From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   February 12th - Bl. Thomas Hemerford and his Comp., Martyrs   
      
   It was the name of Thomas Hemerford, with his companions, that distinguished   
   and   
   identified the cause of all the second group of English and Welsh martyrs   
   (beatified in 1929) while that cause was under consideration in Rome. But   
   actually, of the four secular priests who suffered at Tyburn on February 12,   
   1584, he is the one of whom least is known. He was born somewhere in   
   Dorsetshire   
   and was educated at St John's College and Hart Hall in the University of   
   Oxford,   
   where he took the degree of bachelor of law in 1575. He went abroad to   
   Rheims,   
   and thence to the English College at Rome, being ordained priest in 1583 by   
   Bishop Goldwell of St Asaph, the last bishop of the old hierarchy. A few   
   weeks   
   later he left Rome for the English mission, but shortly after landing he was   
   arrested, tried for his priesthood and sentenced to death. For six days   
   before   
   execution he lay loaded with fetters in Newgate jail, and then met the   
   savagery   
   of hanging, drawing and quartering with calm fortitude. Bl. Thomas was a man   
   "of   
   moderate stature, a blackish beard, stern countenance, and yet of a playful   
   temper, most amiable in conversation, and in every respect exemplary". There   
   suffered with him BB. JAMES FENN, JOHN NUTTER and JOHN MUNDEN, and GEORGE   
   HAYDOCK.   
      
   The first of these was born about 1540 at Montacute, near Yeovil, and was   
   elected a fellow of Corpus Christi College at Oxford, but was expelled for   
   refusing the oath of supremacy. He became a tutor and schoolmaster in his   
   native   
   Somerset, where he married and had two children. On the death of his wife,   
   he,   
   being then nearly forty years old, went to the college at Rheims, where he   
   was   
   ordained priest in 1580 and returned to minister in Somerset. It was not   
   long   
   before Mr Fenn was arrested and put in prison at Lichester, from whence he   
   was   
   conveyed to London and lodged in the Marshalsea. During the two years he   
   spent   
   there he was most zealous in his care both for his fellow Catholics and   
   others,   
   giving particular attention to pirates and others condemned to death. One   
   notably bad character he converted both to repentance and to the Church.   
      
   When he was brought to trial he was put in the dock with another priest, the   
   Venerable George Haydock. These two had never met one another before; yet   
   they   
   were charged with conspiring together at Rome (where Fenn had never been) to   
   kill the queen, and with entering the country to do so. By direction of the   
   judge, the jury found them guilty; and the dishonesty of the whole business   
   is   
   shown by the fact that the attorney general called on Fenn while he was   
   awaiting   
   execution, and offered a reprieve if he would acknowledge the queen's   
   ecclesiastical supremacy. As he was tied to the hurdle to be dragged to   
   Tyburn   
   his young daughter, Frances, came weeping to take leave of him and receive   
   his   
   last blessing; and so Bl. James Fenn went to his crown.   
      
   John Nutter was born near Burnley, at Reedley Hallows, admitted bachelor of   
   divinity in the University of Oxford, abjured Protestantism, and in 1579   
   entered   
   the English College at Rheims. Three years later he was made priest, but on   
   his   
   way to the mission suffered shipwreck on the coast of Suffolk and was taken   
   ill   
   at the same time. This combination of misfortunes led to the discovery of   
   his   
   priesthood, whereupon he was apprehended and treated with great lack of   
   consideration, till the order came to send him to London. In the Marshalsea   
   prison Nutter was distinguished for the same zeal as Mr Fenn, and his   
   candour   
   and forthrightness earned him the nickname of "Plain-dealing John". After a   
   year's confinement, whose discomforts he increased by his own penances, he   
   was   
   brought to trial with those mentioned above, and shared their martyrdom.   
      
   John Munden, or Mundyn, was another Dorset man, born at Coltley, near South   
   Maperton. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he   
   was   
   deprived of his fellowship on account of his religion in 1566. Fourteen   
   years   
   later we hear of him at the college at Rheims (he had been schoolmastering   
   in   
   Dorset in the meantime); he left with a letter of recommendation from Dr.   
   Allen   
   to the rector of the English College in Rome, but he does not seem to have   
   been   
   a student there, though he was ordained in the City in 1582. Early in the   
   following year, while travelling from Winchester to London, a lawyer named   
   Hammond who handed him over to the magistrates at Staines betrayed him. He   
   was   
   examined by Sir Francis Walsingham, and then lodged in the Tower, where for   
   three weeks he lay in chains on a bare floor. When brought to trial and   
   sentenced a year later, Bl. John Munden's demeanour was so cheerful that   
   bystanders thought he had been acquitted. The night before execution he   
   addressed a touching letter to his "Cousin Duck" at Rheims, the text of   
   which is   
   still extant (Oliver's Collections, p. 362).   
      
   These four martyrs, together with the Venerable George Haydock, were all   
   condemned and put to death ostensibly for high treason. The chronicler Stow   
   shows what contemporaries thought, when he writes that their treason   
   consisted   
   "in being made priests beyond the seas and by the pope's authority". And   
   that   
   was the view that the Church took when she beatified them among the other   
   English martyrs in 1929.   
      
   <>See MMP., pp. 85-105; Burton and Pollen, LEM. J. H. Pollen, Acts of   
   English   
   Martyrs and Publications of the Catholic Record Society. vol. v.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy   
   the   
   heart?   
   --St. Gerard Majella   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   I will give glory to Thee, O Lord, O King, and I will praise Thee, O God my   
   Saviour. I will give glory to Thy name: for Thou hast been a helper and   
   protector to me.  (Ecclesiasticus 51:1-2)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A prayer, to Our Lady of Good Counsel:   
      
   Most glorious Virgin, chosen by the eternal Counsel to   
   be the Mother of the eternal Word made flesh, thou who   
   art the treasurer of divine graces and the advocate of   
   sinners, I who am thy most unworthy servant have   
   recourse to thee; be thou pleased to be my guide and   
   counselor in this vale of tears.  Obtain for me through   
   the Most Precious Blood of thy divine Son, the   
   forgiveness of my sins, the salvation of my soul and the   
   means necessary to obtain it.  In like manner obtain for   
   Holy Church victory over her enemies and the spread of   
   the kingdom of Jesus Christ upon the whole earth.   
   Amen.   
      
   Imprimatur:  Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbp of New York, May 30, 1951.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)