May 1988 Print

A Priest-Martyr of the English Reformation

by a Seminarian of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary

"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.... And white robes were given to every one of them one. And it was said to them that they should rest for a little time till their fellow-servants and their brethren, who are to be slain even as they, should be filled up" (Apoc. 6:9, 11).

How fittingly Holy Mother Church in the office of Prime follows the singing of the martyrology, which recalls to us that glorious multitude of her children now blessed in heaven, with the words of the psalmist: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Ps. 115:15). These blessed souls who have followed their King into everlasting glory now triumphantly reign with Him after the holy warfare of earthly life. Among them are the ranks of the "white-robed army of martyrs" who died to self-will and shed their blood for love of Jesus Christ and the immortal souls He purchased on Calvary, and they proclaim to us that in death is life for those united to Christ by grace. Let a martyr give witness.

Old men die and babes are born; the Author of life takes and He gives. So it was in the England of 1567 as before. Yet something had changed. For more than 30 years the pride, passion, and greed of men had worked their ruin, tearing England from the bosom of Holy Mother Church and depriving the people in that once wholly Catholic land of her salutary care. What were the prospects for Edmund Gennings as he drew his first breath of air upon entering the world at Lichfield in Staffordshire?

New Religion Imposed

Mary Tudor died in November 1558, taking with her any assurance of a continuing restoration of the Catholic faith which she had begun five years earlier. Elizabeth succeeded her sister on the throne of England and soon made it clear that the ancient faith would give way in the realm to the new religion, an "invention of mischievous men... a fruitless labour" (Wisd. 15:5). Parliament passed two laws in 1559 to secure the eradication of Catholicism from English soil. A new Act of Supremacy, which was to be made more severe in 1563, declared the queen to have supreme power over ecclesiastical matters in England, and commanded that clergy, public officials, and others swear an oath agreeing to this declaration, and also that no one could work against this declaration in any way under pain of suffering loss of office, loss of property, or even loss of life. A new Act of Uniformity was designed to force Englishmen to conform to the new religion, making both the use of the new rites as well as attendance at them compulsory in local parishes on Sundays and holy days. Non-conformists among the clergy were subject to loss of income, loss of property, or imprisonment (possibly for life). Non-conformists among the laity were subject to heavy fines, loss of property, or life-imprisonment. The clergy was forbidden to offer Holy Mass, and the faithful were forbidden to attend Holy Mass. Elizabeth was a worthy daughter of her father (v. Hughes).

Such was the world to which Edmund Gennings opened his eyes. In this new age which had cast off the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ and His Church, Gennings, like so many of his compatriots, was raised in the new religion whose clamorous protest, an echo of the fateful "non serviam—I will not serve," had been reverberating throughout Christendom for half a century. But in these troubled times as always, God had His own designs to confound the wickedness and worldly wisdom of foolish men. We cannot fully comprehend the workings of Divine Providence, yet to the problem of an infinitely good God and the existence of evil in creation, the Catholic has the answer. The scourge of Protestantism was destroying Catholic faith and life on the Continent and in England, but Almighty God allowed this evil because he could bring about a greater good—His greater glory and a greater good for souls. If proud men were content with their blindness, deliberately forsaking what they knew to be true, thereby damning themselves and imperiling the salvation of countless others, God would strengthen the very Church they sought to destroy and raise up in their midst saints and martyrs to live and die for His Truth. Only at the age of 16 did young Edmund open his eyes, mind, and heart to the Catholic faith.

 

A Vocation

Gennings began his employment in 1583 as a page in the home of Mr. Richard Sherwood. Though he was persecuted, Sherwood retained the Catholic faith, and by his good example and instruction he brought his page into the Church. God's goodness did not stop there. Mr. Sherwood's influence extended even further. Gennings's master, following a vocation to the priesthood, entered the English College at Rheims in France, was ordained a priest, and sent back to England in August 1584 to minister to Catholics, who had already even "resisted unto blood" (Heb. 12:4). By now, Elizabeth and her government could count the murders of six priests to their credit, and their hatred for the faith of their fathers found no measure too severe in driving Catholicism out of England, be it plunder, vandalism, sacrilege, deceit, threats, torture, unjust trials, treachery, or state-sanctioned murder. Undaunted by all this, Edmund responded to a priestly vocation himself and determined to set out for the college at Rheims just as his master had done.

The English College at Rheims, which had been originally established at Douay in Flanders in 1568, was a flourishing seminary whose professors dedicated themselves to forming holy and learned priests for the beleaguered Catholics of England. It was here, at age 17, that Edmund Gennings presented himself to begin his studies. It was here that he entered the ranks of those young men who were the hope of England. The English government was well aware of this and the other works undertaken on the Continent for the training of English priests. No longer was it a capital offence just to convert to Catholicism, to return to the Church, or to help anyone else in any way to do these things, but a law was enacted in 1585 that ordered all priests ordained after 24 June 1559 to leave the country, forbade any Englishmen ordained since then to enter England, demanded that all English seminarians or students in Jesuit schools, return to England and abjure their Catholic faith, and prohibited anyone from giving assistance to any priest coming back to their native land. Anyone failing to abide by this new law was to be put to death unless he or she effectively denied the Catholic faith (v. Hughes).

The studies of the Rheims seminarians included works of St. Thomas Aquinas, moral theology, English history, and Sacred Scripture. The young men were prepared to refute the errors of their countrymen, defend the Catholic religion, and bring Englishmen back to the one, true Church (Hughes, pp. 291-292). The regularity of community life and their fidelity to it gave them strength to face courageously the duties and attendant perils of the English mission, which they would have to traverse often alone and hunted. Edmund Gennings applied himself diligently to his studies and other duties, always giving good example and growing in virtue. On account of sickness, his superiors decided to send him back to England, though Gennings did not want to run the risk of returning without having completed his studies and without the grace of the priesthood. Nevertheless, he set out on his journey. Some exiled English priests met him in Normandy in order to help him get into England, but when the young man suddenly recovered from his sickness, they let him return to Rheims to complete his studies. He never lost sight of the goal of the priesthood and the prospect of bringing faith and grace to his fellow countrymen. As alumni of the college had already shed their blood on English soil for the cause of Jesus Christ, the seminarians knew what might await them in England. Gennings would often reply: "Vivamus in spe!—Let us live in hope!"

 

A Priest for England

No doubt God will not be outdone in generosity. Fidelity to daily duty brings many graces. In 1590, Gennings completed his studies and was ordained on March 18th, at the age of 23, the college having received a papal dispensation allowing early ordinations. In early April he was sent to the English mission with two others. The three men were assaulted and imprisoned for a few days by French Huguenots, but they were happy to suffer for their faith as they would surely have to suffer in England also. Taking a ship from France, they landed on the coast of northeastern England and soon aroused the suspicion of a priest-hunter. Thus they parted and Fr. Gennings began his missionary labors.

After six months of priestly work, Fr. Gennings went to Lichfield, hoping to find his family and to convert them to the faith. Only his younger brother, John, now 20, was still living, but he had gone south to London. Realizing that his Protestant brother was in great spiritual need, he went to London also and searched the city for a month, trying to discover John's whereabouts. His efforts were without success, so the young priest offered the disappointment to God's will and prayed for patience. On the day before leaving the city, Fr. Gennings set out to visit a friend; on his way met a young man whom he discovered to be his brother. He introduced himself to John as "Mr. Ironmonger" and inquired about Edmund, thereby realizing that John was not open to receiving the Catholic faith. John's suspicions were nevertheless apparent to the priest, so Fr. Gennings revealed his identity but not his priesthood, and he promised to meet John some time in the future.

For Fr. Edmund Gennings, that temporal future was rapidly shortening. Little more than two years had passed since Margaret Ward, a laywoman, had been hanged at Tyburn in London for helping a priest to escape from prison. The machinery of Elizabethan persecution was well in place, giving no rest to Catholic laymen or priests. Yet the Catholics in England persevered, thanks to Almighty God, Who provided His embattled flock with faithful shepherds. Fr. Gennings continued his priestly mission in difficult conditions for another year before returning to London.

Richard Topcliffe was a credit to the government he served. As the government's policy was to destroy Catholics and Catholicism in Her Majesty's kingdom, a man like Topcliffe was a valuable asset. The adherents of the ancient faith were not content to play the government's game—unlike their sovereign, they were the defenders of the true faith. Topcliffe's job was to persuade those men and women, who were witnesses that picked the conscience of the perpetrators of the national apostasy, that a comfortable and respectable heresy is much more agreeable than painful demanding Catholicism. How would he persuade them? His delight was to pursue Catholics and their priests, and to devise and inflict tortures on them. How well Topcliffe fitted in with the government program. As Fr. Philip Hughes remarks in his work, The Reformation in England (vol. 3, p. 363), this persecution was "by no means just a matter of some 183 capital executions. The bitter hostility aroused by the sight of the hated thing coming to life again, reached out to ruin hundreds, and thousands, for whom the gallows was perhaps only a distant menace. Spies, raids, arrests, fines, imprisonment, torture, the gallows—these in the last half of the reign, were the common lot of the Catholic who refused to be, or to pretend to be, a Protestant; with the cruelty of the persecutor increasing with his success, and his own character sinking ever more closely into the brute." Yes, the "hated thing refused to die, as priests continued to be sent into the realm from the Continent and the Catholic people held firm."

 

A Hunted Man

As in the early Church the Romans had sought to deal the death blow to the faith by striking the Christian leaders, the bishops and priests, so Topcliffe and others diligently hunted the Catholic priests of the realm to achieve the same end. Fr. Gennings returned to London on 7 November 1591, and Topcliffe was not far behind. The next morning, Fr. Gennings began to offer Mass at the home of Mr. Swithun Wells. It was to be Fr. Gennings's last Mass, but his own life of sacrifice was yet to be consummated. At the consecration, Topcliffe and company broke into Wells's home and came up the stairs to the room where the Mass was in progress. The Catholic laymen present feared sacrilege, and prevented Topcliffe from proceeding further, one of them pushing the priest-hunter and falling down the staircase with him. Topcliffe rushed back upstairs, his head all bloody, and demanded to be let into the room. The laymen feared he would call the whole neighborhood to his assistance, and so they proposed that all in the room would peacefully surrender after the Mass, as long as Topcliffe allowed it to continue without disruption. Topcliffe agreed and Fr. Gennings continued the Holy Sacrifice.

No sooner that Fr. Gennings finished than Topcliffe and his followers rushed into the room and seized the still-vested celebrant and the other Catholics—there were about ten others, including Fr. Plasden—as well as the Mass supplies. They were cast into prison, examined by a judge, and then returned to their cells to await trial, scheduled for December 4th. Mr. Wells, who was not at home at the time of the raid, was also cast into the prison.

On December 4th, this courageous band of Catholics was brought to trial. Their jury had been ordered to find all of them guilty, but of what were they guilty? They practiced their Catholic faith—Fr. Gennings, only 24 years old, was made the object of mockery in the courtroom, just like his Divine Master. They dressed him up like a fool but played the part much better than he. The young priest's answers to their queries angered them, and so the judges in their disdain for justice and truth could only resort to ridicule. Frs. Gennings and Plasden were declared guilty of treason the next day, simply because they were Catholic priests who had returned to the country against the law of 1585. For helping these priests, the rest were also condemned. Fr. Gennings and Swithun Wells were to be executed at Gray's Inn Fields near the Wells home; the others were sentenced to die at Tyburn.

The day of execution came. It was December 10th. Mrs. Wells's sentence was reduced, to her grief, to life-imprisonment, but the others were to be murdered as planned. All were offered pardon for their crime of holding the Catholic faith if they would apostatize, but they preferred that death which was a pledge of eternal life. "...the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God" (John 16:2).

 

An Everlasting Crown

Fr. Gennings mounted the ladder at Gray's Inn Fields and the noose was put around his neck. Joyful at the thought of having faithfully fulfilled his duty, he confessed to having "done so good deeds" and declared his willingness to do the same many times over with the grace of God. The defeated and enraged Topcliffe ordered the executioner to begin his work. The ladder was turned and Fr. Gennings hung very briefly until the rope was hastily cut. Falling to the ground and standing upright, he was tripped by the hangman onto the block. The butchery began, and the priest screamed at the start of the excruciating ordeal, but Swithun Wells encouraged him, telling him the pain would not be long and asking the holy priest's prayers that his own martyrdom would come. The executioner severed Gennings's arms and legs and then ripped out his bowels. Before quartering the body, the executioner tore out the heart as Fr. Gennings uttered a prayer to St. Gregory. Swithun Wells, strengthened by the martyrdom of this holy priest and happy at the prospect of his own, declared to Topcliffe his gratitude to Almighty God for the favor of having had such priests in his home. He was immediately hanged, and the unsated Topcliffe hurried to Tyburn for the butchering of Fr. Eustace White. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality.... God hath tried them and found them worthy of Himself (Wisd. 3:4-5).

The martyrdom of these steadfast Catholics in 1591 was not the end of bloody persecution. Elizabeth died a miserable death in 1603, but state-sanctioned murder continued into the second half of the 17th century. Our Lord's chosen ones bore fruit as He commanded (John 15:16). These English Catholics forsook the ease and comfort which could have been theirs, choosing rather what was most repulsive to human nature, and dying to the "old man" and their own wills. What was best in England sacrificed self to bring her back to the grace of God and to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. "If any man minister to me, let him follow Me.... Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling to the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 26:24-25).

In death is life. The martyrs died to their self-will and their natural desires, finally sacrificing their very lives. Now they live eternally in the . . . [sic].