CUTHBERT MAYNE – AND THE HUNTED PRIESTS; ONE OF THE FORTY MARTYRS CANONISED ON 25th OCTOBER 1970;

CUTHBERT MAYNE – AND THE HUNTED PRIESTS

ONE OF THE FORTY MARTYRS

CANONISED ON 25th OCTOBER 1970

The accession of Elizabeth I to the throne saw the passing of two pieces of Legislation; the first, the Act of Supremacy, proclaimed in 1559 reasserted the legislation of Henry VIII and attached an Oath (“the bloody question”), the anti-papal oath of 1536- which “all the clergy, all taking degrees at all universities, all judges, justices mayors and other royal officials were required to take, acknowledging the Queen to be “Supreme Governor in all matters ecclesiastical and spiritual”. The penalty for refusing the oath was at first loss of office only. Four years later this penalty was increased to loss of goods and imprisonment for a first offence, a second offence being counted as treason and so punishable with death.”

Gerard Culkin, “The Reformation”, Pater Nostra Publications, 1952, at p. 72, from which this short history is taken.

The second Act of 1559, the Act of Uniformity, imposed the Protestant concept of worship, with the abolition of Catholic sacraments and the Sacrifice of the Mass.

“Any clergyman refusing to perform divine service according to the Prayer Book was now, for a first offence, to lose a year’s income and to be imprisoned for six months. A third offence was to be punished with imprisonment for life. Any lay person who criticized the new service was to be fined a hundred marks. Everyone in the country was now bound, under pain of a fine of twelve pence to attend the Protestant service every Sunday in his own parish church.”

Ibid.

Culkin observed:

“Thus, as far as legislation could do so, these two acts made England a protestant country; or perhaps it would be better to say that they made Protestantism the only form of religious belief henceforward permitted to freeborn Englishmen.

All that remained was to see how far, and in the face of what resistance, these two acts could be enforced…..

The bishops, who had already made clear their opposition to the government’s policy, made the strongest resistance; all, with one exception, refused the oath and were in consequence, deprived of their sees and a little later imprisoned. The Catholic hierarchy in England was thus destroyed at a single blow.

In the cathedral churches and at the universities-at Oxford in particular- resistance was still strong, and some seven deans, ten arch-deacons, seven diocesan chancellors and sixty-odd heads and fellows of colleges were deprived of their offices. The mass of the clergy-with what hesitations, with what misgivings we do not know-submitted. “

Ibid., at p. 75.

The Catholic faithful were served in their faith by a remnant of Marian priests. Insofar as the majority of Catholics were concerned, however, the faith was unattainable for them.

In 1562, King Philip of Spain had founded a university in Douai, in the Low Countries, (Flanders), which had become a refuge for the priests and scholars forced into exile by their refusal to accept the new religion. Among these exiles was William Allen, Principal of St Mary’s Hall, Oxford, one of five scholars who held chairs at the new university. It was his intention that there be priests available to fill the void when the new religion collapsed, as he believed it would do; accordingly, he set about founding a college of higher education, based upon the old faith, with the intention of restoring the old order.

The Papal Bull of Pius V excommunicating Elizabeth gave impetus to a renewal of persecution by the State of the English Catholics. When Parliament sat in 1571, a series of Acts made it treason, relevantly, to be Catholic, to reconcile any person to the Catholic faith, to possess Catholic devotional items, or to harbor a priest. All priests were liable to execution. The penalty for treason was death.

“In September 1568 with only four students, William Allen had opened the English College in the shadow of the university at Douai. Four years later the first of a growing number of students were ordained;.. and now came to them the idea that instead of waiting for Protestantism to collapse there was an urgent need for priests to return to England to take the place of the heroic Marian priests.”

Ibid., at p. 86.

“Accordingly in 1574, three priests, Louis Barlow, Henry Shaw and Martin Nelson left Douai and crossed into England, the advance guard of a great movement which grew each year until, by the end of her reign, no less than 450 priests had gone out from Douai to the English mission.”

“The success which awaited them there astonished the priests themselves; and surely that success is the most striking testament not only to their heroism but also to the virility of English Catholicism at this moment when the government was persuaded- not without reason-that the Catholic Church in the country was in its last agony. Young Englishmen continued to flock to Douai. In 1583 there were 80 new arrivals within 6 months. Within 10 years of the college’s foundation there were over 100 priests at work in England, reconciling the lapsed in their tens of thousands and making spectacular conversions among the protestants.”

“The new spirit awakened by the Douai priests-of which the events in York are an example [that is, the conversions of people such as Margaret Clitherow and Anne Line]- was a challenge which threatened the very existence of the new national church. It was a challenge which the government was bound to face. From this time persecution takes a new turn with a savage priest hunt which was to continue to the end of the century and far beyond. “

“The first of the Douai priests to be captured was Cuthbert Maine, who was executed in a most barbarous fashion in 1577.”

Cuthbert Mayne (Maine) was born in 1544. He was raised and ordained in the Anglican Church. While at Oxford he befriended Edmund Campion and Gregory Martin (translator of the Douai-Rheims Bible) and converted to Catholicism. He was ordained at Douai and returned to England as a missionary in 1576. He was discovered saying Mass and was charged with denying the Queen’s supremacy (the Act of Supremacy) and possessing an Agnus Dei (a devotional medal).

He was sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. The reason Gerard Culkin described his death as most “barbarous” is that he was hanged, and, while still conscious, disemboweled, (organs removed through an incision), entrails burnt, and reportedly quartered while still alive – that is, he was pulled apart by horses who were spurred in different directions.

“When Elizabeth died, 126 priests had been executed for no other crime than their priesthood. Of these no less than 113 were Douai men. It was a terrible price that these young Englishmen were called to pay: but at that price they saved the Catholic faith in their country from extinction.”

Culin, ibid., at pp. 86-87.

Torture of the Derbyshire priest Ralph Sherwin at the Tower of London in 1580, as depicted in stained glass of 1931-2 by Hardman of Birmingham at

A W N Pugin’s St Mary, Derby. Father Sherwin is one of the Forty Catholic martyrs of the Reformation canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970. https://historicengland.org.uk/.../heag159-roman.../Historic England, 19th and 20th century Roman Catholic Churches