answering as they had been taught by her, they were severely whipped, and the eldest, who was but twelve years old, was cast into prison.— The circumstances attending her death were of so unfeeling and barbarous a nature, as to make the heart bleed at the recital, and cause the cheek to redden with shame, that such monsters in human shape could be found in a country which before the reformation, so called, was proverbial for its humanity and courage. Let the ponderous work of Fox's Martyrology be searched throughout, and we challenge the production of so cruel and sanguinary an execution on one of the reformers as this of Mrs. Clithero. The place selected was the toll-both, six or seven yards from the prison at York, and the day the 25th of March, 1586. Dr. Lingard, in a note to his History of England, gives the following account of this cruel and unparalleled scene by an eye witness :-" After she had prayed, Fawcet (one of the sheriffs) commanded them to put off her apparel, when she, with the four women, requested him on their knees, that, for the honour of womanhood, this might be dispensed with, but they would not grant it. Then she requested that the women might unparel her, and that they would turn their faces from her during that time. The women took off her clothes and put upon her the long linen habit. Then very quietly she laid her down upon the ground, her face covered with a handkerchief, and most part of her body with the habit. The dore was laied upon her; her hand's she joined towards her face. Then the sheriff said, Naie, ye must have your hands bound. Then two sergeants parted her hands, and bound them to two posts, in the same manner as the feet had previously been fix'd. After this they laied weight upon her, which, when she first felt, she said Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercye upon mee, which were the last words she was heard to speake. She was in dying about one quarter of an hower. A sharpe stone, as big as a man's fist,. had been put under her back; upon her was laied to the quantitie of seven or eight hundred weight, which breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth of the skinne."-Lingard's History of England. Note FF. 28. Christopher Wharton, Priest. Mr. Wharton was born at Middleton in Yorkshire, and brought up in Trinity college, Oxford, where he was some time a fellow, and took his degree of master of arts.-Preferring, however, the old religion to the new novelties of the day, he left Oxford and went over to Rheims, where he was made priest, being ordained by the cardinal de Guise, then archbishop of that city, March 31, 1584. He was sent upon the mission in 1586, and after labouring three years in the vineyard, was taken in the house of Mrs. Eleanor Hunt, widow, some time in, the year 1599, who, was also committed prisoner with Mr. Wharton to York castle for harbouring him. Mr. Wharton was brought upon his trial in the Lent Assizes, 1600, and indicted for being a seminary priest, and returning into the realm contrary to the statute of Elizabeth 27. He acknowledged himself to be a priest; but added, that he was so, as indeed he was, before that statute was made, leaving it to his accusers to prove when he was ordained priest: for, considering his age, he might, for ought they knew, have been ordained before the first year of queen Elizabeth, and consequently be out of the danger of that statute. At his trial many odious things were objected against the pope, cardinals, missionary priests, and Catholics in general; whom they were pleased to charge with idolatry, superstition, treasons, and what not. All which charges Mr. Wharton assured them were unjust slanders; and withal, quite impertinent to the indictment, and the question upon which his life depended, which was to know the time when he was made priest. And as to the dissensions between the Jesuits and seminary priests, which they also objected and amplified, he answered briefly, "that in the Catholic Roman religion (which he professed, and for which he was ready to die) there is neither idolatry, nor superstition, nor falsehood, nor contrariety of doctrine and though there are dissensions some times amongst Catholics, either priests or others, yet these differences are not in articles of their faith, but in other matters; as of some particular jurisdiction, right of title, spiritual or temporal, and the like: and that, for his own part, he had no such controversy with any Catholic, nor breach of charity with any person whatever.' As to the point concerning the time of his ordination, after a few conjectures which proved nothing, Mr. Saville, baron of the exchequer (who' was also his judge) affirming, that he knew him in Oxford some years after the time mentioned in the statute, and that he was not then taken for a priest, the jury was directed to find him guilty of the indictment; and he was condemned of high treason. Mrs. Hunt also was condemned of felony, for receiving him into her house; as if she also had known him in Oxford to have been no priest, and to have been made priest afterwards, whereas, indeed, she knew him not at all, till a little time before he was apprehended in her house. She utterly refused to save her life by going to the Protestant church; but though she was sentenced to die, and lost all her worldly substance, yet she did not suffer, as was expected, but was permitted to linger away in prison, under the benefit, as it was called, of a reprieve. Mr. Wharton had also the usual baits offered him of life, liberty, and promotion, if he would conform, which he generously rejecting, suffered death, according to sentence, with great constancy, at York, the 28th of March, being Easter-week, 1600. Robert Sutton, Priest. Robert Sutton was born at Burton upon Trent, in Staffordshire, and was brought up in the university of Oxford, where he made a great progress in learning. By an extraordinary mercy of God, he, together with his brother Abraham, took the generous resolution to disengage himself from the snares of the new creed, and leaving his station in the Protestant church, he and his brother went over to Douay, where they were admitted the 24th of March, 1577. Here they applied themselves to the study of divinity, were both made priests, and sent together upon the English mission the 19th of March, 1578. Mr. Robert Sutton's labours seem to have been chiefly spent in his native country, where he met with great success in bringing strayed souls to the fold of Christ. Both he and his brother Abraham were of the number of priests who fell into the hands of the persecutors, and were banished in 1585. They both returned to their Catholic labours, and after some time, Robert being again apprehended, was committed to Stafford jail, and being brought to trial was condemned to die as in cases of high treason, which sentence was executed upon him at Stafford some time in this month March, 1587. Abraham Sutton, his brother, lived till the reign of James I. and was sent into perpetual banishment in 1605. Thurstan Hunt and Robert Middleton, Priests. Mr. Hunt was a gentleman by birth, born at Carleton-Hall, near Leeds in Yorkshire, and brought up in Douay college, during its resi dence in Rheims, where he was ordained priest by the cardinal de Guise, April 20, 1584, and sent from Rheims upon the English mission in 1585. His labours seem to have been chiefly in Lancashire; where attempting, with some others, to rescue a priest, whom the officers were carrying to prison, he himself was apprehended, and being found to be a priest, was sent up to London, together with Mr. Robert Middleton (a gentleman of the same character, who had fallen into their hands about the same time), who was a native of York, and a priest of the college of Seville in Spain. They were quickly sent back to be tried and executed in Lancashire, where they had chiefly bestowed their missionary labours. Here they were sentenced to die, as in cases of high treason, merely on account of their priesthood; and here they suffered in consequence of this sentence, at Lancaster, sometime in March, 1601. ..). Thomas Ashby, Gentleman, was executed at Tyburn, according to Dodd, some time in March, 1344, for refusing to submit to the king's spiritual supremacy. " Gervase Garrow, Gentleman, was also condemned to die and executed in 1540, for denying the spiritual supremacy of Harry. John Bere, Priest, suffered in 1535, for refusing to allow the spiritual supremacy of the king. Robert Salt, Priest, was condemned to die for denying the spiritual supremacy of the king, and suffered, on that account, in the year 1535. John Ireland, Priest, was executed in the year 1543, for refusing to acknowledge the usurped supremacy in spirituals of the tyrant Henry. The reader will here perceive a wide difference between the persons who suffered for the Catholic faith and those whom Fox has ranked as martyrs. The latter were ignorant and illiterate creatures, generally under the influence of an inflamed mind and wild religious frenzy, or imbued with depraved feelings and sensual passions. One of them, it is true, must be classed in the ranks of literature, but his whole life proved him to be an arch hypocrite, a base dissembler, a perjured ecclesiastic, a cowardly tyrant, and a vile parasite-we mean THOMAS CRANMER ; another died a Catholic, and the rest were so discordant in their notions, that they resembled more the confused tongues of Babel than the one and indivisible spirit of the gospel of Christ. On the other hand, it will be seen that the sufferers on the side of Catholicism were men of exemplary lives; pious, zealous, and abstemious; men of education and theological knowledge; and strictly scrupulous in avoiding a breach of the peace. The exercise of freedom of conscience, and the profession of the faith of their forefathers was their only crime; and had they chosen to have apostatized from that faith which they knew to be revealed by God himself, they might have saved their lives. They, however, preferred to obey God before, men, and they all died in the profession of one and the same creed, a creed acknowledged but a short time before by the whole world, and then, as now, by the greater part of Christendom. In the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth a man might be a Catholic without being guilty of treason, but finding that the new parliamentary religion was not able to stand against the devoted zeal of the Catholic clergy, and learning that colleges had been established in foreign parts for the purpose of educating Englishmen for the priesthood, that they might labour for the salvation of souls among their countrymen, the advisers of this queen had laws passed constituting the act of going abroad, being made priests, and returning to England, into the crime of high treason, a thing heretofore unheard of. Had such a law been passed by our heathen Saxon ancestors, it would have been deemed barbarous, but being the invention of Protestant reformers, it is justified on the plea of the restless nature of Catholic priests, and their desire to make converts. But such a plea would be a justification of the deeds of Nero and Caligula. The test for a Catholic now was the oath of allegiance, which embraced religious doctrines as well as civil submission, and consequently could not be taken by any honest Catholic. Thus we see several of the Catholic Missioners offered their lives, which had been declared forfeited for exercising their priestly functions, if they would only take an oath contrary to conscience, which firmly refusing, they were executed under circumstances of the greatest injustice and barbarity. 15191 Robert Hatches, N. Archer and 1582 N. Hawkims, Martyrs. 2 Thomas Bound, Martyr. 1561 3 N. Wrigsham, Martyr. 1519 4 N. Lansdale, Martyr. 5 Mistress Smith, widow, Martyr. 1552 6 James Baynam, Gent. Mart. 1555 7 John Awcock, Confessor. 1595 1606 APRIL. 2 John Paine, Priest, Martyr. 11 1608 8 George Marsh, Preacher, Mart. 9 William Flower, Minister, Mart. 1642 1556 10 Robert Drakes, Minister, Mart. 11 Thomas Tyms, Martyr. 12 Richard Spurge, Martyr. 13 Thomas Spurge, Martyr. George Gervase, O. S. B. Priest, Williani titular bishop of Chalce- John Lockwood, Priest, Martyr. Edmund Catherick, Priest, Mart. 1643 17 Henry Heath, O. S. F. Priest, Martyr. 1601 19 James Duckett, Layman, Mart. 14 John Cavell and George Am- 1584 20 ̊ James Bell, Priest, Martyr. brose, Martyrs 15 John Harpole, Martyr. 16 Joan Beach, Martyr. 17 John Hallier, Minister, Martyr. 21 Richard Nichol, Martyr. 22 John Hammond, Martyr. 24 Thomas Losby, Martyr. 1586 - John Finch, Gentleman, Mart. William Thomson, alias Black- THE list selected by Fox for this month contains but one rubricated martyr, to whom the martyrologist has no claim, he being the holy evangelist St. Mark, who belongs to the Catholic church, and is honoured on the same day of the month with special notice by that church. St. George, the patron saint of England, and of the great order of English knighthood called the Garter, is also preserved in Fox's list. In the Catholic calendar, this saint was, and now is, distinguished by red letters, but Fox, though he felt himself compelled to keep the saint in his martyrology, did not think proper to distinguish him from the pretended martyrs of his invention, of whom we have five ministers and one gentleman, who might be supposed, father Parsons hints, to be as worthy of a red coat as others of their fellows before, that are rubricated upon less merit. But let us |