Bacon's Dictionary
Appendices
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59
The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.
These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.
Use of Torture
The examination of Father Gerard, April 14, 1597, is preserved in the Public Record Office, Domestic, Eliz., Vol. 262, No. 123. The Commissioners were:
- Sir Richard Barkley, Lieutenant of the Tower
- Sir Edward Coke, then Attorney General
- Thomas Fleming, a Privy Councillor
- Sir Francis Bacon, afterwards Lord Chancellor
- William Wade, or Waad, afterwards Lieutenant of the Tower
Father Gerard’s account:
On the third day, immediately after dinner, came my gaoler to me, and with sorrowful mien told me the Lords Commissioners had come, and with them the Queen’s Attorney General, [Coke] and that I must go down to them. I found five men, none of whom had before examined me except Wade, who was there for the purpose of accusing me on all points. The Queen’s Attorney General then took a sheet of paper, and began to write a solemn form of juridical examination.
The Commissioners [extract]:
Being demanded whether he received any letters from the parts beyond the seas or no, confesseth that within these four or five days he received from Antwerp (as he supposeth) letters inclosed and sealed up. He confesseth that he received within this year past other letters from the parts beyond the seas, and two or three of them he confesseth he did read, and saith that those letters contained matter concerning maintenance of scholars beyond sea, but refuseth to declare who sent those letters or by whom the same were brought, and saith that some of those letters were sent from St. Omer. And being demanded what was the cause that moved him to have escaped out of prison of late, saith that the cause was that he might have more opportunity to have won souls. And being demanded who procured the counterfeit keys for him, by means whereof he should have escaped, refuseth to tell who it was, for that, as he saith, he will not discover anything against any other that may bring them to trouble.
Examined by us,
Ry. Barkeley.
Edw. Coke.
Tho. Felemynge.
Fr. Bacon.
W. Waad. [On the back of a playing card (the seven of spades), which is attached to the original document, is written in Sir Edward Coke’s handwriting: Polewhele I; Walpole I; PatCullen I; Annias 31; Willms I; Squier; Jarrard I.]
Polewhele, Patrick Cullen or O’Collun, Williams, and Squire were all executed for high treason, the latter on the accusation of having, at Father Walpole’s instigation, poisoned the pommel of Elizabeth’s saddle. Annias apostatized after two years’ imprisonment.
Father Gerard’s acount:
They then produced the warrant, which they had for putting me to the torture, and gave it me to read; for it is not allowed in this prison to put any one to the torture without express warrant I saw the document was duly signed. Then they began to entreat me not to force them to do what they were loath to do; and told me they were bound not to desist from putting me to the torture day after day, as long as my life lasted, until I gave the information they sought from me. Then we proceeded to the place appointed for the torture. We went in a sort of solemn procession; the attendants preceding us with lighted candles, because the place was underground and very dark, especially about the entrance. It was a place of immense extent, and in it were ranged divers sorts of racks, and other instruments of torture. Some of these they displayed before me, and told me I should have to taste them every one. Then again they asked me if I was willing to satisfy them on the points on which they had questioned me. “It is out of my power to satisfy you,” I answered; and throwing myself on my knees, I said a prayer or two. Then they led me to a great upright beam, or pillar of wood, which was one of the supports of this vast crypt. At the summit of this column were fixed certain iron staples for supporting weights. Here they placed on my wrists manacles of iron, and ordered me to mount upon two or three wicker steps; I then raising my arms, they inserted an iron bar through the rings of the manacles, and then through the staples in the pillar, putting a pin through the bar so that it could not slip. My arms being thus fixed above my head, they withdrew those wicker steps I spoke of, one by one, from beneath my feet, so that I hung by my hands and arms. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground; so they dug away the ground beneath, as they could not raise me higher, for they had suspended me from the topmost staples in the pillar. Thus hanging by my wrists, I began to pray, while those gentlemen standing round asked me again if I was willing to confess. I replied, “I neither can nor will.” But so terrible a pain began to oppress me, that I was scarce able to speak the words. The worst pain was in my breast and belly, my arms and hands. It seemed to me that all the blood in my body rushed up my arms into my hands; and I was under the impression at the time that the blood actually burst forth from my fingers and at the back of my hands. This was, however, a mistake; the sensation was caused by the swelling of the flesh over the iron that bound it. I felt now such intense pain (and the effect was probably heightened by an interior temptation), that it seemed to me impossible to continue enduring it. It did not, however, go so far as to make me feel any inclination or real disposition to give the information they wanted. For as the eyes of our merciful Lord had seen my imperfection, He did not suffer me to be tempted above what I was able, but with the temptation made also a way of escape.
Hereupon those gentlemen, seeing that I gave them no further answer, departed to the Lieutenant’s house; and there they waited, sending now and then to know how things were going on in the crypt. There were left with me three or four strong men, to superintend my torture. My gaoler also remained, I fully believe out of kindness to me, and kept wiping away with a handkerchief the sweat that ran down from my face the whole time, as, indeed, it did from my whole body. So far, indeed, he did me a service; but by his words, he rather added to my distress, for he never stopped beseeching and entreating me to have pity on myself, and tell these gentlemen what they wanted to know; and so many human reasons did he allege, that I verily believe he was either instigated directly by the devil under pretence of affection for me, or had been left there purposely by the persecutors to influence me by his show of sympathy. Yet I could not prevail with him to be silent. The others also who stood by said: “He will be a cripple all his life, if he lives through it; but he will have to be tortured daily till he confesses.” But I kept praying in a low voice, and continually uttered the holy names of Jesus and Mary.
I had hung in this way till after one of the clock, as I think, when I fainted. How long I was in the faint I know not; perhaps not long; for the men who stood by lifted me up, or replaced those wicker steps under my feet, until I came to myself; and immediately they heard me praying, they let me down again. This they did over and over again when the faint came on, eight or nine times before five of the clock. Somewhat before five came Wade again, and drawing near said, “Will you yet obey the commands of the Queen and the Council?” “No,” said I, “what you ask is unlawful, therefore I will never do it.” “At least then,” said Wade, “say that you would like to speak to Secretary Cecil.” “I have nothing to say to him,” I replied, “more than I have said already; and if I were to ask to speak to him, scandal would be caused, for people would imagine that I was yielding at length, and wished to give information.” Upon this Wade suddenly turned his back in a rage, and departed, saying in a loud and angry tone, “Hang there, then, till you rot!” So he went away, and I think all the Commissioners then left the Tower; for at five of the clock the great bell of the Tower sounds, as a signal for all to leave who do not wish to be locked in all night. Soon after this they took me down from my cross, and though neither foot nor leg was injured, yet I could hardly stand. I scarcely tasted anything, but laid myself on my bed, and remained quiet there till the next morning.
Early next morning, however, soon after the Tower gates were opened, my gaoler came up to the cell and told me that Master Wade had arrived, and that I must go down to him. I went down, therefore, that time in a sort of cloak with wide sleeves, for my hands were so swollen that they would not have passed through ordinary sleeves. After further questioning, Wade insisted “It would be better for you if you did confess,” and thereupon he summoned from the next room a gentleman who had been there waiting, a tall and commanding figure, whom he called the Superintendent of Torture. Wade said, “In the name of the Queen, and of the Lords of her Council, I deliver this man into your hands. You are to rack him twice today and twice daily until such time as he chooses to confess.” The officer then took charge of me, and Wade departed. Thereupon we descended with the same solemnity as before into the place appointed for torture, and again they put the manacles on the same part of my arms as before; indeed, they could not be put on in any other part, for the flesh had so risen on both sides that there were two hills of flesh with a valley between, and the manacles would not meet anywhere but in the valley. Here then were they put on, not without causing me much pain. Our good Lord, however, helped me, and I cheerfully offered Him my hands and my heart. So I was hung up again as I before described; and in my hands I felt a great deal more pain than on the previous day, but not so much in my breast and belly, perhaps because this day I had eaten nothing. While thus hanging I prayed, sometimes silently, sometimes aloud, recommending myself to our Lord Jesus and His Blessed Mother. I hung much longer this time without fainting, but at length I fainted so thoroughly that they could not bring me to, and they thought that I either was dead or soon would be. So they called the Lieutenant, but how long he was there I know not, nor how long I remained in the faint. When I came round, however, I found myself no longer hanging by my hands, but supported sitting on a bench, with many people round me, who had opened my teeth with some iron instrument, and were pouring warm water down my throat. Now when the Lieutenant saw I could speak, he said: “Do you not see how much better it is for you to yield to the wishes of the Queen than to lose your life this way?” Upon refusing, I was suspended, therefore, a third time, and hung there in very great pain of body, but not without great consolation of soul, which seemed to me to arise from the prospect of dying.
After awhile the Lieutenant, seeing that he made no way with me by continuing the torture, or because the dinner-hour was near at hand, or perhaps through a natural feeling of compassion, ordered me to be taken down. I think I hung not quite an hour this third time. I am rather inclined to think that the Lieutenant released me from compassion; for, some time after my escape, a gentleman of quality told me he had it from Sir Richard Barkley himself (who was this very Lieutenant of whom I speak), that he had of his own accord resigned the office he held, because he would no longer be an instrument in torturing innocent men so cruelly. And, in fact, he gave up the post after holding it but three or four months, and another Knight was appointed in his stead, in whose time it was that I made my escape.
Apart from Francis Bacon’s participation in Father Gerard’s examination, he is also found to have been present at the examination of two servants of Mrs. Vaux. Among the papers of Sir Edward Phelips, preserved at Montacute House, Somersetshire, of which a copy has been deposited in the Public Record Office by the Historical MSS. Commission, we have the examinations of two of Mrs. Vaux’ servants, one of whom is the “Ric. the butler” of whom “the examination of Francis Swetnam, servant to Mrs. Elizabeth Vaux, and served her in the bake house, taken the third of December, 1605.” The mark of the examiners are: Francis Q. Swetnam, Jul. Caesar, Rogr. Wilbraham, E. Phelipps, Jo. Croke, George More, Walter Cope, Fr. Bacon, John Doddridge. (folio 25). 1
Camden, who has been described as the Strabo of England, is charged by Birch with suppressing and colouring the events of Elizabeth’s reign; but Camden’s high reputation as a historian requires no vindication, and if Camden is not always correct, he certainly has not made any intentional misrepresentation of facts. The use of torture, for the discovery of religious and political opinions, had its origin in a despotic design to enslave the minds of the people. The use of the rack was extensively practised by the chief Powers of Europe in the sixteenth century. Henry VIII., and the Protector Somerset, had faith in the rack. Queen Mary set aside this instrument of torture and many other modes of punishment only known to the Tower authorities. It would, however, have been well for her fame as a woman, and as a Sovereign, if Mary Tudor had also protested against the fanatical and cruel “stake,” whose use has consigned every one in connection with it to the ban of execration. It is doubtful, however, if the men who sat in the Parliaments of Henry VIII., and Edward VI., would assent to a repeal of the statute by which people were sent to the stake. The reformers high and low of the days of the Boy-King were in favour of the “stake” as a punishment for those who dissented from the opinions they chose to express. The records of the times attest this fact clearly. In the history of torture in the Tower during the reign of Elizabeth, Edward Walgrave, a member of an ancient family, who sustained Queen Mary’s cause, and subsequently became a member of her household, was marked out for persecution by Elizabeth’s Council. He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy to the new Sovereign, and was immediately committed to the Tower, where, according to Fitzigram, an official of the time, he remained for “six months on a wretched filthy bed, half starved, and no medical attendant to inquire into his health.” Nevertheless, he providentially recovered, when preparations were again renewed forms torture. He was examined before the law officers and Government spies. The result of an inquiry was an order to be racked, which was carried out with barbarous cruelty. Four months subsequently he was once more racked. Like other prisoners Walgrave suddenly disappeared, but whether he escaped, or died from his sufferings, or fell by the dagger of a hired assassin, and was buried privately by night, it is impossible to ascertain. Several notable prisoners were found murdered in the Tower during Elizabeth’s reign; and others were never heard of after they entered the ill-omened gate. The officials were always “open to a bribe.” At a later period it was believed that Walgrave escaped from the Tower, and having reached Lisbon, he studied medicine, and became a physician. About the same period there resided in Venice “a priest physician” named Talbot, who escaped from the Tower. Many of the exiled priests studied the medical profession. One remarkable man can be referred to: Father Borde, of the Carthusian community. Sir Francis Inglefield, another of Queen Mary’s household, fled to Spain a few weeks after the death of his Royal Mistress. He was about to be committed to the Tower, and narrowly escaped in the costume of a Flemish musician, and actually performed at the house of Sir Nicholas Bacon, unsuspected by his enemies. Elizabeth marked out for vengeance the unoffending domestics of her late sister. Some of those poor women were reduced to utter poverty.
Five years later King Philip provided liberally for the wants of Queen Mary’s servants. Mary left ample funds with Elizabeth to discharge her “domestic debts;” and the new Queen pledged “her honour” for the fulfilment of every request named in the will of the deceased monarch. How Elizabeth acted in this matter is not disputed by some partisan writers; whilst others, with a lofty disregard for such a small matter as the character of a Queen in affairs of common honesty, are silent upon the subject. Queen Elizabeth, who was always moralising, revived the rack and other barbarous modes of infliction, which brand her name as a woman and a monarch with odious notoriety. In fact, if we judge Elizabeth by the records of her actions, she was, with the exception of her father, the most despotic and the most cruel monarch that ever reigned over the English realm. “There is something peculiarly revolting in the fact,” observes the historian of the Queens of England, “that Elizabeth should have been so callous to all the tender sympathies of the female character as to enjoin the application of torture to extort confession against the unfortunate servants of the Duke of Norfolk.” Here is the Queen’s order respecting Bannister and Baker:
If they shall not seem to you to confess their knowledge, then, we warrant you to cause them both, or either of them, to be brought to the rack, and first to move them with, fear thereof, to deal plainly in their answers; and if that shall not move them, then you shall cause them to be put to the rack, and to find the taste thereof, until they shall deal more plainly, or till you shall think meet.
1 John Morris. The Condition of Catholics Under James I., 1871
Two days subsequent to the date of the above warrant, Sir Thomas Smythe writes to Burleigh in these words: “I suppose we have gotten so much as this time is likely to be had; yet, tomorrow do we intend to bring a couple of them to the rack, not in any hope to getting anything out of them by the fear or pain, but because it is so earnestly commended to us.”
Some writers state that this was “the only case of racking in Elizabeth’s reign;” it is also alleged that “the Queen knew nothing of it.” Such assertions are contradicted by the State Papers of the period, and many other reliable documents. In fact, the rolls of the Tower term with records of the cruelties that were inflicted in Elizabeth’s time. Persons were confined in cellars twenty feet below the surface of the earth; others in “little case,” where they had neither room to stand upright, nor to lie down at full length. Men were placed in Skivington’s irons till they fainted away. And again, an iron instrument was used, by which head, feet, and hands were bound together. Many were fettered and bolted in this manner; while others, still more unfortunate, had their hands forced into iron gloves that were much too small, or were subjected to the excruciating torture of the boot. These cruelties were suggested by Sir Thomas Smythe and Walsingham, “with the full approval of her Highness the Queen.” Sir John Harrington follows in the track of Hatton, when he describes Elizabeth as humane, gentle, and kind a model woman. At other times Harrington spoke in no nattering tones of his royal godmother. The despatches of the foreign Ambassadors draw a terrible picture of the “poor victims when carried from the rack, oftentimes sounded by courtiers, who came hither to see with their own eyes, and to report to the Queen’s Highness how the traitors liked the taste they received for a beginning.” On one occasion, Elizabeth asked Burleigh “if some more terrible mode of torture or death could be devised for those who refused to deny her supremacy or plotted against her life.” The astute Minister assured his Royal Mistress that the law was strong enough to have the required vengeance; he would, however, see that the gaolers did their duty promptly. No one could suspect that Burleigh had the smallest sympathy with the people who were racked, beheaded, and quartered. At a later period of her life, in 1601, Elizabeth seemed to rejoice at beholding the mangled remains of her victims. Holding the French envoy, De Bironif, by the hand, she pointed to a number of heads that were planted on the walls of the Tower, and next conducted him to London Bridge to witness a similar exhibition, and told him “that it was thus they punished traitors in England.” Not satisfied with calling his attention to this ghastly scene, she coolly recounted to him the names of all her subjects whom she had brought to the block, and among those she mentioned the Earl of Essex, whom in her old age, she ruined by her ungenial favour. Elizabeth could not cross London Bridge without recognising the features of many good and loyal men whom she had consigned to the headsman. The “quartering of the bodies” presented another revolting sight in many parts of London.
Henzer, and other foreigners, have commented on such scenes with indignation. Henzer, who is a reliable authority, affirms “that he counted on London Bridge no less than three hundred heads of persons who had been executed for high treason.” “This was a melancholy evidence,” remarks Strickland, “that Elizabeth, in her later years, had flung the dove from her sceptre, and exchanged the harbinger of peace for the sword of vengeance.” Bartoli describes the machines of torture: “The rack,” he says, “was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it on his back, on the floor; his wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two rollers at the ends of the frame; these were moved by levers in opposite directions till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions were then put, and, if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more, till the bones started from their sockets.” This description is corroborated by the records of the Tower. And the Scavenger’s Daughter was a broad hoop of iron, consisting of two parts fastened to each other by a hinge. The accused person was made to kneel on the pavement, and to contract himself into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he was able to fasten the extremities over the small of the back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during which time it commonly happened that from excess of compression, the blood spouted from the nostrils; sometimes, it was believed, from the extremities of the hands and feet. Iron gauntlets, which could be compressed by the aid of a screw, served to hold the wrists and to suspend the prisoner in the air from two distant points of a beam. The victim was then placed on three pieces of wood piled one on another, which, when his hands had been made fast, were successively withdrawn from under his feet. [Also see Appendices Use of Torture; Part III: Tools of torture.] From Kishton’s Diary, it will show the condition of the Tower under what many historians style the “mild government of Elizabeth.”
- December 5, 1580: Several Catholics or better known as Papists, were brought from different prisons.
- December 10: Thomas Cottann and Luke Kirbye, priests, suffered compression in the Scavenger’s Daughter for more than an hour. Cottann bled profusely from the nose.
- December 15: Ralph Sherwin and Robert Johnson, priests, were sorely tortured on the rack.
- December 16: Ralph Sherwin was tortured a second time on the rack.
- December 31: John Hart, after being chained five days to the floor, was led to the rack. Also Henry Orton, a “fine gentleman.”
In January 3, 1581 Christopher Thompson, an aged priest, was brought to the Tower and racked the same day and on January 14, Nicholas Roscaroe, a boy of sixteen years of age, was barbarously racked. A number of persons were racked whose names are now unknown. Chaloner states that several women were racked, or in some way tortured. Pomeroy and Farlow affirm that two Papist women and a young maiden of the Anabaptist sect suffered death for their religious opinions.
Elizabeth entertained a deep hatred of the Anabaptists, who gave her much trouble. This sect had the merit of immense courage and dogged perseverance; but they were selfish, intolerant, and dishonest. The office of jurors under the rule of Elizabeth became a dangerous public duty at least to men who had any semblance of honesty, or regard for the rights of their fellow men. Intimidation, fine, and imprisonment, were of frequent occurrence if they refused to find a verdict for the Crown. Corrupt and time-serving as the judges and juries were under the Tudor dynasty, they felt the degradation of their position most in the reign of Elizabeth, when “Royal instructions” were handed to them, in many cases, the day preceding trials which partook of a political or sectarian character.
In England the rack became a “favourite device,” and was employed with frequent as well as wanton barbarity. Many readers will scarcely credit the fact that the Queen “ordered the Bishops to use torture to the Papists in order to discover sphere or when they attended Mass.” In 1578, Dr. Whitgift, Francis Bacon’s tutor at Trinity College in 1573–75, then Bishop of Worcester, was commanded to use torture to force answers from Catholics suspected of having heard Mass. Whitgift was quite capable of persecuting, without the “Royal command.” On one occasion he requested Burleigh to pack a “certain priest till he gave the names of those who went to Confession to him;” but Burleigh, to his honour be it related, spurned the request with indignation. He later became the famous Archbishop of that name. And it was Whitgift who, on November 28, 1582 as Bishop of Worcester, insisted upon a bond against impediments to safeguard himself by reason of pre-contract or consanguinity which might imperil the marriage of “William Shagspere and Anna Hathaway of Stratford.” He clearly had some reason to make him feel uneasy, having on the previous day authorised the marriage between “William Shaxpere and Anna Whatley of Temple Grafton.” Two farmers of Shottery Sandells and Richardson, were the sole sureties in the bond and were friends of Anna Hathaway’s father. Lee says that they “doubtless secured the deed on their own initiative so that Shakespeare (sic) might have small opportunity of evading a step which his intimacy with their friend’s daughter had rendered essential to her reputation. Within six months of the marriage bond in May, 1583 a daughter was born.” And it was Whitgift who, in 1593, as Archbishop of Canterbury, authorised the printing of Venus and Adonis most surprising act of condescension on the part of a strict Churchman, and only understandable if he wanted to help an ex-pupil. Books less licentious than Venus and Adonis were either “stayed” or, after publication, ordered to be collected and burnt. Such was the case with Hall’s Satires which, the Archbishop decreed, should be “presently brought to the Bishop of London to be burnt.” Hall later became Bishop of Norwich. (Wigston). 2
Robert Johnson, a Shropshire priest, was racked three times at the Tower. He was subsequently hanged, drawn, and quartered. William Filbie, an Oxford cleric, was six months pinioned with heavy iron manacles in the Tower. He was twice racked, and fainted under the operation three times; when informed that he was to be led to execution in three hours, he lifted up his withered hands to heaven, exclaiming aloud, “Thanks to my good Redeemer, that my sufferings are so near the end.” Filbie, like Campion, was an eminent Greek and Latin scholar. He was also beloved and esteemed at Oxford for his amiable and virtuous character. He was only twenty-nine years of age. His appearance on the scaffold, and his modest and forgiving address to the populace, excited the sympathy of many amongst a crowd who had become callous and inhuman from the scenes of blood they witnessed almost daily. Indeed, the barbarous “quarterings and hanging up” of the remains of many good and virtuous men, whose greatest offence was that of claiming liberty of conscience, had a marked effect upon the lower classes, who were beginning to look upon murder almost as a venial offence. Such was the result of Walsingham’s moral teaching. The story of Margaret Clitheroe, the wife of a rich merchant in York, is a revolting narrative. Mrs. Clitheroe’s offence was that of her having a priest in the quality of a schoolmaster. This lady suffered death in March 25, 1586. The victim being “very obstinate,” the authorities were determined to use the most barbarous mode of torture. The place of execution was the Tolbooth, six or seven yards from the prison. After she prayed for a short time, Sheriff Fawcett commanded the attendants to pull off her clothes quickly, when the doomed lady and four women, who were present, requested the Sheriff, on their knees, that, for the honour of womanhood, this might be dispensed with, but the Sheriff would not grant the request. Mrs. Clitheroe next demanded that the women might unapparel her, and that the men should turn their faces from her during that time. The women took off her clothes, and put upon her a long linen habit. Then very quietly she was laid down upon the ground, her face covered with a handkerchief, and most part of her body with a habit. The “door” was laid upon her; her hands she joined towards her face. Then the Sheriff said, “You must have your hands bound.” Two surgeons parted her hands, and bound them to two posts. After this they laid weights upon her, which, when she first felt, she said, “Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy upon me,” which were the last words she was heard to utter. She was dying for a quarter of an hour. A sharp stone, as large as a man’s fist, had been put under her back; and weights of seven or eight hundred were laid upon her body, which, breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth from the skin.” The torture was conducted under the management of Topcliffe. The rack officials and headsmen refused to act on this occasion; pleading that they were sick of the work, and required rest. The Sheriff “believed they were all drunk.” Topcliffe then hired eight beggars from the highway notorious thieves and vagabonds, who were capable of committing any abominable crimes; when those outcasts of human nature received “a good stoup of liquor” they commenced the ceremony of carrying out what a recent writer designates as “the Majesty of the English law in a reformed state.” To such hands did the merciful Elizabeth commit one of her own sex an English lady; a matron without spot or stain; a noble wife; a loving mother; and a true friend.
Two years after the death of Margaret Clitheroe, Margaret Wood was put to a horrible death for “liberty of conscience;” and in 1601 Anne Syme suffered death from Elizabeth’s Council, for her religious opinions. Four other Catholic ladies were condemned to death at different times for not renouncing their religion; and a nun, named Teresea Northcoat, was imprisoned for thirty years, till released by death. I think the lady just alluded to belonged to the Benedictine order, whose sufferings were intense; added to starvation they received brutal treatment. In De Burgh’s Hibernia Dominicana, p. 559, an account is given of the treachery which Queen Elizabeth exercised in 1602 one year before her death towards a shipful of Benedictines, Cistercians and Dominicans, fourty-two in number, who had been induced to accept a safe conduct out of Ireland, were shipwrecked off Scattery Island, near the mouth of the Shannon. It appears that no one lived to tell the tragic story. In 1591, Mrs. Wells received sentence of death, and died in prison. James the First released and pardoned six ladies who were confined for their religious opinions at the death of Elizabeth.
So much for Hatton’s “facts,” when confronted with the records of the times. The majority of our English historians are silent as to those dark deeds of Elizabeth and her Council. The reasons are obvious. The State Papers and records of those despotic times are now at hand, and it is impossible to present false portraits of Elizabeth and her Ministers any longer. The reader is aware of what Frazer Tytler stated many years back as to the history of Britain. “The greatest historical heresy” writes Mr. Tytler “that a writer can commit in the eyes of many English readers is to tell them the truth.” This feeling is now, however, vanishing from historical relations, and the English reader will accept as correct portraits, what would have been received forty years ago with a storm of indignation as a false impeachment of “Bluff King Hal,” or “Good Queen Bess.” In 1582, London was described as a slaughter-house, and many of the wealthy citizens had the courage to denounce the executions and the horrible quartering of human remains. Heads were counted in dozens upon the towers of the bridges, and human limbs were hung upon poles in various parts of the city. The prisons, or filthy dungeons, were filled with men and women whose only crime was that of “seeking liberty of conscience.” About this time (1582–83) there were no less than thirty-two Catholic priests in the Marshalsea, nearly the same number in the Tower, eighteen in the Grate House at Westminster, eleven in the Compter, nine in the Fountain prison at St. Bridget’s, five in the prison known as the “White Lion,” twenty-two in the Compter at the Poultry, fourteen in the Clinke, or Hall of Winchester; in the Bankside, Southwark, seven; and three in the King’s Bench Prison. According to the records of the prisons above-named, many of those clerics were twenty years in close confinement. Sixteen of the prisoners were racked twice in one year; many of them must have died under the operation. A doctor, named Harold, relates that he was “perfectly unmanned by the cries and supplications for mercy uttered by one old priest.” The diet was bad, and not half sufficient. In the Marshalsea, the subordinates carried on a system of perfect starvation, especially in the case of Bishop Bonner, the prisoners were barbarously used on many occasions by their gaolers and warders, who were, with rare exceptions, the most inhuman creatures. Richard Fulwood, a Catholic gentleman, has left on record a sad description of the treatment he received at the Bridewell prison. “I had,” he says, “hardly enough of black bread to keep me from death by starvation. The place I was confined in was a narrow cell, in which there was no bed, so that I had to sleep sitting on the window-sill, and was months without taking off my clothes. There was a little straw in the cell, but it was so trodden down and swarming with vermin that I could not lie on it. Besides all this I was daily awaiting an examination by torture.”
2 W.F.C. Wigston. The Columbus of Literature, 1892
Near Hobbmoor-lane, a short distance from London, stood a famous gallows, where fourty-nine “perverse Papists” were hanged, drawn and quartered in Elizabeth’s reign. On one occasion the Venetian Ambassador saw ten heads “all in a row,” ready to be spiked at different places. The victims suffered for “liberty of conscience.” There are many evidences to satisfy posterity that Elizabeth was cognisant of the inhuman torture inflicted upon men, and women too, in her name. Sir John Harrington states that the Queen sent for the noted rack executioner, Topcliffe, and required him to give her an explanation of his “improvements” in the mode of torture. Harrington, who was present, states that his Royal godmother approved of the executioner’s “new device, and rewarded him substantially.” Harrington further remarks, “Topcliffe is the most savage man amongst all the English executioners. He absolutely feels a delight in prolonging the torture of the wretched Papists. His conduct to the women whom he racked is something horrible. They were stripped naked and huddled about like sheep in a slaughterhouse. What will posterity think of us?” Topcliffe was presented with a ring and a purse of gold by the Queen. Under the Danish (English) Kings the chief executioner was a person of some dignity, and ranked with an Archbishop and the Lord Steward. The headsman was then styled the Carnifex. Norton, the rack-master in the Tower (1583), was a cruel persecutor of Lord Arundel. In due time Norton received his own share “of the good things distributed at the Tower.” He was suddenly arrested, placed in chains, and cast into a dungeon; and, to use his own words, “murderously racked.” He died from the effects of torture. Norton had been one of Walsingham’s secret agents in many an infamous transaction. “Retributive justice,”' although apparently slumbering for a while, was not unmindful of the demerits of such beings as Norton, or the more notorious Topcliffe. Although the Queen appears in the worst light as to those terrible persecutions, nevertheless there are several diaries and State Papers still extant, which show that her Highness was cruelly deceived by her Ministers. She was not wholly devoid of the tender feelings of her sex. At the time of the Bartholomew Massacre it was suggested by Leicester and Walsingham that there should be “a scaffold and stake execution of the English Papists, then the curse of this fair land.” The Queen protested against the plan proposed, stating that “her English Popish subjects had nothing to do with what had recently occurred.” At a later period Elizabeth remarked to Archbishop Hutton that “she feared many of her subjects who belonged to the olden way of thinking were often cruelly and unjustly punished in her name.” This was a hint to Hutton, who was a notorious “Papist-hunter,” like his brother, of Canterbury, Dr. Whitgift.
Father Southwell, the grandson of Sir Richard T. Southwell, was tortured no less than ten times Lord Burleigh states “thirteen times;” and this, with such pitiless severity, that he openly declared to the judges “that death would have been again and again preferable.” The account of this gentleman’s sufferings is still on record. “And,” writes one of his biographers, “to turn over the pages of it makes the eye dim and the heart sick. Anything more utterly revolting and merciless could scarcely be conceived.” Southwell, whose statements have been confirmed by other victims, describes the London prisons as “the most abominable dungeons of filth; and the warders and executioners, headed by Topcliffe and Young, as indescribable ruffians who took a delight in every manner of torture and insult. Hard blows were frequent almost daily. The food was such that an animal in a state of horrible hunger would turn from it with loathing. Their beds were dirty straw, covered with vermin. Some of the unfortunate prisoners were hung up for whole days by the hands in such a manner that they could but just touch the ground with the tips of their toes. “The cell in the Tower where Southwell was confined was situated far below the ordinary watermark of the Thames, and was consequently damp and musty. Sometimes it was a full foot deep in water. The only light admitted was through a narrow window high above. The cell had only a stone seat in the wall, and there was no ventilation; no books; no communication with the outer world. After being three years in this condition, Father Southwell was brought to trial on his special request.” Lord Burleigh to whom he had written, replied in a manner more worthy of the “minister of the law” than its mild and merciful expounder. “If,” writes Burleigh “you desire such haste to be hanged, you shall speedily taste thereof.” The trial was one of those mockeries of justice so common of occurrence in the days of Elizabeth. In a few hours the judge pronounced sentence of death, with the “usual quartering and disembowelling.” On the following day the revolting execution took place one of the executioners being drunk, and the other “a new hand.” Posterity has heard but little of the wicked deeds perpetrated against justice and humanity by the Tudor monarchs and their unscrupulous agents.
A man named Parker was employed by Lord Burleigh to counterfeit a confessor, and to visit “in the dark of night certain prisoners in the Tower, who made confession in the usual form to this holy priest, whose presence was such a consolation to the prisoners.” The result of this infamous sacrilege was the arrest and execution of several innocent men, and the perpetual imprisonment of others, of whose fate their friends could learn nothing. The reader has already seen what Thomas Crumwell, and after him Francis Walsingham, accomplished by counterfeiting the confessional. Burleigh’s agents, according to their own correspondence with their noble patron, were ready and willing to perpetrate the most murderous and treacherous deeds against confiding men whose friendship they had won. Who can defend such deeds? Amongst Cecil’s political agents in Flanders was Edward Woodshawe. This man had been twenty-five years resident in the Low Counties. He was connected with several ancient and honourable families in Warwickshire, but they would not assist him; they looked on him with suspicion, fearing his employment to be of a dishonourable nature. At this time it does not appear that he was one of Cecil’s spies; but then it was well known that the chief of the Council had people of the highest position in the realm in his secret service. Burleigh’s object was to debase and corrupt the mind of all his surroundings. Woodshawe was for a time in the household of Count Egmont, where he was treated “with hospitality, profuse and kindly in all relations.” On Egmont’s arrest, he went back to England, but his relatives again refused to aid him on account of the mystery which concealed his mode of life in Flanders. He had been educated as a gentleman, seldom, if ever, knowing the want of food. With twenty-five pounds which he raised by some disreputable means in Warwickshire, he returned to Flanders. He next appears in the secret service of Alva. He states that he loved Alva “as the devil in hell.” He writes again to Lord Burleigh, praying him to overlook his disloyal conduct. He wants money, and an “opportunity to retrieve his character.
Having long followed the wars and experimented this wavering world, what he took in hand he would do; so that no man in the world should know of his affairs. Her Majesty, Burleigh, and himself, could understand each other. Their secrets need go no further;” and he protested before God, and swore by His Holy Name on the damnation of his own soul, that he would be true. “He was intimate with Lord Westmoreland, Lord Morley, the Archbishop of Cashel, the Nortons, and the priests who had been at Douai. If he could be of use in Spain, Chapin Viletti would introduce him to King Philip, and he could obtain an appointment in the palace.” This passage must have astonished Lord Burleigh: “If you like to employ me, I will obtain intelligence of all that goes forward, and of any plot against England. I will deal as circumspectly, as wisely, as faithfully, as I would crave at God’s hands to receive my soul into His mercy, and, therefore, though your honour has no acquaintance with me, yet mistrust me not. For by the living God, if your honour will cause to be made there in England, a certain lingering poison, and send it hither by a trusty messenger to me, not letting him know what it is, but forge some other matter, and let me have commandment from your honour to whom I shall give it, and therewith you shall try what I am capable of carrying out for the Queen’s service. What letters you write to me, I will tear in pieces for fear of any after claps, and I trust your honour will do so by my letters.” Lord Burleigh accepted the services of this cold-blooded villain to “carry out other plans” devised by the astute Minister himself. In another letter Woodshawe states that he had a dear friend in De la Motte, the Governor of Gravelines, whom he describes as a greedy ruffian; that two hundred pounds would give courage to attempt anything. With De la Motte’s help he proposed to surprise Calais, which he had ascertained to be carelessly guarded, or if he failed in this scheme he could betray his English friends and abandon them to their fate. Again, Woodshawe says: “What I have been God forgive my folly; but what I am, I pray God give me grace that I may do that service to the Queen’s Highness, and my country, which my faithful heart is willing to do.” Mr. Froude’s relations as to the mode adopted by Burleigh for “entrapping English outlaws for conscience” are very candidly and honourably stated. “Store had been kidnapped and hanged; the Earl of Northumberland had been bought from the Scots and beheaded. Lord Westmoreland had applied for pardon, and had almost obtained it, when he fell back under the influence of the Countess of Northumberland, and was again plotting against Elizabeth.” Burleigh employed Woodshawe to entrap Westmoreland. “Take him prisoner, bring him to London. The ingenious scoundrel worked himself into the Earl of Westmoreland’s favour, sending a report of his progress as he went along to his English employer. When Westmoreland and the other English exiles were ordered to quit Flanders, Woodshawe advised the Earl to go to Liege, and then laid an ambuscade for him on the way, intending by God’s grace to carry him dead or alive to England.” Mr. Froude continues: “Fortunately for Burleigh’s reputation, the plot failed. Woodshawe disappears from history, and Burleigh had to submit to the humiliation of receiving advice from Lord Leicester to have no further transactions with persons of abandoned character.” Woodshawe was by no means the worst of the adventurers in the pay of Lord Burleigh. The agents of Walsingham on the Continent were a class of beings who traded abundantly in blood, perjury and forgery. No hesitation, no remorse, no pity, was ever manifested by them.
Dr. Astlowe, an eminent physician, who resided in London about 1575–76, was racked for being “friendly towards the Queen of Scots when he paid her a professional visit.” Morgan writes that “the unfortunate doctor was racked twice almost to death, at the Tower.” Another writer named Ambrose, states that the cause of Astlowe’s racking, was with respect to his knowledge of or supposed connection with the affairs of the Earl of Arundel. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, the renowned scholar and antiquary, and the friend of Francis Bacon, who died in his house at Highgate, was the collector of the celebrated Arundel marbles, now in the possession of the University of Oxford. He died at Padua in 1646, having quitted England at the beginning of the Parliamentary war. “Discerning,” says Dugdale, “the flames of war (occasioned by the prevalent party in the Long Parliament) more and more to increase, his age being also such as rendered him not fit for further military employments, he obtained leave from the King to travel.” Amongst the ladies “racked and maltreated” by Topcliffe and Young was Mrs. Wyseman, who lay in prison till the accession of James the First. The penalty for celebrating Mass at this period was a fine of 200 marks, and imprisonment. At another time priests were hanged upon the evidence of one witness, who swore that he saw them celebrating Mass, although the said informer could not distinguish between the Mass and any other Catholic ceremony. Walsingham never looked to the character of a witness where a Papist was the prisoner at the bar. In fact the public trials in the reign of Elizabeth were the most monstrous mockeries of justice that were ever perpetrated in any civilised land. The Tower rack stood in the long vaulted dungeon below the armoury. The cells were underground, with no light but the nicker of a far-off lamp. “The rats were racing about in dozens;” and have been described as “daring in the extreme, and not like any other rats they had ever seen. To add to the horrors of the place, no cat was permitted to enter the infernal regions.” A well-known writer on those times denies the existence of this state of things. He states that the political prisoners lived well in prison, and were permitted to receive the visits of their friends almost daily.
The statements of the prisoners themselves are quite the contrary; and are borne out by the prison records, and even the admissions of the warders. The treatment of the political prisoners differed very much under the various gaolers, whose salary or promotion depended upon the amount of cruelty with which they treated some particular prisoner. The gaolers, with rare exceptions, took bribes, and then betrayed the unfortunate men who placed faith in their words. Many of the prisoners were wholly destitute of money, for on entering a prison all money was taken from them, and if they had a second suit of clothes they quickly disappeared. There was no redress for any outrage committed against political prisoners. Topcliffe used the most abominable language to those strong-minded women who were confined for an honest expression of their religious opinions. Young and Norton were in the habit of using obscene language to female prisoners; but, as usual, there was no redress. From the Wars of the Roses down to “Derwentwater’s Farewell,” the name of Radcliffe occasionally appears in the records of the Tower. Amongst the unhappy prisoners in that fortress about 1576, was Eaglemond Radcliffe, said to be the younger brother of the Earl of Sussex. A strange mystery surrounds the history of this young gentleman. In 1569, he joined the Northern Insurrection with several other men of rank, and having eluded the vengeance of the Queen’s Council, he escaped to Spain, and after leading a wandering life for some years, returned to England in 1575; he was soon arrested, and committed to the Tower, where he remained for several months in a state of prostration from ill-health and bad food. The Queen, having been informed of his condition, “took pity upon the brother of her faithful friend, Lord Sussex.” Elizabeth therefore extended mercy to her prisoner, and Radcliffe was banished from the realm. His love of adventure was seldom checked by the experience of life which misfortune afforded him. He next appeared in the service of Don John of Austria. In Vienna he had a love adventure, and wounded his rival, a Hungarian officer, in a desperate sword combat. In this case he escaped the meshes of the law; was then suddenly arrested, and accused of having been “concerned in a conspiracy against Don John.” He was tried according to the Austrian code, and condemned to death in 1578.
Radcliffe protested his innocence in a solemn statement before the Council Chamber, and in his cell, but to no purpose. He was attended to the scaffold by an English Benedictine Father, named Tottenham; so writes his Spanish friend, Don Miguel Cabrera. During his exile, Radcliffe frequently experienced poverty and hardship, especially in Flanders and France walking along a forest track for days half naked and starved. In these sad wanderings he was accompanied by several brave and honourable men, who were outlawed from England and Ireland for their religion. Those poor gentlemen had to depend for support upon the small sums remitted by their friends at home. As usual, the French felt little sympathy for the exiles, and, I may add, that at a later period, the French nation acted in a very ungenerous spirit to the Irish Brigade. Louis XIV., and his successor, with all their grave errors, held in grateful remembrance the services rendered by Irishmen to their country. The public men of France detested the Irish exiles. It is recorded that a French Secretary at War made frequent complaints to Louis the Fifteenth against the Irish Brigade. “Those Irish,” says the minister, “are immensely troublesome; they will not wait for orders; but rush at the enemy like tigers. They are very troublesome.” “C’est exactement,” replied his Majesty. Donald Macpherson, a Borderman of those times, states that it was bruited in a very positive manner that the hero of this narrative was not a Radcliffe, but the natural son of one of the house of Percy, by a Spanish lady of youth, beauty, and fortune. Lady Sydney throws further light upon this romantic story. She affirms that she saw the picture of the Spanish lady in question, who died in London, where she resided many years under the Irish name of MacMahon. Lady Sydney adds: “There was a mystery connected with the history of this good old lady, which was known to very few. Strange to say, some time before her death, our blessed Queen became acquainted with her through some Irish lady, perhaps Elizabeth Fitzgerald, once so noted in Surrey’s Sonnets. Be this as it may, our good-natured Queen knew Madame MacMahon’s sad story, and actually visited her in private, and kindly added to her social comforts in various ways unknown to the world without.” 3
3 The Lady Sydney here alluded to was the widow of Sir Philip Sydney, who perished so gloriously at the battle of Zutphen. She subsequently married the ill-fated Robert, Earl of Essex, and the young Earl of Clanricarde became her third husband. She was the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. Her own private history is, in itself, a curious little romance. I believe the remains of this lady repose amongst those of the fighting De Burghs, in the ancient abbey of Athenry, in the county of Galway, where she was as much beloved by the Irish as her father was execrated by every lover of freedom and liberty of conscience
There are well-authenticated acts of true kindliness related of Elizabeth in her private life, and it is even stated that she often incognita, accompanied by the “Fayre Greraldyne,” and attended by “Papist servants,” in whom she had full trust, dispensed with her own hands much considerate charity.
Generosity almost always characterises hot tempers; and, although the temperament of the Queen was of the most fervid, and often violent description an heirloom of her sire, yet Elizabeth might have been a far different woman if she had not hearkened to the evil counsels of Cecil, or the worse than evil promptings of Walsingham.