the accuracy of the report. He says (p. 32) : " For the words
themselves they had never yet any other proof that they were
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 43
This was indeed a courageous speech to make
at such time ; and no wonder that his adversaries,
on hearing it, "gnashed at him with their teeth."
He was, of course, accused of referring to the Queen
herself, though there is a good deal in what Father
Persons says to show that in this interpretation of
his words there was " more passion than truth, and
more rigour than reason." For, as he goes on to
argue :
" Why is it necessary we should admit the
bloody commentary and heavy exposition only of
spoken, to my knowledge, but only that his enemies affirmed
them (to make him thereby more odious) when they had him in their
power and desired his destruction. For I never heard that himself
confessed them either in liberty, captivity, at the bar, or at his death,
and that he should not speak them (though he had thought them)
when Queen Elizabeth was now settled in her crown, as this
K affirmeth (he being known to be wise and no fool), all reason
may induce us to think and believe, seeing they could not serve to
any purpose but to his own ruin." However, as he goes on to argue
as to what Storey meant by the words, if he did say them, it is
clear he is not very sure of his ground in denying their authenticity.
I think that Storey certainly must have said something of the
kind, because this alone can explain the outcry raised against him
and because, as Persons admits, these were certainly his sentiments.
But what, to my mind, puts the matter beyond dispute is that
Sander, who knew Storey intimately at Louvain, puts this speech
into his mouth without hesitation or qualification:
" De crudelitate vero sua id in publicis comitiis Joannes ipse regnante
jam Elizabetha, respondit, se nulla in re alia peccasse, nisi quod omissa
radice, nescio quos ramusculos pracidisset, cum potius debuisset robus-
tissima quceque zizania radicitus evellisse : quod factum si fuisset, jam
(in quit) non tot ac tanta videremus impietatis germina ubique stare, atque
adeo florere ." (De Visibili Monarchia, Edit. 1571, lib. vii.)
Foxe has embroidered the speech in his usual way, making
Storey glory in the barbarities which Foxe, as we have seen, imputes
to him out of his own evil imagination. This is indeed incredible.
Holinshed and Strype merely reproduce Foxe.
44 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
his enemies, . . . who will needs have him mean
by those words the bereaving of our dear Sovereign's
life ? Was lad) 7 Elizabeth (I pray you) taken to be
this root of heresy in Queen Mary's time, being
holden by most Catholics to be no Protestant at all,
as before I have shewed ? Why might not Dr. Storie
meane rather (if he had spoken those words) of
some Bacon, some Cecil, some Cook, some Knowles,
some Throgmorton, some Russell, and many other
like, that were known Protestants in Queen Mary's
time, supporters of others, and practitioners against
the present state, and yet suffered, yea borne out
by known Catholics ; while other poor cobblers,
clothiers, carriers, and such like, were punished ?
At which manner of dealing I do confess that
Dr. Storie being a man of zeal in his religion,
misliked exceedingly, and stormed also publicly one
day, before the Bishops and Privy Council in a
public consistory (for that Councillors also, for
honour's sake, and to protect their friends and
kindred, would needs be inquisitors in that Govern-
ment), complaining grievously of this abuse, . . .
whereby also it is much more probable that his
complaint of the root of heresy remaining and not
touched, was meant rather of the infected nobility
and gentry within the land . . . than of lady
Elizabeth at that day, for that indeed she was not
the root then, nor did the change of religion spring
of her principally afterwards, but of those other
inferior roots which I have mentioned." 1
Whatever the martyr may have said, his
1 A temperate Ward-word, &c.,pp. 32, 33.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 45
enemies were determined to make use of his speech
to bring him to destruction.
In defiance of the privileges of Parliament, he
was brought up before the Council to answer to
the charge of having spoken evil of the affairs of
religion. Another Doctor of Laws, a priest, was
summoned at the same time. " They bravely and
prudently answered the Lords of the Council, and
especially the layman, Master Storey, who said :
' You need not interrogate me about these matters,
as I know better than any of you both the canon
laws and those of this kingdom ; let my accusers
appear and prove what I have said, for I certainly
said nothing at which you could reasonably take
offence; but should her Majesty will otherwise, I do
not refuse to die for -the Church.' The other said
the like, telling the Lords of the Council besides
that her Majesty could not do them a greater favour.
So from what I hear, all the clergy are united and
confirmed in this holy and good opinion. Some of
them will perhaps change their minds, but they will
be esteemed for what they are." l
For the moment, Blessed John Storey was
dismissed with a caution, but from this time, says
Sander, his enemies never ceased collecting new
matter of accusation against him. It was not long
before he got into trouble again. A Bill had been
introduced to deprive the venerable Bishop Whyte
of large portions of the lands belonging to his see
of Winchester. It had passed the Commons, but
nevertheless. Dr. Storey had the boldness to appear
1 II Schifanoya, Venetian Calendar, vii. p. 26.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY
before the Lords as the Bishop's counsel. 1 This
was reported to the House, on March the 23rd, and
Storey, on acknowledging the offence, received a
severe reprimand from the Speaker. The Bishop's
crime had been the same as his own, and he had
already been imprisoned in his own house for daring
to teach Catholic truth in his sermons.
Blessed John Storey was soon to taste the
vengeance of his enemies. Their fury was so great
that he thought it best to hide himself for a time,
but he was soon " taken in the West country,
riding before a mail in a frieze coat like a serving-
man, and was apprehended in the highway by one
Mr. Ayleworth, one of the Queen's servants,"' 2 and
being brought before the Council, was by them
committed to the Fleet, on the 2Oth of May, 1560.
At the same time, Watson, Bishop of Lincoln ;
Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster ; Cole, Dean of
St. Paul's ; and Chedsey, Archdeacon of Middlesex,
were sent to the Tower. 3 The offence with which
they were charged was, " having obstinately refused
attendance on public worship, and everywhere
declaiming and railing against that religion which
we now profess." 4 In the words of Foxe,
1 These lands had been granted to seculars by letters patent
under Edward VI., but taken from them and restored to the see
by Mary. They now claimed them back, and the Bishop properly
resisted the confiscation. The patentees further ventured to accuse
the Bishop of cancelling records, and some articles were devised
for his punishment. (Dixon, v. p. 96.)
2 The Declaration, v. supra.
3 Machyn, p. 235.
4 Jewel to Peter Martyr (May 22, 1560), Zurich Letters, First
Series, p. 79.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 47
" Elizabeth, staying the bloody sword of persecu-
tion from raging any further (!), caused Dr. Storey to
be apprehended and committed to ward, with many
other, his accomplices, sworn enemies to Christ's
glorious Gospel."
In the Fleet prison Blessed Jo"hn Storey found
other glorious confessors in chains. Dr. Cuthbert
Scott, Bishop of Chester, had been committed
prisoner there a week before (May the I3th), and
Dr. Nicholas Harpsfield and other dignified eccle-
siastics shared with him the miserable accommoda-
tion of the prison. In those days prisoners who
desired the common decencies of life had to pay
heavily for them, and we find, from some constitu-
tions drawn up for the government of the Fleet in
this very year, that the prisoners who had a bed
to themselves, had to pay for board and lodging
more than i a week, a sum we should have to
multiply many times to reach its modern value.
We do not know how long Dr. Storey was con-
fined in the Fleet at this time. Sander says he
spent " some years " in prison. All we know is that
by some means or other he escaped for a time, for
we find that he was re-taken in April or May, 1562.
This we learn from a letter of Parkhurst, Bishop
of Norwich, to Bullinger (May 31, 1562) : " Storey,
that little man of law and most impudent Papist,
has been arrested in the West of England in a
courtier's dress." 1 He was thrown into the
Marshalsea prison, where among his fellow-prisoners
1 Zurich Letters, n. 48. The words are "more aulico," which
have been translated " in his barrister's robes " !
48 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
was his old master, the Bishop of London. His
enemies meanwhile sought for a legal pretext to put
him to death. Nor had they long to wait. Early
in the next year Parliament passed a new Act
authorizing the Protestant Bishops to require the
Oath of Supremacy from any one who had held office
in the last three reigns, and made the penalty of
the first refusal perpetual imprisonment, and of the
second, death.
On the 2gth of April, 1563, Bishop de la
Quadra, Spanish Ambassador, wrote to King Philip
as follows : x
"This week they begin to demand the oath from
the Catholic Bishops, in accordance with the new
Act passed in Parliament recently, and the Bishops
of London and Lincoln, and Doctors Cole and
Storey have been summoned for Monday next.
After them will come the rest, and there is no doubt
some will die. I am much more afflicted at this
misfortune than at all the insults and injuries I have
received here, as I see the great danger the Catholic
religion will suffer from the death of these men,
and still more, if from faint-heartedness any of
them were to take the oath."
On May the gth the Ambassador had still more
stirring news to report.
"Last week a commission was issued to summon
for trial four of the Catholic prisoners, two Bishops
of London and Lincoln and two doctors Cole,
1 Spanish Calendar, vol. i. p. 322.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 49
who was commissioner against the Lutherans in
the time of our lady, Queen Mary, now in heaven,
and Storey. The commission has not yet been
signed by the Queen, as when they took it to her,
she said she would sign it another day at her
convenience. In the meanwhile Dr. Storey was so
alarmed at the news that he determined to save
himself by flight rather than have to choose between
taking the oath or being hanged. He accordingly
made the attempt about ten days ago with the
assistance of a Flemish gentleman who was con-
fined in the same prison for debt. He went into
a garden at midnight, and having scaled the wall
came to the river, where he took a boat and came
to my dwelling. He asked for a chaplain of mine
with whom it appears he had had some conversation
about his intention, although the chaplain had not
approved of it. As he was not in the house, he
awaited his arrival, and when he came begged him
to help him to escape. The chaplain excused
himself as best he could, and even compelled him
to leave the house immediately, which he did, and
got away safely, at least up to the present they have
not been able to find him. By the indications of
the boatmen and some of the prison warders the
Council has discovered that this man disembarked
at my house, and as soon as they learnt it, which
was already nearly midnight, they sent the marshal
to me to demand the surrender of the man. I, who
barely even heard that he had escaped from prison,
answered that I knew nothing whatever about him,
as I and D'Assonleville had been the whole day in the
E II.
50 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
country and we returned home very late, but that if
they liked to search the house they were welcome to
do so, and I added that if they discovered that any
servant of mine had helped him in his flight or
hiding, I would have him punished without any
respect."
The Bishop then found on inquiry that the
chaplain had known of the escape but had not
helped it. He reproved him for not informing him
of the matter and sent him away to a friend's house,
since as he was a man who knew every Catholic in
the place, and had absolved and administered the
sacraments to many, it would be very dangerous if
the Council got hold of him. They did send for
him later, but Quadra excused himself, saying he
could not dispense with his chaplain. As he tells
the King (in cipher) : " I will rather put up with
the molestation of these Councillors, than expose
so many people to suffering and injury, as would be
the case if this chaplain were to be handed over."
The Ambassador, however, thought it was safest to
get the chaplain out of the way, and sent him
secretly over to Flanders.
The King answered on June the I5th : l
" I note what has happened about the flight of
Storey, and as your chaplain aided him to escape
you have done well in deciding to send him to
Flanders, in consequence of the inconveniences that
might result from his statements if they were to
1 Spanish Calendar, vol. i. n. 230, p. 333.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 51
take and interrogate him. I do not think he would
do anything in this matter to render him deserving
of punishment."
Meanwhile Dr. Storey had succeeded in escaping
the hands of his enemies. After lying hid for some
time in the houses of divers of his friends, he landed
in safety in Belgium, and took up his quarters in
Louvain.
Here, beside the ordinary trials of exile, he had
to bear those of poverty. His family, who came
to join him at Louvain, were now increased in
number, and he had lost all he possessed in the
world. Added to this he had to bear interior trials,
for his conscience was continually tormented with
the fear that he had done wrong in escaping from
death, since thereby he had lost the crown of
martyrdom. He spoke of this scruple very often
to his wife, and sometimes also to his friends, and
on one occasion he confided his trouble to our
informant, Sander, asking him whether it would be
lawful for him to give himself up once more into the
power of the heretics. " But I," says Sander, "did
not venture to advise him to return to prison. For
it seemed that he had been delivered by the design
of God, and that he could not count upon the
divine grace, if he placed himself in danger, when
God had set him free." He then wished to devote
the rest of his life to penance, and he fixed upon the
Charterhouse at Louvain as a fitting place of
retirement, intending to enter that Order, if his
wife also would agree to embrace the religious
5 2 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
state. But though she refused to do this, Storey
nevertheless remained so firm in his resolution to
do penance, that he spent more time in prayer with
the Carthusians than at home with his family. 1 But
his poverty was so great that he was forced to look
out for means of livelihood, especially when those
dependent on him for bread were increased in
number by a nephew and niece and their family,
who were sent out from England to him. As he
had four children of his own it can be imagined
that he had difficulty in providing them with
the barest necessaries. His married daughter,
Mrs. Weston, and her children also, came out to
join him, her husband being a prisoner in the Fleet.
It is true that he was highly thought of by the
Duke of Alva, and that at his intercession the King
allowed him a grant of a hundred florins out of the
revenues of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Gertrude
at Louvain. 2
Later on we find a spy writing to Cecil (the yth of
April, 1570), " Storey remains at Brussels . . . and
has continual access to the Duke of Alva, and was
lately rewarded with 250 crowns." 3 Again, on April
the i6th he writes : " The Duke of Alva has delivered
to Storey of the benevolence of the King of Spain
a thousand crowns to be distributed among the
scholars at Louvain and Douay. The religious
men and women in this country, being English, are
appointed to receive 10 a piece." 4
1 So also Molanus, De Claris Exteris, being part ii. of his Historic
Lovaniensum, lib. xii. cap. i.
* Foreign Calendar, 1560 1561, n. 846.
3 Foreign Calendar, 1570, n. 803. 4 Ibid. n. 811.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 53
Blessed John Storey thus acted as the King's
almoner for his distressed fellow-countrymen. This
is no doubt what the spy means by calling him
" still a preferrer of all the English traitors' business
and causes."
But all the while he was very insufficiently
provided for himself, and was quite at a loss what
to do to earn his daily bread.
Meanwhile his enemies at home were not idle ;
and the martyrdom he so ardently desired, he was
by the grace of God at length enabled to attain to.
Elizabeth, Leicester, and Cecil laid the following plot
to entrap him : The King of Spain and the Duke
of Alva had recently appointed an office at Antwerp
for the search of all English ships going into or
coming out of that port, in order to prevent the
traffic in heretical books and other forbidden mer-
chandise. The English Government, hearing of
this, saw in it a means of wreaking their vengeance
upon our martyr. " One William Parker, brother
of Elizabeth's new Archbishop, 1 a wool-draper, a
man well skilled in mercantile affairs, was largely
bribed by the Council to go to the Low Countries
to the Duke of Alva, and professing himself a
1 We are quoting Mr. Simpson (p. 187). He adds that the
relationship of this Parker to the Archbishop is affirmed in a
marginal note attached to one of his letters to Cecil, in the Record
Office. It is true that Strype does not mention William as one of
the Archbishop's brothers, probably because of his being a Popish
lost sheep, as he (not knowing the plot) would consider him. Many
of the Archbishop's near relations were connected with the wool
trade, according to Strype, and his father's name was William;
it was therefore a family name and family trade.
54 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
fugitive from England, and a convert to the Catholic
faith, to solicit the office in question. The Duke,
rejoicing beyond measure in having such a near
relation to the chief spiritual heretic in England
for a convert and refugee, and withal a man so
skilled in mercantile affairs, gladly conferred on
him the office he asked for. As soon as he was
installed, he named as his assistant Dr. Storey who,
as we have seen, was living in great poverty at
Louvain. He considered it his duty to his family
to accept the office, against the wish of his friends,
who told him it was an odious one, and unworthy
of a man of his position. Thus the first part of the
plot was successful." The second part was soon to
follow, and it proved to be a most audacious act of
vindictive and illegal treachery.
It seems that a certain John Mershe, one John
Lee, and a man named Saltanstall were agents for
Cecil in the Low Countries. They were spies in
his pay, pretending to be good Catholics in exile for
the faith, and reporting to their chief all that they
could worm out of the confidence of the Catholic
refugees, or that their malignant ingenuity could
invent against them. Great numbers of these
refugees were now collected in the Low Countries
under the protection of their former Sovereign,
King Philip. Some of them, like Storey himself,
despairing of England after the failure of the
Northern Rising, seem to have become naturalized
as Spanish subjects. Priests, lawyers, knights,
peers, noble ladies, representatives of all sorts and
ranks were there, united by a common faith and
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 55
a common suffering. Victims all of them of
Elizabeth's tyrannical laws, they preferred to serve
God in exile rather than stain their consciences
by apostasy from the faith. Among the more
prominent of these exiles were the Earl of
Westmoreland, the Countess of Northumberland
(wife of the Blessed Thomas Percy), the Nortons,
and Leonard Dacre, who had been the leaders of
the Rising in the North. Who shall blame them
if they looked to Spain to help them and their
country in its hour of need ? Blessed John Fisher
had besought the Emperor through Chapuys, the
Imperial Ambassador, to invade England in the time
of Henry VIII. , in order to preserve the Catholic
faith in the land, and we cannot wonder (especially
now that Elizabeth had been excommunicated
by St. Pius V.) if English Catholics in their
distress looked to that Emperor's son to be the
champion of their proscribed religion. There is
no proof however (except the mere assertion of his
bitter foes) that Blessed John Storey was in any way
implicated in any plot against the Queen or her
Government. As we shall see, the indictment
brought against him at his trial did not venture to
charge him with any specific treasonable act, but
merely, in the usual vague way, of conspiring the
death of the Queen, just as in the case of Blessed
Edmund Campion and his companions. The real
cause of the hatred against him was his well-known
2eal for the old religion.
Among this company of Catholic exiles moved
the spies whom Cecil's gold had bought body and
56 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
soul. Feigning themselves to be devout Catholics,
living lives of continual sacrilege and of unspeak-
able treachery, they wove their dark plots for the
destruction of those who trusted and befriended
them.
The plan conceived against Blessed John Storey
in Cecil's crafty brain, to be carried out by these
agents, was no less a one than to kidnap him while
he was discharging the duties of his office and carry
him over to England. Mershe and Lee, in con-
junction with Parker and a certain Pigotte, arranged
that a ship, sufficiently manned and armed for the
purpose, should enter the port of Antwerp, and that
Dr. Storey should be induced to visit it for pro-
hibited goods which were to be placed in her. The
plan nearly failed owing to the indiscretion of
Pigotte, and the information of one of the sailors,
who suspected the plot and ran away, and after-
wards told Parker to take care of himself, thinking
that he was the victim of, and not a partaker in, the
conspiracy.
However, three merchants trading to the Low
Countries, viz., Roger Ramsden, Martin Bragge,
and Simon Jewkes, allured by the bribes of the
Lords of the Council, were found ready to under-
take the dangerous enterprise which Pigotte had
mismanaged. They arranged with the captain of a
smack, by name Cornelius Van Eycke, and settled
that this time the point of departure should be
Bergen-op-Zoom, opposite Zealand, about thirty-
five miles north of Antwerp. The plan was that as
soon as Dr. Storey and Parker should go under the
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 57
hatches to search the cargo, the hatches were to be
shut down, and the two conveyed to England, all
sail being set as quickly as possible ; nobody
knowing at the time the complicity of Parker but
Mershe and Lee who, under the English Govern-
ment, were the chief conspirators. This was
accordingly acted upon, and was perfectly success-
ful. Dr. Storey was landed at Yarmouth on the
evening of the i4th of August, 1570. Cecil had got
his enemy into his clutches again, and this time he
would take care he did not escape.
Storey wrote to Cecil from Yarmouth the
morning after his landing as follows :
"In first proof that I am personally present in
this the Queen's Majesty's town of Yarmouth, I am
bold to scribble unto your honour these presents.
The circumstances of my apprehension on water by
Zealand, this bearer and his company, diligent and
yet merciful, can better declare than myself, deceived
by my simple and yet foxy skipper, can but by
conjecture declare. If it shall stand to your
pleasure to have me restored to my keeper, from
whom like a very wreckling I did escape, then it is
my humble suit unto her Majesty and your honour
so to temper the yet continued heat of my said
keeper, that he content himself with laying on irons
on that of my legs which is only able to bear the
same, until your leisure may serve to call the corpus
before you, or so with charity to dispose the same,
now much decaying and decayed, by competent
lodging, that it perish not ante tempm a Deo prcefixum*
58 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
If any pre-occupation have been used with your
honour of me by Mr. John Mershe, late at Brussels,
or Mr. Thomas Palie, now turned a 1 Je . . . , it
may yet like you andire alteram partem, in which
your doing, sicut non pcenitebit ; ita opposite juxta