God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England

by Childs, Jessie

  The prison was a short ride along Fleet Street from Leicester House. If the prisoners were permitted the honour of arriving by boat, it was a quick journey down the Thames to Blackfriars and up the Fleet River, which marked the boundary between Westminster and the City. The river was the epitome of squalid London, its foul waters swallowed the waste of each street, its ‘stinking lanes’ welcomed disease and allowed it to linger. The prison was situated on the east bank and was surrounded by a moat that Londoners were inclined to use as an open lavatory. When the poet Earl of Surrey had been a prisoner there in 1542, he had feared contamination from its ‘pestilent airs’. In the reign of Mary I, Bishop Hooper, imprisoned for his Protestantism, had complained that ‘the stench of the house hath infected me with sundry diseases’.fn2 13

  Sir Thomas Tresham was quick to join the chorus of disapproval. A fortnight after their committal, he complained of the ‘noisome and moist imprisonment’. He was furious that ‘brawlers, fighters, unthrifty and loose people’ were allowed the liberty of the prison, while he, Vaux and other gentlemen ‘in for their consciences’ had to suffer the indignity of close imprisonment. This was not solitary confinement, but as Vaux wrote in October, ‘none may speak with me, but by warrant in the presence of the warden or his deputy’.14

  Nevertheless, the Fleet was, by common consent, the best prison in London and for those who could afford them a few ‘luxuries’ were permitted. Vaux and Tresham both had bedchambers, if sparsely furnished, and each was allowed a servant. They clearly also had access to writing materials, even if Tresham had to scribble a hasty conclusion to one letter, ‘hearing my jailor bustling at my door, who in no wise may be knowing hereof’. They could stretch their legs down their ‘accustomed walking alley along the brick wall in the Fleet garden’ and they had the honour of dining with the warden, his wife, fellow prisoners and occasional guests from outside. On 3 September, in the presence of Vaux and some other prisoners, Tresham initiated an after-dinner debate on transubstantiation with a visiting Protestant theologian, Dr Lilly, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. It was a ‘friendly controversy’ and when ‘jailor’s restraint (to whose beck I now am taught without all gainsay servilly to bow)’ ordered the prisoners back to their chambers, Lilly lent Tresham a book, which he returned a few days later with a long letter of thanks.15

  The following month, Lord Vaux received distressing news from Northamptonshire. His kinsman Robert Mulsho, talking to his servant Carrington, had expressed regret that Vaux should have railed so lewdly and unfairly against the Montagus of Boughton. Apparently Vaux’s cousin, neighbour and, until now, ‘ever reputed good friend’ William Lane had told Lady Montagu that Vaux was a ‘backbiter and defamer’. He had, said Lane, been telling tales about the ‘evil’ treatment he had recently received at Boughton, protesting that he was ‘almost famished for want of necessary relief of entertainment and diet’. Lady Montagu was understandably upset. As soon as the report came to Vaux in the Fleet, he went to Tresham, who drafted a letter for him to send to Lady Montagu disclaiming all the rumours.

  ‘Good Madam,’ it begins, it is ‘a world’s wonder’ that Lane could ‘so violate the rules of true Christian charity’ as to ‘contrive to add affliction to affliction’ by his slanders ‘against me in my present inexpected and deep disgrace’. Assuring Lady Montagu of his esteem, love and reverence, he asked her to

  mark withal the cunning couching of this shameless slander to be now raised in the time of my absence forth of the country, and in my restraint of liberty and close imprisonment here, when by all likelihood I should never have heard thereof. O wicked devise. O devilish drift. Better be the words of a true friend than a Judas kiss of a covert enemy.

  The ‘daily experience’ of his adversity had taught Vaux to distinguish between fast and ‘faint friends’, yet he could not conceive a reason for Lane to have become ‘so extreme an enemy to my honour and reputation, as vainly and loosely to suggest things neither spoken, nor once thought of by me’. He protests that he has never been ‘a brabbling backbiter’, as ‘the testimony of all my neighbours’ will confirm. The Montagus are ‘dear’ friends. ‘I was always welcome’ at Boughton, ‘and so did I hold myself’. There was no truth in the slander: ‘I never said so: nay further I say, I protest I never had any such thought, which I will aver to the face of him whosoever, to his utter shame and reproof, that dareth to gainsay it.’

  Had the letter ended there, it would have been so much the better. But Vaux had been offended by Lady Montagu’s credulity and he proceeded to offer a homily on the evils of detraction and the folly of listening to ‘lying lips’. It was a ‘necessary lesson fit for us to learn in these wicked days, that if we frequent the company of lewd and perverse [people], we also shall be perverted’.

  The author acknowledged that his letter might be ‘tedious reading’, but felt compelled – now that ‘all unkindness at once should be shuffled forth’ – to lay one more card on the table. This was Lady Montagu’s ‘somewhat too zealous’ attempt to discuss religion with him. Vaux had clearly not forgiven her for what he deemed untimely and inappropriate behaviour, ‘and that in the presence of your husband’. One lecture deserved another:

  since St Paul admonisheth that women should learn in silence and in subjection, and that in their houses they themselves should learn by demanding of their husbands, who doth not permit them to teach in their presence but to be in silence. For silence extolleth womanly shamefastness and such comely shamefastness adorneth their age.

  ‘At which time, Madam,’ the letter finally concludes, ‘if I anything, as haply in reply, I might offend you, I pray pardon thereof, for I had no intention to minister offence to you. And what then passed from you to me, God forgive me, as I therein forgive you.’ Commending himself to the Montagus, Vaux signed off, ‘not doubting but we shall many times meet and be merry’.16

  We are none the wiser as to what had ‘then passed’ at Boughton between Lord Vaux and Lady Montagu – perhaps a hearty slanging match – but it was probably the seed of all subsequent rumour and the reason for Lady Montagu’s credulity. Nor do we know if Lord Vaux ever sent this letter or even approved of it in this form. It was conserved among the Tresham Papers at Rushton Hall alongside another folio containing an alternative paragraph and some biblical extracts on detraction. There is no record of the letter in the Montagu archive. It was written in a very neat hand, possibly Tresham’s. The tone, punctuation, vocabulary and style all bear Tresham’s hallmark, and at the end of the page, under the heading ‘The contents of this letter’, is an outline of the main points. This is written in Tresham’s usual hand and ends, ‘if you think the letter too long, you may leave out any of these 5 points’.17 There can be no doubt, therefore, that Tresham ghosted the letter for Vaux. He provided substance and his inimitable style to Vaux’s sentiments. He may even have influenced those sentiments, but the final decision on what to include or omit lay with Vaux.

  This was the first of many subsequent letters drafted by Tresham for his brother-in-law. Although Vaux was senior in age and superior in status, he allowed Tresham to dominate almost every aspect of his life, recognising in him a keener intellect, a sharper head for business, a better way with words and a more complex and combative mindset. Tresham was a leader – self-conscious and self-appointed; Vaux was a follower – unassuming and unspectacular, but no less committed a Catholic.

  Their families went back a long way, beyond the Wars of the Roses, and their interests were tied up in a myriad of trusts, testaments, indentures and leases. Their shared faith – and shared suffering in that faith – created a bond that could never be broken. As Tresham would write in 1590, Lord Vaux had ‘loved me longest, esteemed me dearest, and by the space of full twenty-seven years (in matters of greatest weight) most trust in me hath over reposed’.18 In other words, ever since his marriage to Mary Tresham around 1563, Vaux had sought her brother’s guidance. There is an implied weakness in his deference to Tresham. He was impressionab
le and it seems that imprisonment, poor health and financial hardship would diminish him. Sir John Roper, whose daughter would marry Vaux’s son George, called him ‘the simple Lord Vaux’ in 1590, and there is an interesting reference by Tresham in 1594 to Vaux’s ‘deafness’ – perhaps one reason for his over-reliance on his wife’s brother.19 But Vaux had heard Lady Montagu’s lecture loud and clear in 1581 and his offence at her behaviour – even if subsequently ventriloquised by Tresham – was genuine. As contempt proceedings against Vaux and his fellow prisoners loomed, he may once again have sought Tresham’s advice, but he knew that when the time would come, he would have to stand up in the Star Chamber and speak for himself.

  The time came three months into his imprisonment. On Wednesday, 15 November 1581, the day after Campion had pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, Lord Vaux was tried in the Star Chamber.20 He stood at the bar with Tresham, Sir William Catesby and three others. They faced a phalanx of dignitaries that included Lord Chancellor Bromley, the Earl of Leicester, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Francis Knollys and two Chief Justices. The prosecution was led by the Attorney General, John Popham. After an exordium on the Pope’s seditious interference in the Queen’s affairs, Popham accused the defendants of having received the ‘renegate’ Jesuit Edmund Campion into their homes. Further, they had contemptuously refused to swear on oath, or even upon their allegiance or honour, to the veracity of their testimonies provided during earlier interrogations.

  According to an eyewitness:

  the evidence read in that behalf was a confession of Mr Campion’s at the rack the [blank] of August last etc. before the Lieutenant of the Tower, Norton & Hammon. The content whereof was that he had been at the house of the Lord Vaux sundry times, at Sir Thomas Tresham’s house, at Mr Griffin’s of Northamptonshire, where also the Lady Tresham then was, and at the house of Sir William Catesby, where Sir Thomas Tresham & his lady then was. Also at one time when he was at the Lord Vaux’s, he said that the Lord Compton was there, but not mentioning conference with them or the like.

  In corroboration, the letter that Campion had written to Thomas Pounde was produced, ‘wherein he did take notice that by frailty he had confessed of some houses where he had been, which now he repented him, and desired Mr Pounde to beg him pardon of the Catholics therein, saying in this he only rejoiced that he had discovered no things of secret’. These were the secrets of the confessional that Campion would protest at his own trial on 20 November that he would never divulge ‘come rack, come rope’. Campion’s clarification of this point in his letter must surely be seen as an acknowledgement that he did indeed write it, even though it no longer survives. However, Lord Vaux and his fellow defendants were tried five days before Campion. They probably suspected, or hoped, that the letter and the confession, read aloud but not examined by them, were forgeries. The government could have received information about Campion’s sojourn in Northamptonshire from someone else. Lord Vaux’s experience with the Montagus had shown that there were men in the county who bore him ill will. Even if Vaux suspected that Campion had given his name away, the evidence presented here was vague and, as the Queen’s Counsel admitted, extorted under torture.

  As the highest-ranked defendant, Lord Vaux was tried first. Ordered to affirm or deny Campion’s statement, he made ‘an humble & lowly obedience’, but the Earl of Leicester apparently discerned ‘some want of duty or reverence therein’ and pointed it out to the Chancellor.

  Lord Chancellor: My Lord, doth it become you so unreverently to presume to make answer with only bowing of your leg in so high an offence as this is that you have committed against her Majesty? No, it little beseemeth you & greatly is to be disliked.

  Lord Vaux: My Lords all, if I have failed in any part of my duty, I humbly pray pardon, for I had intention not to offend therein (God is my judge). And the rather I hope you will pardon it in me, who through ignorance hath committed this error, being erst never acquainted with the answering of any like cause in this court or any other court.

  All this, the record states, ‘he spake upon his knee, and so continued kneeling’ for the rest of his hearing.

  Lord Chancellor: Answer to the matter that her Majesty’s attorney hath charged you withal. Do you confess it or deny it?

  Lord Vaux: My Lords, I acknowledge all to be true that I am charged withal concerning my refusal to swear, and withal do affirm my examination taken before Sir Walter Mildmay to be true, offering now, as always heretofore I have done, to depose to any interrogatories that concern my loyalty to her Majesty or duty to the state, requiring all only to be exempted to depose in matters of conscience, which without offending of my conscience grievously, I may not consent to do. With further offer that if I be not a most true & faithful subject to her Majesty, show me no favour, but cut me off forthwith, at whose commandment my goods, my lands & my life ever hath been & ever shall be most ready in all duty to be employed. And as to the receiving of Mr Campion (albeit I confess he was schoolmaster to some of my boys), yet I deny that he was at my house. I say that he was not there to my knowledge, whereof reprove me & let me be punished with the punishment I deserve.

  Lord Chancellor: You have denied it unsworn. Why do you refuse to swear it? Nay, you were but required to say it upon your honour and withal but to your knowledge. And the favour you had also showed you, that Campion’s examination in that point was read unto you, wherein he confessed to have been at your house.

  ‘I had good reason for my denial,’ Vaux replied, but he would not swear to it or affirm it upon his honour – ‘which to us noblemen is [the] same that an oath is to others’ – because, he said, ‘I would not hazard the same to be impeached by untrue accusation.’

  Lord Chancellor: You see he hath said herein what he can. You may proceed with Sir Thomas Tresham.

  Lord Vaux: Thus much I humbly pray of your honours that if I have committed any offence herein, that you would not impute it to contemptuous obstinacy, but rather to fear of offending my conscience.

  Tresham’s defence was also mounted upon the rock of his conscience, but it went a great deal further than Vaux’s rebuttal. He fell to his knees and began to question the prosecution’s case: ‘You have charged me generally with sundry times receiving of Mr Campion. I pray you limit the times & places [so] that my answer may be particular & direct.’ Tresham had already written to the Lords and prepared detailed notes on the harbouring charge. His defence essentially boiled down to this: he owned a large house and people came and went all the time. Sometimes he had as many as a hundred guests in his house, but he was not introduced to them all. Campion, he was told, frequently went about in disguise and under an alias, so although Tresham had no recollection of his visit, he risked perjuring himself with an emphatic denial. ‘Mr Campion might have been in my company, might have been in my house, and also might have had conference with me, and notwithstanding pass from me unknown.’21

  The Lords in the Star Chamber were not at all keen to debate this point, choosing instead to focus on the contempt charge. Tresham responded with a long, sophisticated discourse on the true nature of an oath and the relative jurisdictions of the temporal and spiritual spheres. Drawing on ‘learned schoolmen & deep divines’, he put it to the court that an oath without judgement or justice was indiscreet and illicit. Every scenario open to him – confirming or denying Campion’s true confession or confirming or denying his false confession – made him liable to offend the laws of nature or of God. Even if he attested on oath to the truth of Campion’s confession, it would render him ‘an egregious liar’ according to his former denial. Moreover:

  I should greatly sin uncharitably to belie him, to make him and myself both guilty by my oath, who to my knowledge are most innocent, which I am by God’s word expressly forbidden. Lastly, I should commit a grievous sin to swear against the knowledge of my own conscience.

  The individual, Tresham maintained, had a duty to obey the laws of God as he understood them. He would be more than happy, just as Vaux had be
en, to swear loyalty to the Queen, but he could not be forced into making an invalid oath, no more than he could be coerced into committing a sin:

  Some things be proper to God, others to Caesar, which we may not confound. But in this, it being no mere temporal demand but a matter in conscience & thereby concerneth my soul, I am to have such special regard hereto in this my oath before your honours, as I may be able to make my account before the majesty of Almighty God at the dreadful day of judgement.

  In other words, God trumped Caesar. This was the great ideological issue of the age: dual allegiance, religion or politics, conscience set against the state. Like the Jesuits at the Synod of Southwark, Tresham was challenging the legitimacy of state power. It had its limitations, he argued, and should be confined to the temporal sphere. In spiritual matters, the individual had the right to refuse to obey dictates that offended divine law. Tresham’s case amounted, one historian has argued, to ‘a slippery and compelling theory of resistance’, albeit impeccably couched in the language of obedience.22

  The judges were infuriated by Tresham and realised that he had used the trial to make a broader point. Lord Hunsdon accused him of having ‘studied & premeditated his argument’ in order ‘to incense the ears of so great an assembly and thereby (as it were) to premonish all Catholics by his example how to answer and how to behave themselves in like cases’. The other defendants also claimed scruples of conscience in refusing to swear. Sir William Catesby and Tresham ‘tell both one tale,’ Hunsdon noted, so ‘they have had both one schoolmaster’. Catesby retorted that indeed they had one schoolmaster, ‘that is God, who teacheth us to speak truth’.