The prisoners were carried up to London and committed to the Tower, making their entrance into the city through the midst of a hooting mob, Campion leading the procession with his elbows tied behind him, his hands tied in front, his feet fastened under his horse's belly, and a placard on his hat, inscribed "Campion, the seditious Jesuit." The governor, Sir Owen Hopton, at first placed Campion in the narrow dungeon known as "Little-ease," in which one could neither stand nor lie at length. He remained there until the fourth day, when, with great secrecy, he was conducted to Leicester's house, and courteously received by the earl and several other persons of mark, and shortly found himself in the presence of the queen. He gave a truthful account of his motives in coming to England; he satisfied Elizabeth, as it would appear, of his loyalty; and could he have accepted the conditions proposed to him, he might have been dismissed with honors and riches. As it was, Hopton received orders to treat him more leniently. It was now the purpose of the government to coax him into compliance.
Failing to shake his constancy, the next thing was to destroy his reputation. It was given out that he was on the point of recanting; that he had betrayed his friends; that he had divulged the names of the gentlemen who harbored him. To give color to these charges, a great many Catholics were arrested, in consequence, it was said, of Campion's confession. For a while these infamous charges, fortified with plausible confirmation, were generally believed; but it was soon ascertained that the betrayal had been wrung from some of Campion's companions on the rack. To render the missionary contemptible, it was thought necessary to answer his challenge for a public disputation in some way or another, and a large number of the most eminent Anglican divines were appointed to meet him in a public hall and discuss the chief points of controversy. They had all the time they wanted to prepare, free access to libraries, and every possible favor. Campion was not informed of the arrangement until two hours before the assembly opened. Then, with his limbs still smarting from the torment of the rack, he was placed in the middle of the room, without books, without even a table to lean upon, with no assistance whatever, except the assistance of heaven. The dispute continued several days. It was distinguished, as might have been supposed, by gross unfairness and bad language on the part of the Protestants, while Campion conciliated all honest-minded listeners, not only by the acuteness of his answers, but by his mild and affectionate spirit. Though he had been educated to a familiarity with dialectics, and lived in a day when controversy was an almost universal passion, he was far from being a disputatious man, and the odium theologicum had no place in his warm and tender heart. With all the advantage given to the Protestant side, it was evident that the Catholics were profiting by the conferences, and the government abruptly closed them. But it was too late. Campion's fame was restored; the slanders against him had been refuted; and the popular enthusiasm broke forth in ballads, of which Mr. Simpson gives a sample.
Nothing remained now but to try him for treason. It was first proposed to indict him for having on a certain day in Oxfordshire traitorously pretended to have power to absolve her majesty's subjects from their allegiance, and endeavored to attach them to the obedience of the pope and the faith of the Roman church; but this was too plainly a religious prosecution. A plot was therefore forged, which it was pretended that Campion, Allen, Morton, Parsons, and fourteen priests and others then in custody, had concerted at Rome and Rheims to dethrone the queen and raise a civil war. On this charge Campion, Sherwin, Cottam, and five others, were arraigned at Westminster Hall on the 14th of November. When Campion was called upon, according to custom, to hold up his hands in pleading, his arms were so cruelly wounded by the rack that he could not lift them without assistance. The trial took place on the 20th. The principal witnesses for the crown were George Eliot and three hired wretches named Munday, Sledd, and Caddy, who pretended to have observed the meetings of the conspirators at Rome; but their testimony was so weak, and the answers of Campion so admirable, that when the jury retired it was generally believed in court that the verdict must be one of acquittal. Court and jury, however, had been bought beforehand. The prisoners were all found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Then Campion broke forth in a loud hymn of praise, "Te Deum laudamus" and Sherwin and others took up the song, until the multitude were visibly affected.
After he had been remanded to the Tower, the traitor Eliot came to his cell, and Campion received him so sweetly, forgiving his offence, and offering to provide for him an asylum with a Catholic noble in Germany, whither he might escape from the odium and danger which haunted him at home, that the keeper, who witnessed the interview was induced by it to become a Catholic. The few days which intervened between conviction and death were passed by the holy man in fasting and other mortifications. The execution was appointed for the 29th of November. Campion, Sherwin, and Briant were to suffer together. At the execution Campion was interrupted by a long dialogue respecting his alleged treason, and subjected to a great deal of questioning. Somebody asked him to pray for the queen. While he was doing so, the cart was drawn away, amid the tears and groans of the multitude, and his body left dangling in the air.
So ended the good fight. Sherwin and Briant met their fate with like joy and constancy, and many another good priest and devoted layman trod afterward in the same awful but glorious path. And as it has been since the days of St. Stephen, the blood of the martyrs proved the seed of the church. Henry Walpole estimated that no fewer than ten thousand persons were converted by the spectacle of Champion's death. That is probably an exaggeration; but it is certain that the execution had a marked effect upon the progress of the faith in England, and covered the Anglican clergy with an odium from which they were long in recovering.
Of the life by Mr. Simpson, upon which we have so freely drawn for the materials of this hasty sketch, we must not close without a word of praise. Written originally for a monthly periodical, and long interrupted by the failure of that publication, it lacks the neat finish and compactness which the author would probably have given it, had it been composed under more favorable circumstances. But it has evidently been prepared with great industry; it is written in a good style; and with a little judicious pruning and rearrangement, it will make one of the most interesting of modern religious biographies.