Queens and martyrs
This is one very confused post. I began it still thinking about the Elizabeth I movie and planning to write more about Elizabeth of England and Mary of Scotland and the Babington Plot, in which some Catholic sympathizers and a Jesuit (John Ballard) were arrested and killed for planning to depose Elizabeth and free Mary from her 18 years of captivity. I was kind of intrigued with the idea that a Jesuit was implicated. That lead to looking for info ....
Here's just a a mention from John O'Malley's book, The First Jesuits ...
Ignatius was eager to have some Jesuits accompany Phillip II when in 1554 he went to England espoused to Mary Tudor, but none were invited by that prince, who like his father showed little enthusiasm for the Society .... The Jesuits did not enter England until 1580, and even then there were just three of them - Robert Parsons, Ralph Emerson, and Edmund Campion. The next year Campion was apprehended and executed for "treason".
And here's a little from the website of the British Jesuits ...
[...] William Allen, leader of English Catholic exiles and later a Cardinal, with the support of Robert Parsons and other Jesuits persuaded Mercurian to approve a Jesuit mission to England. The first missioners, Parsons, Campion and Ralph Emerson, departed Rome in April of 1580. By the end of 1581, Campion had been executed and Parsons was back on the continent, never to return to England.
The history of the Elizabethan Jesuits is the stuff of legends and hagiography: clandestine meetings, priest-holes, raids, escapes from the Tower of London, imprisonment, torture and martyrdom.
So intense was persecution that periodically Father General Claudio Acquaviva questioned the mission's continuation. Parsons, along with Jesuits in England such as Robert Southwell and John Gerard, strengthened the resolve of lay Catholics through the Spiritual Exercises. On the continent Robert Parsons and others occasionally sought to alleviate the suffering of Catholics in England by encouraging invasion of England and deposition of Elizabeth ...
I'd heard of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, most killed during the reign of Elizabeth .... guys like Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell, both Jesuits.
But then there's also Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which mentions in part the 300 odd Protestants killed by Mary Tudor, Elizabeth's Catholic predecessor and half-sister.
The Spiritual Exercises and acts of courage and faith, regicidal plots and hanging-drawing-quartering and burning at the stake ... what a mix. I'm just left with a sad, creepy feeling about politics or religion or both. One sort of redeeming oddity - Mary [Tudor] was interred in Westminster Abbey on 14 December in a tomb she would eventually share with Elizabeth. The Latin inscription on a marble plaque on their tomb (affixed there by James VI of Scotland [Mary Queen of Scot's son] when he succeeded Elizabeth to the throne of England as James I) translates to "Partners both in Throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection". - Wikipedia
- their tomb
Here's just a a mention from John O'Malley's book, The First Jesuits ...
Ignatius was eager to have some Jesuits accompany Phillip II when in 1554 he went to England espoused to Mary Tudor, but none were invited by that prince, who like his father showed little enthusiasm for the Society .... The Jesuits did not enter England until 1580, and even then there were just three of them - Robert Parsons, Ralph Emerson, and Edmund Campion. The next year Campion was apprehended and executed for "treason".
And here's a little from the website of the British Jesuits ...
[...] William Allen, leader of English Catholic exiles and later a Cardinal, with the support of Robert Parsons and other Jesuits persuaded Mercurian to approve a Jesuit mission to England. The first missioners, Parsons, Campion and Ralph Emerson, departed Rome in April of 1580. By the end of 1581, Campion had been executed and Parsons was back on the continent, never to return to England.
The history of the Elizabethan Jesuits is the stuff of legends and hagiography: clandestine meetings, priest-holes, raids, escapes from the Tower of London, imprisonment, torture and martyrdom.
So intense was persecution that periodically Father General Claudio Acquaviva questioned the mission's continuation. Parsons, along with Jesuits in England such as Robert Southwell and John Gerard, strengthened the resolve of lay Catholics through the Spiritual Exercises. On the continent Robert Parsons and others occasionally sought to alleviate the suffering of Catholics in England by encouraging invasion of England and deposition of Elizabeth ...
I'd heard of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, most killed during the reign of Elizabeth .... guys like Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell, both Jesuits.
But then there's also Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which mentions in part the 300 odd Protestants killed by Mary Tudor, Elizabeth's Catholic predecessor and half-sister.
The Spiritual Exercises and acts of courage and faith, regicidal plots and hanging-drawing-quartering and burning at the stake ... what a mix. I'm just left with a sad, creepy feeling about politics or religion or both. One sort of redeeming oddity - Mary [Tudor] was interred in Westminster Abbey on 14 December in a tomb she would eventually share with Elizabeth. The Latin inscription on a marble plaque on their tomb (affixed there by James VI of Scotland [Mary Queen of Scot's son] when he succeeded Elizabeth to the throne of England as James I) translates to "Partners both in Throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection". - Wikipedia
- their tomb
posted by crystal | 6:08 PM
4 Comments:
Last year I read God's Secret Agents,which was very good, but which also included a very disturbing account of the Jesuit Henry Garnet's execution.
I guess that's part of my problem with the Elizabeth movie. The matter of good guys vs. bad guys was not clear cut. There were fanatics on both sides who believed in killing in the name of God without so much as a second thought.
Yesh, I read that when the guys in the Babington plot were killed, they were done so in two groups. The reports of the horrible suffering of the first group, which the Jesuit was part of, were so awful that Elizabeth told the executioners to make sure the guys in the second group were completely dead before they were drawn and quartered.
The Catholic Herald has a review of the Elizabeth movie that you might like - link
I'm just left with a sad, creepy feeling about politics or religion or both.
Well, with good reason. It is all rather sad and creepy. The mixing of the two has never been a very good thing, I don't think. The only thing worse than wielding power is thinking you have God on your side and He's told you do whatever it is you want to do to people. Leads to all kinds of slaughter.
Yep.
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