The Capture of Campion

By Evelyn Waugh

Blessed Edmund Campion (1540-1581) had a distinguished career at Oxford and could have won renown for himself in several fields had he chosen, but he preferred to go abroad and become a Jesuit. He returned to England with Father Robert Persons, S.J., and after a brief but dramatic apostolate, was captured at Lyford Grange on July 17, 1581. There followed the usual farce of a trial and execution at Tyburn on December 1, 1581.

On Tuesday, July 11th, Campion took his leave of Persons, intending to collect some papers which he had left at Mr. Houghton's house in Lancashire, and then proceed into Norfolk upon another round of visits. They made their mutual confessions and renewal of vows, and on parting exchanged hats--as, on leaving Prague, Campion had exchanged his gown with the rector, Campanus--a gesture, perhaps, signifying a particular solemnity and finality in the occasion.

But in a short time Campion was back, to ask his superior's permission to break his journey at a house which lay almost directly on his route, Lyford Grange, near Faringdon in Berkshire. The proprietor, Mr. Yate, was then in London, a prisoner for his religion, and his mother lived at Lyford in the company of two priests named Ford and Collington, and some Brigittine nuns to whom he was giving protection. Yate had more than once begged Campion to visit them, but the household was notorious, and, since it was already liberally supplied with priests, Campion had hitherto declined. Now, however, that he was to pass so near them, Campion asked permission to stop there the night. Persons distrusted the plan. He knew Campion's gentle courtesy and the tenacity of pious women. They would never let him leave. Campion's heart was set upon the visit; he promised to stay exactly as long as Persons ordered; he offered to put himself under obedience to the laybrother Ralph Emerson, who was to be his companion to Norfolk. On these terms Persons gave his permission, and the two parted, this time for life.

All went well at Lyford. Campion behaved with complete discretion; he refused to preach or to be displayed in any way to the neighbours; he conferred with the good women, quietly, one by one, said Mass for them early next day, and departed unobtrusively towards Oxford in the company of Father Collington, before anyone outside the house got wind of his arrival.

Lyford, with its nuns and its two chaplains, was the religious centre of the district. That afternoon there were callers. Catholic gossip began, and the women could not contain their news; the famous Father Campion had been there; he had said this and that; he had dressed in such a way; this was how he had heard confessions; it was thus he had said Mass; they might have passed him on the road; he was barely thirty miles away at the moment.

The neighbours were chagrined at what they had missed; how could the women have been so churlish as to keep their guest to themselves?

And he had not preached? Everyone said it was the experience of a lifetime to hear him. Father Campion must be brought back.

Ford was mounted and sent after him. They met that evening at an inn near Oxford, where he was already in discussion with a group of undergraduates and masters of the University. He was weary of danger, and took risks in these last days that he would not have allowed himself a year before. The company had already tried to get a sermon out of him.

Now Ford arrived with his entreaty to return to Lyford. Campion referred then to "the little man," his superior. They all turned upon Brother Ralph, arguing and coaxing. Obedience must be tempered with good sense; the object of Persons' order was the good of souls. Here was an unrivalled opportunity. He had allowed Campion to waste a day among a handful of pious women; now he was offered a large and eager audience. Brother Ralph pleaded the necessity of the road. Here he was undone. Persons had expressly forbidden Campion to preach or visit in Lancashire; for him the journey was an unnecessary risk and waste of energy. Let him stay at Lyford over the week-end, while Brother Ralph fetched the papers from Mr. Houghton. Campion could leave on Sunday and meet him at a Catholic gentleman's house on the borders of Norfolk. Brother Ralph yielded and rode on alone into Lancashire. Campion returned, joyfully attended, to the house at Lyford.

The Grange still stands, reduced in size and importance, but still a house of poignant association to the Catholic visitor. At this date it occupied four sides of a courtyard with a gate-tower, long since demolished, facing a drawbridge. Mrs. Yate's room and the priest's cell have disappeared, and there is no good reason for identifying the long room as the chapel. The moat and drawbridge posts can still be seen and a line of trees marks the avenue which once constituted the main approach. Originally the moat enclosed a large area which included a dove-cot, probably other outbuildings, and a dense orchard and fruit garden. The fact, which will be seen later, that it employed sixty men seven or eight hours to search it, attests the size of the place.

Friday and Saturday passed without alamm. Campion was lionised and cosseted by the good ladies; scholars came out from Oxford, and the Catholic neighbours flocked to see him. On Sunday, in obedience to Brother Ralph, he was to start for Norfolk. That moming Mr. George Eliot arrived. He was a typical member of the class of professional priest-hunter whom Cecil and Walsingham now employed. Originally a manservant of low character, he had worked in the households of Mr. Roper of Orpington, in Kent, and the Dowager Lady Petre, mother of Sir John Petre of Ingatestone, Essex, both of whom were Catholic. While in their service he had professed himself of their Faith. He got into trouble for rape and homicide and left Lady Petre's employment for gaol. From there, he wrote several letters to Leicester, offering information against his former employers, giving a list of prominent Catholics, and in particular accusing Father Payne, who lived in Roper's house under the title of steward, of a "horrible treason" by which the priest proposed to levy a certain company of armed men, fall upon and despatch Leicester, Walsingham and Burghley, use Her Majesty in such a sort as neither modesty nor duty would suffer him to rehearse and raise a general cry everywhere of "Queen Mary! Queen Mary!" No anti-Catholic tale was too extravagant or insubstantial to interest the Council; Eliot was summoned to Leicester House, given his freedom and a general commission to seek out and arrest any Jesuits or massing priests whom he could discover. A man named David Jenkins was appointed to assist him. Profiting by his former Catholic connection, he was able to attend and report a Mass said at Haddon, in Oxfordshire, on July 2nd, and, still on the same errand, returned to the neighbourhood at the time of Campion's visit. Lyford was well known as a Catholic centre, and in the hope of finding a Mass there on the Sunday morning he and Jenkins arrived, quite unaware of the sensational coup they were about to make.

On their approach at about eight in the morning, they found the gates barred and a watchman on guard. Thomas Cooper, the cook, had been a fellow-servant with Eliot at Mr. Roper's. Eliot asked for him by name, and the watchman, who at first had received them with suspicion, went in to fetch him. Eliot and Jenkins waited in their saddles outside the gates. Presently the cook came out. They greeted each other as old friends. Eliot explained that he was on his way to Derbyshire, and must now be off.

"NO," said the cook, "that you shall not do before dinner."

Eliot and Jenkins made a show of reluctance, but at length allowed themselves to be persuaded; dismounted, and accompanied the cook to the buttery, where he drew them a jug of ale.

"Presently after," Eliot records, "the said Cook came and whispered with me, and asked, Whether my friend (meaning the said Jenkins) were within the Church or not?

"To which I answered, 'He was not; but yet,' said I, 'he is a very honest man, and one that wishes well that way.'

"Then said the Cook to me, 'Will you go up?' By which speech I knew he would bring me to a Mass.

"And I assured him and said, 'Yea, for God's sake, that let me do; for seeing I must needs tarry, let me take something with me that is good.'"

Accordingly they left Jenkins in the buttery with his beer mug, and, passing through the hall, the dining parlour and two or three other rooms, came to a "fair, large chamber" where Mass was in progress. Father Ford -who was known to Eliot by the name of Satwell--was at the altar; the congregation consisted of three nuns, in their habits, thirty-seven lay people, Collington and Campion. Eliot slipped into a place and followed the service with a suitable display of familiarity and devotion. When Ford's Mass was finished, the people remained on their knees while Campion vested, said his Mass, "and at the end thereof, made holy bread and delivered it to the ,beople there, to everyone some, together with holy water; whereof he gave" Eliot "part also."

"And then was there a chair set in the chamber something beneath the Altar, wherein the said Campion did sit down; and there made a Sermon very nigh an hour long; the effect of the text being, as I remember, 'That Christ wept over Jerusalem, etc.' And so applied the same to this our country of England for that the Pope his authority and doctrine did not so flourish here as the same Campion desired."

The text was from the gospel of the day; from that morning every phrase of the reproach was indelibly written in the hearts of Campion's audience, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets." It was the Tenebrae of his Passion. Never, it was remembered, had his eloquence been more compelling than in this last sermon.

While he listened Eliot's hand strayed, he tells us, to the pocket where he kept the Queen's commission; it was half in his mind to produce it there and then; but he prudently sat the sermon out, and as soon as he decently could, hurried back to Jenkins in the buttery. There was no time now to stay for dinner, and making what excuses they could to the hospitable cook, the two galloped off with their news to the nearest Justice.

Seven or eight of the visiting Catholics remained for dinner, and they were still at the table, at about one o'clock, when the alarm was given, that the house was completely surrounded. Mr. Fettiplace, a neighbouring magistrate, Eliot, Jenkins and a squadron of soldiers sat their horses outside the main gate demanding admission, while the watchmen reported armed men posted in a circle round the moat. Campion wished to surrender himself, in the hope that, content with his easy capture, the magistrate might leave the others unmolested. Mrs. Yate insisted that the house was well provided with hiding-places, and that there was a far prospect of escape; in any case his presence there would ruin them all, whether he surrendered or was discovered. The three priests were led to a secret room, where there was just space for them to lie side by side on a couch; some provisions were put in with them and the panelling slid into place; meanwhile the nuns hastily put themselves into ordinary costume; books, beads, pictures were hidden away; Edward Yate, brother of the master of the house, and two yokels, locked themselves in the pigeon house; it was half an hour before Fettiplace was admitted. He was then greeted by Mrs. Yate and her guests-five gentlemen, one gentlewoman and the three nuns in lay attire-who demanded indignantly to know the reason for the disturbance. Eliot accused the entire party of having been present at a Mass that morning. They flatly denied it, and Fettiplace found himself in the difficult position of having to choose between the word of a professional informer and of a number of local gentry. Perhaps he knew that Eliot was telling the truth, but he had no particular zeal to prove it. Eliot insisted on a search, and the men marched through the house, glancing under beds and behind curtains. Nothing was found; the magistrate had done his duty and was ready to apologise and withdraw. But, says Eliot, "I eftsoone put Master Fettiplace in remembrance of our Commission." The magistrate protested that he had no warrant to do any damage in the house. Eliot produced his commission and began to read an authorisation for this very purpose. One of the men, looking over his shoulder, discovered that he was inventing. Eliot challenged the magistrate to arrest him as a comforter of Jesuits. They were now outside the gates, arguing the matter on the drawbridge; within, the household was jubilant at their escape. Suddenly the party were observed to waver and to turn back; they were demanding readmission. Eliot had won. Fettiplace recognised that he was a dangerous man; a malicious report to Leicester might bring about his own ruin.

Eliot and Jenkins took charge of the raid. Edward Yate and the two countrymen were discovered in the dove-cot. It was now useless to pretend that nothing unusual had been on foot. Methodically, room by room, they went through the house, sounding the panelling and splintering it where it seemed hollow; they found several secret places, but no trace of the priests. The afternoon drew in, and Fettiplace's men became sulky. Eliot sent to the High Sheriff, Mr. Foster, and to another Justice, Mr. Wiseman, for further help. Foster, who had no liking for this sort of procedure, sent back word that he could not be found; Wiseman arrived before dark with a posse of a dozen of his own servants "very able men," according to Eliot, "and well appointed." That night a guard of sixty was set about the house, while others slept on the premises; Mrs. Yate gave them supper.

The cell where the priests lay opened out of "a chamber near the top of the house; which was but very simple; having in it a large shelf with divers tools and instruments both upon it and hanging by it; which they judged to belong to some cross bow maker." Shelves hung across the door. Mrs. Yate had her bed made up in a room close to this workshop, and during the night Campion came out and addressed a few words of encouragement there to the household. As they were leaving her room one of them stumbled; the guard was alarmed, but the priests got back to their hiding-place without detection.

At daybreak the search began again, but by now even Eliot was losing heart. He knew that Campion had been there, and had meant to remain to dinner, but it seemed probable that he had changed his plan--perhaps alarmed by Eliot's precipitate departure--and had escaped while his pursuers were summoning Fettiplace. When they were "in effect clear void of any hope," Jenkins noticed a chink of light in the well over the stairs, and seizing a crowbar, revealed the back of the cell, "the priests lying all close together upon a bed of purpose laid for them; where they had bread, meat and drink sufficient to have relieved them three or four days together."

"The said Jenkins then called very loudly, and said 'I have found the traitors!' and presently company enough was with him; who there saw the said Priests, when there was no remedy for them but nolens volens courteously yielded themselves."

From A Treasury of Catholic Reading, ed. John Chapin.