St. Robert Southwell SJ (1561-1595)

Robert Southwell was born into a recusant family in Norfolk. Like so many of his generation, he had to go abroad for a Catholic education; he studied first at Douai and then in Paris. While he was still only 16, he decided he wanted to join the Jesuits, but was turned down as being too young. So he walked from Paris to Rome, and entered the Society in 1578. After his two years' novitiate, and a fairly rapid course in philosophy and theology, he was ordained in 1584, and sent to be prefect of studies at the English College in Rome, where diocesan priests were being trained for the English mission.
After two years there, he was himself sent to England, where he worked in and around London. He lived with various Catholic families, especially the Countess of Arundel, whose husband, Philip Howard, was in the Tower of London for being a Catholic. One of the greatest pieces of writing in English of that age was the collection of letters that Southwell wrote to Howard, published as An Epistle of Comfort for all those imprisoned for their faith.

Sadly, he was in the end betrayed by a Catholic girl, whose spirit had been broken, while she was in prison for not going to Protestant services. She arranged a rendezvous with Southwell, and there to meet him instead was Richard Topcliffe, one of the most unpleasant and sadistic torturers of Elizabeth’s  reign. Southwell had an almost feminine beauty about him, and Topcliffe ma have thought that he would be easily broken. But there was steel in Robert Southwell. Though Topcliffe tortured him no less than 13 times, the only piece of information he elicited was that he was a Jesuit priest who had come to England to preach Catholicism, and that he was ready to die for the cause.

In despair, the authorities left him to rot in the paupers' prison. His father visited him there, and was so horrified at his son's condition that he petitioned the Queen that Robert should either be executed or at least properly housed. So he was moved to the Tower, where he remained for over two years. His father was allowed to send things to him, and Robert wrote a good many of his best poems during this time; but he was permitted no visitors. Finally he wrote to Lord Burghley asking to be tried, or released, or allowed visitors. So he was given a show-trial, found guilty of high treason, and hanged the next day. When he was told that morning by his gaoler that he was to be hanged, he replied that he could not have had more joyful news. So he was dragged on the hurdle to Tyburn and painfully executed.

from Fr. Nick King SJ, Jesuit Companions, The Southern Cross and CB Publishing, Cape Town