Bishop Goldwell and Dr. Morton, the highest in office of the missionary party, remained at Rheims. Three Englishmen, a lay Professor of Law, and two priests, joined in, to fill up the gap, then another Jesuit, who had been labouring in Poland: this was Fr. Thomas Cottam, ordered home to restore his health, but destined, as were so many of his comrades, for martyrdom. The little band of fifteen divided, and sailed from different ports: Campion, with Parsons and one lay brother, Ralph Emerson, headed for Calais as their point of departure, going by way of St. Omers, “not a little encouraged to think that the first mission of St. Augustine and his fellows into [our] island was by that city.” Here there was another Jesuit College. The Flemish Fathers croaked friendly warnings in their ears, for it was common rumour in St. Omers that the Queen’s Council had full information of the appearance, dress and movements of the exiles, and had officers posted to waylay them on arrival. They had come on foot nearly nine hundred miles, and were not likely to give up the object of their journey. But they took precautions. It was decided that Parsons should go first, in military attire, accompanied from the Low Countries by a good youth who passed as his man George; and that if Parsons got safely to Dover, he was to send for Campion and the faithful little soul Ralph Emerson. An English gentleman “living over seas for his conscience,” brought Fr. Parsons his fine disguise: nothing less than a Captain’s uniform of buff leather, with gold lace, big boots, sword, hat, plume, and all. Campion, when he had gone, sat down to write to the General of the Society about him, with his inevitably pictorial touch. “Father Robert sailed from Calais after midnight. . . . They got him up like a soldier: such a peacock! such a swaggerer! . . . such duds, such a glance, such a strut! A man must have a sharp eye indeed,” he adds, “to catch any glimpse of the holiness and modesty that lurk there underneath it all.” He goes on to explain how he is laying out money to buy numerous and silly clothes “to dress up myself and Ralph,” whereby “to cheat the madness of this world.” Fr. Parsons, like Campion himself in lesser rôles, must have been a dramatic genius, for arriving at Dover on the 12th of June, and falling into the hands of the searcher, he so won him over, by the mere swagger and strut aforementioned, as not only to be passed without inquiry, but to be helped to a horse to carry him to Gravesend. Thereupon the Captain was quick to bespeak the interest of so unexpectedly polite a functionary in his friend “Mr. Edmunds,” described as a jewel-merchant lying at St. Omers; and he gave the searcher a letter recommending London as a good market, to be forwarded post-haste to that gentleman, and to be shown to the searcher again by “Mr. Edmunds” himself when he came over. And by the reception of that letter Campion learned that Fr. Parsons was scot-free, and speeded on his way.
On the Feast of his old College patron, St. John the Baptist, “Mr. Edmunds,” followed by Brother Ralph, his supposed servant, boarded the vessel bound for Dover. At daybreak they stepped ashore under the white cliffs, and there kneeling a moment in the shadow of a rock, Campion renewed his offering of himself, without reserve or condition, to the God of Hosts, for the dark “warfare” which lay before him.
Meanwhile, the dispositions of the searcher (who evidently put in no appearance) had undergone a forced change. He and the Mayor of the town had been reprimanded by the Council for letting Papists slip through their nets. Moreover, there had been furnished, by a spy, a detailed description of Cardinal Allen’s brother, who was about to pass through Dover on his way to relatives in Lancashire; and as Gabriel Allen and Edmund Campion looked very much alike, our jewel-merchant found himself instantly under arrest. With an accuracy which he was not in the least aware of, the Mayor charged him and the lay brother of being “foes to the Queen’s religion and friends to the old Faith; with sailing under false names, and with returning for the purpose of propagating Popery.” Campion offered to swear that he was not Gabriel Allen, but offered in vain. The Mayor held a hasty conference, and ordered a mounted guard to carry both prisoners up to Sir Francis Walsingham and the Council. All this time, Campion was praying to God for deliverance, and earnestly begging St. John the Baptist to intercede for himself and his companion. They were waiting near the closed door of a room. “Suddenly,” wrote Campion himself long after, to the Father-General, “suddenly cometh forth an old man: God give him grace for his pains! ‘Well,’ quoth he, ‘it is agreed you shall be dismissed: fare ye well.’” After which the two Jesuits left without further notice or opposition, and travelled as fast as ever they could to London.
Fr. Parsons had reached the city not without adventure, but without mishap, a fortnight before. Yet as no word had been received since from him, Campion had no idea how to proceed or whither to go; nor could he inquire without arousing suspicion. Fortunately Parsons had given to some watchful young Catholics a description of the jewel-merchant and his man: Ralph Emerson was easily recognizable on account of his extremely short stature. Thus they had hardly touched the wharf at the Hythe before a stranger, Thomas Jay, stepped to the gangway, with a welcoming gesture, saying: “Mr. Edmunds, give me your hand: I stay here for you, to lead you to your friends.” Under this guidance Campion reached London and Chancery Lane, where he was clothed and armed, and provided with a horse. He must have been astonished to learn under whose roof he was so safe and so comfortable: for it was none other than that of the chief pursuivant! Here was, indeed, a case of the bird nesting in the cannon’s mouth. St. Augustine warns us that we are not to think that ungodly men are kept in this world for nothing, nor that God has no good purposes of His own to fulfil through them. One cause of the miraculous preservation of the ancient Faith under Elizabeth lay in the fact that many an official, high and low, of that time-serving Government, was in the pay of the Recusant gentry. A strange situation it was, and by no means an infrequent one, when some of these, brought before the magistrates, would be discharged on the assurance of the bought-over official that the prisoner was “an honest gentleman”: thus averting all suspicion from the latter for the time being.
The band of lay Catholics, some of whom Campion had known from boyhood, like Henry Vaux and Richard Stanihurst, were acting as friends, freely leagued together, as occasion arose, for the helping of priests, and the furthering of religion. Their time, their thoughts, their self-sacrifice, their purses, were at the service particularly of the Jesuits, persons habitually being described by Sir Walter Mildmay in the Star Chamber as “lewd runagates,” “a sort of hypocrites,” “a rabble of vagrant friars.” The leader of them all, in his inspiring zeal, though not highest in station, was George Gilbert, a rich young squire owning estates (which were confiscated in the end) in Buckinghamshire and Suffolk. He was a convert, a great rider and athlete, dear to many; but in secret a lover of apostolic poverty, living for others: in short, a saint. He spent himself to the last breath for the Faith as truly as if he had perished at Tyburn Tree. In banishment, he still served the same cause by his forethought and his generosity in the use of such worldly goods as were left to him: for he became responsible, at Rome, for the series of paintings of the English martyrdoms which gave their chief historical standing to the Beatifications of 1886. Thus Gilbert, living and dead, was Blessed Edmund Campion’s availing friend and lover.
IX
SKIRMISHING: THE ENGLISH COUNTIES: 1580
THE devoted George Gilbert, his fellowship of young men, and those whom they gathered together, met on the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, to hear, for the first time, Fr. Campion preach. It was no easy task to find a safe and suitable auditorium; but Lord Paget, one of their own number, was daring enough to hire from Lord Norreys the hall of a great house in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. All the servants and porters were turned out for the occasion, and gentlemen took their places. Within a few days, however, rumours about Campion’s sermon and about Campion were flying over the city. There were a number of spies about, instructed by the Council, pretending to be lapsed Catholics or unsettled Protestants, and trying hard to bag such new and shining birds as the Jesuits; but Campion had a friend at court who warned him, and therefore held only private conferences in friendly houses with those whom he knew. The missionaries were sent to strengthen the wills of the wavering Catholics, and not primarily to make converts. Personal dealings with would-be converts were never attempted except as supplementary to the action of the lay helpers, who took all the soundings, and gave any needful catechizing. When Parsons, who had been away in the country, got back to town, Mr. Henry Orton and Fr. Robert Johnson had been tracked and imprisoned, through Sledd, the apostate informer; and it became plain to the rest of the little band gathered about Parsons and Campion that, for reasons immediate and remote, both Fathers must be spirited away. Each went mounted, with a companion, Gervase Pierrepoint being Campion’s guide; and at Hoxton, in July, the priests parted for their separate fields of action.