Such are the plain facts taken from the writings of Campion to his superiors, describing his arrival in England. But the public mind had to be debauched on this as on every other point concerning the Jesuits, even at the expense of the man whom Oxford is still proud of as a scholar and a gentleman, who was called by Cecil "one of the diamonds of England," and whose grace and beauty and eloquence made him the favorite of Dudley and Elizabeth. In spite of all that, however, Kingsley, in his "Westward Ho" (chap. iii), describes Campion at this juncture of his life as "a grotesque dwarf whose sword, getting between his spindle shanks, gave him, at times, the appearance of having three legs, and figuring sometimes as a tail when it stuck out behind. He was so small that he could only scratch at the ribs of his horse which he was trying to mount on the wrong side, but he finally succeeded in gaining his seat by the help of a stool." He also wore "a tonsure," we are informed, "cut by apostolic scissors," and Londoner though he was, he is made to speak of his countrymen as "Islanders." Persons also is described as a blustering, blaspheming bully, who gives himself absolution for his own transgressions. All this is omitted, however, from the school edition of "Westward Ho."
Persons and Campion set to work immediately, and soon managed to call a meeting of the priests who were in hiding in various places of the country. The purpose of the summons was to let them know that the newcomers had received the most stringent orders from their superiors to keep absolutely aloof from anything savoring of politics. At Hoxton, Campion made a written statement to that effect; and it was there that he received a visit from one of the most interesting, and, to some extent, the oddest of the English missionaries — a man who was made a Jesuit by letter — the famous Thomas Pounde.
Pounde had begun by being a very conspicuous fop at the court of Queen Elizabeth. He was a favorite of the queen, and had, on one occasion, prepared a splendid pageant at which her majesty was present. One of its features was a dance, a pas seul by himself. However, as luck would have it, he stumbled and fell right at the queen's feet. The accident was ridiculous enough to humiliate him, but when his gracious sovereign honored him with a brutal kick, and called out scoffingly: "Get up, Sir Ox," Pounde arose, indeed, but not as an ox. He was a changed man. Up to that, though a Catholic, he had put his religion aside altogether. Now, he openly proclaimed his Faith and exhorted others to do the same. The result was that he was confined in almost every dungeon of the kingdom. He was loaded with fetters and shut up in cells where no ray of light could penetrate; and when liberated, either through the influence of friends, or because he had served the appointed term, he was incarcerated again. Everywhere and at all times he preached the truths of the Faith, not only in a courageous, but in an extraordinarily joyous fashion to his fellow-prisoners, or to people outside the jail, making converts of many and inducing others to amend their lives. Of the latter class was a certain Thomas Cottam, an Oxford man, who, thanks to his friend Pounde, not only became very devout, but, after he had succeeded in getting to the Continent, became a Jesuit and returning later was martyred at Tyburn on May 30, 1582.
A chance reading of the Jesuit missions in India had quite captivated Pounde, as well as a friend of his, named Thomas Stephens, who used to go around disguised as Pounde's servant. They determined to make for the Continent and to ask for admission to the Society. On the way, Pounde was captured because he had stopped too long in trying to convert a Protestant who had given him shelter; Stephens, however, reached Rome and was admitted to the Society. But instead of being sent back to England, as one would have fancied, his longing for India was satisfied, and we find him in Goa, on October 24, 1579. He was there known as Padre Estevão, or Estevan, or again as Padre Busten, Buston, or de Buston, the latter names being so many Portuguese efforts to pronounce Bulstan, in Wiltshire, England, where Stephens was born about 1549. As we see from the dates, he had then reached the age of 30. He is mentioned in Hakluyt's "Voyages" as the first Englishman who ever went to India. Hakluyt's information came from a series of letters which Stephens wrote to his father, "offering the strongest inducements to London merchants to embark on Indian speculations." These letters bore such evidence of sound commercial knowledge that they are regarded as having suggested the formation of the English East India Company.
Father Stephens spent his first five years as minister of the professed house at Goa, and was then sent to Salsette as rector, and, for a time, was socius to the visitor. After that he spent thirty-five years as a missionary among the Brahmin Catholics of Salsette, but his labors in that field did not prevent him from doing a great deal of hard literary work. Thus, he was the first to make a scientific study of Canarese. He also plunged into Hindustani, and wrote grammars and books of devotion in those languages. Most of his writings, however, were lost at the time of the Suppression of the Society. He died in Goa in 1619. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV, 292.)
Pounde's Jesuit work was quite different from that of Stephens. Not being able to present himself in person to the General, he asked by letter to be received into the Order. It was on December 1, 1578, while he was imprisoned in the Tower that an answer came from Father Mercurian granting his request. That encouraged him to labor more strenuously than ever, and for thirty years he kept on defying the Government. Lingard gives one notable instance of his audacity, though the great historian does not seem to be aware that Pounde was a Jesuit. In the proceedings connected with the Gunpowder Plot, someone was sentenced for harboring a Jesuit. Pounde appeared in court to protest against the ruling of the judge, with the result that he himself was arrested. He was condemned to have one of his ears cut off, to go to prison for life, and to pay a fine of a thousand pounds, if he did not tell who advised him to act as he did. He did not lose his ear; while he was in the Tower the queen, Anne of Denmark, interceded in his behalf. Her loving husband, however, King James I, told her: "never to open her mouth again in favor of a Catholic." Finally he got off by standing a whole day in the pillory, an experience which he probably enjoyed, for in spite of dungeons and chains and loss of property and his own terrible austerity — he often scourged himself to blood — he never lost his spirit of fun. He ended his wonderful career on March 5, 1615, at the age of 76, at Belmont, breathing his last in the room in which he was born.
When Campion was caught on his way to Lancashire and brought to London, where he was stretched on the rack and interrogated again and again while being tortured, the story was circulated that he had, at last, not only recanted, but had revealed secrets of the confessional. Pounde was in a fury about it, and wrote Campion an indignant letter, but he found out that it was one of the usual tricks of the English Government. The same villainy had been practised by Elizabeth's father on More and Fisher, but like them, Campion was too true a man to yield to suffering. On August 31, by order of the queen, bruised as he was and almost dismembered by the long and repeated rackings, he was led with Sherwin to a public disputation in the royal presence. Against them were Nowell and Day, two of the doughtiest champions of heresy that could be found in the kingdom. The dispute lasted for four hours in the morning and four in the afternoon — the intention being to keep it up for days. It was during this debate that the listeners saw with horror, as Campion stretched out his arms to emphasize his words by a gesture, that the nails had been torn off the fingers of both hands. The public discussions ended after the second session, for Nowell and Day had been completely beaten. What happened in the examinations held after that, behind closed doors, the authorities never let the world know, but it leaked out that Campion had made many converts among those who came to hear him. One of them was Arundel, who subsequently died for his faith on the scaffold.
On November 14 the Jesuits, Campion and Thomas Cottam, with Ralph Sherwin, Bosgrave, Rhiston, Luke Kirby, Robert Johnson and Orton, secular priests, were called for trial. They all pleaded innocent of felony and rebellion. "How could we be conspirators?" Campion asked, "we eight men never met before; and some of us have never seen each other." On November 16, six others were cited. It was on this occasion that Campion answered the question: "Do you believe Elizabeth to be the lawful queen?" "I told it to herself," he said, "in the castle of the Duke of Leicester." Thither he had been called for a private interview, and Elizabeth recognized him as the Oxford man and the little lad of Christ Church, who, not then dreaming of the terrible future in store for him, had paid the homage of respectful and perhaps affectionate loyalty to her majesty. At that meeting were Leicester, the Earl of Bedford, two secretaries of state and the queen. As the prosecution was so weak and the defense made by Campion was so unassailable, everyone expected an acquittal, but to their amazement, a verdict of guilty was brought in. "The trial," says Hallam, "was as unfairly conducted and supported by as slender evidence as can be found in our books." (Constitutional History of England, I, 146.)
When the presiding judge asked the accused if they had anything to say, Campion replied: "The only thing that we have now to say is that if our religion makes us traitors we are worthy to be condemned, but otherwise we are and have been as true subjects as ever the queen had. In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors, all that was once the glory of England, the Island of Saints, and the most devoted child of the See of St. Peter. For what have we taught, however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned along with those who were the glory not of England alone but of the whole world by their degenerate descendants is both glory and gladness to us. God lives; posterity will live, and their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to condemn us to death." When the sentence was uttered, Campion lifting up his voice intoned the "Te Deum laudamus" in which the others joined, following with the anthem "Hæc est dies quam fecit Dominus, exultemus et lætemur in ea" (This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and exult in it.) There were conversions in the courtroom that day.
The scene at the scaffold on December 1, was characterized by the brutality of savages. The victims were placed on hurdles and dragged through the streets to Tyburn. Campion was the first to mount the fatal cart, and when the rope was put about his neck and he was addressing the crowd that thronged around, Knowles interrupted him with, "Stop your preaching and confess yourself a traitor." To which Campion replied, "If it be a crime to be a Catholic, I am a traitor." He continued to speak, but the cart was drawn from under him and he was left dangling in the air. Before he breathed his last he was cut down, his heart was torn out and the hangman holding it aloft in his bloody hand, cried out, "Behold the heart of a traitor!" and flung it into the fire. Alexander Briant and Ralph Sherwin then met the same fate. Previous to this gruesome tragedy, 4,000 people had been won back to the Faith.