., no. 75) and passing the leaves to one of his family members (whom we know visited him). From there the documents could have made their way to Wilts, perhaps at or near the estate of the Arundells (to whom he was related) at Warbour Castle, on their way to join the route connecting the families of the south coast from Sussex, through Hampshire (Pounde’s home) to Cornwall. This particular course for the manuscript containing the poem is conjectural, but the existence of the routes of transmission is not. They were laid bare by Topcliffe after the death of Montague (Sir Anthony Browne) in 1592, which allowed him to intensify his obsessive search for Robert Southwell, and they have been extensively documented by Michael Questier in his study of Catholic patronage systems and family networks (pp. 199ff.).
The second evidential matter to consider is the wording of the poem’s cover letter, for at least a few scholars have read it as a denial of Pounde’s authorship.
To the ryght worshipfull my loving brother Mr F health & wealth in our Savyor
My deareste the desyre which I have to visite you oftener is (I doubt not) well known vnto you, & that it proceedethe of the hardness of our happy estate, and the unhappiness of this harde tyme And therefore yt were superstitiouse to spend idle words in excusing my selfe to him, who (I am sure) wilbe hardly induced to accuse me of any discourtesy. My purpose ys to incouradge you to proceede honorably to win the palme & crowne due for pacyence, which you have begunn so blessedly. and to that end I have /heere\ sent you the translation of a certaine letter containing the gloriouse martyrdem of a courageouse Spaniarde, (which wilbe the better welcom vnto you yf you have never harde of yt) and withal certaine verses written, (as yt seemeth) in way of challenge to ffox, the <m> martyrmaker, and a comforte to those blessed confessors which are in the way to be made moste gloriouse martyres, vpon the occasyone, of this forsayd Spanyardes everduring tryumph. In which, yf I be not deceaved, you shall find your selfe touched, which made me the more willing to send yt vnto you, being more then halfe persuaded, that yt was written by on of your deerest fryendes. Take yt therefore instead of a better token, impart yt as you shall thinke goode, suppress yt yf you will, putt yt in the press yf you please, for I dare presume the author will not be offended at yt, by cause he takethe smalle comforte to be commended for yt, so desyrouse he seemethe to be esteemed a cytizen of Vtopya、and a dweller in the common wealthe of Plato. Thus in haste I am to bid you farewell, requesting you to be of good comforte, and be more gladd to eat the pure azyme breadd of paenance with Christs Apostles then the delicately dipped morsell with Iudas the Apostata. Lett him & his mates cary the purse covetously. Lett us & our company beare the burthen of all persecution couragiously. yf we consider, how Saule in poore estate was moste virteouse, & in prosperyty moste viciouse, howe David demeaned himselfe towardes him in his misery, & howe to Vrias in his iollity, howe ffryendly Pharao’s buttler was to Iosephe in prison howe vnmindfull in lyberty—heere is small cause why we shoulde wishe our case otherwyse then yt ys. Commende me to your blessed bedfelow, and all other my ffriends, once more ffarewell.
I have underscored four passages, the first three implying that the writer of the letter is not the author of the poem. If we take the letter as Pounde’s, and no one has argued otherwise, passages like the one stating that the poem was “written by one of your dearest friends” can be construed as evidence against Pounde’s authorship of the poem. But this would be to read with evangelical literalness and with no consideration of the writer’s circumstances. Apart from public letters addressed to officials, prison writings, like other recusant productions, were careful to hide the place of composition and the name of the author. That the writer of the letter denies he is the author of the poem is precisely what one would expect.
What internal evidence suggests the letter should be read against the grain in this way? First, the fact that the writer lodges his caveat three times constitutes an excess that amounts to playfulness, a game that is being played beneath the Argus eyes of the ubiquitous authorities. Secondly, in the fourth underscored passage the letter-writer speaks confidently of what only the poet could confidently know: whatever you do with the poem, Mr. F., whether you suppress it or publish it, "the author will not be offended at it, because he taketh small comfort to be commended for it." This, I would argue, is the voice of the poet, the voice of a poet who had been a courtier (as Pounde had been), expressing not only conventional humility but also the courtier’s disregard for publication (“suppress yt yf you will, putt yt in the press yf you please”), and showing all the cunning which we would expect of a writer who has learned the arts of survival.
Provisionally accepting Pounde as the author of the poem, in what context do we place it to understand it? One direction is suggested by the poem’s challenge-comfort organization. The same design appears in an earlier, much shorter poem, which may well have been written by Pounde, and which reads like a preliminary study for the long poem. Thomas Alfield's True reporte of February 1582, which appeared two months after Edmund Campion’s execution, contains two poems by Henry Walpole (“Why do I use my paper inke and penne” and “What yron hart”) and a third poem that has never been attributed, “Is righteous Lot from sinful Sodome gone?” The last poem, in terms of its conception, diction, spelling, and style, is very like “A Challenge and a Comfort,” and it employs the same heroic sestets (pentameter ababcc). If Pounde, who was in the Tower at the time of Campion’s trial and present at the first session, indeed wrote the poem, it helps explain the appearance of this stanza form in “A Challenge” a few months later. He and Walpole had already worked out its possibilities for the longish poem. (“Is righteous Lot from sinful Sodome gone?” has 12 stanzas; “Why do I use my paper inke and penne,” 30; “A challenge vnto ffox,” 85.) It is at least conceivable that the heroic sestet, given notoriety in Alfield’s banned True reporte and authority by the memory of Campion, may have had a brief career as a recusant tradition. The Waldegrave Manuscript (1593-1595) of Robert Southwell’s poems is dominated by the form: 32 of its 41 shorter poems use it and Saint Peters complaynt employs it for a total of 132 stanzas.
Another area of intertextuality, linking Campion, Pound, and Walpole deserves mention here. Walpole’s poem, with its interrogative opening line, “Why do I use my paper inke and penne,” foregrounds the issue of proscribed writing by echoing the third “conference” in the Tower:
Campion: Prouide me ynke and paper and I will write.
Fulke: I am not to prouide you ynke and paper.
Campion: I meane, procure me that I may haue libertie to write.
Fulke: I knowe not for what cause you are restrained of that libertie,
and therefore I will not take vpon me to procure it.
William Fulke’s aggressive and “imperious” (Campion’s repeated accusation to him) role in the tower conferences explains why his is the only proper name from the debates’ dramatis personae to appear in Pounde’s long poem: “for thi guttes (quoth Fulkes)” (stanza 3, l. 5), a fencing phrase that accompanies a thrust to the opponent’s stomach. Also the first line of Walpole’s seventeenth stanza—“Fonde Elderton, call in thy foolish rime”—may be recalled by Pounde in the first line of his poem, “Come forthe fond ffoxe, with all the rabble rowte.”
The challenge-comfort organization also reflects Pounde's character, reinforcing the argument for his authorship. On the challenge side, Pound had a reputation for being “hot” and “combustive,” which fits the poem's declaration of a challenge—a word he might have taken from Campion’s 1580 Rationes Decem, which Pounde instigated and disseminated, and which was known as “Campion's Brag” or “Campion's Challenge.” It was followed a few months later by Pounde’s own challenge to the Protestant prison-gadflies Tripp and Cowley called Six Reasons, challenging Protestants to a public disputation. The word challenge itself proves nothing, of course, for challenges had been flying thick and fast ever since Bishop John Jewel’s famous sermon at St Paul's Cross, preached November 26, 1559, challenging all comers to prove the Roman case out of the Scriptures, or out of the councils or Fathers for the first six hundred years of Christianity. But the poem’s use of it adds to the weight of circumstantial detail pointing to Pounde’s authorship.
On the comfort side, providing consolation to the afflicted was a focus of Jesuit devotional life. The word comfort occurs three times in the cover letter and, counting its derivatives, nine times in the poem. It is closely related to the role Christ takes in the second half of the poem, emphatically stated at the end of his long speech when he says, "I will be the cheerer of you all" (83.6). The poem is double-voiced here, for Jesus’ role as cheerer is also the poet's. This emphasis on "comfort" allies the poem to the convention of consolatio, to which many Catholic works of the decades of intense persecution belong. Milward (pp. 66-67 nn.240-46) lays out the tradition, from Thomas Hide’s A Consolatorie Epistle of 1579 to Southwell’s Epistle of Comfort in 1588 and Humble Supplication of 1595; and John O'Malley has explained the special meaning which "consolation" had for Jesuits, whose ministry was "to a large extent conceived" as "a ministry of consolation," tracing the sub-genre back to Book 3 of the Imitatio Christi.
The most important context in which to place the poem, however, is suggested by the problematics of martyrdom. The immediate occasion of the poem, as the cover-letter states, was the martyrdom of the "courageouse Spaniarde" Peter Elcius: "the translation of a letter written by Father Francis de Castro, a Jesuit, to Father Lawrence Zara, containing a relation of the martyrdom of Peter Elcius, a Spaniard in Morocco" (CSP 1582/157.48). Little is known about Peter Elcius, whose death the narrative assigns to January 1580 (see Appendix II), but the narrative makes clear his importance for the argument of the poem, for his death was highly miraculous (he didn't bleed from the wounds with which his captors tried to torment him). It thus was high-octane fuel for the Catholic side of the pseudo-martyr debate provoked by Foxe's Actes and Monuments, providing Pounde new evidence to support his challenge to Foxe and new reason to encourage any Catholics who might be wavering.
To speak of an attack on Foxe recalls a background too familiar for detailed recital here, except as it exposes more of the poem’s intertext. Suffice it to say that probably no issue was hotter in Elizabethan religious polemic at this time than that of pseudo-martyrs. To resolve the issue of authenticity, both the Protestant and the Catholic sides had recourse to Augustine's non poena sed causa facit martyrem. If it was the truth of the cause that made for authentic martyrdom, not the pains suffered, how could that truth be better attested than through miracles accompanying the suffering and death? Here the Protestants, distrusting miracles, many of them even believing that the age of miracles had passed, were at a disadvantage. ("It must be so, for miracles are ceased," says Canterbury in Henry V, I.1.67, revealing he is not Catholic but Anglican.) It is Pounde's sense of the polemical capital provided by the miracles accompanying Elcius' execution that explains why this obscure missionary’s death occasions the poem, and why the poet refers to him frequently and triumphantly.
By 1582, Foxe was no longer active on the polemical stage (though he would live until 1587, his last edition of Actes and Monuments appearing in 1583), and his early opponent Nicholas Harpsfield (Dialogi sex, 1566) had made his exit in 1575. Though some of Pounde's debater points had been made by Harpsfield, whose work was a prototype of many anti-Protestant arguments, it would be an error to privilege Harpsfield’s work, for the anti-Foxe arguments were common property among Catholic writers. Nor was Harpsfield the first to attack Foxe. He had been preceded by Thomas Stapleton’s ad hominem assaults in the preface to his 1565 translation of Bede’s Ecclesiasticae historiae gentis Anglorum, attacks which he amplifies in his 1567 Counterblast to M. Hornes Vayne Blaste in a language which hunts the letter with the same demotic glee as Pounde’s. Stapleton speaks of the “deuelish dirty donghil” of Foxe’s martyrs and calls him a “madde martyrloge” (f. 60). This is followed on the next leaf by the fox-hunting analogy Pounde will expand: “But nowe is it worth the hearing to know, how handsomly M. Foxe hath conceyued his matters: wherein he plaieth in dede the wily Foxe and springleth with his false wily tayle, his fylthy stale not into the doggs but into his readers eies.” Harpsfield’s work is far removed from this style. He wrote in Latin for a learned European readership. Stapleton (here at least) and Pounde wrote in the vernacular. To undertake vilification in any language but one’s mother tongue is as artificial and unsatisfying as walking on stilts, and as Walter Ong long ago argued, in the Renaissance Latin was not anyone’s mother tongue.
The intertext in closest physical proximity to Pounde, however, was written by Robert Persons. When the leader of the Jesuit mission to England arrived in London in June 1581, wanting to learn the whereabouts of Catholics in London, the first person he visited was Pounde, a lay brother confined in the recusant nerve-centre of the Marshalesea. It seems highly probable that Persons had with him a manuscript of De persecvtione anglicana, (to be published in Rouen later the same year), for there is no doubt but that the author of “A Challenge and a Comfort” had seen it. As will be seen in the commentary below which follows the poem, the twelve-stanza bravura section (stanzas 66-77) detailing the sufferings of the recusants closely follows Persons’ De persecvtione. Pounde may also have seen Persons’ The copie of a double letter, a counter-martyrology concerning Richard Atkins, burned by the Inquisition in Rome on August 2nd and using the literary device of a letter to a friend in England. Persons had already used this device in the Persecvtion, as Pounde uses it in his presentation of the martyrdom of Peter Elcius.
By the 1580s, Persons had become the principal defender of the Catholic side, and later his Treatise of Three Conversions (1603-04), will provide a massive compendium of the pseudo-martyr debate. Persons places Foxe's calendar on facing pages in parallel with his own Catholic calendar and follows with commentary, January to June in vol. II and July to December in vol. III. This clear organization was a convenience for the reader then as it still is now, and I will have occasion to use it in the comments which follow the poem.
Editing conventions:
Superscript letters are lowered, contractions expanded, and supplied letters italicized. Chevrons <xxx> show text deleted in the ms, one dot per letter if illegible. Left and right slashes /xxx\ show text inserted in the ms, and bold is used for engrossing hand, italics for italics.
In one important respect, this transcription departs from convention. Rather than present the reader with the task of repeatedly flipping to the commentary to fill the many ellipses which a strict diplomatic transcription would require, I have used Simpson’s work to produce a readable text. Where in a standard transcription missing parts would be indicated with ellipses in brackets, I have filled the brackets with Simpson’s readings. This procedure is not arbitrary, for it is a fact of deciphering difficult script that once one knows what the words are, formerly illegible words become legible. Where such is not the case, it will be indicated in the commentary that follows the poem.
The Poem
A challenge vnto ffox the martirmonger written vpon occasion of this miraculouse martirdom of the foresaide Peter Eclius with a comforte vnto all afflicted Catholyques
1. Come forthe fond ffoxe, with all the rabble rowte
of monstrouse martyrs, in thi brainsicke booke
compare them to, this gloriouse martir stowte
and thow shalte see, how lothly fowle thei looke
ffor blacke & white, compared somewhat neere
will cause them bothe, the better to apeere
2. This blessed man, of godes, professed ffoes
with deepe despighte, in ruthfull sort was slaine
what tyme himselfe, a Catholyke he shewes
and in that faith, he hoped to obtaine
the endless Empire of eternall blisse
who prayed the Sainctes, to helpe & pray for this
3. His couradge, Ioy & patience did declare
the feruor greate, of constant christian loue
the miracles, at martyrdom so rare
this fauor greate, with mighti god dothe proue
now canst thow for thi guttes (quoth Fulkes) deny
but this man did, a gloriouse martyr dye
4. He was no theefe, as Tonnelie & his lyke
no traitor ranke, as Acton and his crue
no wy/t\ch nor wreche, which did by magicke seeke
to kill his king & make his contrey rue
ne cursed handes, vpon himselfe did laye
by wicked meanes to take his life away
5. Christes name, Cowbridge erste he did not hate
ne yet renownced, one portion of belieffe
he was no anabaptiste, raised of late
apostata, or sacrilegius theeffe
all which within thi bookes a man may finde
for martyres made, which monsters were in minde
6. Whereas a heape confuse, ys filled vp
of suche lyke leuen lewde for lyfe & lore
which neuer dranke, of Christ or sauiors cupp
but filthi dregges, of babilonian store,
who myred, in the ozy mudd of sinne
with end of lyfe, did endlesse deathe begin
7. ffor tis not paine, that dothe a martir make
ne gloriouse sorte, in which he seemes to dye
but faith the cause, which thine did them forsake,
when from Christes Spowse they woulde so fondly flye
where truth dothe wante, to vtter wracke th/ei\ fall
not martyres made, but moste accurste of all
8. Olde heretickes, as well as them dreste newe
made martyrs to, yea theeues as well as thine
as montanistes, Eusebius shewethe howe
& donatists, as Austine dothe define
yea all the crue, of hereticks of yoore
by suche lyke broode, did sett no litle store
9. Who shufflinge Saincts, from their inuested dayes
did make the blessed geue the cursed place
a practise of thine owne, of mickle praise
unshrining Saincts for sinneres voyd of grace
thus branches shewe, the roote from whence th/ei\ spring
for bastarde slippes, good fruite do neuer bring
10. But thow in piuysh folly, doste surpasse
the fury fyerse, which whilom did inflame
the heretickes, whose only guise yt was
of their owne sects, som sottishe saints to frame
and all to imitate, Christs churche therein
as wolues which lurke, within a wetheres skinn
11. ffor thow, ah seelye soule, yt pytyethe mee
of tagge & ragge the riff & raffe, of all
which from themselues, & felowes disagree
and lyke to dogges & catts do bark & ball
haste huddled vpp this hugy heape of thine
which hathe welnighe a lye for euery lyne
12. ffor som on Lecherouse Luther, do relye
somm swashing Swiser Swinglius do maintaine
som all, save cursed Caluin woulde denye
and eche of theese the other dothe disdaine
ffor erring in som points & those not small
and eche the other hereticke dothe call
13. In which thei misinformde, confess a righte
and with Christs Spowse, in censure do consente
for such oppose themselues by force & slighte
our Sauior’s seamless, sourayne robe to rente
ffor all these deadly fooes in on agree
to hate the church and heyrs of hell to bee
14. Now tell the truthe yf any truthe remaine
within thi lippes, so lynde with lumps of lyes
what madness moued thi foolishe bedlem brain
to Ioine fowle spideres, with such filthi flyes
as witnesses the huswiffe to disgrace
who in her howse disdaines to geue them place
15. Can truthe be fownde, in falsehods dusky denne
or musick swete, where strings sound owt of frame
may truthlesse theues, owt face true meaning men
no, no, for sinne muste weare the sheete of shame
crack what thow canst with all thy craftes & care
when foxes preche, poor geese muste now beware
16. Whi then these hellishe Impes, in haggishe wor[k]
confounded more than, Babilon yt selfe
didst thow, with sinoues sleighte thus cause to /b[rak]e\
for all as trashe & false deceauing pelfe
Pallas displayes allthoughe thow didst thi[nk] /[no]\
& turnes the to a stone for thinking so
17. He/e\r at me thinks, downe crooching, tho/w\ doost stand
a Saint in shewe, an hipocrite in harte
vpp lifting eyes, & flinging forthe the hande
owt wringing teares with crocodilian harte
and saiest to those whereas thi bei[ng is]
ah breethren, breethren, what a worlde is this
18. A see, A see, suche ys thi peeuishe guise
repeating wordes, attentiueness to winn
till all applause thi speeche with spritishe wyse
A see, the error this man lurkethe in
the lorde, the lorde, hathe geuen him ouer quyte
the gospell to disgrace of meere despite
19. ffor som for Saints within <...> /my\ booke are plaste
which papists doe them selues, for so esteeme
how foolishly therefore, he hathe disgraste
eche one of them, this one may make vs deeme
and by this on you may the other Smell
and thinke euill will could men yet s/a\y well
20. But cause with you, my deere, I liste not lye
I muste confesse, to haue bin parte in blame
I made him martyr which did neuer dye
And him againe to lyfe which neuer came
and now and then seduced by false reporte
haue rackte recordes, & somtyme clipte them shorte
21. But all for zeale & feruor of the worde
& not as Papists thinkes of meere despighte
who for the same, haue geuen me many a boorde
& mad me more than once, my workes to wryte
and razde som faultes thoughe som remain /behinde\
for Argus eyes all faults coulde hardly finde
22. But in the lorde beleue /me\ my beloued
all ys not true, the tra[itor] papists saye
althoughe theire wordes seeme soundly to be proued
with vaunting speeche & flaunting phrases gaye
tis Enuy, Enuy, nowghte but enuy blynde
that makes them shew the malice of their minde
23. Hearwith the teares lyke tares, trill downe his cheeks
& sobbes, supp vp the sequele of his voyce
this maimed answer, passing roundly lykes
his adytors, who say with charming voyce
This man of god, must be beleued still
let pelting Papists, prattell what th/ei\ will
24. Thus as the ffoxe, whom houndes haue had /in chase\
by course now taynte, doth make a /sluttishe\ shifte
& flappes the folowing grayhounde in the face
with tayle bepiste to driue him from his /drifte\
<when kindly doggs, allthoughe their ..........>
when kindly doggs, allthoughe their eyes do sm/arte\
more eger are to pray vpon his harte
25. And force him so as he muste either stye
vpon som steepe, where hunteres may pursue
or to som darke, & winding earthe to flye
where tearyers freshe, shall sett on him anew
and m/a\ke him bolte, or kill him in his denn
or to be chokte, or smoked owte by menn
26. Euen so playeste thow, & brookest thi name a right
whom we pursue, with crye of true contente
hatelies owr hunte, whose bugle telltrothe hight
with finde owtes helpe, a honde full sure of sent
vnkennells thee, & then a lusty packe
as good as hee, do troile thee to thi wracke
27. The huntsmates hornes, doe hue thee ronde abowtt
killtale a dogge, full passing fleete of foote
in coller studded, with recordes throughowt
whose eyes to bleare, thi mysts doe little boote
doth course yt so, as thow muste either dye
or eche Iust Iudge, thi folly fowle espye
28. In ea/r\thes deceat, thow shalte no plesure winne
for t[oo]the of teriers, will enforce thee bo/u\lte
or angle thee, or strangle thee within
or smoke of shame, shall choke thee in thi holte
or make thee at the lees[t], from thence to flye
where killtale wayts, & needs must force thee /dye\
29. Now where thow sayest, thow haste sum Saints enroulde
which we ourselues, <do so> lykwyse do so esteeme
we say they were not, of thi cursed folde
but of owr flocke, which makes vs Iustly deeme
suche monuments, are monuments in deede
thee to deface, & vs to stand in steede
30. In that thow grants, thi selfe to be in blame
yt dothe right well, allthoughe thi boote be /b[arre]\
for euery faulte, thow shouldeste confess with sham[e]
and shunn, (a sinfull slippe in slannders snarre)
olde lyes to salue, allwayes by coyning new
butt blacke, (men say) wyll beare no other hewe
31. L[y]ke piuishe Pa[n], [w]hen thow presumest to prate
gainste him who hadd for eloquence no peere
of selfe at home, thow shouldeste haue wayed the sta[te]
and rather sought, thi spottes & blotts to cleare
than sticking with a mate, in suddes of sinne
to helpe him owte, & sinke the deeper in
32. but nowe from hunting, thee I doe <….> retyre
my turne comes in to quyte me from the Iawes
of thee & thine, who haue perhappes desyre
to byte or barke, allthoughe there be no cause
and say our martyres all, of lyke are fewe
syth for all thine, I haue but this to shew
33. But well thow wotts, what ere tho/w\ sayest of spyte
our martyres thine, in number did exceed
in ancient tyme, as Ierom olde dothe wryte
who was a papiste stowte, in worde & deede
for euery day within the yere which is
fyue thowsand martyres, hadd beene crowned in blyss
34 Since then vntill this day, what store hathe beene
re[co]rdes reporte, who liste to marke them well
w[h]at nummber greate, this adge of ours hathe seene
the sundry works, of sundry folkes do tell
but all what papists wryte, thow wilte denye
& say their mowthes are only, made to lye
35. Especially, yf so thei make reporte
of foren coasts, vnknowen to Englishe trade
where good, religious men, by theyr resorte
full many payinnes, christian soules haue made
where caniballes of saints haue eaten more
than all the packe, within thi pelting store
36. I liste not therefore, make discourse of those
sithe distannce makes thee dainty of belieff
nor yet of suche, as suffered neere thi nose
for that perhappes, woulde geue more cause of grieff
Butt heere haue culled owte this martir newe
a meane twyxte bothe, & quickly tryed true
37. ffor why owr men repayre unto the coaste
where this was don, yea once at leaste a yere
inquyer the truthe, I yeld owr credyte boste
yf this reporte, a ficton do apeere
yf not downe pryde, putt of thi brasen face
& say this Saicnte, thi sinners dothe disgrace
38. [for if that he], a gloriouse martyr [be]
(which spite herselfe for shame cannot deny)
then euery man which is not blinde may see
in whatt badd state thi monsteres madd did dy
for where the day appeereth fayre & bright
there ys no place, for vgglye shade of night
39. On altar, god & dagon cannot holde
our Christe & beliall, needes muste be at Iarre
for wolues and lambes agree not in on folde
no more than peace, can lyue at ease with warre
yf therefore he in endless blisse do raigne
the state of thine ys euerduring paine
40. Call in therefore thi lothsom lummpe of lyes
with humble minde, make sute to god for grace
that he may ope thi blinde and bleared eyes
therby to see & and purchase thee a place
whereas thi masteres coulde not enter in
bycause thei were, so deeply drowned in sinn
41. Which, that tho/w\ mayeste with all my harte I praye
and that ys all the hurte, I wishe to thee
that we in peace, may meete another daye
in bliss, which heare on earthe coulde not agree
and so farewell, from thee I turne <my> my style
to comforte, Christian Catholykes a whyle
* * * * *
42. You ble[ssed men who] suffer for bel[ief]e
[Pluck up your hearts], take couradge & be gladd
sing pr[ai]s[e] to god, abandon care & grieffe
this happy newes, forbiddes you to be sadd
your state ys blest, yea treble bleste yt ys
to see our Churche, yeelde suche an Imp as this
43. Yf Elephants, wilbe prouoked to flyghte
as sacred writt recordes, to vs for trwe
when blood of grapes, ys sett before their syghte
what cause haue we, with couradge to pursue
when you beholde, the blessed martyres blood
and call to mind your case and quarrell good
44. ffor as the trybe, of Ruben and the reste
which hadd their partes, allotted to their share
vowed to their mates, in lande of gods beheste
with all their toyle, their trauell & their care
to helpe to plante them, as thei did desyre
that euery on, mighte haue their earned hyre
45. So these no doubte, which seaked haue the skyes
and rest in peace, within the porte of blisse
present your prayeres, your teares, your groanes & cryes
to him of helpes, the only helpe which ys
and yf yo/u\ woorke, they labor all theire beste
to bring you lykewyse to the land of reste
46. Lett hope of helpe, in haste, heare end your woe
when god admitts, on of your deerest mates
so frankly to his princely presence soe
where he solicittes, euery of your states
and where his suite, he cann in no sort miss
ffor which the granter allso sutor ys
47. And therefore thinke not, lyke the sinfull sorte
of m[urmur]ing mates, which Moises once did guyde
who of the lande, of promise came to shorte
bycause thei woulde, no trauell hard abyde
for he deseruethe not, the harueste gaine
to tyll his grownde, who shunned to take the paine
48. With Christe in heauen, yf that yow hope to bee
with Christe in earthe, you muste endure anoye
as non at once bothe heauen, & earthe can see,
so non in bothe, can pleasures sweete enioye
shade shrowdes the backe, when sunn beshines the fac[e]
when worldly comforts lacke, then men [haue] lyg[ht]/of [grace]\
49. You muste therefore, with patience, be contente
in hope the paye, will ouerpoase the paine
and thinke eche crosse, ys for your meritt sent
yf you endure the sower, the sweete to gaine
as hungry beares, with hony will not leese
for all the stinges, & buzzing of the bees
50. [and] when [sharp thorns of troubles do assa]yle
tis best in my [conceit to follow these]
who not enured in foa[m]y frett to sayl[e]
can hardly broke, the surging of the seas
for them to helpe, their case thei cast their eyes
from stormi neptune, to the starry skyes
51. Or yf thei maye vp/p\on the wished sh[ore]
and com as neere the maste, as they can sytt
for no twoo things, (say sailores) profitt more
the seasicke nouice, of his grieff to quitte
hie then to sitt, nighe faithes well formed maste
your eyes to skyes, & land of lyfe to caste
52. There with St Steu[en] stowte, you shall beholde
the Son of mann, to stand with cheerfull hewe
in glory more then cann be thought or tolde
who with on of his hands, inuytethe yow
and with the other doth assiste yow soe
as leaste yow liste, astray yow cannot goe
53. And therewith sayes, com, com, my beste beloued
the crosse yow beare, shall wear a gloriouse crowne
when lyke to perfecte golde, yow haue been proued
as are my saints, heare stalled in renowne
with mee therefore, and them a whille sustaine
and you with mee, & them shall shortly rayne
54. Discomforte not, what ere your foes do threate
reck not of Rackes, their torments are butt toyes
the more thei doe, vpon your bodyes sette
the more with mee, thei shall increase your Ioyes
yea & the greater, that your torments be
the greater comforte shall you haue of mee
55. Recownt what tortures, martyrs old did <fynd> feele
as stones & whippes, hookes, plummetts, clubbs, & chaines
sawes, swords, shafts, darts, the [cro]sse, the racke, & whe/e\le
froste, water, fyer, [the] axe, & sundry paines
som choakte with stenche, somm famishte, wanting meate
& somm were flunge to brutishe beasts to eate
56. And somm, <….> by them were lykewyse drawne in tw/aine\
som pecemell hewed, [som] stripped of their skinn
som b[o]yled, som broyled, & som with bodkines slaine
& som hoot oyle & ledd were dipped inn
and [e]che of these, of comforte hadd such store
as all did wishe, their torments hadd bin /more\
57. Peruse their lyue[s], & vse their vertues rare,
& then of what estate so euer thow be
their mildness may, your chrystian minds prepare
with them to take all grieffes & cares in gree
ffor no estate vpon the earthe doth dwe[ll]
which with my sai[nt]s may not [be suited well]
58. Peeter & [at] lea[st forty(?)]ty poopes auowe
may for the c[ler]gy, serue for paternes fitt
Good Edmunnd & sainte hermigilde do showe
how princes greate, in faith themselues should quitt
Katherin the learned, & Vrsula the wyse
sampleres for queenes & ladyes may suffice
59. St Albin vnto gentlemen & knightes
who for my sake, my priests doe intertaine
paterne & patrone ys, for he delightes
to pray for suche as practise so his vaine
Sinphrosa with her mates & sonnes expresse
what maryed folke & yong men shoulde pr[ofess]
60. ffelicitas to widowes [w]ilbe guides
them & theires <...> children rightly to directe
all tender maidenes, saffly may prouyde
by Luce & Agnes, folly to reie[c]te
thus eche estate ffrom highe vnto the lowe
throughe choyce of patrones, may their duty knowe
61. Withall beholde theese gloriouse wounds of myne
and thinke for you what men haue done to mee
& wholy see, your selues to mee resyne
ffor all you haue, I gaue you ffranke & ffree
I made you firste and all thinges for you good
and laste redeemde you, with my preciouse blood
62. I voyde of s[inne], for your sinnes suffered this
and bare the w[oun]ds, which were to you adreste
then suffer for your se[lues], as meete yt ys
yf you doe minde to reache the lande of reste
ffor when the king dothe for his vassaile dye
he is a traitor which for feare will flye
63. Pray there[fore] that you may perseuer still
yt y[s th]e shielde & buckler, you muste chuse
againste the sworde which woulde your bodyes kill
this Moyes, gainst Amaleckites did use
this Samuell made philistianes to anoye
and Daniel stowte, in lyones denn to Ioye
64. By this the children scapte the burning fyre
Ionas did saffe within the whale remaine
the publican attained his desyre
and Peeteres fetteres brake & tore in twayne
the theeffe on Crosse bought paradise with this
& Steuen dying was receiued in blisse
65. And you lyke wyse, yf so you vse yt well
shall finde yt comforte, sweete in eche distresse
all cares & corosyes, it will expell
that nothing doe, your dauntlesse mindes oppresse
with harte well purde, then pouer owte prayers a=/[pace]\
and you shall feele, the bownty of mi grace
66. Thoughe you be [.....] and [searched]in euery porte
receiued of friendes, & [kin] with sory cheere
though you be cyted like the sinfull sorte
& summoned with terror to apeare
though law, & lawless men do reeue your welthe
& stinke of prison do confound your helthe
67. Thoughe you be forste from place to place to flye
by pursuiuants pursued, by spyes bewrayed
in woodes & Caues, thoughe, hungry coulde you lye
in dowbt & drede, you shalbe reste & stayed
though you be drawn (with death) from sickly bedds
lyke periured folkes, beare paperes on your heads
68. Thoughe to their churches, you be borne by force
and wondered at & made the railing stockes
of pulpitt parleres, voyde of all remorce
more prowde than peacockes, learned less than blockes
though you be broughte, in presence to dispute
all voide of helpes, yea forced to be mute
69. Of famin sharpe althoughe you feele the smarte
be hanged for roges, & burned through the eare
and in the streates, be whipped at a carte
thoughe gyues & rackes, your lymmes do gall & teare
thoughe bedlemes, bedless make you lye on grownd
though colde, thoughe dead & rotten you be fownd
70. Thoughe you be forste, to rannsom lyfe and lande
for fauouring factes & men you neuer knew
when lawes seuere, themselues vprightly stande
would haue bothe quitted them & allso you
though you be pennde in prisons close by mighte
whilste others [wedd] the wyffe ys yours by righte
71. Thoughe you my priests, for iubilyes paste date
receaue the death, which trayt[ors] oughte to haue
and those which are of wor[ship]full estate
for that to you, they [entertainment] gaue
constrained [now in] deepe distresse doe lye
throughe losse of goods, of [land] & liberty
72. And thoughe their wyues, with childe are forste to goe
ffrom howse and home, in vgly shade of nighte
their shurtlesse babes all helplesse lefte in woe
refused of ffriends in [such dis]tressed plighte
and thoughe their neereste kin, are in disgrace
who for their childbirthe do alow them place
73. Though vnder grounde, suche men be layde in gyues
and fedde with stinted fare, of brown bredd crusts
which hadd bin begged from dore, to dore for theeues
debarde of water freshe, to drink their lusts
with guiltlesse friends & seruants by their [syde]
for them in prison, Iudged allways to by[de]
74. Althoughe [(your) hus]bands doe procure your care
& parents d[o r]enownce you to be theires
allthough your wyues, do bryng your lyfe in snare
and brethern false, affrighte you full of feares
and that your children, seeke to haue your end
in hope your goods, with thriftlesse mates /to spend\
75. On pilloryes, allthoughe you lease your eares
eioinde to seuen yeres, duresse close besydes
with dogges, though you be baited, lyke to be/a\ues
and made lyke fooles coolestaffe steedes to ryde
thoughe you be tearmed madd, and bounnde in ba[ands]
& whippte to deathe, by preacheres bloody ha/nds\
76. Thoughe misreportes with slander, seeke your sham
and queanes be broughte, within your bedds to lye
and beare of cursed, coinnerers the name
arained for rapes, in dreadd & doubte to dye
thoughe wittness false, as traitors stopp your [br]eths
as all the worlde may wittness by your deths
77. Thoughe all theese griefes I say, and thousands more
you guiltlesse, for your faithe are forste to beare
yet you of comforte sweete, shall haue suche store
throughe feruent prayer, as shall allay your feare
my arm ys nowe, as longe as ere yt was
the fault ys yours yf yt comm not to passe
78. Your selues amongeste your selues, haue seen of /late\
the couradge greate, of many blessed men
whom neither ffrownes, nor fanning coulde amate
with all your care pursew and folow them
com to the triumphe, rather than the fighte
ffor whye, my deathe hathe putt your /foes to flight\
79. And lastly that, the more I may you moue
thinke on the paines that pagannes pieuishe pryde
for fame for friendes, & for their contrey loue
with constant minde, most stowtly will abyde
that Turkes, themselues, & heriticks, will dye
ere they their trashe, & falshodd will denye
80. If such in radge vnto their deathes <doth> doe goe
in truthe, which neither knewe nor worshipte mee
& dye for aye, when thei haue dyed soe
what cause haue you, enflamed then to bee
who for your lyves vnsure, by death shall gaine
a lyfe in blisse, which euer shall remaine
81. You lykewise may recorde how many illes
all foolyshe worldlinges dayly do endure
ffor healthe, for wealthe, for pleasures poysoned /pilles\
in which their banes, ofte tymes they do procure
and lett not theese, for shame take greater paine
to purchase hell, than you the heauenes to gaine
82. My worde ys paste [my promise may not] fayle
conforme your selues, [I] will confirm your grace
hell gates, shalle not, againste your [fai]the preuayle
thoughe theese as roddes, we use [now] for a space
butt in the ende, they shall to <endlesse> fyre
and you with Ioye shall reape your earned hyre
83. And as the dandling nurse, with babe dothe playe
which puling longe, hathe wepte & cryed for woe
euen so will I, with you and wype awaye
the teares which downe your leares, haue trickled /so\
mean tyme, cheere eche his mate, to praying falle
and I wilbe, the cheerer of you all
84. Heare with our Sauiors speeche I will conclude
& you renowned confessors, do requeste
in humble sorte, my homely meeteres rude
to take in gree, & conster to the beste
for zeale, not s[kill], did make me take my pen
to stirre my selfe by stirring other men
85.ffor as the trumpeter, whose lymmes be lame
to battailes broyles, encouraging the knighte
som comforte, takes, partaking of the fame
yf foes he foyle, & gain the spoyle by fyghte
so I in hope, that you of pray righte sure
will helpe with, prayeres, my lamed lynes to cure
Deo gratias
Conuertantur qui oderunt
Syon
------------------------
Line-by-Line Commentary
3.5 The marginal annotator writes, "Fulke Fenserly phrase to Dr. Allen. p 241 against Purgatory." The second word is an adverbial formation from fenser ("fencer"). The phrase “for thi guttes” means something like "Mind your guts!" or "Have at your guts." In 1577 the controversialist William Fulke had challenged William Allen with this phrase, though the context is not about purgatory.
4.1 Tonnelie: Refers to John Tooley, who was executed for a robbery attended by violence but according to Foxe made a profession of Protestant faith before dying (VII.90-97). Townsend points out that the spelling Tonnelie probably derives from a printer error in Harpsfield's Dialogi sex, where the name is Latinized as Tonlaeus (Acts, 1.207f.).
4.2 Acton and his crue: Roger Acton (Bolingbroke) was one of three priests executed in 1441 for conspiring with Eleanor Cobham to kill the King by witchcraft (cf. 2 Henry VI). Acton and Eleanor are memorialized among the red-letter entries for January and February in Foxe's calendar. On Roger Acton and Eleanor Cobham, see Stapleton 60r-60v; and Persons, Conversions, vol. II, calendar for Jan. 7-8 and Feb. 12-13, pp. 196-98, 267-70.
5.1 Cowbridge: burned at Oxford, 1538. His peculiar heresy (if it was not simply mental derangement) is described by Stapleton: “[He] affirmed that the name of Christ was a foule name, and therefore raced it out of his bookes, whersoeuer he found it. And would reade for Iesu Christ: Iesu, Iesu, saying that Christ was the deciuer of the world, and that al were damned in hel, that beleued in the name of Christ” (61v). All of Foxe’s critics leaped on Cowbridge as the weakest of Foxe’s suspect “saints” (Persons, Three Conversions, vol. II calendar for Oct. 10 and 3.195f., 198f.).
5.4 apostata: “apostate.” The word is common in Catholic polemics.
7.1 The saying is a commonplace of the period: non poena sed causa facit martyrem. Usually attributed to Augustine, but Persons attributes it to Cyprian.
8.3 The marginal commentator has supplied the specific references for Eusebius, "Euseb. l.5 cap. 18," and at line 8.4 for Augustine, "Aug. Ep. 68."
8.4 donatists: discussed by Stapleton (60v-60r), who argues for a full two pages that the Protestants are Donatists.
9.1 The complaint, frequent in Persons’ work, is that Foxe has removed authentic saints and replaced them with heretics (“the cursed”).
10.2 fyerse = fierce.
12.1 som = some of your saints.
12.1-3 Zwinglius, Luther, and Calvin, in that order, were also singled out for invective in section eight of Campion's Decem rationes.
16.1, 3 In the original ms these lines are jammed at the right-hand margin, with the result that the last word in each is unclear. Simpson puts the final word of each line in parentheses and adds a question mark. One notes the loss of rhyme.
19.2 The ms has so, though the sense is clearly such.
20.3 The marginal commentator's writes: "Marbeck." John Marbeck was sentenced to death in 1544 but reprieved.
20.4 The commentator again: "Sr Roger Only, or rather Sr Roger Nobody because there was never such man." Roger Onley, along with John Oldcastle and Wycliffe, is among the red-letter entries for January and February in Foxe's calendar. The commentator means there was "never such man" as Sir Roger Onley (as Foxe had designated him in the 1563 edition) because Onley was not a knight but a priest. The comment is written before Shakespeare’s play, as is Stapleton’s, who makes the argument in more detail. Stapleton asserts that the name Roger Onley is an ignus fatuus produced by “some ignorant or Protestant Printer”who, setting the line “By helpe of one M. Roger, only” from John Fabyan’s 1516 Cronycle, dropped the comma and capitalized the last word (60v).
20.6 Persons repeats and amplifies this very serious allegation that “Foxe and his fellowes made away & defaced the said Recordes, which were to be found before him, in the Register of euery Bishoprick & Cathedrall Church"
21.1 From here to 22.6, Foxe speaks.
21.3 boorde: board, in the sense of “meal” (as in “room and board”) and possibly the boards used in book binding.
21.4 In response to criticisms from Harpsfield and others, Foxe made corrections to the 1570 and 1576 editions.
24-28 The fox-and-hounds analogy elaborated in these five stanzas may be found in Stapleton (60v) in the passage quoted on p. 8 above.
24.2. taynte: “tainted.”
25.1. stye is not in the OED in this spelling; evidently a intransitive form made from sty in sense 2: “place in narrow and uncomfortable quarters,” ”pen up.” Cf. Tempest: And here you sty me In this hard Rocke, whiles you doe keepe from me The rest o' th' Island” (I.ii.342).
26.6 troile: The OED gives troil: to dupe, beguile, deceive.
29 The argument of this stanza appears more than once in Persons' calendar pages: some of Foxe's saints are saints indeed because they are Catholic saints.
31.5 The first definition for suds in the OED is “dregs, leavings; hence, filth, muck” (1548).
32 The poet anticipates that his role may shift from hunter to hunted as Foxian hounds turn on him to charge that his celebration of one saint only (Elcius) shows that Catholics have few.
32.6 this: this martyr, Peter Elcius.
35.4 Payinnes: In the ms the minims are indistinct, giving payinnes or paynimes.
37.1 The first two words may be a question; Simpson transcribes, “For why?” The Elcius narrative locates the martyrdom at Azamor, on the west coast of Morocco, once part of the Portuguese sea-route to India. Cf. Tamberlaine II, 1.3.132: "From Azamor to Tunis near the sea / Is Barbary unpeopled for thy sake."
39.2 This line echoes Campion's warning to Elizabeth in the last section of Decem Rationes: "one heaven cannot receive Calvin and these thy ancestors."
41.1-4 The irenism here may be an echo of the last item of Campion’s 1580 letter to The Lords of Her Majestie's Privy Council, the famous "brag," or of Thomas More's farewell speech to his judges at Westminster Hall, 1535, which ends similarly. The irenic ending had become a convention of polemics, probably in accordance with Romans 12:14: “Bless them which persecute you; bless, and curse not.”
41.6 In the ms this line is followed by a blank half-page, the poem resuming at the top of the next.
42.6 Imp: The first three entries in the OED are: (1) a young shoot of a plant or tree; (2) A shoot or slip used in grafting; (3). Scion (esp. of a noble house), offspring, child (usually male). Meaning 3 fits most easily, but 1 and 2 fit metaphorically, especially in the context of yield earlier in this same line.
43.1-3 The anecdote comes from I Maccabees 6:34.
49.5 For leese the OED gives: 1.= lose, in its various senses; to part with or be parted from by misadventure, through change in conditions, etc. Cf. Surrey in Tottel's Misc. “ Farre of I burne, in both I wast, and so my life I leze.”
50.1-2 In the ms these lines have only a few distinct words. Simpson must have had difficulty too, for he places thorns in parentheses.
55.1-4 In De Civitate Dei Augustine had listed the torments of the early Christians, a passage quoted by Catholics and protestants alike: "Ligabantur, includebantur, caedebantur, torquebantur, urebantur, laniabantur, trucidabantur."
58.1 A tear at the top of the ms has removed parts of the fourth and fifth words. Evidently the tear was present in Simpson’s day, for he inserts a question mark after forty, circling the part of the word missing in the ms. Peter Milward speculates that forty may be the number of canonized popes, considered as martyrs (personal communication).
58.3 Good Edmund: King of the East Angles, martyred 869 for refusing to share his Christian kingdom with heathen invaders. Enshrined at Bury St Edmunds.
58.3 sainte hermigilde: Hermengild (d. 585) was a son of the Arian King of the Visigoths, Leovigild. His refusal of Arianism kept him from the kingship and eventually cost him his life.
58.5 Katherin the learned: St. Catherine of Alexandria, virgin and martyr. Of noble birth and learned in the sciences, when only eighteen years old she was tortured and executed by the Emperor Maximinus because he could not defeat her in argument (Cath. Ency.).
58.5 Vrsula the wise: surely the heroine of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of medieval romance. The Catholic Encyclopedia article, though rich in detail, makes no mention of her wisdom, but Caxton's translation of her story in The Golden Legend begins, "This daughter shown full of marvellous honesty, wisdom, and beauty . . . " (Voragine VI.62).
59.1 St Albin: St Alban died at Verulamium (Verulam), c. 209. Venerated as the first martyr in the Island of Britain..
59.5 Sinphrosa: According to legend, Symphorosa was martyred with her seven sons at Tibur (Tivoli) towards the end of the reign of Emperor Hadrian (Cath. Ency.). Commemorated by Foxe in the 1570 edition of Actes and Monuments and by Persons in his anti-Foxe calendar (July 18).
60.1 Felicitas: A rich widow, put to death on 23 November of an unknown year in Roman times, said to have had seven martyred sons. The stories of Symphorosa and Felicitas are so alike as to be a repetition with different names.
60.4 Luce & Agnes: Lucy, virgin martyr, died c. 304. Said to have been denounced as a Christian by a suitor she rejected. Agnes (died c. 304) was another virgin martyr who shunned matrimony.
65.3 corosyes: The OED lists the 16C form coresy. Sense 1. “corrosive.” 2. fig., “a cause of trouble and grief.”
65.5 The middle letters of purde are indistinct. The OED gives pured as an adjective: “that has been made pure.”
66.1 In the original ms the 4th and 6th words are missing because of a tear, which extends into the next line. Evidently the tear affecting the fourth word was already present in Simpson’s day, but he indicates no difficulty in reading the rest of these lines. In “The Captive’s Keepsake,” he supplies the missing word so that the line reads “Though you be stayed and searched in every port” (p. 373).
70.3 The ms has stande rather than scande, but this is likely an error. Simpson’s corrects this to scanned.
74.1 The tear at stanza 66 occurs here also, removing the second word and the first half of the third. The minims are indistinct in the second syllable of procure. Simpson puts a question mark here.
74.5 that: the sense demands though. Simpson transcribes the erratum, but in his print version of this stanza he changes it to though ("Keepsake," p. 374).
75.2 The first word is not fully legible. Simpson writes enjoined. The line as transcribed is a hexameter, the only one in the poem.
75.4 coolestaffe steeds: an instrument of torture. See the next section of commentary.
78.3 amate: The OED gives “To dismay, daunt, dishearten, cast down.”
82-86 The tear at stanzas 66 and 74 occurs here also, extending into the second line. Ink seeping from the verso has badly smudged five lines. The seepage continues to the end of the poem, affecting stanzas 83-86 and the Latin colon.
82.1 Simpson has placed my in brackets. In the present state of the original ms the reading of all the words between paste and fayle is doubtful.
84.4 Conster = “construe.”
Commentary on Stanzas 66-77
In stanzas 66 to 77, a long dependent anaphoric clause enumerating persecutions, the topical allusions are dense. Simpson thought that this section "contained a summary of the sufferings of the English Catholics of the period . . . so carefully executed, that a moderate amount of industry would enable a man to trace the allusions of every half line, and to appropriate them to the persons in the mind of the writer," regretting that he had done so "only in a superficial manner, because to do it thoroughly would require more time than I can give, and more space than I can take" ("Keepsake,"p. 373). Despite the disclaimer, his comments are extensive and documented (most often from Bishop Richard Challoner’s 1741 Memoirs of Missionary Priests, and I give them below.
Ports (66.1), Simpson writes, were important as places of embarkation for those wanting to flee the country to seek refuge overseas and for missionaries from abroad wanting to enter England, and they were closely watched. (Cf. Edgar, avatar of the hunted priest: "No port is free"[Lear II.3.3].) Pursuivants were in the ports and major cities making a living either by reporting Catholics or by taking money from Catholics not to report them.” Persons summarizes the resultant crowding of the prisons: “they are all very full replenished and stuffed vpp with Catholiques, in so muche as there is skante anie [room] for theues” (Persecvtion, p. 79).
For Simpson stanzas 66 and 67 describe the general situation of Elizabethan Catholics: harassed by the authorities in every port, unwelcome among friends and kindred for fear of trouble with the law, summoned before the authorities knowing that their lives could be in peril, hounded at law by men who took advantage of the anti-Catholic legislation to appropriate their property and wealth—these were common events in the lives of Catholics in Elizabeth’s reign.
The fifth line of [stanza 67] seems to refer to William, the son of Sir Robert Tyrwhit, who, for having heard mass at his sister's wedding, was dragged to the Tower, though he was ill such a high fever that the physicians declared he was a dead man if he was moved: he died within two days. The last line may refer to Campion, who was made to ride through London with a paper in his hat, inscribed, "Campion, the seditious Jesuit."
Simpson was keenly aware of Campion since he was working on a biography of him. Edmund Campion, one of the “fools of time,” in Shakespeare’s phrase--one of "God Almighties fools” in the phrase of Robert Southwell, who in 1595 followed Campion to the scaffold to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered.
[Stanza 68:] Dragging the prisoners to church was a common proceeding; Challoner gives an account of some of them being" dragged into the hall of York Castle, and there forcibly detained to hear Protestant sermons once a week for the space of one year or thereabouts." The preachers were sometimes sufficiently contented with their performance to make them publish it. Bishop Kennett preserves us the title of a book, "The first part of a sermon wherein is confuted sundry gross heresies which the Jesuits, Seminaries, and other the Pope's scholars do hold. Preached at the Tower, in their presence, 7 Maii 1581, by John Keltridge; with a second sermon against the Jesuits in the Tower, 21 Maii 1581, and an epistle to the Jesuits, dat. Lond. June 10, 1581." The two last lines of this stanza may refer to Campion's disputations in the Tower in August, September, and October 1581, when the four disputants were "sitting at a table and having their certain books about them;" and "right opposite, upon a stool, was set Campion, Jesuit, having nothing but his Bible;" and they only allowed him to answer, not to question, or to object; and they silenced him with brutal threats when he grew inconvenient.
At this “dispute,” Simpson notes, Thomas Pounde was present and made himself obnoxious to the authorities, Nowell even blurting out against him with "os impudens" (“Biographical Sketch,” p. 102; Campion, p. 368).
[Stanza 69] may relate to Alexander Briant, "who was for some days kept without food till he was nearly dead, after which they brutally thrust sharp needles deep down under his nails;" to Mark Typer, whom Fleetwood, the Recorder, caused "to be whipped through the city, and to have his ears bored through with a red-hot iron;" and to John Cooper, who, while prisoner in the Beauchamp Tower, "partly through hunger and cold, partly through the nastiness and stench of the place," became diseased and delirious; whereupon the lieutenant of the Tower had his bed taken away, and made him lie on the ground: he soon died; and "when they pulled off his slippers, in order to bury him, his flesh stuck to them, and came off by pieces from the bones."
[Stanza 70] recounts the ordinary incidents of a persecution: but the two last lines seem to refer to some fact which I do not know; while the three next stanzas refer to Cuthbert Maine, Francis Tregean, and their companions. Maine was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Launceston in November 1577, chiefly for having "obtained from Rome a bull, containing matter of absolution of the queen's subjects," and for "publishing" this bull at Tregean's house. But the bull was only "a printed copy of the grant of the jubilee of 1575, now of no force, noways procured from Rome by Mr. Maine, but bought at a bookseller's shop at Dauai out of curiosity to see the form of it." As soon as Tregean was condemned, the sheriff and his men "went with great haste in the night-time unto the house of the said Francis Tregean, seized upon all his goods, and barbarously turned his wife, being a baron's daughter, and then great with child, his children and family, out of doors, not suffering them to carry off their own clothes with them, so much as would conveniently cover their nakedness." Tregean himself, laden with irons, was committed to the common gaol of the county, --a dark dungeon, three fathoms under the earth, not above fifteen feet across, "where he remained in most miserable manner amongst at least twenty condemned persons by the space of thirty days, oppressed almost even to the last gasp of life with hunger and most horrible stench, not suffered sometimes to have the benefit of one drop of water to quench his thirst in a whole hot summer's day together; when, to add more afflictions to his miseries, some of the vilest and basest condemned persons were hired of purpose most opprobriously to abuse him, and to insult over him.”
[Stanza 75] contains references to Vallenger, a printer, who lost his ears, and was imprisoned for seven years, for writing and printing some verses about Campion . . . [and] to a certain priest, of whom Verstegan, in his Theatrum Crudelitatis Calvinisticae gives us an engraving, where he is represented as sown up in a bear's skin, and hunted by hounds.
Simpson thought the book Vallenger printed, A true reporte of the Death and Martyrdom of M. Campion (1582), had been edited by Pounde and that the poets were Vallenger, Walpole, and Pounde (Campion, 495-96). In 1873 he edited the poems, which were published as part of F. J. Furnivall’s Ballads from Manuscript volumes, including Pounde’s amusing blast at “Kogging Munday”--the papist-hating Anthony Munday, one-time professed Catholic, sometime stage player, and putative collaborator-to-be with Shakespeare (“Poems Relating to Campion,” 158-59; Campion, 439).
This is said to have happened at Dover; and a ms. letter in the Gesù at Rome gives more details, changes the bear's skin into a bull's hide, and concludes with the preservation of the priest. through the compassion of some bystanders. I suppose the "coolestaffe steeds" were wooden horses, a torture which was refined in the Netherlands to a tight rope, on which the victim was set a-straddle, naked, and dragged backwards and forwards till he was half-dead. Perhaps the misery of being "whipped to death by preachers” is a refinement even on this.
The precise nature of the torment represented by “coolestaffe steeds” in 75.4 eluded Simpson, who did not have the OED. The latter lists cowl-staff, coul-staff: “A stout stick used to carry a ‘cowl’ [tub or similar large vessel for water, etc.; esp. applied to one with two ears which could be borne by two men on a cowl-staff. arch. or dial.], being thrust through the two handles of it; a pole or staff used to carry burdens, supported on the shoulders of two bearers; a ‘stang’. It was formerly a familiar household requisite, and a ready weapon. arch. and dial.to ride on a cowl-staff, etc.: to be set astride a pole and carried in derision about the streets; a rough form of popular punishment, inflicted esp. on a husband who allowed himself to be beaten or abused by his wife.” The word occurs in William Allen's Brief History, where it is spelled coulestaffe, and Shakespeare’s Merry Wives ( III. iii.156) has “Go, take vp these cloathes heere, quickly: Wher's the Cowle-staffe?”
[Stanza 76] may be illustrated by the Ms. letter we have once before quoted. "Not many days ago a quean was shamelessly introduced by some knaves into the chamber of the Bishop of Lincoln" (Dr. Watson, then a prisoner at Wisbeach Castle); "and when the decrepit old man was struggling to push the shameless creature out of the door, the rascals who had let her in threatened to whip him." Another quean was introduced into the chamber of the venerable priest Mr. Wade, by a similar device of the turnkeys; and as soon as she was there, she began crying out to them, "Help, rape !" Such events were of frequent occurrence; and each time Topcliffe, or some other persecutor, would write a letter full of virtuous indignation to the Council, begging them to devise some means of reforming the abandoned wretches who were shut up for their religion. Amongst those against whom accusations of coining were trumped up, Richard Stanihurst, Campion's pupil, was evidently one. There is in the State-Paper Office a letter of Robert Beale to Leicester, dated August 28, 1580, recounting how he has searched in Mr. Stanihurst's house, but found no letters or papers, as suspected: certain papers, however, were found proving him to have been connected with mineral matters, but he denies ever meddling with coining or forgery.
Stanza 77 concludes the recitative of persecutions, with stanza 78 providing the independent clause upon which the preceding though clauses depend, bringing the long sentence to an end. Against “all these griefs .. . and thousands more,” the poet offers the comfort that God’s long arm—an image of God’s omnipotence recurrent in the Old Testament—has not shortened. This is followed by the envoi—not the Chaucerian envoi of the “go little book” variety, but like the traditional envoi the lines adopt an humble tone, asking the reader to accept them in good grace not for their worth but for their “zeal.”
The foregrounding of "zeal" recalls Henry Walpole's lines on Campion and his mates:
Pardon my want, I offer nought but will;
Their register remaineth safe aboue.
Campion exceedes the compasse of my skill
Like “zeal” in Pounde’s poem, here “will” (good will, virtuous intent) is what the poet believes the reader will be affected by, for it is zeal that drives the effects the poem intends to have on its community of readers, and it is zeal by means of which the poem (pace W. H. Auden, who denied the possibility) trusts to make something happen.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to avoid anything that sounds like closure. I would like to think that what I have done here is to provide an opening for the profession to exercise its wit and sagacity on the poem, placing it in the discursive sites of Protestant-Catholic polemic and religious verse it would now occupy had it not suffered premature burial four hundred years ago. In 1873, editing the “Poems Relating to Campion” section of Furnivall and Morphill’s Ballads from Manuscripts, Simpson concluded a footnote on Pounde by mentioning his “long poem in two parts in the Record Office” and adding: “The whole poem deserves printing” (p. 158). Now that the poem has appeared in print, may the writer be reborn at last into the dialogue he thrived on, and may Thomas Pounde, who much like his poem was buried at night with “maimed rites,” rest in peace.
Appendix I: First page of the poem
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Appendix II: The Elcius Narrative
[f. 101r]
The copy of a letter wrytten by ffather ffrancis de Castro pryest, on of the socyety of Jesus, vnto father Lawrence Zara. Translated firste out of Spanishe into latin and now oute of latin into Englishe by a copy printed with pryueliedge by Birckman at Colloin ao 1582
In this letter I will declare that which wilbe as I suppose most gratefull vnto your reuerence to witt the gloryous martyrdom, which on Peeter Elcius a citizen of Madrill suffered att Marockoe this present year of our lorde 1580 as we are informed by the true and faithfull report of the reuerend Father brother Ignatius prouinciall of the Trinity who went ouer into Affrica to redeeme Captyues. This Peter Elcius of Madrill dwelte in Marockoe who bycause he was comonly thought by some outwarde signes to haue renounced his Christianity, was of the inhabitantes called Hameter This man being wery of that kind of life, after aduyce taken with some otheres on thursday morning the 27 of December in the yere 1579 Departed thence pryuely accompanied with the kinges Factor being allso a Spaniard and with a Portugall Seruant, & a moore, euery on mounted on horsebacke all theese ryding foorthe a lytle out of the Towne, chanced to meete twoo morisco horsmen whom they shunned willingly, fearing (as yt was lykly) that they woulde betray them and therfor consulting together, whether yt were better to holde on, or geue ouer theyr Iorney at the lengthe they determined to procede but leauing the highte way for feare of being pursued & ouertaken, & crossing the nexte hill that they came vnto, They went very speedely towards ffesse, where when nighte came vpon them, and that with such greate rayne & darkness as that they could neither knowe their way neither see any foote where thei went at laste thei came at the breake of day within [f. 101v] ffouer myles of Azamor vnto the very hands of their enemyes, where being forth with apprehended they were by force caryed to the Towne and from thence wer afterwardes by commaundment of the kinge conueyed to Marocko on ffryday the 16 of Ianuary, in the twylighte, and remoued the nexte day to another house, in which certaine captyues were Imprisoned, where the moores were hardly handled, the sayde Peter being faste bound hand and foote to a gune. and not long after the kinges messenger came thither who tolde Peter (with whom bycause of his religion they were moste offended) that the king was redy to pardon him what hadd bin paste so that he woulde returne to their moorishe religion, to whom Peter moste couragiously replyed, that he was & allwayes hadd bin a Christian, and that he woulde neuer deny his belyeffe in the true god, thoughe he hadd for feare before made som showe to the contrary furthermore (quoth he) tell the king that in my body I was neuer circumcysed, and in my minde I allwayes kepte faste printed the faithe and religion, which being a boy I professed in Spaine. neither am I ignorant that moste greeuouse torments & deathe are presently for this cause prepared for me but these punishmentes and this death shall bring me euerlasting lyffe which I do muche more esteeme than all the Empyres and kingdomes of this worlde, then turning to the Christianes which were present (being many) who hadd renounced their faithe, and looked earnestly upon him he saide Returne [f. 102r] returne my breotheren to god & to his holy Lawe & truth, for otherwyse you vndo your selues & runne headlong into euerlasting fyer. Craue pardon for your sinnes of the euerlasting ffather for his sonnes sake Iesus Christe our Sauior and desyre him to haue mercy on your soules to whom I yelde & commende myne & doe beseeche the moste blessed Virgin our lady and alll the Sainctes of heauen to pray for mee, you do now perceaue how neare I am to my Deathe, which bindethe me to open the truthe sincerley vnto you. know ye my bretheren that all thinges are but falshed and <vainy> /to\ vanity saue only to beleue and holde that which the holy Romane Churche beleueth and holdethe. Note you well that for feare of leesing temporall lyfe you leese that which ys euerlasting and blessed yea & therwith allso god himselfe who will call vs before him at his greate and dreadfull Iudgment. what excuse shall you be able to make when he himselfe hathe foretolde you: he that <denyeth> shall denye me before men: I wyll deny hym before the angelles of god
Soo to yf that deathe and that laste howre in which no remedy can be hadd do not com vpon you when you thinke leaste of yt and by the Iust Iudgment of god be condemmed to the perpetuall fyer of hell. When he hadd thus spoken to the christyannes, he turned his tale to the mores, saying I do also in the name of allmighty god, and his only Sonne Iesus Christe, requeste you to <.....> /turn eche\ vnto him, and to receaue healthfull baptisme the onely, entry for you unto salluation yf you /com\ <....> not lykwyse to the fyre of hell and other infinite punishments. Truly I for my parte do truste that Iesus Christ my sauyoure, will accepte this my confessyon and admitt me unto that glory (for which I was made & created) through the merytes of his moste blessed passyon for which I besech & requeste him that he will permitt this [f. 102v] this death which is prepared for me to be the moste sharpe and cruell of all that euer any Martyres he<e>rtofore haue suffered and that he will geue me tyll the later gaspe of my breathe perfect pence & vnderstanding with pacyece & fortytude to suffer constantly all trouble & tormentes for the loue of his diuyne ma= maiesty. In the meane season when by chance the Spanishe Embassaders kinsman came to the courte to deliuer a letter to the kinges owne hand & dealte with his chamberlain to haue /hadd\ recourse vnto him. the king hauing inteligences thereof, fearing least he hadd com to make suite for Peteres lyfe commanded Mansericus Captayne of his garde to goe oute at A posterne gate, So as the Spaniarde mighte not see him, & presently to will the sayde Peter to be putt to a moste cruell deathe, who with all speed to the place apoyncted for execution: in which Iorney he neuer ceased to persuade the reuolted Christianes, moores and Iewes (wheras <folowed> a greate company folowed him) that they woulde conuerte vnto god, and endeuor to gaine so happy a deathe as he was then aboute to endure, and that they woulde beleue in on god which mighte saue them and not suffer themselues to be seduced with the false erors of Mahumet with whom they shoulde otherwyse feele the payne of euerlasting punishment. Whilste he vttered theese wordes with a lowde voyce, they beate and buffeted him with their fistes, and spurned at him with their feete, all the way that he went. When he came to the place firste of all bycause he shoulde speake no more they cutt of his tounge, and stripped him nakede of all clothes, sauing only his sherte and breeches. then they nayled him, with greate spyk nayles throughe eyther of his handes, to a gate abowte 4 elles
[f.103r] heighte from the grounde, where hanging (which ys strange to be tolde) thoughe he wanted his tounge, he brake oute into these wordes: O my good god be mindefull of me, for these tormenting nayles seme vnto me, not to be nayles, but floweres, not thornes, but roses, not harde & roughe iron, but peerless pearles and preciouse stones. Then the bloody tormentors racking oute his body cruelly doe againe nayle eyther of his feete with the two passing greate nayles, wherewith he sayde: thou knowest my good god, that I feele no paine in all this tormente, but rather wonderfull sweetness and pleasure and all that whyle he spake to none but god only, to whom he vttered wordes full of pyty and meruaylouse loue./
humbly beseeching the euerlasting father by Iesu Christe, that he woulde instructe him with the lyghte of his grace, So as he mighte allwayes profess him, and <la> lastly that he mighte dye in the grace and fauor of him. heerwith the moores being ashamed that he spake so wysly of heauenly matters againste their supersticion, especially being exasperated or moued with so manifeste a miracle of his tounge, som plucked of their shooes and floung them at his face, others did cruelly beat & broose the boones of his thighes with clubbes to breake them vnto whom he sayde, thinke not that you hurte me any thing at all, doe unto me what you please all theese thinges doe increase my crowne & rewarde/
neither can they euer withdrawe me from the true religion/
but the moores raging So muche the more began to torment the martyr a freshe, often tymes crying vnto him to call vpon mahumet, he on the other syde replyed, tempt me no more yt ys harde to ouercome [f. 103v] him who hathe Christe his protector & defence (as I haue) and the moste blessed virgin his mother and all the Saynctes praying for me, then they enquyred of him who hadd so peruerted him and broughte him to that error, vnto which he answered that they in very deede erred, which knew not truthe, and being blynde were vyolently poushed forwarde into hell and that he felte and perceaued muche more sorow for theire misery then for his owne tormentes./
Then the cursed tormentors pearsing him throw the browe and head with a greate nayle, fastoned yt to the gate, when yet for all this there came no blood of any wounde, either of his handes feete or head but shaking his head a little he did e/a\syly lose yt from the gate, and turning his necke somwhat on the ryghte syde, hee seemed to shyne with a muche more fayre & cheerfull countenance and lyfting vp his head again he fixed his eyes towardes heauen speaking secrettly to him selfe, I know not what, which no man vnderstoode thoughe euery on perceaued, he made his prayeres vnto god, after this the nayle being pluckte oute of his head, which coulde not easyly be don for that yt was with great force driuen <qu>quyte throughe the boone they therwith so pearsed his throte that th/ei\ nayled yt to the tablinges of the gate and out of [f. 104r] of this wounde only the blood insued So this noble Martyre, (hanging somwhat longe) eftsoones opened his eyes <minde> cheerfully & looked vp towards heauen with increddible pacionce & quyet of minde which shyned in his face & contenaunce allthoughe he resigned his moste happy Soule to his maker, his whole body remaining passing fayer & whyte, without any scar or spott, hauing his righte eye /close\ shutt & his lefte wyde open this was the end of this moste blessed Champione. of which as soone as the king knewe, he comaunded the Embassades kinsman to be broughte vnto him, who hearing of the matter amongeste other thinges begged the body of the Christian martyr, & when yt was by the king granted vnto him, the Christianes to cooller the matter made as yf thei caryed him out of the gate wheras the vsuall place of buryall ys but they lefte yt where the execution was don, that they mighte after warde bury yt in the Chappell of the most blessed virgin, where Christianes are accustomed to heare masse, & to exercise other sacramentes in which place no other hadd euer before beene buryed. Brother Ignatius (of whom I spake of) deuided his shert and breeches into litle pieeces <among> amongst the Christianes and these Relyques they doe all kepe, with no smalle deuotion. The next day folowing the Christianes made a solempine holy day vnto which all the other Christian Captyues in lyke manner resorted, to whom ffather Ignatius himselfe (who was a wittnesse and beholder of the whole matter) discoursed in [f. 104v] In a Sermone of euery thing particularly, as yt hadd happened, which so moued euery on of them, that they determined zealously & deuoutly euery mouthe in <the> his honor to reuerence and <honor> kepe holy in the same Chappell that day, in which this blessed Sainct was crowned with martirdom./
deo gratias
ocania 10 Iuly 1580 Conuertanur qui oderunt Sion.
Wayne Pounds
Tokyo 2009
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