Lawrence said unto the gentleman : ' Sir, your
cousin Blundel sent me unto you for such or so
much money.' To whom he answered : ' 'Tis true
I owe my cousin some money but, I pray, sir,
was't not you that carried my cousin, Richard
Blundel, overseas ? ' ' Yes, indeed,' said he, ' it was
I that took him over, and it is I, if God spare my
life, that will bring him back again.' 'Faith,' said
the gentleman, ' I am very glad : therefore, I pray,
expect here awhile, and I'll presently return, and
despatch your business,' and so departed.
" Lawrence supposed the gentleman had meant
that he would have brought in the money at his
return. But the event was contrary, for, instead of
money, he brought two Serjeants [" Sagants"], who,
apprehending, carried him before the Magistrates.
And being accused to be a priest was committed to
prison, &c.
" But that we may see what became of the rest,
we will first return to the gentlewoman who was
ii ii.
530 BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON
accused. She therefore lived many years very
piously without all suspicion of disloyalty towards
her husband, and died very blessedly. So that the
virtuous lives, both before and after the accusation,
and the happy deaths of both these two did plainly
demonstrate their former innocency.
"But the accusers, neither in life nor death, had
any such tokens to prove their false and detestable
assertions but plain contrary."
The narrator then gives many particulars of
their misfortunes. The son was disinherited. One
of the daughters had a child by her father's groom,
and was reduced to beggary. The other also lost
her reputation, and married a "strolling fellow,"
and fled with him to Ireland.
" All that knew these three did greatly wonder
to see them all fall into so great misery, especially
that they all were so notorious unchaste : but those,
who before had known of the slander, imputed it as
a just revenge of Almighty God." l
But to return to our martyr. We seem to know
nothing of his examinations. He was committed
to Newgate, and as the record of his trial shows,
he was brought up from that prison to his arraign-
1 This seems a fitting place to note another rash accusation of
this class, and the only other one which is recorded as having been
brought against any of the martyrs whose lives we have been
studying. While the Blessed Thomas Cottam was on the scaffold,
a Protestant minister reproached him with " lewd behaviour" in
Fish Street four years previously. But another minister at once
interposed, and said that it was not this Cottam, but his brother,
and the martyr proved the falsity of the charge, by showing that
BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON 531
ment at Westminster Hall, " on Thursday next
after the eve of St. Martin . . . under the custody
of Richard Martyn and William Webbe, Sheriffs of
the City of London, in whose custody he had been
committed by virtue of letters of our Lady the
Queen de Habeas Corpus." After his indictment,
" the aforesaid Lawrence Richardson was com-
mitted to the Marshal" of the Queen's Bench prison.
Next day, " Friday," he was brought back by the
Marshal for trial, and was condemned in company
with Ford, Filby, Briant, Hart, and Shert, as has
already been described. The sentence of death
again changed Richardson's prison. It consigned
him to the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower,
and specified that he was to be drawn to the place
of execution from that prison. To the Tower he
was therefore now taken, as the Diary of the Tower
correctly states. We have already heard from
Kirby's letter, that he on his arrival was left
without bedding for some two months. Four
months later still he was dragged to Tyburn with
the three companions of his martyrdom on May the
3Oth, as we have seen.
The fact that the Blessed Lawrence was selected
to be tried and executed among the more notable of
he had not been in London for seven years. Then two or three
bystanders also affirmed that the person in question was not
Thomas, but his brother ; and the matter dropped. (Briefe Historic,
p. 129; Concertatio, S. 94 and 216 b.)
It is to be noted that Munday, in his Execution of Certaint
Traytours, passes over the incident in silence. As he was favourably
placed for hearing, and gives publicity to all that can discredit the
martyrs, we have here a fresh proof that the refutation of the
calumny was complete.
532 BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON
the imprisoned priests, whilst others were left to
languish untried, makes it probable that the Govern-
ment had some special suspicion or gravamen against
him, and, though the matter is not clear, it would
seem that they believed him to be some one else,
whom they were eager to punish for having dis-
tributed Campion's books. This, or something like
it, seems to be implied in Dr. Allen's introductory
chapter to the Briefe Historic, 1 when he says, " If
Mr. Richardson, whose name and person were
wholly mistaken even till his death, had been
arraigned the former day, as he was the latter,
Mr. Campion might belike have discharged him."
That is to say, if the formal evidence against
Richardson (which seems unfortunately to be no
longer on record) had been given in Campion's
presence, during his trial on the i6th, instead of at
the trial of the second group of martyrs on the lyth,
Campion would have been there to prove its irrele-
vance, and Richardson might have been acquitted,
as Collington actually was acquitted in a parallel
case. But so effectually was the evidence mangled,
that Richardson's identity was mistaken, and he
was condemned for some one else.
As soon as he and Blessed Thomas Cottam were
in the cart, " with cheerful countenances," Challoner
says, " they signed themselves with the sign of the
Cross, saying, In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus
Sancti. Mr. Cottam turning him about said, ' God
bless you all. Our Lord bless you all,' with a
1 Briefe Historic, p. 10; Concertatio, p. 219.
BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON 533
smiling countenance. Mr. Richardson being com-
manded by the sheriff's man to look upon his
companion who was in cutting up, said : ' Oh! God's
will be done.' With that, one Field, a preacher, said,
Despatch, despatch ! To whom Mr. Cottam said,
with smiling countenance, ' What, are you an
executioner or a preacher ? fie, fie ! ' A minister
standing by said, ' Leave off those jests, it is no time
to jest; he is a preacher and not an executioner;
he cometh to exhort you to die well.' Mr. Cottam
replied, ' Truly by his word he seemed to be an
executioner ; for he said, Despatch, despatch.' '
At this point a number of persons began to
attack Blessed Lawrence on various subjects, and
he was obliged to say, " I pray you do not trouble
me. If you demand any questions of me, let them
be touching the matter whereof I was condemned,
and do not move new questions." On this they
made him turn round to see the butchery which
was being carried out on the body of Blessed Luke
Kirby. When the venerable head was cut off and
held up before the people, and the hangman accord-
ing to the custom cried out, " God save the Queen,"
they asked the martyr what he said to that. He
answered, " I say, Amen ; I pray God save her."
Then he went on to say to the people, " I am come
hither to die for treason, and I protest before God,
I am not guilty of any treason, more than all
Catholic bishops that ever were in this land, since
the conversion thereof till our time ; and were they
alive, they might as well be executed for treason as
I am now."
534 BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON
For a time the attacks of the ministers were
directed against Blessed Thomas Cottam, but they
returned to the charge against Blessed Lawrence
by reading out the "six articles," and his answer
to them, which was as follows :
" Lawrence Richardson. To the fifth article he
answered, that so far as Doctour Saunders and
Doctour Bristowe agree with the Catholique
doctrine of the Church of Rome, he alloweth that
doctrine to be true. And touching the first and
all the rest of the articles, he saith that in all
matters not repugnant to the Catholic religion,
he professeth obedience to her Majestic, and
otherwise maketh no answer to any of them, but
believeth therein as he is taught by the Catholique
Church of Rome.
" LAWRENCE RICHARDSON.
"JOHN POPHAM. DA. LEWIS.
"THOMAS EGERTON. JOHN HAMMOND."
Topcliffe, who was present, and some of the
ministers cried out that he built his faith on
Saunders ; to whom he answered, " I build not
my faith on any one man whatsoever, but upon
the whole Catholic Church."
When the rope was fixed upon the neck of each
of the confessors, the sheriff made a last attempt
to overcome their constancy. " Now, Richardson,"
he said, " if thou wilt confess thy faults and
renounce the Pope, the Queen will extend her
mercy towards thee, and thou shalt be carried
BLESSED LAWRENCE RICHARDSON 535
back again." " I thank her Majesty," the martyr
answered, "for her mercy; but I must not confess
an untruth, or renounce my faith." The same offer
was made to Blessed Thomas, and either mistaking,
or feigning to mistake his answer, they loosed the
rope from the gallows and removed him from the
cart. On this they again pressed Blessed Lawrence
to confess and ask pardon of the Queen, to which
he could only answer again that he had never
offended her to his knowledge. At this Topcliffe
cried out in a rage, "The like mercy was never
shown to any offender, and if you were in any other
commonwealth, you should be torn in pieces with
horses." Finally, when he had asked all Catholics
present to pray with him, and had recited the
Pater, Ave, and Credo, the cart was drawn away,
whilst he was heard saying : " Lord, receive my
soul ; Lord Jesus, receive my soul."
E. S. K.
AUTHORITIES. Besides those mentioned above, the
chief general authorities are Briefe Historic, pp. 121 124.
Concert atio (1588), ff. 93 96, 219.
The Annals of the English College, Rome, are apparently
in error when they state that this martyr aliquandiu commoratus
est (" was sometime a resident," Foley, vi. 86), in that College.
Dr. Worthington's Catalogus Marty nun in Anglia, 1614, denies
it, but says that he had had the intention of going to Rome
for the sake of devotion. It is probable that the mistake
arose from a confusion between the two Johnsons; for,
whereas Robert Johnson did go to Rome, this is not
mentioned in the Annual Letters.
XIX.
THE BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM,
JESUIT.
Tyburn, 30 May, 1582.
LANCASHIRE, with most of the north, had been
comparatively little affected by the Reformation
when Elizabeth came to the throne. But amongst
those who had been seduced from the faith of their
fathers were Lawrence Cottam and his wife Ann,
daughter of a Mr. Brewer or Brewerth, of Brindle,
in the same county. Lawrence Cottam possessed
some property at Dilworth and Tarnaker, on which
he lived himself, as his family had done for many
generations. Their son Thomas was born there in
the year I549- 1 He was early sent to Oxford and
entered at Brasenose College, and will most
probably have been there with Blessed John Shert,
at least when he first entered. He took his degree
as Bachelor on the 23rd of March, 1568. 2 On leaving
1 Gillow, vol. i. p. 574 ; Bartoli, Inghilterra, lib. iv. cap. iii. p. 260.
2 " Cottam (Cotam and Cotton) Thomas supplicated for B.A-
March 22, 1568-9, admitted March 23, determined in Lent,
supplicated M.A. in June, licensed for M.A. July n, 1572,
incepted July 14." (Boase, Register of the University of Oxford, I. 274
and II. iii. 21.)
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 537
the University he was appointed to the mastership
of a free grammar-school in the city of London,
where he became " well known and beloved," says
Arther Pitts, long afterwards his fellow-prisoner in
the Tower. At this time he had the happiness to
meet with Thomas Pound of Belmont, one of the
noblest of the many heroic confessors of those days.
For God's sake Pound gave up the royal favour,
a large fortune, and his liberty for some thirty years.
During this space he was committed to gaol sixteen
several times, passed through ten or eleven different
prisons, and was three times tortured, yet he
never lost courage, cheerfulness, or even playfulness.
Pound converted Cottam to the holy faith, and at
the same time to a holy life. It does not appear at
what exact time his conversion took place. In a
letter full of gratitude to Pound, dated the I2th of
May, 1575, he speaks as though it had happened
some time before :
" Your charity like its Author is eternal, and as
there is no comparison between things eternal and
perishable goods, between time and eternity, so am
I neither able by word or writing to express
sufficiently the testimony of gratitude I owe you.
I remember when you were to me a consoler in my
solitude, the guide of my path, my helper in my
afflictions, and my refuge in need. Through you
the divine mercy recalled me from my wanderings,
raised me up when fallen, sustained me in my
wavering, preserved me in my trials, restored me
when lost. So great a thing is it to possess a
538 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
faithful friend. Such you have been, and have
shown at the same time how far one, whose
Christianity is pure and sincere, excels ordinary
men, and those devoted to pleasures. I had already
begun to know vice, which I deeply lament. Now
I follow virtue, and wonderfully does it refresh
my soul, which is now freed from earthly cares,
safe from enemies, and in no great fear of hell.
These are great things indeed, and for all of
them I am indebted to you. But that is by
far the greatest of all, which the Holy Ghost
by the mouth of the Apostle saith, Testimonium
reddidit spiritui nostro quod sumus filii Dei. I
beseech you by the same Holy Spirit, by Christ
this day ascending into heaven, by the Eternal
Father, at Whose right hand He sitteth, by the
Omnipotent and Immortal God, Three in One, that
you be always mindful of me, and sometimes solace
me by your letters. I will implore this same God,
even to my latest breath, that He may long preserve
you safe, with the highest increase of His honour
and glory, and at last crown you with a holy end.
Farewell. This feast of the Ascension of our Lord,
in the year 1575. " 1
The presumption is that, when this letter was
written, our martyr had already given up his
school, and had gone to Douay. The tone of the
writer leaves no room for doubt that his reception
into the Church had already taken place, and in
1 H. More, Historia Provincia Anglican^ Soc. jfesu, IV. vii. p. 127 ;
Bartoli, Inghilterra, lib. iv. cap. ii. p. 261.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 539
his examination, printed below, we hear that he
was received at Douay. How he was occupied
there we do not know, probably making some
preliminary studies outside the College, for when
he was eventually admitted there as a student
for the priesthood, on the 22nd of May, 1577,
his ordination as subdeacon and deacon followed
very shortly. He received both Orders at Cambrai,
the first in August and the second in December,
of the same year. The College Diary records
a journey to England in the following month,
January, 1578, and his return from England on
May the I4th with five Oxford students. It may be
conjectured, as in the similar case of Blessed John
Shert, that these were some of his old pupils, for
whose sake he had expressly gone to England.
This was just at the time of the troubles at
Douay and the transfer of the College to Rheims.
From Rheims, on the i6th of the February follow-
ing, 1579, Blessed Thomas, still only a deacon, set
out for Rome. He was one of a party of nine,
seven being students of the College, and they are
said in the Diary, without distinction, to have gone
"partly for devotion, partly for study." When he
arrived in the eternal city, he probably entered the
German College, 1 for its historian speaks of him
as an alumnus. But as his name is not on the
College Register we may surmise that he was only
there for a short time, as a probationer. He soon
felt himself inflamed with the desire to embrace the
1 Historia Collegii Germanici et Hungarici MS. Auctore P. Gul.
Fusbano, 1580.
540 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
religious life, asked to be admitted into the Society,
and was received into the Novitiate at Sant Andrea
on April the 8th. His holy desires grew with each
step, and now he longed to devote himself to the
missions in India, and, though only a novice, begged
his Superiors to send him there. But the heats of
his first and only Roman summer brought on " a
consuming and lingering sickness, and he was by
his Superiors sent to Lyons to try if, by change
of air, he might be recovered." As he left the
Novitiate, and passed out of the gates of Sant
Andrea the Brother Porter, bidding him adieu, said,
"Cave ne alius accipiat coronam tuam" "Beware
lest another receive thy crown," and the words
remained deeply impressed in his tender conscience,
as we shall see. 1
Cottam must have arrived at Lyons early in
December, 1579, for on the 2ist of January, 1580,
a letter was sent by the Father General to Father
William Crichton, then Provincial of the Jesuits in
that part of France, and afterwards a well-known
missionary in Scotland, in which the following
clause occurs :
" Father Maionus writes that one Thomas
Cottam, an Englishman and a novice, has come
to you. Your Reverence must know that he was
sent thither to make trial of his health, for here in
Rome he was sick. Wherefore, if he does not
get better there, your Reverence is empowered to
1 Brief e Historic, p. 127, and MS. Relation of Arthur Pitts,
Westminster Archives, vol. i. p. 5, printed in Pollen's Acts of
English Martyrs, p. 281.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 541
dismiss him, as he is a novice, and was sent there
on this condition. He is, moreover, not a man of
great, or perhaps even, of average talents." 1
The reader will, doubtless, not lose his respect
for the future martyr, by learning that he was made
of the same clay as most of us, but we must all
regret that we have not got Father Crichton's
answer, and cannot say what he thought of Cottam's
talents, or what the conditions were, under which
he sent him back to Rheims in the following spring.
But at all events we do know how the Blessed
Thomas understood the terms on which they
parted. He considered himself accepted for the
Mission of India, if his health should sufficiently
recover for him to go there, and the doctors decided
(rightly for a wonder), that a return to England
would give him his best chance of a permanent
recovery. The martyr therefore accepted the situa-
tion, with all the duties that followed from it. He
would return to England despite the dangers of so
doing, and as the reception of priestly Orders would
also facilitate the end in view, he would apply for
these at once.
Blessed Thomas therefore turned towards his
old home, the College at Rheims, and made the
journey with his future companion in prison and
martyrdom, Blessed Robert Johnson, with whom
the cunning Sledd, as has already been related, had
associated himself on the road from Rome. The
two martyrs arrived at Rheims on the nth of April,
1580, while the spy made a detour to Paris, to give
1 Archives S.J. Ep. ad Galliam, 1576 1579, f. 41.
54 2 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
the English Ambassador a minute description of
their persons and plans. Having done this he went
back to Rheims, where he arrived on the 24th. of
the same month. Blessed Thomas's health was
too much broken to allow of his continuing his
studies any further, but " being a deacon and a
good preacher long before," it was resolved to allow
him to receive the priesthood at once and then to
go to England.
Accordingly on May the 25th, the Wednesday of
Whitsun week, he left the College for Soissons for
his ordination, which no doubt took place on the
28th, the Ember Saturday. His last days at the
College were memorable ones, the whole house
being thrilled by the presence of the missionary
party just arrived from Rome, Campion, Persons,
Sherwin, Kirby, and the others, and on June the 5th,
he set out for England with one of them, Edward
Rishton, and three other companions, Dr. Humphrey
Ely, John Hart, and Thomas Crane. They arrived
at Dover about the i6th or i8th of June, sufficiently
disguised, as they supposed, to be safe. But Sledd's
work had been but too well done. After they had
landed and gone to their inn, they were searched
to their skins, and though nothing suspicious was
found about them, Cottam was at once recognized
and arrested. Hart also was stopped, being taken
for Orton, who was afterwards captured. Rishton
escaped for a time, but fell into the hands of the
London officers in the course of a few months, as
we have seen. The Mayor, Mr. Allen, and the
searcher, Stevens, now held a consultation, and as
543
a way of saving expense, proposed to Dr. Ely, who
passed by the name of Havard, and had come and
gone repeatedly by the same name without exciting
suspicion, to take charge of their prisoner to London.
He would only have to hand him over, with a letter
from the Mayor to Lord Cobham, the Warden of
the Cinque Ports. Dr. Ely agreed, and his host of
the inn made himself responsible for the faithful
fulfilment of his undertaking.
But the good lawyer had no idea of keeping
his promise. He was a religious man, and had
himself ten years before sacrificed his prospects and
taken the road of exile for his faith. 1 And no sooner
were they well out of the town than he said to his
prisoner, " I cannot in conscience, nor will not,
being myself a Catholic, deliver you, a Catholic
priest, prisoner to my Lord Cobham. But we will
straight to London, and when you come there,
shift for yourself, as I will do for myself." So, on
arriving in London they separated.
But Cottam, "a man of marvellous zeal and of
1 Dr. Humphrey Ely, of Brasenose and afterwards of St. John's,
on declaring himself a Catholic, was obliged to leave Oxford and
betook himself in 1570 to Douay. Here he devoted himself to the
study of law, in which he graduated, and obtained a professorship.
He also took a convenient house, where he boarded English students
in the University, of whom there were a good many besides those
at the English College. (See Douay Diaries, March, 1576.) From
March, 1577, he became a member of the College, and followed its
fortunes to Rheims. After the committal of his friend, Blessed
Thomas Cottam, Ely retired to Spain, but returned again imme-
diately to Rheims, and became a priest. He received the three
sacred Orders in March and April, 1582, and said his first Mass on
St. George's Day. He became Professor of Civil and Canon Law
at Pont-a-Mousson in 1586, and died there in 1604.
544 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
a timorous conscience," could not enjoy in peace a
liberty which might cost others dear. He went
immediately to one of the prisons to consult a
Catholic friend, probably Pound, who at that time
was in the Marshalsea, 1 in Southwark, and asked
his advice on the whole case. His friend told him
"that in conscience he could not make that
escape," and urged him to give himself up to the
authorities, and so secure Ely against harm.
Blessed Thomas at once went to Ely and asked
him for the letter from the Mayor of Dover to Lord
Cobham. "Why, what will you do with it?" said
his friend. " I will go and carry it to him," answered
the holy priest, " and yield myself prisoner ; for I
am fully persuaded that I cannot make this escape
in conscience." "Why," said Ely, "this counsel
that hath been given you, proceedeth, I confess,
from a zealous mind ; marry, I doubt whether it
carrieth with it the weight of knowledge. You
shall not have the letter, nor you may not in
conscience yield yourself to the persecutor and
adversary, having so good means offered to escape
his cruelty." The martyr persisted ; Ely, unwilling
to yield, proposed that they should consult with
"one newly come over, whom Mr. Cottam greatly
honoured and reverenced for his singular wit and
learning, and for his rare virtues."
It is clear that Persons or Campion is meant,
1 He was there till September 18, when the Bishop of London
sent him heavily ironed to solitary confinement in the half-ruined
episcopal castle at Bishop's Stortford, where he remained until
he was brought to the Tower on August 17, 1581.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 545
and Persons has left a record of what actually
happened : " The Fathers, consulting the case with
some other priests and discreet Catholics, all were