Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

by Georgiana Fullerton

Then she minded me of little St. Agnes, and related passages of her life; but mostly spoke of the cross and the passion of Christ, in such piercing and moving tones, as if visibly beholding the scene on Calvary, that the storm seemed to subside in my breast as she went on.

"Pray," she gently said, "that, if it be God's will, the extremity of human suffering should fall on thee, so that thy love for him should increase. Pray that no human joy may visit thee again, so that heaven may open its gates to thee and thy loved ones. Pray for Hubert, for the queen, for Topcliffe, for every human soul which thou hast ever been tempted to hate; and I promise thee that a great peace shall steal over thy soul, and a great strength shall lift thee up."

I did what she desired, and her words were prophetic. Peace came before long, and joy too, of a strange unearthly sort. A brief foretaste of heaven was showed forth in the consolations then poured into mine heart. When since I have desired for to rekindle fervor and awaken devotion, I recall the hours which followed that great anguish in the cell at Newgate.

Late in the evening an order came for to release Muriel and me, but not Mrs. Wells. When this dear friend understood what had occurred, she raised her hands in fervent gratitude to God, and dismissed us with many blessings.

The events which, followed I will briefly relate. When we reached home Mr. Congleton was very sick; and then began the illness which ended his life. Kate was almost wild with grief at her husband's danger, and we fetched her and her children to her father's house for to watch over them. On the next day all the prisoners which had been taken at Mr. Wells's house (we only having been released by the dealings of friends with the chief secretary) were examined by Justice Young, and returned to prison to take their trials the next session. Mr. Wells, at his return finding his house ransacked and his wife carried away to prison, had been forthwith to Mr. Justice Young for to expostulate with him, and to demand his wife and the key of his lodgings; but the justice sent him to bear the rest company, with a pair of iron bolts on his legs. The next day he examined him in Newgate; and upon Mr. Wells saying he was not privy to the mass being said that day in his house, but wished he had been present, thinking his name highly honored by having so divine a sacrifice offered in it, the justice told him "that though he was not at the feast, he should taste of the same."

The evening I returned home from the prison a great lassitude overcame me, and for a few days increased so much, joined with pains in the head and in the limbs, that I could scarcely think, or so much as stand. At last it was discerned that I was sickening with the small-pox, caught, methinks, in the prison; and this was no small increase to Muriel's trouble, who had to go to and fro from my chamber to her father's, and was forced to send Kate and her children to the country to Sir Ralph Ingoldsby's house; but methinks in the end this proved for the best, for when Mr. Lacy was, with the other prisoners, found guilty, and condemned to death on the 4th of December, some for having said, and the others for having heard, mass at Mr. Wells's house, Kate came to London but for a few hours, to take leave of him, and Polly's care of her afterward cheered the one sister in her great but not very lasting affliction, and sobered the other's spirits in a beneficial manner, for since she hath been a stayer at home, and very careful of her children and Kate's also, and, albeit very secretly, doth I hear practise her religion. Mr. Congleton never heard of his son-in-law and his friend Mr. Wells's danger, the palsy which affected him having numbed his senses so that he slowly sunk in his grave without suffering of body or mind. From Muriel I heard the course of the trial. How many bitter words and scoffs were used by the judges and others upon the bench, particularly to Edmund Genings, because of his youth, and that he angered them with his arguments! The more to make him a scoff to the people, they vested him in a ridiculous fool's coat which they had found in Mr. Wells's house, and would have it to be a vestment. It was appointed they should all die at Tyburn, except Mr. Genings and Mr. Wells, who were to be executed before Mr. Wells's own door in Gray's Inn Fields, within three doors of our own lodging. The judges, we were told, after pronouncing sentence, began to persuade them to conform to the Protestant religion, assuring them that by so doing they should obtain mercy, but otherwise they must certainly expect to die. But they all answered "that they would live and die in the true Roman and Catholic faith, which they and all antiquity had ever professed, and that they would by no means go to the Protestant churches, or for one moment think that the queen could be head of the Church in spirituals." They dealt most urgently with Edmund Genings in this matter of conformity, giving him hopes not only of his life, but also of a good living, it he would renounce his faith; but he remained, God be praised, constant and resolute; upon which he was thrust into a dark hole within the prison, where he remained in prayer, without food or sustenance, till the hour of his death. Some letters we received from him and Mr. Wells, which have become revered treasures and almost relics in our eyes. One did write (this was Edmund): "The comforts which captivity bringeth are so manifold that I have rather cause to thank God highly for his fatherly dealings with me than to complain of any worldly misery whatsoever. Custom hath caused that it is no grief to me to be debarred from company, desiring nothing more than solitude. When I pray, I talk with God—when I read, he talketh with me; so that I am never alone." And much more in that strain. Mr. Wells ended his letter thus: "I am bound with gyves, yet I am unbound toward God, and far better I account it to have the body bound than the soul to be in bondage. I am threatened hard with danger of death; but if it be no worse, I will not wish it to be better. God send me his grace, and then I weigh not what flesh and blood can do unto me. I have answered to many curious and dangerous questions, but I trust with good advisements, not offending my conscience. What will come of it God only knoweth. Through prison and chains to glory. Thine till death." This letter was addressed to Basil, with a desire expressed we should read it before it was sent to him.

On the day before the one of the execution, Kate came to take leave of her husband. She could not speak for her tears; but he, with his usual composure, bade her be of good comfort, and that death was no more to him than to drink off the caudle which stood there ready on his table. And methinks this indifferency was a joint effect of nature and of grace, for none had ever seen him hurried or agitated in his life with any matter whatsoever. And when he rolled Topcliffe down the stairs and fell with him—for it was he which did this desperate action—his face was as composed when he rose up again, one of the servants who had seen the scuffle said, as if he had never so much as stirred from his study; and in his last speeches before his death it was noticed that his utterance was as slow and deliberate, and his words as carefully picked, as at any other time of his life. Ah me! what days were those when, hardly recovered from my sickness, only enough for to sit up in an armed-chair and be carried from one chamber to another, all the talk ministered about me was of the danger and coming death of these dear friends. I had a trouble of mine own, which I be truly ashamed to speak of; but in this narrative I have resolved above all things to be truthful; and if I have ever had occasion, on the one hand, to relate what should seem to be to mine own credit, on the other also I desire to acknowledge my weaknesses and imperfections, of which what I am about to relate is a notable instance. The small-pox made me at that time the most deformed person that could be seen, even after I was recovered; and the first time I beheld my face in a glass, the horror which it gave me was so great that I resolved Basil should never be the husband of one whom every person which saw her must needs be affrighted to look on; but, forecasting he would never give me up for this reason, howsoever his inclination should rebel against the kindness of his heart and his true affection for me, I hastily sent him a letter, in which I said I could give him no cause for the change which had happened in me, but that I was resolved not to marry him, acting in my old hasty manner, without thought or prudence. No sooner had I done so than I grew very uneasy thereat, too late reflecting on what his suspicions should be of my inconstancy, and what should to him appear faithless breach of promise.

It grieved me, in the midst of such grave events and noble sufferings, to be so concerned for mine own trouble; and on the day before the execution I was sitting musing painfully on the tragedy which was to be enacted at our own doors as it were, weeping for the dear friends which were to suffer, and ever and anon chewing the cud of my wilful undoing of mine own, and it might prove of Basil's, future peace by my rash letter to him, and yet more rash concealment of my motives. Whilst I was thus plunged in grief and uneasiness, the door of my chamber of a sudden opened, and the servant announced Mr. Hubert Rookwood. I hid my face hastily with a veil, which I now did generally use, except when alone with Muriel. He came in, and methought a change had happened in his appearance. He looked somewhat wild and disordered, and his face flushed as one used to drinking.

"Constance," he said abruptly, "tidings have reached me which would not suffer me to put off this visit. A man coming from France hath brought me a letter from Basil, and one directed to you, which he charged me to deliver into your hands. If it tallies with that which he doth write to me—and I doubt not it must be so, for his dealings are always open and honorable, albeit often rash—I must needs hope for so much happiness from it as I can scarce credit to be possible after so much suffering."

I stretched out mine hand for Basil's letter. Oh, how the tears gushed from mine eyes on the reading of it! He had received mine, and having heard some time before from a friend he did not name of his brother's passion for me, he never misdoubted but that I had at last yielded to his solicitations, and given him the love which I withdrew from him.