USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 7
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Your V. Rev. Paternity's humble Serv't in Christ,
JOSEPH SIMEONS.
LONDON, 28th Feb., 1669.
According to the Annual Letters for 1671, Father William Pelham died in the Maryland Mission in that year. This missionary was born about the year 1624, in Suffolk, England. He entered the Society in 1643.
Twelve years afterwards we find him zealously labor- ing at the College of the Holy Apostles.
The Fitzwilliams of Lincoln, England, gave some dis- tinguished members to the Society of Jesus. William, George, and John, alias Villiers, were probably brothers by blood, as well as by the holy ties of the religious profession. Father George made his studies at the English College, at Rome. The other two brothers pursued their studies both at St. Omer's and at the Eter- nal City. William leaves us the following statement : "My true name is William Fitzwilliam. I am son of William Fitzwilliam and Frances Hilliard, both Catholics
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and of distinction. I was born in Lincolnshire. I have no relatives surviving on my father's side, and have an only sister married to Lord Percy. On my mother's side are two uncles and two aunts living in the County of Suffolk. But for the oppression of Catholics by the heretics, my parents would be living in very good cir- cumstances."
Father John Villiers made his Novitiate at Watten. Soon after his ordination he was sent to the Maryland Mission where his death occurred on the 30th of Octo- ber, in the year 1665.
Father Francis Pennington was born in Worcestershire in 1644, and entered the Society in his twentieth year. He, in company with Father Nicholas Gulick and two lay-brothers sailed with the royal fleet from London in 1675. They arrived safely in Maryland towards the end of autumn. Father Pennington soon became noted for his zeal and prudence, and was chosen, in 1684, to suc- ceed Father Michael Forster as Superior of the Mission. His days were cast in evil times. He was Superior of Maryland during the Protestant Revolution of 1689. He witnessed all the horrors of that black time. His heart must have often bled to see the fatal triumphs of the enemies of religion, to see churches desecrated, to see his people persecuted and his priests " hunted down like wolves." To add to the sorrows of Father Pennington he saw some of his dear fellow-priests dying at their posts around him.
Though the Collectanea says that Father Francis Pen- nington died on his passage back to Europe, I learn from an old document before me that he expired on the 22d of February, 1699, in the house of Mr. Hill, in Newtown.
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It is probable that he was taken suddenly ill while visit- ing some members of his congregation.
Father Nicholas Guillick was a native of Rouen, and was born in 1647. In his twenty-second year he entered the Novitiate at Watten. In 1675 we find him as mis- sioner at Watten, but even then destined by his Superior for the Maryland Mission.
Among the missionaries in Maryland in 1677, was Father Thomas Gavan, who is thought, with much rea- son, to have been the brother of Father John Gavan, who suffered at Tyburn on June the 30th, 1679. Father John " was a man of remarkable talent, and a noted preacher, and was called the silver trumpet, from his sweet and clear intonation of voice." The missionary, Father Thomas Gavan, was probably of the Norrington-Wilts family. He was born in London in 1646, and became a Jesuit novice in 1668. After having labored for some years in Maryland, he returned to England in 1685, and served the Mission of Thelton, in the College of the Holy Apostles, for some time. He was then sent to the Hampshire District, and subsequently to the College of St. Francis Xavier (the Hereford and South Wales Dis- trict). He died piously in Lincolnshire, on June the 4th, 1712.
Father Michael Forster, alias Gulick, comes before us in the annals as Superior of Maryland in 1678. This missionary belonged to a truly Catholic family of dis- tinction who suffered much on account of their fidelity to the ancient Faith. His father, Mr. Henry Forster, who, after the death of his wife entered the Society as a Coad- jutor Brother, " was a man of birth, and highly connected in the County of Suffolk. He was one of the six chil-
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dren of Christopher Forster, Esq., of the Parish of Cop- doke, in Suffolk, by his mother, Elizabeth Rookwood, of the ancient family of that name. He married the eldest of three co-heiresses, daughters of a Mr. Mason, of the County of Huntingdon, and had twelve children. The nine who survived infancy, namely, six daughters and three sons, all entered religion."
Christopher Forster and Elizabeth Rookwood, the grandparents of this missionary, " were both persons of unspotted fame and reputation, and great sufferers for their religion, both as to imprisonment and loss of means." Their son, Henry, the father of our mission- ary, was a model of every virtue both in the world and in religion. He "was one of those several Catholic families who compounded with the King not to be mo- lested from abroad upon the account of religion, and thus he and his wife enjoyed themselves in all peace and prosperity from about the twenty-fourth to the forty- second year of his age, in as well a regulated family as any doubtless in England, keeping always an open chapel as long as the times did allow it, and Mass con- stantly about eight in the morning; and at four after din- ner on Sundays and Holidays Vespers of the Divine Office, read by the priest, and always at nine at night the long litanies, and in Holy Week the whole office of the Church with all its ceremonies." But great trials and troubles came at last. The mother of our missionary passed away suddenly on Good Friday, about the hour of Tenebrae. She left behind her nine children-" three sons and six daughters-whereof Michael, the least and last, had scarce a year old complete. But this," writes one of Mr. Forster's sons, "was as it were only a little
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prologue to the grand scene which soon followed, the cruel wars not long after breaking out, and a great per- secution against Catholics, whereof my father had his share. What stories were not raised against him? of armies under ground which he had trained up in his court by night; of I know not how many cooks, who after having dressed and served in a vast number of oxen, and not so much as a bone coming out again for them to pick, all quitted his house and service; and the maid of the parson of the next parish was said to have taken her oath that she saw a cart load of bright armor enter in our great gate, which vain and false report gained so much upon sober men, that three nights together our house was beset by men sent by the Chief of Ipswich for to discover the hidden arms, etc., but the rabble of Ip- swich was so incensed thereby, that they could scarce be kept from gathering into a head to come and pull down the house over our heads, lest we should cut their throats with the hidden army, and what they long threatened, six or seven thousand not long after of the rabble, out of the associated counties did in a manner effect, our house being the fourth they rifled and defaced, in so much so, that one Squire Blosse, a Protestant neighbor, coming to see it afterwards could not forbear weeping. Indeed, my father had this advantage over his fellow-Catholic neigh- bors who complained more of the insolence of their own parishioners than of those who came afar off, whereas the whole parish urged and offered to take arms to withstand the rabble, and defend our house, which my father re- fused, to hinder the mischief which might thence acrue to the parish itself, choosing rather to see his house and self perish than to permit any harm to happen to any one
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of them, resolved according to the example of others of his Catholic neighbors to abandon all to God's holy Providence ; but the parish would not rest here, but . came in the night with carts to transport the chief mov- ables to their own houses, to which my father consented in part, fearing lest finding the house wholly unfurnished it might occasion their own plunder."
It would be going beyond the purpose of this book to recount all the trials and sufferings of Mr. Henry Forster. It will be sufficient to say that the rabble endeavored to catch that worthy gentleman in order to be able to burn him to death in one of his own rooms; that his estate was sequestrated, and that being thus reduced in circum- stances he was obliged " to break up house-keeping, and let out half the manner (manor) house, with tillage to a tenant, and make money upon his own stock to live upon in the other part of the house, as it were privately, reduc- ing his family of some twenty, to himself, nine children, and one maid, and priest when at home." After an end- less series of persecutions, Mr. Forster determined to leave England and go into exile. He retired to Belgium. After spending some time at Antwerp he removed -to Brussels, where he lived for nearly three years. During this period "he dieted himself and Michael with Mr. Bedingfield, but put his daughters to pension among the Devotes, and not into monasteries, not to seem to thrust them into religion, but to leave it wholly to God and their own choice."
Michael, at a very early period, was sent to St. Omer's to make his studies. On the 30th of October, 1659, be- ing then about eighteen years of age, he was admitted an Alumnus of the English College in Rome. On the 5th
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of April, 1660, he left the College and entered the Society at Watten. According to the Collectanea he came to Maryland in 1669. He died in Maryland on February the 6th, 1684. Father John Warner, Provincial, in a let- ter to the Very Rev. Father-General, dated August the 20th, 1680, mentions a report that a school had been established in Maryland, of which Father Michael was Superior, in which they taught humanities with great success.
One of the teachers in this early school was Thomas Hothersall, an Approved Scholastic, who went by the alias Slater. Mr. Hothersall was the son of William Hothersall and his wife Ann Slater, both of the middle class of Society.' " The Slaters," says a note in the Col- lectanea, " were a good Catholic yeoman family, Thomas Slater appearing in a list of non-jurors in 1715, as hold- ing an estate at Grimsargh, adjoining the township of Hothersall. They were, later, connected by marriage with the Heatleys of Brindle Lodge." Thomas was pro- bably the uncle of Father William Hothersall, who was the last Jesuit Rector of the English College, Rome, from 1766, until the Suppression in 1773. Mr. Thomas Hoth- ersall was born at Grimsargh, and had one brother and two sisters. He was always a Catholic, and made his studies at St. Omer's College. He became a Jesuit on
the 20th of June, 1668. From the Catalogue we learn, that though he studied theology, he was never ordained priest. Two of this old Catholic and loyal Lancashire family, the Hothersall family, probably uncles of Thomas, lost their lives in the service of their Sovereign in the civil war. These were George, a lieutenant at Liverpool, and John, a captain at Greenhalgh, Lancashire. Mr.
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Thomas Hothersall died in Maryland, in the year 1698, aged 56 years. .
1671. In the mission of Maryland this year, are two priests and two temporal coadjutors. The mission bears no little fruit, as we learn from the last letters, and its fruit would be still greater were the labourers more in number. Few are living of those sent in former years. Two died this year, Father William Pelham and Thomas Sherborne, a lay-brother. There were fifty converts, many of high note, and fifty-four were baptized.
1672. Two priests and two lay-brothers have laboured diligently in the conversion of heretics and in strengthen- ing and instructing Catholics, and no little fruit has been gained by them this year.
Since the last account seventy-four converts have been made and one hundred persons baptized.
1673. This year there were two priests, and a lay- brother who attended to the temporal affairs of the mis- sion, whilst the Fathers devoted their labours chiefly to confirming the Catholics in their faith, and instilling unto them the principles and practices of piety. They treated also occasionally with the Protestants, of whom they have reconciled twenty-eight to the Church. They baptized seventy infants.
Two Franciscan Fathers were sent last year from Eng- land as coadjutors in the labours of the mission, between whom and ourselves fraternal charity and offices of mu- tual friendship are exercised, to the common good of the Catholic cause.
1674. There were three priests this year and one lay- brother. Thirty-four converts were received, and sev- enty-five baptisms administered.
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1677. The mission was increased at the end of the year by two members; one a priest and the other a lay- brother. Brother Francis Knatchbull died here June 6th, 1677. He was admitted at Watten, November 20th, 1671, and while yet in his noviceship, being full of zeal, he asked with great earnestness for the mission of Mary- land, and obtained his request at the end of the year 1674 ; he lived in it only two years.
According to the English Records, Francis Knatch- bull was not a priest, but a lay-brother. Father Robert Knatchbull, who was for some time at Ghent, and served the Missions of Brough and Walton Hall, County York, was a native of Maryland; he was born in 1716, made his humanities at St. Omer's, and entered the Society in 1735.
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CHAPTER VI.
Before proceeding any further, it may be well to devote some space to the Protestant Revolution of 1689. We are glad to be able to state that all the non-Catholic authors whom we had occasion to consult speak in just and honorable terms of the Catholics of that period. Mr. Davis, who is one of the very best authorities in matters connected with Maryland's early history, and who seems everywhere free from prejudice, deserves our gratitude for the manner in which he deals with this question. A few words are here necessary as to the character of St. Mary's early settlers. "These," writes Mr. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in his Catholic History of North America, "were chiefly of the better classes of England and Ireland ; educated young men in search of employments ; heads of families in search of cheaper subsistence ; men, proud of their ancient faith, who pre- ferred an altar in the desert to a coronet at court ; pro- fessional or trading men, bound by interest and sympathy to these better classes. They composed a wise and select community worthy of their rich inheritance." From the very beginning they treated others as they themselves would wish to be treated. They were neither cruel nor unjust. They dealt fairly with the poor red men, teaching them the comforts of civilization and the consolations of religion, and paying them with conscientious strictness for their furs, game, and land.
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Vile and unscrupulous miscreants took advantage of the friendship that existed between the Catholic settlers and the Indians to accuse the former of a black and horrible crime. They accused them of entering into a compact with the Indians for the purpose of slaying all their Protestant neighbors.
"The history of the Protestant revolution in 1689," writes Mr. Davis, " has never yet been, fully written. But there is evidence upon the records of the English government to show it was the result of a panic, produced by one of the most dishonorable falsehoods which has ever disgraced any religious or any political party-by the story, in a few words, that the Roman Catholics had formed a conspiracy with the Indians, to massacre the Protestants. The testimony comes from the most respectable sources-not only from the mem- bers of the Catholic Church, but also from many of the most prominent Protestants of the province, including the Honorable Thomas Smyth, the ancestor of the Smyths of Trumpington, subsequently of Chestertown; from Major Joseph Wickes, at one time Chief Justice of the County Court, and many years a distinguished repre- sentative of Kent; from the Honorable Henry De Courcy (then written Coursey), a descendant, it is strongly presumed, of an illustrious Anglo-Norman, and a perfect master of the whole aboriginal diplomacy of that period ; from Michael Taney, the high sheriff of Calvert County, and the ancestor of the lamented Chief Justice Taney ; from Richard Smith, a brave and gen- erous spirit, connected with the family of Somerset, and the forefather of the Smiths of St. Leonard's Creek, and of the Dulanys and the Addisons ; and from Captain
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Thomas Claggett, the progenitor of the first Anglican Bishop of Maryland." With Mr. Davis all Catholics will heartily join in saying, "the opposition of these Protestants is, indeed honorable, in the highest degree to their memory."
Enough has been said to show the spirit of the party that supplanted the Catholic Governors in St. Mary's. What has been written will also show how powerless were the conscientious little body of Catholics in South- ern Maryland to stem the torrents of corruption rebellion, fraud, and persecution that rushed in upon them in 1689.
Coode's rebel friends succeeded in overthrowing the kind government of the Calverts, and a new Governor, Sir Lionel Copley, arrived in Maryland early in 1692, and received control of the colony from the hands of the " Committee of Safety."
Among those who boldly defended the fair name of the Catholics at this period,* were Michael Taney and Henry Darnall. Both these gentlemen were high in the favor of the Lord Proprietary, and were honored and respected, by all true lovers of peace and prosperity in the province. Their letters proving the falsity of the charges brought against the Catholics may be found in The Day-Star. " Taney was one of the victims of a
* On an old volume, a commentary on the Psalms, we find the. following note :
Decemb. ye 29th 1685 Then was this Booke & ye other two partes belonging to itt Lent to Mr Cannon by mee HENRY DARNALL.
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cruel imprisonment, accompanied with gross insults and indecent taunts, in consequence of his cool and inflexible refusal to sanction the iniquitous proceeding of Col. Jowles and the other leaders of the Revolution." The spirit of Michael Taney will soon be learned when we . say that he was accustomed to make his spiritual reading out of Rodrigues. The old volume he used is in the Newtown library and bears his name.
The success of the Revolution was the destruction of the hopes of St. Mary's.
Having glanced at the periods preceding, and immed- iately following, the Protestant Revolution of 1689, we can more easily form some conception of the sufferings and trials of the missionaries in Maryland. What they had to endure from the cruelty and enmity of Coode who considered them the chief cause of the opposition he met with, and the strongest enemies of the Protestant religion, can without difficulty be fancied. In the Annual Letters, 1685-1690, we find the following : "Our missions in the West Indies of Maryland, and indeed of New York underwent the same fate with those of England. In the latter (New York) there were only two priests, and these were forced in this storm to change their residence, as also the Catholic Governor himself (Governor Dongan). One of them travelled on foot to Maryland, the other, after many perils on the sea, having been captured and plundered by Dutch pirates, at length arrived safe in France. In Maryland great difficulties are suffered. Our Fathers yet remain to render what consolation they can to the distressed Catholics."
After the sad and baneful overthrow of the Lord Pro-
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prietary's authority the seat of government was removed to Annapolis. The Catholics were again to be perse- cuted, and to be made the victims of a crying injustice. The Anglican Church was established by law in Mary- land, and the Catholics were taxed for its support. Those who have read and studied the history of the Established Church in England and Ireland, can easily understand the monstrosity of such an establishment in this country. Catholics were obliged to build churches in which they would never worship ; they were forced to feed parsons whose services they would never use, to support a creed which their conscience condemned as false.
The Brooke family in England, though a few of its members unfortunately lost the faith, were distinguished during the Penal Days as bold and fervent Catholics. Sir Basil Brooke was a loyal son of the Church. Sir Robert Brooke, who was knighted in the reign of Queen Mary, "was always zealous in the cause of the Old Religion." Through his influence many laws favorable to the Cath- olics were passed in the days of Mary. We count at least five of the Brooke family in Maryland, all natives of that state, who became Fathers of the Society. There were two branches of the family at an early date in Maryland. Robt. Brooke, the founder of a Protestant settlement in Charles county, and whose estate, De la Brooke, joined the Fenwick Manor at Cole's Creek, as I learn from an old survey, was at the head of one of these branches. At the head of the other was Francis Brooke, a Catholic, and one who was chosen by the freemen of St. Mary's hun- dred to represent them at the Protestant Assembly of 1650. At that famous Assembly he sat at the council-
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board with Cuthbert Fenwick, Geo. Manners, John Med- ley and Philip Land, all Catholics like himself.
Father Robert Brooke was born in Maryland on the 24th day of October, 1663. He probably made a part of his studies at the school opened by the Jesuits in Mary- land in 1677. He was certainly one of those young Marylanders who distinguished themselves at St. Omer's and reflected much credit on their native State. His generosity of character is shown by the fact that he en- tered the Society in his twenty-first year, at a time when the Church in the Colonies was suffering on all sides and from every quarter. Stronger in him than the fear of pains, privations, and penalties was a desire of his own perfection, and a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. After having made his Novitiate at Watten and his the- ology at Liége he returned to Maryland about the year 1696. The afflicted state of the oppressed Catholics must have pained and deeply wounded his priestly heart. Just two years before his return, St. Mary's City had lost its prestige, and Providence had become the capital- Providence, the stronghold of Puritanism. In 1710 Fa- ther Brooke became Superior of the Mission. This was then an office of much care and solicitude. It was indeed a weighty cross. Among other troubles he had much, very much, to suffer from Protestant intolerance. He was tried for saying Mass at the Chapel at St. Mary's City during Court time. Governor Seymour severely reprimanded him, and warned him under heavy penalties not to repeat the offence. The Sheriff of St. Mary's County was ordered to lock up the chapel and to keep the key in his possession. After many trials Father Brooke died at Newtown on the 18th of July, 1714, aged
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fifty-one years. He is called a "worthy Father " by Oliver.
Richard Molyneux was born in London in 1696. He was a missioner at Gateshead in 1724. Eleven years afterwards he was sent to Maryland, and became its Su- perior in 1736. He left Maryland in 1749, and was for a time Chaplain at Marnhull (Hussey family), thence re- moved to Bonham, county Wilts, where he died in 1766. He was then Rector of the Residence of St. Thomas, of Canterbury.
Father George Hunter was born in Northumberland in 1713. He entered the Society in 1730. In 1747 he was sent on the Maryland Mission, and returned to Eng- land in 1756. In 1759 he was again sent to Maryland. Father Hunter was for a long time Superior of the Mis- sion. In 1769 he went to Canada, and thence to Eng- land again. Returning to Maryland, he died at St. Thomas' Manor, Charles County, on the Ist of August, 1779, and was buried by the side of Fathers Kingdom and Leonard.
Father Hunter was noted as a spiritual director, and gave many retreats at Newtown, St. Inigoes and St. Thomas'. It is said that two angels once took him on a sick-call, and rowed him in a boat across the Potomac. His vigils and fastings were extraordinary. He kept ward over all his senses, and did as much as he could to keep himself in recollection of the Divine Presence.
The following pious lines are taken from his diary : " Constant recollection and ever keeping ourselves in the presence of God, having our God constantly as a specta- tor of all our actions, as in reality He is, are in some sense the only means to a virtuous course of life. At
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