Bienheureux Thomas Pormort, prêtre et martyr
Né vers 1560 dans le
Lincolnshire, il étudie à Cambridge et poursuit ses études ecclésiastiques à
Reims et au collège anglais de Rome où il est ordonné prêtre en 1587. Au
service de l’évêque de Cassano, puis envoyé à Milan, il revient dans sa patrie
et rencontre à Londres saint Robert Southwell. Malgré bien des précautions, il
est arrêté en juillet 1591, réussit à s’échapper, mais, repris de nouveau, il
est emprisonné, torturé puis pendu le 20 février 1592, près de Saint-Paul.
Bienheureux Thomas Pormort
prêtre et martyr en
Angleterre (✝ 1592)
Né dans le
Lincolnshire vers 1560, il étudie à Cambridge puis fait ses études
ecclésiastiques à Reims en France et au collège anglais de Rome où il est
ordonné prêtre en 1587. Il est d'abord au service de l'évêque de Cassano puis à
Milan et est ensuite envoyé à Londres où il rencontre et sympathise avec saint Robert
Southwell. Malgré bien des précautions, il est arrêté en juillet
1591, il réussit à s'échapper mais est de nouveau arrêté et emprisonné. Il fut
torturé puis exécuté le 20 février 1592. Béatifié le 22 novembre 1987.
À Londres, en 1592, le bienheureux Thomas Pormort, prêtre et martyr. À
cause de son sacerdoce, sous la reine Élisabeth Ière, il fut cruellement
torturé en prison, puis soumis au supplice de la pendaison près de Saint-Paul.
Martyrologe
romain
Thomas
Pormort était un prêtre catholique anglais. Il fut béatifié en 1987.
Vie
Vie
Il était
probablement lié à la famille de Pormort de Grande Grimsby et Saltfletby,
Lincolnshire. Après avoir reçu une certaine éducation à Cambridge, il est allé
à Reims, le 15 Janvier 1581, et à partir de là, le 20 Mars suivant, à Rome, où
il fut ordonné prêtre en 1587. Il est entré dans la maison de Owen Lewis,
évêque de Cassano, le 6 Mars 1587 .
Le 25 Avril 1590,
Pormort devenu préfet des études à la Haute école suisse à Milan. Il était
soulagé de ce bureau, et a commencé pour l'Angleterre, le 15 Septembre, sans
attendre ses facultés. Traversée du col du Saint-Gothard, il a atteint
Bruxelles avant le 29 Novembre. Là, il est devenu serviteur à Mme Geoffrey
Pôle, sous le nom de Whitgift, le protestant archevêque Whitgift être son
parrain. Avec elle, il est allé à Anvers, avec l'intention de procéder à
Flushing, et de là en Angleterre.
Il a été arrêté à Londres le
jour de la Saint-James, 1591, mais il a réussi à se échapper. En Août ou
Septembre, 1591, il a été repris, et se engage à Bridewell, d'où il a été
retiré à la maison de Topcliffe. Il a été maintes fois soutiré et a subi une rupture
en conséquence. Le 8 Février suivant, il a été reconnu coupable de haute
trahison pour être un prêtre séminaire, et pour concilier John Barwys ou
Burrows, mercerie, à l'Église catholique. Il a plaidé qu'il ne avait pas les
facultés; mais il a été reconnu coupable.
Au bar, il a accusé d'avoir vanté Topcliffe lui des familiarités
indécentes avec la Reine. Ainsi Topcliffe obtenu un mandamus au shérif de
procéder à l'exécution, si archevêque Whitgift se efforça de retarder et faire
son filleul conforme, et bien Pormort aurait admis conférence avec les
ministres protestants. Le gibet a été érigé en face de la boutique de la
mercerie et Portmore a été maintenu debout deux heures sur l'échelle, tandis
que Topcliffe vain l'a invité à retirer son accusation.
Ven. Thomas Pormort
English martyr, b. at Hull about 1559; d. at St. Paul's Churchyard,
20 Feb., 1592. He was probably related to the family of Pormort of Great Grimsby
and Saltfletby, Lincoln shire. George
Pormort, Mayor of Grimsby in
1565, had a second son Thomas baptized, 7 February, 1566, but this can hardly be the martyr. After receiving some education at Cambridge, he went to Rheims, 15 January, 1581, and thence, 20 March following, to Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1587. He entered the household of Owen
Lewis, Bishop of Cassano,
6 March, 1587. On 25 April, 1590, Pormort became prefect
of studies in the Swiss college at Milan. He was relieved of this office, and started for England, 15 September, without waiting for his faculties.
Crossing the St. Gotthard Pass,
he reached Brussels before 29 November. There he became man
servant to Mrs. Geoffrey Pole, under the name of Whitgift,
the Protestant archbishop being his godfather. With her he went to Antwerp, intending to proceed to
Flushing, and thence to England. He was arrested in London on St. James's Day (25
July), 1591, but he managed to escape. In August or September, 1591, he was
again taken, and committed to Bridewell, whence he was removed to Topcliffe's
house. He was repeatedly racked and sustained a rupture in consequence. On 8
February following he was convicted of high treason for being a seminary priest, and for reconciling John Barwys, or Burrows,
haberdasher. He pleaded that he had no faculties;
but he was found guilty. At the bar he accused Topcliffe of having boasted to
him of indecent familiarities
with the queen. Hence Topcliffe obtained a mandamus to the sheriff to proceed
with the execution, though Archbishop
Whitgift endeavoured to delay it
and make his godson conform, and though (it is said) Pormort would have
admitted conference with Protestant ministers. The gibbet was erected over against the
haberdasher's shop, and the martyr was kept standing two hours in his shirt upon the ladder on a very cold
day, while Topcliffe vainly urged him to withdraw his accusation.
Sources
POLLEN,
English Martyrs 1584-1603 (London, 1908), 187-190, 200-2, 208-10, 292; Acts of
the English Martyrs (London, 1891), 118-20; CHALLONER, Missionary Priests, I,
no. 95; GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.; Harleian Society Publications,
LII (London, 1904), 790; KNOX, Douay Diaries (London, 1878), 174-7.
Wainewright, John. "Ven. Thomas Pormort." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 21 Feb. 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12282a.htm>.
Transcription. This article
was transcribed for New Advent by John Paul Bradford.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John
Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12282a.htm
Monday, February
20, 2012
Blessed Thomas
Pormort, the Pole Family, John Whitgift, and Richard Topcliffe
Henry Pole (bef. 1570-aft. 1570), Arthur Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (c. 1575-murdered, Rome, 23 June 1605), who was educated at the Palazzo Farnese, in Rome, Italy, along with the son of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, and became Lord of the Manor of Walderton, Sussex, and a Member of the Household of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, unmarried and without issue, and Geoffrey Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (c. 1577-assassinated, Rome, bef. 7 January 1619), who was educated at the seminaries, in Douai, France, and at the English College, in Rome, Italy, unmarried and without issue. Now why Arthur was murdered in Rome on 23 June 1605 and Geoffrey assasinated in Rome sometime before 7 January 1619, I have not been able to ascertain.
The Whitgift mentioned is John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, nominated by Elizabeth I in 1583, after the death of William Grindal, her second Archbishop of Canterbury.
Richard Topcliffe, is, of course, Queen Elizabeth's servant, with the duties of finding and torturing priests. The History of Parliament website provides some detail of his career, with definite hints of unpopularity:
The time and manner of Topcliffe’s entry into public service are alike uncertain. The earliest reference to him as ‘her Majesty’s servant’ dates only from March 1573; but his own claim, made in June 1601, to have done 44 years’ service places its beginning much earlier, and indeed hints at a possible entry into Elizabeth’s retinue before her accession. . . .
Before the third and final session of this Parliament, in 1581, Topcliffe had begun his career as an interrogator of suspects. It is likely that he was drawn into this business both through his continuing interest in the northern rebels and by his attachment to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the custodian of Mary Stuart. It was at Shrewsbury’s instance that in 1578 Topcliffe helped to investigate the activities of some of the ex-rebels, and it was to the Earl that he reported on these and other matters. But it may well have been the anti-Catholic legislation of the parliamentary session of 1581 which determined that Catholic-hunting should become Topcliffe’s life-work. Although we know next to nothing of his part in that session (he was on one minor legal committee, 20 Feb.) his mounting activity in investigation from early in 1582 seems to reflect an accession of zeal as well as an expansion of opportunity. By the time the next Parliament met in the autumn of 1584 Topcliffe could be ranked with the notorious Richard Young as an acknowledged master of this ugly craft.
In that Parliament, and its successor, Topcliffe sat for Old Sarum, a borough whose patron, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, was son-in-law to Topcliffe’s protector Shrewsbury. In 1584-5 we hear little of him, although he was, interestingly enough, one of four Members appointed to examine a skinner found sitting in the House without authority at the end of November. His membership of a committee to confer with the Lords, 18 Feb. 1585, on the bill against Jesuits and Catholic priests must also have been to his liking. He sat on one other recorded committee, 17 Mar., on the preservation of game. But in 1587 he came to the fore. On 24 Feb. he told the Commons of the Romish ‘trumpery’ discovered in a house near where they were sitting, and he was one of the Members named the same day to search suspected houses in Westminster. A few days later he endorsed Edward Donne Lee’s denunciation of the state of the church and called upon all Members to report ‘disorders’ in their counties, as he offered to do. Topcliffe was on the committee of a bill for East Retford (10 Mar.) and on the subsidy committee (11 Mar.).
The next 15 years of Topcliffe’s life were to make his name synonymous with the worst rigours of the Elizabethan struggle against Catholicism. It is clear that in much of what he did Topcliffe was acting under orders—whether under a commission such as that of March 1593 against Jesuits or under one of the numerous Council warrants to him to use torture—and that those who gave him these orders must share the odium of their consequences. Moreover, his superiors made only spasmodic efforts to restrain him. His brutal treatment of Southwell in 1592 cost him a spell in prison; in 1595, following the disclosure of Thomas Fitzherbert’s attempt to bribe him into doing two of the Fitzherberts to death, Topcliffe was again committed for a few weeks for maligning Privy Councillors; and early in 1596 he had to answer to the Council for his arbitrary behaviour towards prisoners in the Gatehouse. But every check was followed by a fresh outburst of activity, and only in his last few years did the moderating of official policy, and the failing of his own vigour, bring it to an end.
The gravamen of the indictment of Topcliffe is that he displayed an unmistakable and nauseating relish in the performance of his duties. On this the verdict of contemporaries is amply borne out by the evidence of his many letters and by the marginalia preserved in one of his books. It was, and is, easy to believe any evil of such a man; and to reflect that some of the worst accusations—among them that he reserved his most hideous tortures for infliction in his own house—rest upon fragile evidence is not to excuse him. Nor is there much profit in speculating on the influences which went to his making, although his early loss of both parents, the impact of rebellion upon his infant awareness, and perhaps some marital misfortunes might enter into the reckoning.
Of the general aversion which Topcliffe aroused his disappearance from the House of Commons after 1587 may be a reflection. In commending himself, in December 1590, to the newly succeeded 7th Earl of Shrewsbury he referred both to his emancipation from dependence upon Leicester and to his ‘unkind’ treatment by the 6th Earl, which perhaps included, or involved, the withdrawal of the nomination at Old Sarum. The new Earl’s quarrelsomeness was likely to make him an unsatisfactory patron, and Topcliffe’s own reputation may have stood in his way as a candidate for another seat. But his exclusion from the House did not deter him from meddling in its proceedings: in April 1593 he made ‘much stir’ in the Commons by spreading it abroad that the sheriff of Derbyshire, William Bassett II, was a harbourer of Papists. Since the House was then at the climax of its handling of a bill against religious dissidents Topcliffe perhaps hoped to influence that bill’s fate. . . .
Topcliffe’s domestic life was not without its difficulties. His marriage was clouded at least for a time by his alleged failure to pay his wife adequate maintenance. In his later years the criminal escapades of his eldest son, Charles, gave him much anxiety, and in January 1602 Sir Robert Cecil chided him for not having this wayward son ‘cleansed’. He also had the humiliation of seeing his nephew Edmund Topcliffe fall under suspicion on his return in May 1600 from a voyage abroad, during which he had assumed another name because of the ill-repute of his own.
Topcliffe had a house in Westminster from at least the end of 1571, when we know that it was burgled, clothes worth over £50 being stolen from the owner, besides other goods probably belonging to Topcliffe’s servants: the articles stolen from Topcliffe suggest that he maintained a good wardrobe. It was in this house, or an adjacent successor, that he was accused of torturing prisoners: but its nearness to the Gatehouse prison may have led to confusion between them.
Thomas Pormort nacque verso il 1592 a Little Limber nel Lincolnshire dai genitori Gregorio ed Anna. Dopo aver frequentato il Trinity College di Cambridge, si trasferì all’estero per intraprendere gli studi ecclesiastici: il 15 gennaio 1581 venne giunse a Reims in Francia, ma dal maggio seguente fu inviato al Collegio inglese di Roma, ove ricevette l’ordinazione presbiterale sei anni dopo in Laterano.
Nel marzo 1588 lasciò il collegio e per un certo periodo servì Owen Lewis, vescovo di Cassano, nel regno di Napoli. Questi lo mandò prima a Milano e poi in Inghilterra, qui a Londra Thomas conobbe e strinse amicizia con San Robert Southwell, nonostante a Roma non avesse mai legato particolarmente con i gesuiti. Trovò rifugio nella parrocchia di San Gregorio presso il merciaio John Barwys che riuscì a riconciliare con la Chiesa. Il Pormort utilizzò per mascherare la sua identità tre diversi pseudomini: Whitgift, Meres e Price.
Nonostante tanti accorgimenti, fu comunque arrestato nel mese di luglio del 1591 in seguito alla testimonianza contro di lui da parte del sacerdote apostata William Tedder, già suo compagno di studi al Collegio inglese di Roma. Thomas riuscì ad evadere, ma fu nuovamente catturato in settembre ed imprigionato. Fu inoltre torturato nell’abitazione del famigerato Topcliffe, “cacciatore di preti”, ove era stat aallestita un’illegale camera di tortura.
L’8 febbraio 1592 Thomas Pormort venne processato insieme con John Barwys e per entrambi fu emessa la sentenza di condanna a morte. Il Barwys venne infine graziato, mentre il sacerdote venne giustiziato sul sagrato della chiesa di San Paolo il 20 febbraio.
Autore: Fabio Arduino
Blessed Thomas Pormort
Also
known as
- Thomas
Whitgift
- 21 February
- 22 November as one of the Martyrs of England, Scotland, and Wales
- 29 October as one of the Martyrs of Douai
Profile
Educated at Cambridge University. Studied at the seminary in Rheims, France in 1581, and then, beginning in 1582, in Rome, Italy. Ordained in 1587. Worked with Bishop Owen Lewis in the diocese of Cassano, Italy. Prefect of studies at the Swiss college in Milan, Italy on 25 April 1590. He returned to England, travellingunder the name Whitgift, and was arrested on 25 July 1591 in London for the crime of being a priest, but he escaped. Arrested again a couple of months later, he was imprisoned, racked and tortured for months. Convicted on 8 February 1592 of the crime of treason
for being a priest and conferring
reconciliation to an Englishman. Martyr.
Born
- hanged on 20 February 1592 at Saint Paul’s Churchyard, London, England on a gibbet erected next to the shop of the man
who’s confession he was accused of hearing
- 10 November 1986 by Pope John Paul II (decree of martyrdom)
Monday, February
20, 2012
Blessed Thomas
Pormort, the Pole Family, John Whitgift, and Richard Topcliffe
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
English martyr, b. at Hull about 1559; d. at St. Paul's Churchyard, 20 Feb., 1592. He was probably related to the family of Pormort of Great Grimsby and Saltfletby, Lincoln shire. George Pormort, Mayor of Grimsby in 1565, had a second son Thomas baptized, 7 February, 1566, but this can hardly be the martyr. After receiving some education at Cambridge, he went to Rheims, 15 January, 1581, and thence, 20 March following, to Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1587. He entered the household of Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, 6 March, 1587. On 25 April, 1590, Pormort became prefect of studies in the Swiss college at Milan. He was relieved of this office, and started for England, 15 September, without waiting for his faculties. Crossing the St. Gotthard Pass, he reached Brussels before 29 November. There he became man servant to Mrs. Geoffrey Pole, under the name of Whitgift, the Protestant archbishop being his godfather. With her he went to Antwerp, intending to proceed to Flushing, and thence to England. He was arrested in London on St. James's Day (25 July), 1591, but he managed to escape. In August or September, 1591, he was again taken, and committed to Bridewell, whence he was removed to Topcliffe's house. He was repeatedly racked and sustained a rupture in consequence. On 8 February following he was convicted of high treason for being a seminary priest, and for reconciling John Barwys, or Burrows, haberdasher. He pleaded that he had no faculties; but he was found guilty. At the bar he accused Topcliffe of having boasted to him of indecent familiarities with the queen. Hence Topcliffe obtained a mandamus to the sheriff to proceed with the execution, though Archbishop Whitgift endeavoured to delay it and make his godson conform, and though (it is said) Pormort would have admitted conference with Protestant ministers. The gibbet was erected over against the haberdasher's shop, and the martyr was kept standing two hours in his shirt upon the ladder on a very cold day, while Topcliffe vainly urged him to withdraw his accusation.
There are several interesting names in this account: Mrs. Geoffrey Pole might be Catherine Pole, the daughter-in-law of Sir Geoffrey Pole, Blessed Margaret Pole's youngest son. He died in 1558 before his brother, Reginald Cardinal Pole, and "He left five sons and six daughters, two of whom were married, and one a nun of Sion." One of his sons was Geoffrey Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (1546-before 9 March 1590/1591), who was educated at Winchester College, Winchester, Hampshire, married Catherine Dutton sometime before 1573, who died after 1608. Geoffrey and Catherine had three sons:
English martyr, b. at Hull about 1559; d. at St. Paul's Churchyard, 20 Feb., 1592. He was probably related to the family of Pormort of Great Grimsby and Saltfletby, Lincoln shire. George Pormort, Mayor of Grimsby in 1565, had a second son Thomas baptized, 7 February, 1566, but this can hardly be the martyr. After receiving some education at Cambridge, he went to Rheims, 15 January, 1581, and thence, 20 March following, to Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1587. He entered the household of Owen Lewis, Bishop of Cassano, 6 March, 1587. On 25 April, 1590, Pormort became prefect of studies in the Swiss college at Milan. He was relieved of this office, and started for England, 15 September, without waiting for his faculties. Crossing the St. Gotthard Pass, he reached Brussels before 29 November. There he became man servant to Mrs. Geoffrey Pole, under the name of Whitgift, the Protestant archbishop being his godfather. With her he went to Antwerp, intending to proceed to Flushing, and thence to England. He was arrested in London on St. James's Day (25 July), 1591, but he managed to escape. In August or September, 1591, he was again taken, and committed to Bridewell, whence he was removed to Topcliffe's house. He was repeatedly racked and sustained a rupture in consequence. On 8 February following he was convicted of high treason for being a seminary priest, and for reconciling John Barwys, or Burrows, haberdasher. He pleaded that he had no faculties; but he was found guilty. At the bar he accused Topcliffe of having boasted to him of indecent familiarities with the queen. Hence Topcliffe obtained a mandamus to the sheriff to proceed with the execution, though Archbishop Whitgift endeavoured to delay it and make his godson conform, and though (it is said) Pormort would have admitted conference with Protestant ministers. The gibbet was erected over against the haberdasher's shop, and the martyr was kept standing two hours in his shirt upon the ladder on a very cold day, while Topcliffe vainly urged him to withdraw his accusation.
There are several interesting names in this account: Mrs. Geoffrey Pole might be Catherine Pole, the daughter-in-law of Sir Geoffrey Pole, Blessed Margaret Pole's youngest son. He died in 1558 before his brother, Reginald Cardinal Pole, and "He left five sons and six daughters, two of whom were married, and one a nun of Sion." One of his sons was Geoffrey Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (1546-before 9 March 1590/1591), who was educated at Winchester College, Winchester, Hampshire, married Catherine Dutton sometime before 1573, who died after 1608. Geoffrey and Catherine had three sons:
Henry Pole (bef. 1570-aft. 1570), Arthur Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (c. 1575-murdered, Rome, 23 June 1605), who was educated at the Palazzo Farnese, in Rome, Italy, along with the son of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, and became Lord of the Manor of Walderton, Sussex, and a Member of the Household of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, unmarried and without issue, and Geoffrey Pole of Lordington, Sussex, and of West Stoke, Sussex (c. 1577-assassinated, Rome, bef. 7 January 1619), who was educated at the seminaries, in Douai, France, and at the English College, in Rome, Italy, unmarried and without issue. Now why Arthur was murdered in Rome on 23 June 1605 and Geoffrey assasinated in Rome sometime before 7 January 1619, I have not been able to ascertain.
The Whitgift mentioned is John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, nominated by Elizabeth I in 1583, after the death of William Grindal, her second Archbishop of Canterbury.
Richard Topcliffe, is, of course, Queen Elizabeth's servant, with the duties of finding and torturing priests. The History of Parliament website provides some detail of his career, with definite hints of unpopularity:
The time and manner of Topcliffe’s entry into public service are alike uncertain. The earliest reference to him as ‘her Majesty’s servant’ dates only from March 1573; but his own claim, made in June 1601, to have done 44 years’ service places its beginning much earlier, and indeed hints at a possible entry into Elizabeth’s retinue before her accession. . . .
Before the third and final session of this Parliament, in 1581, Topcliffe had begun his career as an interrogator of suspects. It is likely that he was drawn into this business both through his continuing interest in the northern rebels and by his attachment to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the custodian of Mary Stuart. It was at Shrewsbury’s instance that in 1578 Topcliffe helped to investigate the activities of some of the ex-rebels, and it was to the Earl that he reported on these and other matters. But it may well have been the anti-Catholic legislation of the parliamentary session of 1581 which determined that Catholic-hunting should become Topcliffe’s life-work. Although we know next to nothing of his part in that session (he was on one minor legal committee, 20 Feb.) his mounting activity in investigation from early in 1582 seems to reflect an accession of zeal as well as an expansion of opportunity. By the time the next Parliament met in the autumn of 1584 Topcliffe could be ranked with the notorious Richard Young as an acknowledged master of this ugly craft.
In that Parliament, and its successor, Topcliffe sat for Old Sarum, a borough whose patron, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, was son-in-law to Topcliffe’s protector Shrewsbury. In 1584-5 we hear little of him, although he was, interestingly enough, one of four Members appointed to examine a skinner found sitting in the House without authority at the end of November. His membership of a committee to confer with the Lords, 18 Feb. 1585, on the bill against Jesuits and Catholic priests must also have been to his liking. He sat on one other recorded committee, 17 Mar., on the preservation of game. But in 1587 he came to the fore. On 24 Feb. he told the Commons of the Romish ‘trumpery’ discovered in a house near where they were sitting, and he was one of the Members named the same day to search suspected houses in Westminster. A few days later he endorsed Edward Donne Lee’s denunciation of the state of the church and called upon all Members to report ‘disorders’ in their counties, as he offered to do. Topcliffe was on the committee of a bill for East Retford (10 Mar.) and on the subsidy committee (11 Mar.).
The next 15 years of Topcliffe’s life were to make his name synonymous with the worst rigours of the Elizabethan struggle against Catholicism. It is clear that in much of what he did Topcliffe was acting under orders—whether under a commission such as that of March 1593 against Jesuits or under one of the numerous Council warrants to him to use torture—and that those who gave him these orders must share the odium of their consequences. Moreover, his superiors made only spasmodic efforts to restrain him. His brutal treatment of Southwell in 1592 cost him a spell in prison; in 1595, following the disclosure of Thomas Fitzherbert’s attempt to bribe him into doing two of the Fitzherberts to death, Topcliffe was again committed for a few weeks for maligning Privy Councillors; and early in 1596 he had to answer to the Council for his arbitrary behaviour towards prisoners in the Gatehouse. But every check was followed by a fresh outburst of activity, and only in his last few years did the moderating of official policy, and the failing of his own vigour, bring it to an end.
The gravamen of the indictment of Topcliffe is that he displayed an unmistakable and nauseating relish in the performance of his duties. On this the verdict of contemporaries is amply borne out by the evidence of his many letters and by the marginalia preserved in one of his books. It was, and is, easy to believe any evil of such a man; and to reflect that some of the worst accusations—among them that he reserved his most hideous tortures for infliction in his own house—rest upon fragile evidence is not to excuse him. Nor is there much profit in speculating on the influences which went to his making, although his early loss of both parents, the impact of rebellion upon his infant awareness, and perhaps some marital misfortunes might enter into the reckoning.
Of the general aversion which Topcliffe aroused his disappearance from the House of Commons after 1587 may be a reflection. In commending himself, in December 1590, to the newly succeeded 7th Earl of Shrewsbury he referred both to his emancipation from dependence upon Leicester and to his ‘unkind’ treatment by the 6th Earl, which perhaps included, or involved, the withdrawal of the nomination at Old Sarum. The new Earl’s quarrelsomeness was likely to make him an unsatisfactory patron, and Topcliffe’s own reputation may have stood in his way as a candidate for another seat. But his exclusion from the House did not deter him from meddling in its proceedings: in April 1593 he made ‘much stir’ in the Commons by spreading it abroad that the sheriff of Derbyshire, William Bassett II, was a harbourer of Papists. Since the House was then at the climax of its handling of a bill against religious dissidents Topcliffe perhaps hoped to influence that bill’s fate. . . .
Topcliffe’s domestic life was not without its difficulties. His marriage was clouded at least for a time by his alleged failure to pay his wife adequate maintenance. In his later years the criminal escapades of his eldest son, Charles, gave him much anxiety, and in January 1602 Sir Robert Cecil chided him for not having this wayward son ‘cleansed’. He also had the humiliation of seeing his nephew Edmund Topcliffe fall under suspicion on his return in May 1600 from a voyage abroad, during which he had assumed another name because of the ill-repute of his own.
Topcliffe had a house in Westminster from at least the end of 1571, when we know that it was burgled, clothes worth over £50 being stolen from the owner, besides other goods probably belonging to Topcliffe’s servants: the articles stolen from Topcliffe suggest that he maintained a good wardrobe. It was in this house, or an adjacent successor, that he was accused of torturing prisoners: but its nearness to the Gatehouse prison may have led to confusion between them.
SOURCE : http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/02/blessed-thomas-pormort-pole-family-john.html
They liturgical calendar has the Church
recognizes the 16th and 17th century Martyrs of England, Scotland, and Wales.
The 85 are commemorated together in their historic English, Scottish and
Welsh Catholic milieu who were martyred during the persecutions by Protestants.
The martyrs were Beatified on this date in 1987 by Pope John Paul II. The
names need to be read and remembered:
Blessed Alexander Blake
Blessed Alexander Crow
Blessed Antony Page
Blessed Arthur Bell
Blessed Charles Meehan
Blessed Christopher Robinson
Blessed Christopher Wharton
Blessed Edmund Duke
Blessed Edmund Sykes
Blessed Edward Bamber
Blessed Edward Burden
Blessed Edward Osbaldeston
Blessed Edward Thwing
Blessed Francis Ingleby
Blessed George Beesley
Blessed George Douglas
Blessed George Errington
Blessed George Haydock
Blessed George Nichols
Blessed Henry Heath
Blessed Henry Webley
Blessed Hugh Taylor
Blessed Humphrey Pritchard
Blessed John Adams
Blessed John Bretton
Blessed John Fingley
Blessed John Hambley
Blessed John Hogg
Blessed John Lowe
Blessed John Norton
Blessed John Sandys
Blessed John Sugar
Blessed John Talbot
Blessed John Thules
Blessed John Woodcock
Blessed Joseph Lambton
Blessed Marmaduke Bowes
Blessed Matthew Flathers
Blessed Montfort Scott
Blessed Nicholas Garlick
Blessed Nicholas Horner
Blessed Nicholas Postgate
Blessed Nicholas Woodfen
Blessed Peter Snow
Blessed Ralph Grimston
Blessed Richard Flower
Blessed Richard Hill
Blessed Richard Holiday
Blessed Richard Sergeant
Blessed Richard Simpson
Blessed Richard Yaxley
Blessed Robert Bickerdike
Blessed Robert Dibdale
Blessed Robert Drury
Blessed Robert Grissold
Blessed Robert Hardesty
Blessed Robert Ludlam
Blessed Robert Middleton
Blessed Robert Nutter
Blessed Robert Sutton
Blessed Robert Sutton
Blessed Robert Thorpe
Blessed Roger Cadwallador
Blessed Roger Filcock
Blessed Roger Wrenno
Blessed Stephen Rowsham
Blessed Thomas Atkinson
Blessed Thomas Belson
Blessed Thomas Bullaker
Blessed Thomas Hunt
Blessed Thomas Palaser
Blessed Thomas Pilcher
Blessed Thomas Pormort
Blessed Thomas Sprott
Blessed Thomas Watkinson
Blessed Thomas Whitaker
Blessed Thurstan Hunt
Blessed William Carter
Blessed William Davies
Blessed William Gibson
Blessed William Knight
Blessed William Lampley
Blessed William Pike
Blessed William Southerne
Blessed William Spenser
Blessed William Thomson.
Blessed Alexander Crow
Blessed Antony Page
Blessed Arthur Bell
Blessed Charles Meehan
Blessed Christopher Robinson
Blessed Christopher Wharton
Blessed Edmund Duke
Blessed Edmund Sykes
Blessed Edward Bamber
Blessed Edward Burden
Blessed Edward Osbaldeston
Blessed Edward Thwing
Blessed Francis Ingleby
Blessed George Beesley
Blessed George Douglas
Blessed George Errington
Blessed George Haydock
Blessed George Nichols
Blessed Henry Heath
Blessed Henry Webley
Blessed Hugh Taylor
Blessed Humphrey Pritchard
Blessed John Adams
Blessed John Bretton
Blessed John Fingley
Blessed John Hambley
Blessed John Hogg
Blessed John Lowe
Blessed John Norton
Blessed John Sandys
Blessed John Sugar
Blessed John Talbot
Blessed John Thules
Blessed John Woodcock
Blessed Joseph Lambton
Blessed Marmaduke Bowes
Blessed Matthew Flathers
Blessed Montfort Scott
Blessed Nicholas Garlick
Blessed Nicholas Horner
Blessed Nicholas Postgate
Blessed Nicholas Woodfen
Blessed Peter Snow
Blessed Ralph Grimston
Blessed Richard Flower
Blessed Richard Hill
Blessed Richard Holiday
Blessed Richard Sergeant
Blessed Richard Simpson
Blessed Richard Yaxley
Blessed Robert Bickerdike
Blessed Robert Dibdale
Blessed Robert Drury
Blessed Robert Grissold
Blessed Robert Hardesty
Blessed Robert Ludlam
Blessed Robert Middleton
Blessed Robert Nutter
Blessed Robert Sutton
Blessed Robert Sutton
Blessed Robert Thorpe
Blessed Roger Cadwallador
Blessed Roger Filcock
Blessed Roger Wrenno
Blessed Stephen Rowsham
Blessed Thomas Atkinson
Blessed Thomas Belson
Blessed Thomas Bullaker
Blessed Thomas Hunt
Blessed Thomas Palaser
Blessed Thomas Pilcher
Blessed Thomas Pormort
Blessed Thomas Sprott
Blessed Thomas Watkinson
Blessed Thomas Whitaker
Blessed Thurstan Hunt
Blessed William Carter
Blessed William Davies
Blessed William Gibson
Blessed William Knight
Blessed William Lampley
Blessed William Pike
Blessed William Southerne
Blessed William Spenser
Blessed William Thomson.
Beato Tommaso Pormort Sacerdote e martire
Little Limber, Inghilterra, 1560 circa - St. Paul’s
Churchyard, Londra, 20 febbraio 1592
Martirologio
Romano: A Londra in Inghilterra,
beato Tommaso Pormort, sacerdote e martire, che, crudelmente torturato in
carcere sotto la regina Elisabetta I a causa del suo sacerdozio, portò poi a
compimento a Saint Paul il suo martirio con l’impiccagione.
Il beato oggetto della
presente scheda agiografica appartiene alla folta schiera di martiri cattolici
inglesi, uccisi al tempo dell’affermazione nell’isola della Chiesa nazionale
anglicana, nata dallo strappo tra il re Enrico VIII ed il Romano Pontefice. Il
ricordo di questi numerosi eroici testimoni della fede non andò perduto e
parecchi di essi sono stati elevati agli onori degli altari dai papi tra
l’Ottocento ed il Novecento, tra i quali il beato oggi festeggiato che fu
beatificato da Giovanni Paolo II il 22 novembre 1987.
Thomas Pormort nacque verso il 1592 a Little Limber nel Lincolnshire dai genitori Gregorio ed Anna. Dopo aver frequentato il Trinity College di Cambridge, si trasferì all’estero per intraprendere gli studi ecclesiastici: il 15 gennaio 1581 venne giunse a Reims in Francia, ma dal maggio seguente fu inviato al Collegio inglese di Roma, ove ricevette l’ordinazione presbiterale sei anni dopo in Laterano.
Nel marzo 1588 lasciò il collegio e per un certo periodo servì Owen Lewis, vescovo di Cassano, nel regno di Napoli. Questi lo mandò prima a Milano e poi in Inghilterra, qui a Londra Thomas conobbe e strinse amicizia con San Robert Southwell, nonostante a Roma non avesse mai legato particolarmente con i gesuiti. Trovò rifugio nella parrocchia di San Gregorio presso il merciaio John Barwys che riuscì a riconciliare con la Chiesa. Il Pormort utilizzò per mascherare la sua identità tre diversi pseudomini: Whitgift, Meres e Price.
Nonostante tanti accorgimenti, fu comunque arrestato nel mese di luglio del 1591 in seguito alla testimonianza contro di lui da parte del sacerdote apostata William Tedder, già suo compagno di studi al Collegio inglese di Roma. Thomas riuscì ad evadere, ma fu nuovamente catturato in settembre ed imprigionato. Fu inoltre torturato nell’abitazione del famigerato Topcliffe, “cacciatore di preti”, ove era stat aallestita un’illegale camera di tortura.
L’8 febbraio 1592 Thomas Pormort venne processato insieme con John Barwys e per entrambi fu emessa la sentenza di condanna a morte. Il Barwys venne infine graziato, mentre il sacerdote venne giustiziato sul sagrato della chiesa di San Paolo il 20 febbraio.
Autore: Fabio Arduino
