Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name written by Edmund Campion
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Edmund Campion >> Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name
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9 TEN REASONS PROPOSED TO HIS ADVERSARIES FOR DISPUTATION IN THE
NAME OF THE FAITH AND PRESENTED TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS MEMBERS OF OUR
UNIVERSITIES BY EDMUND CAMPION PRIEST OF THE SOCIETY OF THE NAME
OF JESUS Nihil Obstat S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D, CENSOR
DEPUTATUS Imprimatur + PETRUS EPUS SOUTHWARC CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION RATIONES DECEM TRANSLATION INTRODUCTION
Though Blessed Edmund Campion's _Decem Rationes_ has passed
through forty-seven editions,[1] printed in all parts of Europe;
though it has awakened the enthusiasm of thousands; though Mark
Anthony Muret, one of the chief Catholic humanists of Campion's
age, pronounced it to be "written by the finger of God," yet it
is not an easy book for men of our generation to appreciate, and
this precisely because it suited a bygone generation so exactly.
Before it can be esteemed at its true value, some knowledge of
the circumstances under which it was written, is indispensable.
1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE _Decem Rationes_.
The chief point to remember is that the _Decem Rationes_ was the
last and most deliberate free utterance of Campion's
ever-memorable mission. During the few months that mission
lasted he succeeded in staying the full tide of victorious
Protestantism, which had hitherto been irresistible. The ancient
Church had gone down before the new religion, at Elizabeth's
accession twenty years before, with an apparently final fall,
and since then the Elizabethan Settlement had triumphed in every
church, in every school and court. The new generation had been
moulded by it; the old order seemed to be utterly prostrate,
defeated and moribund. Nor was it only at home that
Protestantism talked of victory. In every neighbouring land she
had gained or was gaining the upper hand. She had crossed the
Border and subdued Scotland, she held Ireland in an iron grip,
she had set up a new throne in Holland, she had deeply divided
France, and had learned how to paralyze the power of Spain. What
could stay her progress?
Then a new figure appeared, a fugitive flying before the law. He
was hunted backwards and forwards across the country, every man's
hand seemed against him. It was impossible to hold out for long
against such immense odds, and he was in fact soon captured,
mocked, maligned, sentenced and executed with contumely. Yet
Campion and his handful of followers had meanwhile succeeded in
doing what the whole nation, when united, had failed to do. He
had evoked a spirit of faith and fervour, against which the
violence of Protestantism raged in vain. He had saved the beaten,
shattered fragments of the ancient host, and animated them with
invincible courage; and his work endured in spite of endless
assaults and centuries of persecution. The _Decem Rationes_ is
Campion's harangue to those whom he called upon to follow him in
the heroic struggle.
2. THE MAN AND THE MISSION.
Thus much for the inspiration and general significance of
Campion's work considered as a whole. It will also repay a much
more minute study, and to appreciate it we must enter into
further details.
As to the man himself, suffice it to say that he was a Londoner;
his father a publisher; his first school Christ's Hospital; that
he was afterwards a Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, and held at the
same time an exhibition from the Grocer's Company. At Oxford he
accepted to some extent the Elizabethan Settlement of religion,
but not sufficiently to satisfy the Company of Grocers, who
eventually withdrew their exhibition. This was a sign for further
inquisitorial proceedings, which made him leave the University,
and retire to Dublin; but he was driven also thence by the
zealots for Protestantism. Eventually he went over to the English
College at Douay, whence he migrated to Rome, entered the Society
of Jesus, and after eight years' training had returned, a priest,
to his native country, forty years old. His strong point was
undoubtedly a singularly lovable character, and he possessed the
gift of eloquence in no ordinary degree. For the rest, his
natural qualities and acquired accomplishments were above the
ordinary level, without reaching an extraordinary height. He was
a man who never ceased working, and whose temper was always
angelic, though he sometimes suffered from severe depression. He
was adored by his pupils both at Oxford and in Bohemia. His
memory was always bright, and his conversation always sparkled
with fresh thoughts and poetical ideas. He composed with
extraordinary facility in Latin prose and verse; but the extant
fragments of these literary exercises do not strike us as being
of unusual excellence, though genuinely admired in their day. He
was certainly an ideal missioner: saintly, inspired, eloquent,
untireable, patient, consumed with the desire for the success of
his undertaking, and unfaltering in his faith that success would
follow by the providential action of God, despite the obvious
fact that all appearances were against him.
Campion landed at Dover late in June, 1580, and reached London
at the end of the month. There was an immediate rush to hear
him, and Lord Paget was persuaded to lend his great hall at
Paget House in Smithfield to accommodate a congregation for the
feast of Saints Peter and Paul. The sermon was delivered on the
text from the Gospel of the day, _Tu es Christus, Filius Dei
vivi_. The hall was filled, and the impression caused by the
sermon was profound; but the number of hearers had been
imprudently large. Though no arrests followed, the persecutors
took the alarm, and increased their activity to such an extent
that large gatherings had for ever to be abandoned; and after a
couple of weeks both Campion and Persons left London to escape
the notice of the pursuivants, whose raids and inquisitorial
searches were making the lot of Catholics in town unbearable,
whereas in the country the pursuit was far less active, and
could be much more easily avoided. The two Fathers met for the
last time at Hoxton, then a village outside London, to concert
their plans for the next couple of months, and were on the point
of starting, each for his own destination, when a Catholic of
some note rode up from London. This was Thomas Pounde, of
Belmont or Beaumont, near Bedhampton, a landed gentleman of
means, an enthusiastic Catholic, and for the last five years or
so a prisoner for religion. Mr. Pounde's message in effect was
this. "You are going into the proximate danger of capture, and
if captured you must expect not justice, but every refinement of
misrepresentation. You will be asked crooked questions, and your
answers to them will be published in some debased form. Be sure
that whatever then comes through to the outer world will come
out poisoned and perverted. Let me therefore urge you to write
now, and to leave in safe custody, what you would wish to have
published then, in case infamous rumours should be put about
during your incarceration, rumours which you will then not be
able to answer or to repudiate." Father Persons seems to have
agreed at once. Campion at first raised objections, but soon,
with his ever obliging temper, sat down at the end of the table
and wrote off in half an hour an open letter _To the Lords of
Her Majesty's Privy Council_, afterwards so well known as
_Campion's Challenge._
3. THE CHALLENGE.
Campion, after finishing his letter and taking copy for himself,
had consigned the other copy to Pounde. Persons had done the
same; but whereas the latter took the precaution to seal his
letter, Campion had handed over his unfastened. Then the company
broke up. Persons made a wide circle from Northampton round to
Gloucester, while Campion made a smaller circle from Oxfordshire
up to Northampton. When they got back to town in September, they
found all the world discussing "the Challenge." What had happened
was that proceedings had been taken by the Ecclesiastical
Commission against Pounde, and he had been committed to solitary
confinement in the ruinous castle of Bishop's Stortford. Before
he left London he began to communicate the letter to others, lest
it should be altogether lost, and as soon as it was thus
published it attracted everyone's attention, and his adversaries
had ironically christened it _the challenge_. The word was indeed
one which Campion had used, but he had employed it precisely in
order to avoid any charge that might have arisen, of being
combative and presumptuous.
Thus in the course of three months Campion, as it were in spite
of himself, had filled England with his name and with the message
he had come to announce, and he had reduced his adversaries to a
very ridiculous position. They had been dared to meet him in
disputation, and this they feared to do. In effect, they in their
thousands were hiding their heads in the sand, while their
constables and pursuivants were raiding the houses of Catholics
on every side in hopes of catching the homeless wanderer, and of
stopping his mouth by violence. The pulpits, of course, rang with
outcries against the newcomer, and in his absence his doctrines
were rent and scoffed at; but, as Campion said in a contemporary
letter, "The people hereupon is ours, and the error of spreading
that letter abroad hath done us much good." This was the first
popular success which the Catholics had scored for years; and
after so many years of oppression some popular success was of
immense importance to the cause. Father Persons, in a
contemporary letter, says that the Government found that there
were 50,000 more recusants that autumn than they had known of
before. The number is, of course, a round one, and is possibly
much exaggerated, but it gives the Catholic leader's view of the
advantage won at this time.
We may now turn to _The Challenge_ itself, the only piece of
Campion's English during this his golden period, which has survived.
[TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, THE LORDS OF HER MAJESTIE'S PRIVY COUNCIL]
RIGHT HONOURABLE:
Whereas I have come out of Germanie and Boemeland, being sent by
my Superiors, and adventured myself into this noble Realm, my
deare Countrie, for the glorie of God and benefit of souls, I
thought it like enough that, in this busie watchful and
suspicious worlde, I should either sooner or later be intercepted
and stopped of my course. Wherefore, providing for all events,
and uncertaine what may become of me, when God shall haply
deliver my body into durance, I supposed it needful to put this
writing in a readiness, desiringe your good Lordships to give it
ye reading, for to know my cause. This doing I trust I shall ease
you of some labour. For that which otherwise you must have sought
for by practice of wit, I do now lay into your hands by plaine
confession. And to ye intent that the whole matter may be
conceived in order, and so the better both understood and
remembered, I make thereof these ix points or articles, directly,
truly and resolutely opening my full enterprise and purpose.
i. I confesse that I am (albeit unworthie) a priest of ye Catholike
Church, and through ye great mercie of God vowed now these viii
years into the Religion of the Societie of Jhesus. Hereby I have
taken upon me a special kind of warfare under the banner of
obedience, and eke resigned all my interest or possibilitie of
wealth, honour, pleasure, and other worldlie felicitie.
ii. At the voice of our General Provost, which is to me a
warrant from heaven, and Oracle of Christ, I tooke my voyage
from Prage to Rome (where our said General Father is always
resident) and from Rome to England, as I might and would have
done joyously into any part of Christendome or Heathenesse, had
I been thereto assigned.
iii. My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to
minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reforme
sinners, to confute errors--in brief, to crie alarme spiritual
against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many my dear
Countrymen are abused.
iv. I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that
sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy of
this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from
which I do gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.
v. I do ask, to the glory of God, with all humility, and under
your correction, iii sortes of indifferent and quiet audiences:
_the first_ before your Honours, wherein I will discourse of
religion, so far as it toucheth the common weale and your
nobilities: _the second_, whereof I make more account, before the
Doctors and Masters and chosen men of both Universities, wherein
I undertake to avow the faith of our Catholike Church by proofs
innumerable, Scriptures, Councils, Fathers, History, natural and
moral reasons: _the third_ before the lawyers, spiritual and
temporal, wherein I will justify the said faith by the common
wisdom of the laws standing yet in force and practice.
vi. I would be loth to speak anything that might sound of any
insolent brag or challenge, especially being now as a dead man
to this world and willing to put my head under every man's foot,
and to kiss the ground they tread upon. Yet have I such a
courage in avouching the Majesty of Jhesus my King, and such
affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my
quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know
perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants
living, nor any sect of our adversaries (howsoever they face men
down in pulpits, and overrule us in their kingdom of grammarians
and unlearned ears)[2] can maintain their doctrine in
disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for the
combat with all and every of them, and the most principal that
may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished
they come, the better welcome they shall be.
vii. And because it hath pleased God to enrich the Queen my
Sovereign Ladye with notable gifts of nature, learning, and
princely education, I do verily trust that--if her Highness would
vouchsafe her royal person and good attention to such a
conference as, in the ii part of my fifth article I have
motioned, or to a few sermons, which in her or your hearing I am
to utter,--such manifest and fair light by good method and plain
dealing may be cast upon these controversies, that possibly her
zeal of truth and love of her people shall incline her noble
Grace to disfavour some proceedings hurtful to the Realm, and
procure towards us oppressed more equitie.
viii. Moreover I doubt not but you her Highness' Council being, of
such wisdom and discreet in cases most important, when you shall
have heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which
many times by our adversaries are huddled up and confounded, will
see upon what substantial grounds our Catholike Faith is builded,
how feeble that side is which by sway of the time prevaileth
against us, and so at last for your own souls, and for many
thousand souls that depend upon your government, will
discountenance error when it is bewrayed, and hearken to those
who would spend the best blood in their bodies for your
salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up to heaven for you
daily by those English students, whose posteritie shall never
die, which beyond seas gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge
for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but
either to win you heaven, or to die upon your pikes. And touching
our Societie be it known to you that we have made a league--all
the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must
overreach all the practices of England--cheerfully to carry the
cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery,
while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked
with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is
reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be
withstood. So the faith was planted: so it must be restored.
ix. If these my offers be refused, and my endeavours can take no
place, and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall
be rewarded with rigour, I have no more to say but to recommend
your case and mine to Almightie God, the Searcher of Hearts, who
send us His grace, and set us at accord before the day of
payment, to the end we may at last be friends in heaven, when all
injuries shall be forgotten.
* * * * *
"Direct, true, and resolute," Campion's words certainly are, and
they are calculated in a remarkable degree to reassure and
animate his fellow Catholics and their friends, and it is for
them in reality, rather than for the Lords of the Council, that
the message is composed. If the composition has a fault it is its
combativeness; and in effect, though this drawback was not felt
at the time, it was later. Subsequent missionaries found it best
to adopt a policy of far greater secrecy and silence. If,
however, we remember that Campion intended his paper to be
published under quite different circumstances, we can see that he
at least hardly deserves the reproach of being contentious, or if
he does, his failing was venial when we consider the tastes of
the age. The immediate result of the publication was without
question a great success.
THE "DECEM RATIONES."
Like a wise general, Father Persons at once bethought himself how
best to follow up the good beginning already made. Accordingly,
when he and Campion met at Uxbridge (for it was not safe for
Campion to come to London), he suggested that the latter, seeing
that his memory was still green at Oxford, should compose a short
address on the crisis to the students of the two Universities.
Campion met the suggestion as he had met the suggestion of
Pounde, with a gentle disclaimer, "alleging divers difficulties,"
but soon good-humouredly assented on the condition (not a usual
one with literary men) that someone else should propose the
subject. The company therefore made various suggestions, none of
which met with general acceptance, until Campion proposed "Heresy
in Despair." "Whereat," adds Persons, "all that were present
could not choose but laugh, and wonder to see him fall upon that
argument at such a time when heresy seemed most of all to
triumph." In truth, with England invincible at sea and on land,
and the absolute sway of Elizabeth, Cecil, and Walsingham over
both Church and State, what more hopeful position for
Protestantism could have been imagined? Campion's meaning, of
course, was that Protestantism was in despair of holding the
position of the ancient Church; of ruling in the hearts of a free
people; of co-existing with Christian liberty. It was unworthy,
therefore, of the acceptance of minds that aspired to mental
freedom, as did the youth of the Universities. This subject for
an address was welcomed with acclamation, and Campion promised to
undertake it, suggesting on his side that Persons should arrange
ways and means for printing the tract when finished, and any
other which might seem needed.
This agreed to, all separated once more, and Campion rode
northwards on a tour which he took in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and
Lancashire, and which was not over for six months. Meantime
Father Persons had set up his "magic press" near London, and
issued from it five volumes of small size indeed, but of
remarkable vigour and merit. As soon as any notable attack was
made on the Catholics, an answer was brought out in a wonderfully
short time, and these answers were pithy, vigorous, and pointed,
in no ordinary degree. When one remembers how much co-operation
is needed to bring out even the slightest volume, one is truly
astonished at the feat of bringing out so many and such good
ones, while the hourly fear of capture, torture, and death hung
over the heads of all. When threatened with danger in one place
the press was bodily transported to another.
However, our business at present is not with Persons, but with
Campion. His book was finished and sent up to Persons in March,
1581, with a title altered to suit the controversy which had
already begun. It was now _Decem Rationes: quibus fretus,
certamen adversariis obtulit in causa Fidei, Edmundus Campianus
&c._ "Ten Reasons, for the confidence with which Edmund Campion
offered his adversaries to dispute on behalf of the Faith, set
before the famous men of our Universities." Persons was charmed,
as he had expected to be, with its literary grace. It was in
Latin, as had been agreed, and Campion's Latin prose, (though
critics of our time find it somewhat silvery and Livian), suited
the tastes of that day to perfection. The only thing which made
Persons at all thoughtful was the number of references. Campion
declared that he was sure he had verified them, as he entered
them in his notebook, but Persons, with greater caution, declared
that they must be verified anew.
The difficulty of this for men living under the ban, and cut off
from access to large libraries, was of course great, but through
the help of others, especially through Mr. Thomas Fitzherbert of
Swynnerton, the task was happily accomplished. Campion came up
from the north to Stonor, on the Oxfordshire border where the
secret press then was; and there, amid a thousand fears, alarms
and dangers, the book was printed.
5. THE PRINTING.
Of the actual preparations for printing the _Ten Reasons_,
Persons gives this account in his memoirs[3]: Persons was of
opinion that Campion should come up to London immediately after
Easter [March 26th] to examine the passages quoted, and to assist
the print. Meanwhile Persons began to prepare new means of
printing, making use of friends and in particular of a certain
priest called William Morris, a learned and resourceful man, who
afterwards died in Rome.[4] This was necessary, as the first
press near London, where the first two books had been printed,
had been taken down. Eventually and with very great difficulty he
found, after much trying, a house belonging to a widow, by name
Lady Stonor, in which she was not living at that time. It was
situated in the middle of a wood, twenty miles from London.
To this house were taken all things necessary, that is, type,
press, paper, &c., though not without many risks. Mr. Stephen
Brinkley, a gentleman of high attainments both in literature and
in virtue, superintended the printing. Father Campion then coming
to London, with his book already revised, went at once to the
house in the wood, where the book was printed and eventually
published. Persons too went down to stay with him for some days
to take counsel on their affairs.
* * * * *
Stonor Park, to which Campion and Persons had betaken
themselves,[5] is still in the possession of the old Catholic
family of that name, of which Lord Camoys is the representative.
Father Morris says that "the printing, according to the
traditions of the place, was carried on in the attics of the old
house."[6] Being near Henley it was possible to go there by road
or by water, and one might come and go on the Oxford high-road
without attracting attention.
Still there was grave risk of discovery from the noise made by
the press, and from the number of extra men about the house, as
to the fidelity of each of whom it was impossible to be
absolutely sure. Day by day the dangers thickened round them.
One evening, soon after their arrival, William Hartley, a priest
and afterwards a martyr, who was helping in the work, and had
then just come back from a visit to Oxford, mentioned casually
that Roland Jenks, the Catholic stationer and book-binder there,
was again in trouble, having been accused by his own servant.
Jenks was doubtless known to all Oxford men, indeed but three
years before his name had been noised all over Europe. He had
been sentenced to have his ears cut off for some religious
offence, when the Judge was taken ill in the court itself, and,
the infection travelling with marvellous rapidity, the greater
part both of the bench and of the jury were stricken down with
gaol fever, and two judges, twelve justices, and other high
officials, almost the whole jury, and many others, died within
the space of two days.[7]
In mentioning Jenks's new troubles Hartley probably did not
realize the extent of the danger to the whole party which they
portended. Persons had in fact employed the very servant who had
now turned traitor, to bind a number of books for him at his
house near Bridewell Church, London, which with all its contents
was thus in a perilous condition. Early next morning an express
messenger was sent in to town with orders to hide or destroy
Persons' papers and other effects. It was already too late: that
very night the house had been searched, and Persons' letters,
books, vestments, rosaries, pictures, and other pious objects,
had all fallen into the hands of the pursuivants. Worse still,
Father Alexander Briant, afterwards a martyr, and one of the
brightest and most lovable of the missionaries, was seized next
door, and hurried off first to the Counter, then to the Tower,
where he was repeatedly and most cruelly racked to make him say
where Persons might be found.
Information about his torture was brought to the Jesuits at
Stonor, and one can easily see how grave and disturbing such
bad news must have been. "For almost the whole of one night,"
says Persons, "Campion and I sat up talking of what we had
better do, if we should fall into their hands. A fate which
befell him soon after."
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