USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 4
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of one hundred and thirty others besides. The following is our manner of making these excursions. The Father himself, his interperter, and a servant, set off in a pinnace or galley-two are obliged to propel the boat with oars, when the wind fails or is adverse ; the third steers. We take with us a supply of bread, butter, cheese, corn cut and dried before it is ripe, beans and a little flour ; in another chest we carry bottles, one of which contains wine for the altar, in six others is blessed water for the purpose of Baptism ; a box holds the sacred utensils, and we have a table as an altar for saying Mass. A third chest is full of trifles, which we give to the Indians to gain their goodwill-such as little bells, combs, fishing- hooks, needles, thread and other things similar. We have a little tent also for camping in the open air, as we frequently do; and we use a larger one when the weather is stormy and wet. The servants carry other things which are necessary for hunting, and for cooking pur- poses.
In our excursions we endeavor, as much as we can, to reach some English house or Indian village, failing in this we land, the Father moors the boat fast to the shore, then collects wood and makes a fire, while the two others, meantime go off hunting. If, unfortunately, no game can be found, we refresh ourselves with the provis- ions we have brought, and lie down by the fire to take our rest. When rain threatens we erect our hut and spread a large mat over it; nor, praise be to God, do we enjoy this humble fare and hard couch with less content than if we had the more luxurious provisions of Europe. To comfort us God gives us a foretaste of what He will one day grant to those who labor faithfully in this life, and
,
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mitigates all our hardships by imparting a spirit of cheer- fulness, for His Divine Majesty appears to be present with us in an extraordinary manner.
The Annual Letters also tell us how the Fathers preached in the forests to the Indians, how they baptized Princes and Princesses, and united in the holy bonds of matrimony red Kings and Queens. During epidemics and famines the missionaries showed in an especial man- ner to the unhappy Indians the beauty of Christian, white-robed charity, and the fruits of apostolic zeal. On ยท more than one occasion the cross of the missioner was the means of working some stupendous miracle that caused the red warriors to make the woods ring with their shouts of " glory to the wondrous God of the Christians."
Brother Thomas Gervase rendered important service to the missionaries, and though only engaged in waiting , on the Fathers, and attending as far as he could under the circumstances to their temporal wants, fully shared in the merit of their holy labors, and must ever partici- pate in the glory of their undertakings. This devoted man was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1590. Thirty- four years afterwards he entered the Society of Jesus as a Temporal Coadjutor. From Catalogues we learn that, in 1625, he was a novice in the London Novitiate, Clerk- enwell. It seems that after his vows of religion he still remained in the same house, for four years later on we find him still in the same place. In 1633 he is mentioned as being employed in humble and useful duties in the Lancashire District. "It is very probable," says the Collectanea, " that he is identical with Thomas Latham, the housekeeper at Clerkenwell, mentioned in the report of the discovery of that Residence by the Pursuivants of
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the Privy Council in 1628, and committed with the rest to prison." Brother Gervase died of the yellow-fever, in the August or September of 1637. The Annual Let- ter for that year says, that "after enduring severe toils for the space of five years with the greatest patience, humility and ardent love, he was seized by the disease prevalent at the time, and happily exchanged this wretched life for that which is eternal."
Father Timothy Hays returned to England about the year 1636. That year two other missionaries arrived in Maryland, (Fathers John Rogers, alias Bampfield, and John Wood. This last-named Father did not remain many months in the Maryland Mission, perhaps on ac- count of ill-health.
Father Rogers was the son of an Esquire, and was born at Feltham, near Frome, County Wilts, in England, about the year 1584. Feltham was his father's seat. He was brought up as a Protestant, but having been taken to the Douay College by Father Bray of the Society, he was converted to the true Faith. He entered the English College, at Rome, in 1604. The following extract is taken from the diary of that College: "1604. John Rogers, of Somerset, near the town of Frome, aged twenty, not yet confirmed, came from Douay with Wil- liam Worthington and Dingley (Morgan). On account of his weak health, his admission to the College was de- ferred until the beginning of the following year, when he was admitted among the alumni on January 1, 1605, and took the usual College oaths on the 10th of August fol- . lowing. Having completed his philosophy and theology, he left the College April 21, 1611, and entered the So- ciety. On entering the College he made the following
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statement : ' My name is John Rogers. I am twenty years of age, and was born in a village called Feltham, the property of my father, near the town of Frome, in Somersetshire. I received the rudiments of education in various places, but mostly in a town in Wiltshire, called Heytesbury, where I studied humanities for seven years. Thence, at my father's wish, I went to Oxford, where I lived half a year in Oriel College. After this I remained at home idle for nearly two years, when a soldier named Richard Diar, of the King's body-guard, came to my father's house, and asked him if he was willing that I should enter the service of the son of Lord Harrington, who was Lord-in-Waiting to the Prince. The soldier, having heard my father's wishes, turning to me asked if I was agreeable. 'On one special condition,' I said (meaning that I should preserve my religion). 'Thou wilt be pure in religion,' he replied (thinking I favored Puritanism). ' I refused his offer. At length my uncle, Lord Stourton, asked my father what he could do for me, and proposed my entering the service of his wife, the Lady Stourton. To this my father assented and committed me to her charge; and when I had spent a year there, by chance I met a very aged priest, named Father Bray, who had lived ten years at Douay, and by whose means I was made a Catholic, and I then crossed over, not without difficulty, to Douay. My father is an Esquire, living upon his own estate; I have only one brother and sister, and myself, the eldest. I have many relatives, some of them Catholics. My father is still a schismatic, and I, myself, was always so until my con- version by the above-named aged priest.'"
In 1624 Father Rogers was a missioner in the College
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of St. Thomas of Canterbury. In 1655 he was at Watten, then being seventy-two years of age, having spent forty- four in the Society and thirty-four upon the mission. He died at St. Omer's College, on August 7th, 1657.
The summary of the deceased members of the English Province for 1657, thus notices this Father: "Father John Rogers, a learned man, and a very sharp defender of our Francis Suarez. Being translated to the novitiate of Watten in his declining years, he spent much time in prayer, either in his private chamber or else before the Blessed Sacrament in the Church. He was visiting the College of St. Omer by way of recreation, and appeared in perfect health, but was found in the morning dead, yet modestly composed in bed, on the 7th of this month of September." Father Rogers was, with other Jesuit Fathers, sent into banishment in 1618, under the name of John Bampfield. According to Father, Edmund Coffin, Father Rogers publicly defended theses of philosophy (metaphysics) with Father John Port (Layton) in Rome. In Brother Foley's sketch of the College of St. Thomas, of Canterbury, we read : " Besides Father Baldwin, eleven of the English Fathers of the Society passed under the charge of the good Count Gondomar into exile : Ralph Bickley, Richard Bartlet, John Bampfield (vere John Rogers), Alexander Fairclough, John Falconer, Henry Hawkins, John Sweetman, Francis Wallis, Laurence Worthington, Francis Young and William York. Most of these returned to England to resume their arduous labors, braving alike the dangers of recapture and of cer- tain death if caught."
From some cause or other Father Rogers was not al- lowed to spend his life in working on the Maryland Mis-
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sion. About 1638 he was recalled to England. One year or two before his return, however, the Mission was in- creased by the arrival of two new Jesuits, Father Thomas Copley, alias Philip Fisher, and Father John Knowles.
Father Knowles was a native of Staffordshire, and was born in 1607. He entered the Society at the age of sev- enteen. He did not last much more than six weeks in the Mission. The Annual Letters say of him that though young he " possessed remarkable qualities of mind, which gave great promise for the future. He had scarcely spent two months in this Mission, when, to the great grief of all of us, he was carried off by the sickness so general in the colony." The Letters add that " none of the three remaining priests have entirely escaped, yet we have not ceased to labor to the best of our ability among the neighboring people."
In the Colonial records of Maryland we find frequent allusions made to Thomas Copley, Esq. That this gen- tleman was held in high esteem in Lord Baltimore's new colony, no one of the numerous writers who incidentally refer to him ever seems to doubt. He was more than once invited to take a place at the council-board of the legislators of Maryland. In January, 1637, he was sum- moned to the "General Assembly held at St. Marie's City," but " Robert Clerke, gent., appeared for him, and excused his absence by reason of sickness." From stray notes found in the " Annals of Annapolis " we learn that he was on intimate terms of friendship with some. of the "two hundred gentlemen adventurers " who, in 1633, sailed from England as passengers of the Dove and Ark. Yet, strange to say, up to a recent date his character and profession were involved in much mystery. Most of our
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Catholic authors rightly surmised, from his association with Father White, that he must have been a Jesuit mis- sionary. But they could give very little more information concerning him. Not a few Protestant historians boldly asserted that he was an accomplished agent in the secret service of the sons of Loyola. Sebastian F. Streeter, how- ever, who had access to some reliable documents, says : " Notwithstanding his title of ' Esquire,' Mr. Copley was a Jesuit priest." What rendered Copley still more mys- terious, was the fact, that the Maryland Jesuits, in their reports, or Annual Letters, never even once made men- tion of him. With no small degree of satisfaction, we. shall now trace as far as we can, the career of one who. has long puzzled historians, and much of whose history has up to these times, been hidden under the assumed name of Philip Fisher.
Father Thomas Copley was born at Madrid, in Spain, about the year 1594. His grandfather, Lord Thomas Copley, Baron of Welles, was son of Sir Roger Copley, of Gatton, in Surrey, and of Elizabeth Shelley, sister to Sir William Shelley, the last English Lord Prior of St. John of Jerusalem. Lord Thomas had to go into exile on account of his steadfastness in the faith, and had much to suffer from the enemies of the old religion. He had to sustain great losses, though he had married one of Sir John Lutterel's daughters-an heir of blood royal. On his mother's side, Father Copley had also a distin- guished ancestry. His mother, Margaret Prideaux, was the granddaughter of Margaret Giggs, "a gentleman's daughter of Norfolk," who appears by Margaret Roper's side in Holbein's famous picture of Sir Thomas More's family. The great Chancellor thus referred to Margaret
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Giggs in his last letter : " I send now my good daughter Clement, her algorism-stone, and send her and my god- . son, and all her's, God's blessing and mine." Margaret Giggs, or as she was known after marriage, Mrs. Clement, was a heroic Christian woman. While the Charterhouse monks were in prison, having bought over the gaoler, she daily visited them in their cells. To do this the more securely, she disguised herself as a milk-maid, and carried on her head a basket, which contained meat for the poor captives. Suspicion being aroused, and the gaoler growing afraid of a fatal discovery, she was at length refused permission to enter the prison. But by her importunity and presents, she obtained the gaoler's consent to ascend the roof, and through it, to give some little help to the holy confessors who were bound hand and foot to posts. Mrs. Clement, on account of the growing persecutions in England, retired to the Low Countries- forsaking, for love of conscience, country, living and rents. She died at Mechlin, and her body was laid to rest behind the main altar of St. Rumold's Cathedral. Several of her children survived her. One of her daughters, Winifred, married Sir William Rastall, nephew and biographer of Sir Thomas More. Another daughter was the holy and gifted Mother Clement, Prioress of the Augustinian Nuns of St. Ursula, Louvain. Helen, a third daughter, married Thomas Prideaux, of Devonshire. Of this couple was born Magdalen, an only daughter. This young lady passed a great part of her early life in the peaceful cloister of St. Ursula, Louvain, under the protection and guidance of some of England's noblest daughters. . " She had education to many rare qualities, for she was a fine musician, both in song and
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instruments, had the Latin tongue perfect, also poetry, and was skillful in the art of painting ; a woman, indeed, wise, of good judgment, and pious in godly matters." This accomplished woman was destined to be the mother of the subject of this sketch.
William Copley, the future husband of Magdalen Prideaux, "coming into England" after the death of Lord Thomas, his father, "to enjoy his inheritance, being not twenty-one years of age, and finding that to pass the Court of Wards, he must take the oath of supremacy, not having, as yet, experience how to escape that danger as others do, determined rather than commit such an of- fence against Almighty God, to venture the loss of all his land for his lifetime, so that he might enjoy freedom of his conscience. Wherefore, behold in this resolution this constant youth, most loyal to God, letteth forth all his leases for small rents, taking fines in the place, so maketh a good sum of money, and over the sea he comes with one trusty servant, and goeth into Spain, where God ordained that he got a pension in respect that his father's worthiness had been well known to strangers." While in Spain, William Copley met Magdalen Prideaux, and took her as his wife.
" In the meantime," says St. Monica's Chronicle, " the Queen seized upon William Copley's living, and gave it away to a cousin-german of his that lived in her Court, named Sir William Lane, so that for seventeen years the said William Copley enjoyed not one penny of his estate, but having four children by his marriage, two daughters and two sons, he maintained them only by his pension. At the coming of the Infanta with Albert, the Archduke of Austria, to be princes of these Low Countries, he got
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his pension transferred into these quarters, for to be nearer home, and so came to live in these Low Coun- tries."
When Thomas Copley had reached his ninth year, he went with his parents to reside at the ancestral seat at Gatton. Of his boyhood years in England I find noth- ing recorded. It is almost certain, however, that he received his early education, both secular and religious, from some proscribed priest, who acted as chaplain in his paternal home. The influence of his own family must have, at an early hour, turned his thoughts toward spiritual things, while the story of all that his heroic pro- genitors had endured for the cause of the ancient religion of England, must have aroused his enthusiasm, and kin- dled in his young soul the fire of high and generous resolves. The stern laws against Catholic education in England forced him to proceed to the Continent to pur- sue his higher studies. As his fathers had gone into exile for the sake of their religion, he now went forth into a strange land for the love of knowledge. In 1611, we- find him among the students of philosophy at the famous University of Louvain. About one year previous, his two sisters, Mary and Helen, had entered St. Monica's convent in the classic city by the Dyle. These were ac- complished and brave girls-worthy descendants of Margaret Giggs. On their way through Southwark they were examined by a Justice of the Peace, and boldly professed their faith, and refused to go to a Protestant church, " because they would not be dissemblers ; to be in their minds of one religion, and make a show of another." While young Copley pursued his philoso- phical studies under some of the most distinguished pro-
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fessors of Europe, then at Louvain, we may feel certain that he did not fail to practice those virtues which ren- der a soul pleasing to its Maker. Perhaps, even then he envied the lot of those brave missionaries, who faced the axe and block in the heart of London. We cannot think that he read of the fate of his kinsman, the holy and gifted, and gentle Robert Southwell, without a strong feeling of emulation. At all events, a time came, when he was in the flush and pride of young manhood, when he heard an interior voice that called him away from the vanities of life, that called him to take up his cross and walk in the footprints of his Master. Did he pause, or waver, or grow faint-hearted as many a young man has done when called to a life of penance; mortification and trials? Did he look with terror on the death that, per- haps, awaited him ? No, the blood of confessors of the faith, the blood of martyrs ran through his veins, and filled his heart. With a light step and beaming eye, he climbed up the stony stairs that led to St. John's Novitiate, on Mont-Cesar, Louvain, and asked to be enrolled among the sons of St. Ignatius, who were there preparing themselves in prayer and mortification for the death mission in England.
When the English Jesuits were driven from their own country, in 1607, they rented a house on Mont-Cesar, Louvain, and used it as a Novitiate. This Novitiate was opened by the illustrious Father Parsons, in the same year, with six priests, two scholastics, and five lay-broth- ers. Already one of its novices, Father Thomas Garnett, had shed his blood for the faith. It had sheltered, too, among its novices, Father Andrew White, the future "Apostle of Maryland," and Father Henry More, the his-
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torian of the English Jesuit Province, and the great grandson of Sir Thomas More. To this school of martyrs and apostles young Copley begged to be admitted, and was received, and welcomed as a worthy son. He had Father John Gerard as his novice-master. This holy and remarkable priest had had a career of thrilling and roman- tic interest. It has been said by a recent writer, that his life "is equal to anything which has been published since the days of Defoe." His prison-life, his manifold and skillful disguises, his escapes from spies and priest-hunters, his stolen visits to the faithful nobility and peasants, form a chapter in history which is stranger than any fiction.
After two years of novitiate, Thomas Copley bound himself forever to the service of God by the holy vows of religion. Having completed his theological studies at Louvain, he was raised to the dignity of the priesthood. Though on his entrance into religion, he assumed the alias Philip Fisher, we prefer still to call him by his real name, and so we note that soon after his ordination Father Copley was sent on the English Mission. From Gee's strange composition, The Foot out of the Snare, we learn that, in 1624, he was once again in the land of his fore- fathers. "Father Copley, Junior, one that hath newly taken orders and come from beyond the seas," is in Lon- don. The life of Father Copley in England, was replete with pain and peril. There were men in London, at that period, who lived by hunting down priests and religions. Heartless spies were found everywhere. They loitered around inns, hung around the castles and manors of Catholic gentlemen, and ferreted out monks and friars from the most secret quarters. It was a hard task for Jesuits, even beneath their strangest costumes, and in
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their most diverse pseudo-avocations, to escape these wretches. It was in that same year of 1624, that Father Henry Morse, on his arrival in England, in quest of souls, was captured. and cast into York Castle, in which he suffered from severe hunger and cold for the space of three years. This same zealous priest was, after some years, again taken prisoner and condemned to death. His body was divided into quarters, and exposed on four of the city gates, and his head affixed on London Bridge.
Father Copley was in England during the excitement and troubles which were created by that bugbear-The Clerkenwell Discovery. He may, indeed, have been one of those Jesuits who were at that time thrown into prison through the machinations of Sir John Cooke. Father Thomas Poulton, his kinsman, was one of the priests who were committed to the new prison. That Copley's life and liberty were in continual danger, is evident to every one acquainted with the history of the times of which we speak. Doubtless it was owing to great dan- gers and troubles that he, through the influence of pow- erful friends in Court, obtained from the King the follow- ing document :
" Whereas, Thomas Copley, gentleman, an alien, is a re- cusant, and may be subject to be troubled for his religion ; and forasmuch as we are well satisfied of the conditions and qualities of the said Thomas Copley, and of his loyalty and obedience towards us, we hereby will and require you, and every one of you, whom it may concern, to permit the said Thomas Copley, freely and quietly, to attend in any place, and go about, and follow his occupation without molestation, or troubling him by any means whatsoever for matters of
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religion, or the persons or places of those unto whom he shall resort, and this shall be your warrant in his behalf. Given at our palace of Westminster, the 5th day of Decem- ber, in the Ioth year of our reign (1633)."
Though Father Copley did not sail for the New Con- tinent for three years after the Dove and Ark had entered the Potomac, and the " First Mass " had been offered on St. Clement's Island, still it is likely that from the very beginning he took a deep interest in the Maryland expe- dition. Lord Baltimore had obtained Jesuits, as we have already seen, to attend to the inhabitants of his new set- tlement, as well as to the red men who dwelt on the Patuxent River, and along the shores of the Chesapeake. The superior business capacities of Father Copley must have been utilized by Father White and the Catholic colonists before they spread out their sails off the beau- tiful Isle of Wight. But soon he was called upon to take a more active part in the Catholic colony. In 1636, un- der the alias of Philip Fisher, he was appointed Superior of the Maryland Mission. On arriving in the new field of his labor, he took up his residence at St. Mary's City, the ancient capital of Maryland. The wigwam of an Indian chief, which Father White had converted into a chapel, served him as a place of Divine Service. Through the prudence and zeal of Father Copley, great piety, fer- vor, and peace soon reigned among the inhabitants of St. Mary's. Many of the leading gentlemen there made the Spiritual Exercises, according to the method of St. Igna-
tius, and became exemplary Catholics. "As for the Catholics," says the Annual Letter for 1639, " the atten- dance on the sacraments here is so large, that it is not
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greater among the faithful in Europe, in proportion to their numbers. The most ignorant have been catechized, and catechetical lectures have been delivered to the more advanced every Sunday ; on feast-days they have been very rarely left without a sermon. The sick and the dying, who were numerous this year, and dwelt far apart, have been assisted in every way, so that not a single person has died without the sacraments. We have buried very many, but we have baptized a greater number."
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