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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
THOMAS Bullaker is one of the eighty-five martyrs who were beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987. His biography necessarily involves an exercise in textual criticism. The most important sources for his life are two, more or less contemporary, accounts: the Certamen Seraphicum, written by his fellow Fransciscan Richard Mason, and published in 1649; and the Histoire de la Persecution presente des Catholiques en Angleterre of Le Sieur de Marsys, published in 1646. When Richard Mason wrote his account he had access to some writings of the martyr himself, which were kept in the archives of St. Bonaventure's at Douai, and were lost at the time of the French Revolution. His description of Bullaker's trials is largely based on the martyr's first hand testimony. De Marsys, a servant of the French Ambassador, who collected papers concerning sixteen of the martyrs, claimed to have been present at Bullaker's final trial and execution. A copy of a pamphlet entitled An Exact Relation of the Apprehension, Examination, Execution and Confession of Thomas Bullaker, 1642, which was sold in London on the day of Bullaker's execution, has survived among the Thomason Tracts in the British Library.
1 Angelus a San Francisco ( Richard, Mason): ‘Relatio Compendiosa Vitae ac mortis Venerandi admodum Patris Fratis loannis Baptiste Recollecte ac in Provincia Fratrum Minorum Anglorum strictioris observantiae Guardian! Cicestrensis’, in Certamen Seraphicum Provinciae Angliae pro Sancta Dei Ecclesia in quo breviter dectaratur quomodo FF minores Angli calamo et sanguine pro fide Christi sanctaque eius Ecclesia certarunt. Douai. (1649), pp. 31–61.Google Scholar
2 Le, Sieur de Marsys: Histoire de la Persecution presente de Catholiques en Angleterre enrichie de plusieurs reflexions morales, politiques et chretiennes, tant sur ce qui concerne leur guerre civile, que la religion, divisée en trois livres. Paris. (1646), vol. i, pp. 57–66 Google Scholar and vol. iii, pp. 94-100.
3 An Exact Relation of the Apprehension, Examination, Execution and Confession of Thomas Bullaker, a Priest, of the Order of S. Austin. Who for seducing his Majesties Leige people, was drawne, hanged, and quartered at Tyburne, on Wednesday the 12th October, 1642. London: printed for John Wright. (1642).Google Scholar
4 Richard, Challoner: Memoirs of Missionary Priests (1st. ed., 1741-2), (1924), pp. 428–435.Google Scholar
5 J., M. Stone: Faithful unto Death. (1892), pp. 132–152.Google Scholar
6 Mrs. Hope, A.: Franciscan Martyrs in England, (1878), pp. 130–155.Google Scholar
7 See Richard, Simpson: ‘The Duke of Gueldres on the English Martyrs’, in The Rambler, new serio, vol. 8, (1857), pp. 119–122,Google Scholar and Dom, Bede Camm: Forgotten Shrines, (1910). pp. 357–361.Google Scholar
8 Rev. J., H. Pollen S.J.: Acts of the English Martyrs, (1891), pp. 352–357.Google Scholar
9 Stonyhurst College MSS. Grene MSS. Collectanea M, ff. 44 and 45.
10 Archives of the English Province of Friars Minor at Forest Gate, London. E7. I am grateful to Fr. Justin Mc Loughlin O.F.M. for bringing this letter to my attention and for kindly providing me with a copy of it.
11 Franciscan Library at Killiney, Dublin. MS D 4, f. 452r. I am grateful to Fr. Cathaldus Uiblin O.F.M. for sending me a copy of the letter.
12 Blessed William Ward, martyred at Tyburn on 26 July 1641.
13 Translated by Rev. J. H. Pollen S.J. as: ‘the previous year, when he was in the county and heard of the death of Mr. William Ward, of happy memory, the first Martyr under the present Parliament, he said to some friends who were with him: ‘How can I remain here when so great a crown is to be won in London? Did I not come back to England for this very end?’ Forthwith he went to London, where he was apprehended when he was coming from the house of the Portuguese Ambassador. He boldly declared that he was a Catholic, and that he had been often present at Mass. although he had not this day had this consolation’.
14 Jean, Chiflet: Palmae Cleri Angticani, seu narraiiones breves eorum qui in Anglia contigerunt circa mortem quam pro religione Catholica vii sacerdotes Angli fortiter oppetiere. Brussels (1645). p. 21.Google Scholar
15 Franciscan Library at Killiney, Dublin. MS D4, f. 456. Printed in Historical Manuscripts Commission, vol. 65 (Franciscan), pp. 210, 211.
16 Ibid., f. 496, 497., printed in H.M.C., vol. 65. pp. 212, 213.
17 W(est) S(ussex) R(ecord) O(ffice), Par. 37/1/1/1, f. 12.
18 Canon, Edwin Henson: Registers of the English College at Valladolid, 1589-1862, C.R.S., vol. 30. (1930), pp. 140, 141.Google Scholar
19 Richard, Trappes-Lomax (ed.): The English Franciscan Nuns, 1619-1821 and The Friars Minor of the same Province, 1618-1761, C.R.S., vol. 24, (1922), p. 259.Google Scholar
20 See Timothy, J. McCann: ‘William Bullaker. 1531-1608, Grammarian and Phonetician: A Biographical Study’, in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 117, (1979), pp. 173–184.Google Scholar
21 William Bultokarz Pamphlet for Grammar: Or rather to be saied htz Abbreviation of hiz Grammar for English, extracted out of hiz Grammar at Larg. London: Edmund Bollifani. (1586).Google Scholar
22 Public Record Office, E. 377/16.
23 See Timothy, J. McCann: ‘The Catholic Recusancy of Dr. John Bullaker of Chichester, 1574-1627’, in Recusant History, vol. 11, (1971), pp. 75–86.Google Scholar
24 Library of the Royal College of Physicians, Innes Smith MS. 286a.
25 W.S.R.O., Ep. 111/4/10, ff. 147 and 149.
26 Franciscus a Sancta Clara (Christopher Davenport), Manuate Missionariorum seu Commentatio super Nobitiores Quaestiones Regulae S. Francisci ad Missionarios spectantes. Douai (1661), p. 211.Google Scholar
27 Greater London Record Office, MJ/SR, 916/97.
28 Translation:
Account of one of our brothers martyred in England, given by Signor Giovanni Dominici de Franchi, a gentleman of Genoa, in a letter which he wrote to his wife from England to Genoa, as follows: he was martyred in the month of October 1642.
This week we have had here, the lamentable sight of a Holy Martyr of their own English nation, of the Order of St. Francis, in his 34th. year, of robust constitution and fine appearance, by the agency of a servingwoman of a Catholic gentlewoman in whose house he was accustomed to say Mass. He was taken in the act by the officers, who dragged him violently from the altar and took him to prison, together with the gentlewoman. Later, taken before the Sessions and interrogated by the Justices, he answered straight away that he was what they had found him to be, on which confession he was immediately condemned to be hung and quartered and his body burnt. Upon this, he gave thanks to God by reciting the Te Deum. Immediately after, the before-mentioned gentlewoman was presented to the same Sessions, who boldly admitted that she had kept the said priest in her house, and that she gloried in it and that she would keep him again if she could, and that if, for this, she merited the death penalty they should pass sentence on her, because she was very much disposed to die with the said priest. For various reasons the Tribunal suspended her case. The good priest was taken back to prison where he remained for two days, and where I have kept company with him both by day and by night, eating and drinking with him in company with many other Religious as cheerfully as at a wedding feast. The above-mentioned gentlewoman was always there, with the greatest constancy and courage imaginable; she never left him. Finally on Wednesday morning he was stretched out on a hurdle drawn by four horses which drew him about two miles to the place of execution, followed by a multitude of people, both on foot and on horseback, of all kinds, that is Protestants through curiosity and Catholics through devotion. A remarkable case was that of two women who clung to the hurdle with their hands, and followed it amid the buffetting and pushing of the multitude of people, the trampling of the horses, and in the mud up to their waists, and however much the officials of the Justices beat them with their staves or pushed them away with poles of their halberds it was not possible to prevent them from accompanying him in this way right to the gallows; where after this holy Martyr was tied up, the priest of the Protestant Church and the Magistrate of the City presented themselves to him speaking to him with great respect and reverence, always with their hats in their hands. They exhorted him to abandon his opinions and to submit himself to the Law, lovingly offering him pardon if he did so, to which he replied with great constancy as he thought most fitting; and having raised his eyes to Heaven and asked God's mercy, he ended the travails of this life and went to enjoy his reward in the next. A very edifying case, by which I hope in God a great number of those who have strayed may be induced to return to the straight path of the sure way.
[I am grateful to Angela and Francesco Cembrola, Ray Gambling and Susan Madden for their help in translating this letter.]
29 Translation:
24th. October 1642
The day before yesterday, the 22nd. of this month, there suffered martyrdom in this place the English Friar Tomas Burlequer, discalced Friar of the Order of St. Francis, under such circumstances that although many have died here for our religion, nobody left Catholics more uplifted and heretics more admiring. His firmness was remarkable, as was the gentleness and the joy with which he suffered, and when they were about to cast him from the gallows, they offered him his life and other comforts if he would convert to the Protestant religion and he replied firmly that if he were to be quartered whilse still alive, he would not renounce, even in one item, the Catholic religion—outside of which there was no salvation for souls. They arrested him saying Mass in this town, to which he came from the country only to search for martyrdom, and a Catholic lady in whose house he was arrested was taken prisoner and taken before the Tribunal. She spoke so freely and with such disdain about death (under penalty of which she had come, according to the Laws of the Kingdom) that the Judges felt she should not be hung during this session, but carried over to the next one for fear that heretics would be inspired with such an example; the lady's distress was so great at the delay to her death-sentence that she was nearly inconsolable. It is the will of God, amidst the labours and disorders of this Kingdom, to comfort us with such pious examples which are so proper for the confirmation of our holy faith.
[I am grateful to James Edwards for transcribing and translating this letter for me.]