of opinion that, his case standing as it did, and
the obligation of his appearing lying rather upon
another than himself, he was not bound to offer
himself to so manifest danger. Which determina-
tion, though he were content to accept and follow
for the time, yet seemed he still rather to incline to
offer up himself, if he might be permitted."
After this, Dr. Ely sent back the Mayor of
Dover's letter to its writer, and before long the
host of the inn there, who was held responsible for
the loss of the prisoner, came up to London to
search for him, and meeting Dr. Ely, insisted on
having either him or Cottam, and thus Dr. Ely
had no choice between going to prison himself or
finding his friend. So, meeting Blessed Thomas in
Cheapside, he said : " Mr. Cottam, such a man is
come to town and hath so seized upon me for your
escape, that you or I must needs go to prison. You
know my state and condition, and may guess how
gently I shall be treated, if once I appear under my
right name before them. Now it is in your choice
whether of us shall go ; for one must go, there is
no remedy ; and to force you I will not, for I had
rather sustain what punishment soever."
Mr. Cottam, lifting up his eyes and hands to
heaven, said: "Now God be blessed! I should
never, while I lived, have been without scruple
and grudge of conscience, if I had escaped them.
Nothing grieveth me, but that I have not despatched
JJ n.
54 6 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
some business that I have to do." " Why," said Ely,
" it is but ten of the clock yet, and you may
despatch your business by four of the clock, and
then you may go to them." " Whither is it,"
said he, " that I must go ? " " To the sign of the
Star," quoth Ely, " in New Fish Street ; and there
you must enquire for one Mr. Andrews, my Lord
Cobham's deputy. To him you must yield yourself."
Arthur Pitts adds that, as they parted, the
martyr spoke these words, which show that he
was actuated not by a timid scrupulosity, but by
a holy ambition for the crown intended for him.
" Now God be thanked," said he, " for I was never
quiet in my minde since you let me go ; still
it ran in my head that which the porter of
St. Andrew's sayd unto me."
Father Persons here takes up the story again.
"As soon as ever Mr. Cottam understood that the
inn-holder at Dover and Mr. Dr. Ely were called
in question about his escape, and that one of them
was necessarily to come in trouble, he returned to
consult the case again with the said Fathers, who
upon this new accident inclined more to his desire.
And so with a merry countenance, he went of
himself and all alone, and offered himself prisoner." 1
And now began his long martyrdom, which
lasted nearly two years. We might have expected
1 It is characteristic of the dishonesty prevalent among
Elizabeth's officials that Andrews, who had taken over Cottam
in New Fish Street, should have applied for and have received,
on July the 4th, the then considerable sum of 5 for bringing up
Cottam from Dover. (R.O. Treasurer of the Chamber's accounts.)
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 547
that his chivalrous self-surrender would have won
for him some sort of consideration, but in fact he
suffered more than the rest of the glorious band,
presumably because of the informations brought
against him by Sledd, or some other spy. He was
first carried to the Court, which was then at
Nonsuch or Oatlands, and there a number of
ministers plied him with arguments and per-
suasions for five days, and then he was committed
to the Marshalsea, " close prisoner by the com-
mandment of the Hon. Council, the 27th of June,
for papistry ; anno 1580." 1
"Close-prisoner" means one who is deprived
of all intercourse with his fellow-captives. This
must have been very galling to Cottam, as there
were in that prison many Catholics, Pound amongst
them, whose company would materially have light-
ened the sufferings of confinement. Still, means
were found by the others to communicate with him,
and in the Gesta of the Rheims College for 1580,
an extract is given of a letter from a priest, who
was his fellow-prisoner. It runs thus, somewhat
obscurely, " Cotmus is in close-custody next to me.
He will say his first Mass in my cell. . . . We make
nothing of these dangers." 2 Thus it would seem
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cxl. n. 40.
2 Gesta Seminarii Pontificii Anglorum apud Rhemos, 1580. (Clergy
Brotherhood MSS. vol. iii.) "Cotmus est in arcta custodia proximus
meus, qui faciet primitias apud me (hie ordinatus presbyter statim ex qui-
busdam causis migravit in Angliam, licet tamen sub obligatione pecuniaria
dimissus sit, iste eo tempore adveniens captus est) nos de istiusmodi periculis
nihil curamus." It is probable that some words have fallen out
between Angliam and licet.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
that Cottam never had the consolation of saying
Mass in a Catholic church or chapel, but only
in the narrow prison-cell, and amid the terrible
risks which celebration under those circumstances
involved.
Without a doubt he needed all the spiritual
assistance he could obtain, for, as we have already
seen, the cruel and remorseless persecutors had
singled him out to be a special victim of their
malice.
Writing on the iyth of November, 1580, from
London, to Father Agazzari, Father Persons sends
him greetings from Father Sherwin, Father Luke
[Kirby], Father Johnson, Father Hart, Paschal and
Orton, all of whom were in prison, Sherwin having
been captured only four days before. " We expect,"
he adds, " that two priests will be publicly executed
ere long, Cottam and Clifton." l
Though Cottam was not executed at that time,
there is no reason to doubt that Father Persons
had good foundation for what he said, and that
his death was actually under discussion. The
following paper, which from various circumstances
we conclude to have been drawn up during this
month, gives us the points, with which he might
be charged, the matter contained in them being
amply sufficient for a capital conviction in those
days.
" Cottam chargeable with
" Departing the realm without licence for satis-
fying his conscience, misliking religion here now
1 Stonyhurst MSS. Collectanea P. fol. 299.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 549
established. (In his answers to the four first
interrogatories.)
" Refusing to answer the 6th interrogatory of
the lawfulness of the oath of obedience to her
Majesty.
" Refusing to conform himself to the religion
now here established. (In his answer to the 7th.)
" With being reconciled at Douay to the Church
of Rome by a priest whom he will not name, as also
with refusing to declare, who be the reconcilers to
the Pope within the realm. (In his answer to the
i6th and 17th.)
" Refusing to confess her Majesty to be a godly
Princess, though lawful. (In answer to the 23rd.)
" Refusing to answer whether the Pope's excom-
munication of her Majesty be lawful, and according
to God's Word.
" Refusing to answer anything before confessed
upon oath, or to take any oath therein.
" [Second Interrogatories.'} Receiving out of
England 20 for scholars of Rheims, but refusing
in conscience to confess who sent the said money.
(In answer to the third interrogatory.)
" With receiving the book of seditious questions
of an Englishman at Rheims, to be brought over to
one herein this realm, but saith he remembereth
not the names of either of those men, but refuseth
on his oath to make this answer." 1
If this paper should not be connected with a
plan to prosecute Blessed Thomas to the death,
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cxl. n. 43.
550 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
then it will be one of the papers prepared for an
ordeal even more painful than death. Early in
December, as we have seen, the Privy Council
resolved " to make an example of some by punish-
ment to the terror of others," and Cottam was
perhaps the first picked out for the torture.
On December the 4th, he was transferred to
the Tower. On the loth he was subjected to the
horrible invention of Sir William Skevington l for
upwards of an hour, the blood flowing freely from
the nostrils. It would appear that at some other
time he was racked. Besides the questions which
we have seen were prepared for him and others by
Elizabeth's Council, 2 he himself declared at his trial
that he was asked, under threat of torture, what
penances had been given him in confession. In
order to escape from their cruelty, he told them,
with a jest. They then required him to say for what
sins the penances were given him, and because he
would not answer, they applied the torture. When
he complained of their inhuman cruelty, they gave
him blows, and then he protested that, though they
killed him by their torments, he would never disclose
any such thing whether about himself or others.
Upon this open declaration in court, Hopton
got up and had the effrontery to deny the whole
story. But the martyr was not to be cowed, and
answered : " And is not this true ? Here is present
Dr. Hammond and the rest of the Commissioners
1 i.e., the instrument of torture known as "The Scavenger's
Daughter."
2 See the Life of Blessed Luke Kir by, above.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 551
that were at my racking, to whose consciences
I appeal. God is my witness that it is most
true." 1
Neither infirm health, nor the sufferings of
prison and torture, broke down the courage of the
martyr. In the spring of 1581 he was one of
the Catholic prisoners, who were dragged to hear
the sermons of Nichols, and who boldly reproved
him. On March the loth, in particular, when a
number of courtiers and magistrates were present to
give greater importance to the preacher, the diarist
-of the Tower records, that Blessed Cottam " with
wonderful courage most seriously admonished them
of their duty, which circumstance is thought to
have been the means of accelerating his death.
From that day forward, however, Nichols was held
in utter contempt."
The dragging to sermons ceased, as we have
heard, after Pentecost, and at midsummer the
prisoners were indicted for recusancy, Cottam's
name being still legible on the sessions roll. 2 God
gave His servant a great desire of martyrdom ;
yet at his trial he did his best to defend himself
against the unjust charge brought against him.
" You came into England at or near the time
that the rest came," said the prosecuting Queen's
Counsel, " so that it must needs be intended a
1 Cardinal Allen, Sincere and Modest Defence (1584), pp. n, 12,
gives the whole incident, saying that it was " verbatim left behind
in writing." (Latin translation, Ad Persecutores Anglos pro Catholicis
Responsio, in the Concertatio, 1588, f. 297 ; also More's Historia
Provincice Anglicans Soc. Jesu, p. 128.)
a See above, pp. 387, 417.
552 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
match between you, for the furtherance of those
affairs which were then a-brewing, and how answer
you thereunto ? "
Cottam. " It was neither my purpose nor my
message to come into England ; neither would I
have come, had not God otherwise driven me ; for
my journey was appointed to the Indians : and
thither had I gone, had my health been thereto
answerable. But in the meanwhiles it pleased God
to visit me with sickness, and being counselled by
the physicians, for my health's sake, to come into
England, for otherwise, as they said, either
remaining there or going elsewhere I should not
recover it, I came upon that occasion, and upon
no other, into this realm."
Campion. " Indeed the physicians in Rome do
hold for a certainty that, if an Englishman shall fall
sick amongst them, there is no better nor scant any
other way for his health, than to repair into England
there to take his natural air, which agreeth best with
his complexion."
Cottam. " And that only was the cause of my
coming, and not any determinate intent either to
persuade or dissuade, being otherwise by my Provost
charged to the Indians. Neither after my arrival
here did I hide myself, nor dealt otherwise than
might beseem any man that meddled no more than
I did. I lay for the most part in Southwark ;
I walked daily in Paul's ; I refrained no place,
which betokened my innocency."
Queen's Counsel. " Did you neither persuade nor
dissuade ? Was there not a book found in your
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 553
budget, the contents whereof tended to no other
purpose ? The which book was made by one
d'Espignata, entitled Tractatus Conscientice, contain-
ing certain answers to the Supremacy, and how
sophistically to frustrate any kinds of demands ;
with a further method how you ought to demean
yourself in every sort of company, whether it were
of Protestants or Puritans, and what speeches you
should use to convert them both : as, unto the
Protestants, highly commending them and showing
them that they are far nearer the right way than
the Puritans, and whom you should utterly dispraise
unto the Puritans ; likewise in commending the
Protestants and persuading them to the obedience
of the Pope. To what end then should you carry
this book about you, if you were not purposed to do
as it prescribeth ? "
Cottam. " I protest before God I knew nothing
of that book, neither how nor when it came to
me."
" Then Campion, seeing him driven to so narrow
an exigent as to deny that which was manifest, 1 said :
" Many casualties and events may happen,
whereby a man may be endangered, ere he beware,.
by the carrying of a thing he knoweth not, as
either the malice of others, that privily convey it
among other his provisions, or his own negligence
or oversight, which marked not attentively what
he took with him. Whereof both are to be judged
errors, yet not deemed an offence ; and therefore
this cannot be maintained to be done by Mr. Cottam
1 This of course is only the Protestant reporter's gloss.
554 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
on purpose, which we see flatly to be out of his
knowledge. But suppose that purposely he brought
the book with him, yet what can that make against
him for treason? It treateth of conscience; it
toucheth good demeanour ; it showeth how to make
the unbelieving faithful, matters wholly spiritual,
points of edification, preparing to Godwards.
Where is then the treason ? But were these reasons
impertinent, yet it is a custom with all students
beyond the seas, when any man learned or well
thought of draweth a treatise touching either
conscience or good behaviour, to copy it out and
carry it about with them, not aiming at any faction
or conspiracy, but for their own proper knowledge
and private instruction." l
The martyr was taken back to the Tower after
sentence, and probably there suffered an increase
of severity, such as we know was inflicted upon
several of his fellow-sufferers.
We get a passing glimpse of Cottam in a letter
written from the Tower by John Hart, whose
Diarium has been so often quoted, and who was
afterwards a Jesuit. His letter was in fact a
petition to the Society, like those of Woodhouse and
of Briant mentioned above, to be received even
while in prison. Hart says that he has asked
Cottam's advice, and that Cottam had encouraged
him to consider his desire for the religious life as
a genuine vocation from God. Considering the
1 Harleian MSS. 6,265, printed in Cobbett's State Trials, 1809,
p. 1065. The merit of Campion's answers is enhanced, when we
remember that the reporter was decidedly hostile.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 555
complications of the case, 1 this showed no small
discernment on the future martyr's part, and his
judgment was verified by the event.
Some months after Blessed Cottam's condem-
nation, he was amongst those examined again by
the " six articles " of the Council. But like his
brothers in martyrdom, Blessed John Shert and
Blessed Lawrence Richardson,- his answer kept to
the one point of his agreeing in all things with the
teaching of the Church.
"Thomas Cottam. To the first; in this, and
all other questions he believeth as the Catholique
Church (which he taketh to be the Church of Rome)
teacheth him. And other answer he maketh not
to any of the rest of these articles.
" By me, THOMAS COTTAM, Priest.
" JOHN POPHAM. DA. LEWIS.
"THOMAS EGERTON. JOHN HAMMOND." 2
On May the zgth, Tuesday in the octave of the
Ascension, the martyr " received a bill from the
1 J. Morris (Troubles, ii. 30 34) prints the important passages of
Hart's letter to Walsingham (R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cl. 80), in
which pleading for his life, he offered terms which were very dis-
honourable, though Foley (Records S.J. vii. 338) is mistaken in
calling the letter an act of apostasy. On May 12, 1582, he wrote
the letter alluded to in the text, begging for admission into the
Society, and his courage rising, took of his own accord the vows
of religion. (Archives S.J. Anglia, ii. fol. 731 a.) After this his
constancy fully atoned for his previous weakness. He was next
year admitted to the Society in prison, and after banishment in
1585, died in 1586, in a College of the Society in Poland.
- Butler's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 202 ; Tierney-Dodd, vol. iii. p. xii.
Appendix.
556 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
Lieutenant of the Tower," says Arthur Pitts in his
relation, " that the next daie he should suffer. 1
Whereupon he came to his window, over againste
my doore, saying with a joy of heart and voice,
' Give God thankes with me, for to-morrow is my
day. And now I hope I shall not escape the happy
houre, which I have earnestly so long desired,
because I finde my name first in the rovvle of the
four assigned to dy to-morrow.' The next daie
he departed joyfully. But arriving to the place of
his martyrdom, he was quailed againe : for albeit he
was first taken up, yet the officer, fearing that his
example might draw many to be of his Religion r
because he was well known and beloved in the
cittie, having been before a schoolmaister there,
they, desirous to save his life, solicited him earnestly
to recant his Religion ; in which he persisting,
they take him downe, to see if the death and
torments of the other his brethren could move him.
But when they perceived that his courage by their
blood encreased, he had his desired crowne of
martyrdom. The occasion that he had so much
this crowne printed in his head, and the fear of
losing it was this." And then follows the story of
the Brother Porter's farewell at Sant Andrea at
Rome, which has been related before. 2
Far, indeed, from being overcome by the spectacle
of the death and butchery of his brethren, which he
1 It is curious that his diet in the Tower was only charged for
till May 27, as he suffered three days later. (Pollen, Acts of English
Martyrs, p. 280, note.)
2 P. 540. Westminster Archives, vol. ii. p. 5, printed in Pollen's
Acts of English Martyrs, pp. 280 282.
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM 557
had been forced to witness, the martyr, whilst it
was in progress, and whilst the discussion between
the ministers and Blessed Lawrence Richardson
was going on, tried to make a good impression on
Bull, the hangman. Taking him by the sleeve, he
said : " God forgive thee, and make thee His
servant : take heed in time and call for grace, and
no doubt God will hear thee. Take example by the
executioner of St. Paul, who, during the time of the
Saint's execution, a little drop of blood falling from
St. Paul upon his garment, white like milk, did
afterwards call him to remembrance of himself, and
so he became penitent for his sins and became a
good man : whose example I pray God thou mayest
follow ; and I pray God give thee His grace."
" What ! " cried one of the ministers, who had
caught the last words, " do you believe he was
saved by the blood that fell on him ? " And so they
continued for some time to cavil against him on this
new score.
When they returned to the charge, calling on
him to confess his treasons, he said : " How willingly
would I confess, if I did know anything that did
charge me. And if we had been guilty of any such
thing, surely one or other of us either by racking
or death would have confessed it, or else we had
been such people as never were heard of. And I
protest that before my coming into England I was
prepared to go into the Indies, and if I were to be
set at liberty, I would never rest on the journey
towards those countries." " The Queen will be
merciful to thee, if thou wilt thyself," said the
558 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
sheriff. Upon which the martyr answered, " I thank
her Grace; do with me what you think good." And
then it was that, affecting to see some sort of yield-
ing in these words, and with the hope of entrapping
him into some expression of disagreement with his
fellow-martyrs, the sheriff ordered Blessed Thomas
to be removed from the cart as we have seen. 1
On this, the martyrdom of Blessed Richardson was
carried out, Blessed Cottam repeating again and
again, " O good Lawrence, pray for me. Lord
Jesus, receive thy soul."
They all now clustered round Blessed Cottam,
urging their arguments and persuasions, and the
witness, whom Challoner quotes from the Briefe
Historic, says he heard him well utter these words :
" I will not swerve a jot from my faith in anything.
Yea, if I had ten thousand lives, I would rather lose
them all than forsake the Catholic faith in any
point," and the sheriff, despairing of any success,
said, " Despatch him, since he is so stubborn," and
he was once more lifted into the cart.
Another witness explains that the martyr was
at first under the impression that he was really
pardoned, because of the entire blamelessness of
his return to England, even from the point of view
1 Munday's version is : " But Cottam seemed to utter such words,
as though there had been hope he would have forsaken his wicked-
ness, so that the halter was untied and he brought down out of the
cart again. In which time Lawrence Richardson prepared him to
death, confessing himself a Catholic, and that he would believe in
all things as the Catholic Church of Rome did, unto the Pope he
allowed one only Supremacy. In which traitorous opinion, after
certain Latin prayers, he was committed to God."
BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
559
of his adversaries. " At length they said it was
requisite he should stand up, and speak a few words
to the people, to signify that he was sent for no
such ill-purpose [as the rest], and that he misliked
much the Pope's doings in these matters. . . . But
God gave him grace to see their legerdemain, and
to stand upon the truth and innocence, and so he
was executed with more despite than the rest." l
All the time that they made him look on at the
quartering of Blessed Richardson, he continued
praying aloud. " Lord Jesus, have mercy on them !
Lord, give me grace to endure to the end ; Lord,
give me constancy to the end. Good Lawrence, thy
soul pray for me. 2 O Lord, what a spectacle hast
thou made unto me ! " The head of his friend was
held up by the executioner with the usual words,
"God save the Queen," and the martyr added,
" God save and bless her, and with all my heart
1 wish her prosperity as my liege and Sovereign
Queen and chief governess." But when they once
more tried to get him to add, "and supreme head
in matters ecclesiastical," he said, " If I would have
put in those words, I had been discharged almost
two years since. You say I am a traitor if I deny
that. No, that is a matter of faith, and unless it
be for my conscience and faith I never offended her
1 Briefe Historie, p. 26. Munday says: "Then was Cottam
brought up to the cart again, and the good opinion had of him
afore, changed into that obstinate nature, that was in them all."
2 " For which words both the Preachers and the people rebuked
him, telling him he ought to pray to none but to God only, all help
of man was but in vain. Whereto he answered, he was assured
that he could pray for him." (Munday.)
560 BLESSED THOMAS COTTAM
Majesty," and looking up to heaven he cried: "In
te Domine speravi, non confundar in atermim" and
" Domine, tu plura pro me passus es," three times
repeating "plura." For some time longer they let
him continue praying ; he recited some verses of
the Miserere, he asked pardon of all he had ever
injured, and pardoned all in turn, praying God
mercifully to turn away His anger from this country,
and call its people to repentance ; then he begged
all Catholics present to join in prayer with him,
and after a last Pater and Ave, his sacrifice was
completed. 1
When his body was stripped for quartering they
found next his skin a rough canvas cloth like a sack,
the best substitute he could procure for a hair-shirt.
We have already heard from the Annual Letter for