THE SECOND BENEDICTINE MISSION
TO ENGLAND

Dom Stephen Marron
Douai Magazine 2:3 (1923) 157-165

Despite the completeness with which Henry and Elizabeth stamped out Monachism, it was as certain as it was natural, so it seems to me, that the Benedictine Order should, sooner or later, revive again in England. This revival was, however, hastened on by the force of circumstances. The dissensions which unhappily arose among those engaged on the mission during Elizabeth's reign had the effect of throwing men's minds back on other days and thus quickened to fruit a seed that already lay in the heart of Catholic England, and so the monks returned. In the then existing circumstances the said dissensions had been almost inevitable. The condition in which the Catholic Church found herself in England rendered inadvisable the appointment of bishops or bishop, the normal authority and centre of unity in pastoral work, and the result was that the secular clergy, who came in increasing numbers from the English seminaries abroad, were all the weaker for this loss of proper organisation. On the other hand, the fathers of the Society of Jesus who from 1580 onwards came over to assist in the Mission, as members of a strongly organised body, possessed a power which the secular clergy had not. It was then not unnatural that the control of Catholic affairs should gradually pass into the hands of the Society; it was equally natural that the secular clergy should feel a grievance. Be that as it may, the lack of normal central authority in the English Mission did in fact result in disunion, in the forming of parties among the Missioners, having their respective adherents among the laity. Like differences and dissensions found their way also into the English seminaries abroad, which passed for the most part under Jesuit control. English Catholics looked with deep regret, not to say dismay, on the misunderstandings that had arisen in their midst. Their minds reverted to more settled times, and one result was a new Benedictine Mission to England.

Without going further into this point, I propose to follow, in chronological order of events, the actual course of the Benedictine movement. It must, however, be confessed at the outset, that there are still obscure corners in the history of the early days of the movement. Contemporary or quasi-contemporary accounts not infrequently vary even on important points. At the same time, thanks to the researches of a small band of well-known Catholic workers, much light has been thrown on the subject from other sources, and the ordinary student has now at his command sources of information which enable him to piece together his account with more completeness and security than was formerly possible.

The movement began among the seminarists at the English College in Rome. The first of them to take the habit was a priest student, Fr. Robert Sayer, who in 1588 went to Monte Cassino. Sayer was a Cambridge man, one of the many university men who in those days crossed the Channel to be made priests. He had entered Cardinal Allen's College at Rheims, in 1582, and after a few months was transferred to the Rome seminary, the Cardinal describing him in a letter to the rector as ' latine et graece peritus, honestissimis moribus praeditus.' [1] He found a spirit of unrest among the English students in Rome, which in 1585 (the year he was made priest) culminated in a disturbance, a body of the students demanding the removal of the Jesuits from the control of the College. These events were distasteful to him and he was one of the students who in the following year drew up a document in which they protested their loyalty to the Jesuit Superiors and disclaimed any sympathy with the action of the discontents. [2] Two years later, in 1588, as we have seen, he became a monk. We have unfortunately no particular account of his passing from the College, or of his reasons or purpose in taking the step. . Presumably his action was dictated by a desire to free himself from the party unrest which then prevailed. Fr. Baker, who a few years later was himself a novice among the Cassinese, and who interested himself in the early history of the Mission, calls Sayer ' ye prime Starr or sun ' of the movement, and assures us that the students who joined the Cassinese Congregation did so that they might have the help and protection of that powerful body in their work for souls in England and in 'other respects of moment'; that they had no intention of abandoning the Mission, but hoped still to be missioners in England as Benedictines had been before. Fr. Sayer [3] took the name of Gregory in religion, and it seems clear (Fr. Baker and others assume it as a recognised fact) that on entering religion he had in mind the Benedictine Apostolate in England.

1. Knox, Records of English Catholics, vol. 2, p. 158.
2. Foley's Records, Diary of the English College, Rome, p. 507.
3. Weldon's Memorials I, p. 980.

It may be well to note here at once, that the English Benedictine movement in Italy (unlike that which followed later in Spain) developed slowly, indeed, but on the whole peacefully ; so that when the opponents of the Benedictine settlement at Douai (1606—8) accused the monks in general of having created disturbances as seminarists, Fr. Beech was able to reply for his Cassinese that such had by no means been the case: that as students in the Roman College they had been entrusted with offices such as were given only to the well-behaved; that their departure from the College had not been attended by any disturbance and that before taking the step they had consulted about their vocation not only their confessor but also the rector and finally meeting with no encouragement or help in that quarter they had contented themselves ' with the judgment of the illustrious Cardinal Allen, the most reverend Bishop of Cassano and other well-known prudent and spiritual men.' Of Fr. Sayer in particular he says that 'he observed discipline with such exactness that he was proposed as an example to others, nor was any punishment ever, even for the slightest fault, imposed upon him by Superiors.' [4]

4. Tierney's Dodd, vol. 4, p. ccix.

Three years passed before a second student, Fr. Roland Preston, joined Fr. Sayer at Monte Cassino. In 1591 he took the habit, with the religious name of Thomas, and was professed on June 10th of the following year. He had witnessed Fr. Sayer's departure from the College and was no doubt encouraged by his example. Fr. Edmund Smith was the next to take the step. He joined Fr. Preston in the noviciate, taking the name Augustine, and was professed August 4th, 1592. Henceforth students aspiring to the Benedictine habit were apparently directed to other monasteries of the Congregation. Thus Fr. Anthony Martin (in religion Dom Athanasius), after completing his course at the Roman College and a brief term on the English Mission, was received in 1593 at Cava, and professed there July 4, 1594. [5]

5. Matriculae Cassinenses (Padua, Bibl. Univ. MS. 503).

Cardinal Allen's attitude towards the movement may be seen in a letter addressed by him to Fr. Martin during his noviciate, in which he says ' I would have you persuaded I most heartily espouse your affairs and mightily like this resolution you have taken of engaging in religion and hope that you are taken from this wicked world to contribute to the restoration of this most holy Order which formerly so nourished in our country, and your pen and genius will render you an ornament thereof; and therefore, so much more profit you make in that most holy discipline; so much the more I shall love you, and you will have no occasion to repent you of this resolution.' [6]

6. Weldon's Chronological Notes, p. 41.

It was in this year 1594 that the first step was taken to obtain from authorities sanction for the Benedictine Mission. At the instigation of Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, a petition was presented to the Cassinese General Chapter then assembled. We have this on the authority of Fr. Baker, who adds that he cannot affirm whether or no Cardinal Allen took any part in the affair (he died towards the end of the year), but that at any rate the Cardinal's faithful adherent, Nicholas Fitzherbert, was a staunch supporter of the movement, and at his death left his goods to aid the same. [7] The Mission was approved by the Cassinese Chapter; it yet remained to secure the sanction of the Holy See.

7. Weldon's Memorials I, p. 981. The 'grave father' whom Fr. Baker cites is undoubtedly D. Anselm Beech.

At this juncture there joined the Benedictines a man who was destined to be the most active of all in furthering the question of the Mission in the Roman curia. This was Fr. Robert Beech who, early in 1595 left the English College, Rome, to become a novice at St. Justina's, Padua, where he was professed on January 25th of the following year, and was henceforth known as Dom Anselm of Manchester. [8] We have from his pen a few brief notices of the early history of the movement. He recounts that the question of sending the English Benedictines into the English Mission and of founding a monastery for them, was first discussed in the Roman Curia in the year 1597, by certain prelates, the English monks being unaware of the fact at that time; that the discussion was unfortunately cut short by an outbreak at Ferrara, but that it was renewed two years later by the influence of the Polish Cardinal ' Razzivilius.' [9] Fr. Baker adds that it was Dom Anselm himself who engaged the Cardinal's influence in the affair; that as the Cardinal was passing through Padua on his way to Rome, Dom Anselm then in residence at the Monastery of St. Justina, approached him and persuaded him to further the question of the Mission, and that the Cardinal would likely have succeeded in his endeavours had he not been overtaken by death that same year (1599). [10]

8. The Obit Book has, I think, confused D. Raphael with D. Anselm. D. Raphael appears there as 'D. Robert Raphael Becks.' Robert Becks is Robert Beech, i.e., D. Anselm. Br. Foley finding the name in its Latin form ('Becius' perhaps) both in the Pilgrim Book and in the Diary of the Roman College translates it wrongly as 'Becks.' (Records S.J., pp. 183 and 563). One can trace his career clearly through Knox's Records I, p. 230, etc., Foley's Records to his profession as D. Anselm at Padua in the Cassinese Matriculae : date Jan. 25, 1596. He had studied at Cambridge, but his native town was Manchester. D. Raphael's surname I do not know.
9. Tierney's Dodd, vol. 4, p. ccxi.
10. Weldon's Memorials I, p. 981.

From all this it is clear that, as has been already remarked, the English Benedictine movement in Italy developed very slowly. In more than ten years only five students (or perhaps six, for the mysterious Dom Raphael joined about this time) had become monks. [11] In this year, however, a similar movement was initiated in Spain among the students at the English College, Valladolid; ' whether encouraged by ye examples of those of Italy or otherwise of themselves' Fr. Baker will not affirm. That the English students in Spain knew of the Benedictine movement in Italy cannot be doubted. From Fr. Leander's account (and he was one of the students) we know that in the early days of the Spanish movement the English Cassinese monks were a subject of conversation at the College. [12] In the light of material given by Dom Bede Camm I think we can safely point to Mark Barkworth as the man who brought the inspiration from Italy to the College at Valladolid. [13] In 1596 he had been sent from Douai College to that at Rome, and at the end of the same year he was transferred from Rome to Valladolid, possibly because he entertained Benedictine tendencies. On this journey from Rome to Spain his mind was occupied with the idea of becoming a monk, for he himself narrates that on the way St. Benedict appeared to him and told him of the great work the monks were to do in England, foretold that he would die a martyr and exhorted him to die in his habit. From the accounts given of his days at Valladolid we can be certain of this at least that he tried to become a Benedictine, but that there was some apparently insuperable obstacle to his being received into the Spanish monasteries. [14] Perhaps it was the difficulty of reconciling the English Mission with the vow of perpetual inclusion taken by the monks of Spain. [15] However it was, he did not receive the habit until he was actually on his way to the Mission in England, when he called at the monastery of Hyrache and was clothed as a novice, in which capacity he proceeded to England. [16]

11. Dr. Guilday in his able work on English Catholic Refugees (p. 218) states that by this time seventeen of the students had become Benedictines, according to Cardinal Sega's Report. There is no mention of the fact, however, in the Cardinal's Report as given by Br. Foley, to whom the author refers us, nor does it appear from the College Diary. Br. Foley in a footnote (p. xxii) of his own states that 'about 17' became monks during a very much longer period and I think this must be the source of Dr. Guilday's mistake.
12. According to Fr. B. Mackey's notes there are two copies of this account in the Monte Cassino archives ; one a mere copy Miscell: MSS. erudita Tom IV, fol. 762 ; the other which he suspects to be the original he gives merely as Packet Benedettmi Inglesi. Dom B. Camm in his Life of Ven. John Roberts (p. 78) has used one of these, presumably the former.
13. Life of Dom John Roberts, pp. 69 sqq.
14. Dom Bede Camm, l.c, p. 72.
15. It is noteworthy that the formula of profession given to the Doctors of Salamanca by the Spanish Abbots when consulting on this difficulty, omits the words ' perpetuam inclusionem ' (Conf. Apostolatus, tract 1, p. 244). The Doctors gave their decision in July, 1609 ; yet in the formula of profession of Fr. Walgrave in September of that same year the words ' perpetuam inclusionem ' are not omitted. (Conf. Weldon's Memorials I, p. 587. There ip also a copy of the same in Walgrave's own hand in the archives at Nancy--Dept Meurthe et Moselle liasse, H. 48).
16. Dom Bede Camm, I.e., p. 75.

In the same year, 1599, six of the students at Valladolid succeeded in becoming monks at the monastery of St. Martin, Compostella. The first to join was John Bradshaw. During a serious illness he had made a vow of entering religion and afterwards begged the Jesuit Superiors of the College to aid him 'that he might become a Benedictine and after a time be sent on the English Mission.' [17] Fr. Blackfan, S.J., the minister, tells us that he ' took him himself to the Royal Monastery of San Benito and handed him over to the Prior and other Superiors with as much show of affection as possible.' [18] No doubt Fr. Blackfan was alarmed for he knew that several of the students were drawn to the monks. Only a short time before a young priest-student on his death-bed had warned him that some of them were 'praising up the Benedictine Order.' Consequently when John Roberts next made the same request he met with much opposition.' There is no need to go into this question here. It is not easy to reconcile in all details the various accounts of the movement, but this much at least is clear and it suffices for our present purpose, that six students joined the Benedictines in 1599 and apparently no others until 1603.

17. Fr. Leander's account in his Responsio written September, 1607. Monte Cassino Archives.
18. The Month, vol. xcii (1898), p. 370.

Meanwhile Dom Anselm and the Cassinese were busily pressing their suit in Rome. In 1600 a new effort was made which finally succeeded. We will leave Dom Anselm to relate it in his own words. He writes as follows: [19]

'In the year 1600 was the Jubilee, for the celebrating of which, after every twenty-four years, the Christian World flocks to Rome to gain the indulgence. Anselm, a monk of Padua, was Apostolic Penitentiary for hearing the confessions of the English, in the Church of St. Paul at Rome. At that time there came to Rome from England numerous Catholics, among whom were Samuel Kennet and Walter Sadler, priests, who worked with Anselm for obtaining from the Holy See the mission of the Cassinese to England. At the end of the year there arrived in Rome the illustrious and learned Henry Constable. He was an intimate friend of the illustrious Frederick Cardinal Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, who was also in Rome at that time. He made known to the Cardinal that there was still in the prisons of England an old man of ninety the sole survivor of the Benedictines, the monks whom St. Gregory had sent to beget the English to Christ,, and that it was not expecTent, in the public good, that that Order should die out in England, since the continuance thereof was sufficient, without further argument, to show that all those were heretics and apostates who had deserted the religion in which the Benedictines had first made the English Christians, from which time they had remained among the English in cloister or in prison in unbroken line to the present day. Therefore the said Henry begged the illustrious Cardinal to obtain from the Pope (who was then Clement VIII) that the English Cassinese should be sent to England, to preserve therein the Order which was the Apostle of that country, and to bear witness to the faith of their forefathers, which that Order had retained by constant profession through so many centuries.
The illustrious Cardinal having ascertained from Anselm the English monk, the number and status of the English monks of the Cassinese Congregation, and being assured by the Procurator in curia of that Congregation, D. Juliano ab Assula, that the step would meet with the grateful approval of the Cassinese Abbots and receive their sanction, at Eastertide of 1601 he proposed to the Holy Father the institution of a Cassinese Mission to England. After a few days his petition was granted, but the pastoral care calling him back to Milan, after the Feast of Corpus Christi he departed. Before leaving Rome, however, he commended the prosecution of the affair to Mario Cardinal Camarino, who soon brought it to a successful termination. Anselm was called to the Holy Father, and the English monk Thomas, who was then professor of sacred theology at Monte Cassino was also summoned to Rome that when the summer heats were over they might depart together for their native land and begin there the Benedictine Mission.
Whilst waiting for Thomas from Monte Cassino, behold two books arrived from England, one for the Holy Father, the other for the Congregation of the Holy Office, containing an appeal from some of the clergy against grievances inflicted on them (as they asserted) by the Archpriest of England, and at the same time it was announced that certain priests were on their way from England to Rome to prosecute the appeal. The Pope therefore ordered Thomas and Anselm to remain in Rome until the differences of the Clergy were -settled and meanwhile he employed them in censoring English books written by the litigants, which had been delated to Rome as being tainted with schismatical and heretical tendencies.
In the month of November, 1602, His Holiness settled the disputes of the Clergy, and on December 5th, in the Congregation of the Holy Inquisition, renewed the decree for the Cassinese Mission to England, also decreeing another mission, of those English monks of the same Order, who in the year 1599 had been professed in Spain of the Congregation of Valladolid. Finally in the year 1603 there entered England the Cassinese from Italy and those of Valladolid, from Spain. In that year Elizabeth died and James was called from Scotland to the English throne, who at once released the Catholics from the prisons throughout England and with the rest Father Sebert the old Benedictine, to whom the Cassinese joined some of theirs, that the rights of the Order in England should not perish. Thus they restored the ancient English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict, which now flourishes in many holy and learned monks and enriches the Benedictine Order with martyrs.'

Such is Dom Anselm's account of proceedings in Rome.

19. This account was discovered by Dom B. Mackey in Milan (Bibl: Ambrosiana G. 51, inf: pp. 55—59) and, so far as I know, has not before been published. It was written (in Latin) by D. Anselm in 1629 and sent by him to Frederick Card : Borromeo, with the following letter (Italian):
D. Giacinto Molsi, monk of St. Simplicius, passing through Padua,, I have begged him to kiss with all reverence, in my name, the sacred purple of your Eminence and to present this paper which I write not only to acknowledge my indebtedness and obligations, but also for another purpose : namely, seeing that I have made known to all that your Eminence was the prime author of our Cassinese Mission, instituted by Clement VIII, and some of ours wishing now to draw up a history of our Mission, they have written to me to obtain for them from your Eminence some vivae vocis oraculum or testimony, to give greater authority to the origins of the Mission, since there is nothing to'be found but a simple decree made by the Congregation of the Holy Office many months after your Eminence had already obtained the Mission. Wherefore I humbly beg your Eminence to deign (if you see good) to give testimony to the concession made for the institution of our Mission, by Clement VIII, at the instance of your Eminence on the petition of Henry Constable, an English gentleman. And to put into the hands of your Eminence all that then passed, I send the enclosed account which contains the whole truth of what took place in that affair, as I have it well in mind and also in writing.
I humbly beg your Eminence to pardon my boldness, assuring you that we English monks are not forgetful nor ungrateful for favours received, but being unable to recompense in any other way we ever pray for your Eminence. Again kissing the sacred purple.
From S. Justina, Padua ; June 23, 1629.
D. Anselm, English monk of St. Benedict.


Meanwhile however, events had taken place elsewhere which must be mentioned. It will be noticed that the Pope first gave his consent to the Mission viva voce at Easter, 1601. By then Fr. Mark Bark-worth had already suffered martyrdom at Tyburn, in his religious habit, and openly professing himself a Benedictine monk (February 27th, 1601). Moreover, in the Spring of the same year the English Benedictines in Spain had petitioned their General Chapter (which usually met about Easter) for leave to go on the English Mission. [20] Whether news of the martyrdom influenced the Pope in his decision or the monks in their petition to Chapter, I cannot say. We catch a glimpse of the interest it aroused among the Cassinese in a letter written to Fr. Parsons, sj., on November 18 of that year by two students who had been transferred from the Roman College to that of Douai. One of them writes : 'I spake at Parma with Dom Raphel, the English monk, who told me that the scholar which came with them of St. Omers, recounted unto him the martyrdom of Mr. Barwith, and that he died in their habit, with his head shaved, and how he wright to (MS. torn, evidently D. Anselm) the English monk at St. Paul's, to learn of the said scholar more particulars of the matter, and that he writing to him, he would tell him nothing which he thinketh to proceed from that you had forbidden the youth to speak any more of that matter, which he taketh verie haynously.' [21]

20. Weldon, Memorials I, p. 12. Dom B. Camm (lc, p. 130—131) questions the accuracy of Weldon's date and suggests 1602, but I think Weldon is right in his date. He gives a precise reference, Anno 1601. Regist: Magn : Congreg : p. 146, which he evidently got from Bishop Ellis' manuscript account; moreover, according to my reckoning, a General Chapter was due in 1601 and not in 1602 ; finally, although John Roberts had not studied five years by 1601, which is Dom Camm's difficulty, some of the petitioners certainly had, as was asserted.
21. Catholic Record Society Publications, vol. (5) p. 379.

We can well imagine what interest and enthusiasm the news excited among his former fellow-students, the English Benedictines at Compostella, whither the news was conveyed by the priest Cuthbert, as Antonio Yepez relates. [22] The Spanish General Chapter evidently received the petition of the monks with favour and applied to Rome for the Apostolic sanction. This application to Rome must have been made in 1602 at the latest, for D. Anselm records that it was granted on December 5th of that year, and we know that Fr. John Roberts was sent from Compostella to the English Mission on December 26th. [23] The Apostolatus creates a difficulty here by stating that in 1603 at the instance of the Abbot General Alfonso de Coral and the Abbot of St. Martin's, Antonio Cornejo and others a petition was made to the Pope through their Procurator in Rome, for leave to grant missionary faculties to some English monks of their congregation : that the Cassinese joined in the petition on behalf of the English monks of their congregation and that despite opposition raised from various quarters, His Holiness after carefully weighing the matter granted faculties to both congregations by a most ample concession of March 20, 1603. [24] This may have been a more solemn and final decree made to silence the opposition raised against the former grant ; or perhaps an amplification of the grant of December 5, 1602. At any rate Fr. Roberts had set out for the Mission before it, and possibly also Fr. Augustine Bradshaw. They were both in England in 1603. Fr. Roberts landed about April, [25] but was taken and banished towards the end of May. Fr. Bradshaw was at ' Henlip ' in the course of that year. [26] There seems to have been no other monk missioner from Spain during 1603 ; the usual accounts Baker, Weldon, etc., give us no other, and a passage in the Apostolatus seems to decide the point. There we read ' D. Sebert remained in prison, a faithful confessor, until the time when the first monks of our mission from Spain and Italy, Augustine, John, Joseph, Thomas, Anselm, entering in by authority of the Apostolic See to replant the faith, added their diligence to the holy labours of the secular priests and the fathers of the Society.' [27] Here we have the traditional four first missioners, two from Spain and two from Italy, with the addition of Joseph Prater (I take it) who was apparently the next to enter the mission after Roberts and Bradshaw. If the Obit Book is correct in identifying him with Richard Prater of Douai College, then he did not enter England until 1604, and indeed as a secular priest, presumably joining the Benedictines soon after. As for the Cassinese, D. Anselm Beech records that he landed at Yarmouth in 1603, where also he spent the whole winter, and in the house of Francis Woodhouse of Cisson near ' Wendlam ' he met D. Sigebert Buckley, the sole survivor of the Westminster monks, whom King James had ordered to be liberated from ' Fromegham ' prison only a very few (pauculis) months before. [28] From this statement it is not easy to make out at what period of 1603 he landed. Presumably he landed in the winter, but whether thereby he means the first months of the year or the last months, is not evident. In another place he says that the decree of December 5, 1602, for the Mission, was at once put into effect and Fr. Baker says that shortly after the decree, two or three months at the farthest, DD. Thomas and Anselm set out for England. [29] Another account says that the English monks from Italy and Spain arrived about the same time; [30] and this seems to be the truth.

22. Dom B. Camm, l.c, p 113.
23. Weldon, Memorials I, p. 26. Account authorised by Fr. Bradshaw, printed at Douay, 1611. By misprint, to which Weldon calls attention, it has December 26,1600, but just below it has 'En tout ce temps depuis l'an 1602,' Conf : also the Martyr's own account in Camm l.c., p. 297.
24. Apostolatus tract: 2, p. 16. Dom B. Canmm (l.c., p. 131) in criticising this date in Weldon, must have overlooked this passage in the Apostolatus.
25. Dom B. Camm, l.c., p. 150.
26. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, vol. II, p. 480.
27. Tract: 2, p. '242.
28. Acts of General Chapter, original MS. Fr. Buckley was liberated apparently about April conf : Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, second series, p. 277.
29. Weldon, Memorials I, p. 983.
30. Weldon, Memorials I, p. 13.

Thus was begun the second Benedictine Mission to England, and such, in brief, is the outline of events that led up to it.