Making Edmund Campion: Treason, Martyrdom, and the Structure of Transcendence Author(S): Alice Dailey Source: Religion & Literature, Vol

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Making Edmund Campion: Treason, Martyrdom, and the Structure of Transcendence Author(s): Alice Dailey Source: Religion & Literature, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Autumn, 2006), pp. 65-83 Published by: The University of Notre Dame Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40060026 . Accessed: 28/07/2013 14:02

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This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MAKING EDMUND CAMPION: TREASON, MARTYRDOM, AND THE STRUCTURE OF TRANSCENDENCE

Alice Dailey

[BJeingset up in the carte, he blessedhim self with the signe of the Crosse, being so weake as he fel downe in the carte, & after he was up, he said: I am a Catholike,and do dye in the catholikereligion, and therewithhe was interruptedby SherifeMartine, saying, you come not hitherto confesseyour religion, but as a traitor and malefactorto the Queenes Majestie and the whole Realme, moving and sturingof sedition. -William Allen, XII ReverendPriests^

It has become a critical commonplace to talk about the inherent constructednessof - well, of nearly everything:gender, race, culture, power, self, other, past, present. The field of early modern religiousstudies is no exception.Scholars have looked at the constructionof EnglishProtestantism and nationhood in Foxe'sActs and Monuments (Haller, Collinson, Mueller); the pejorative construction of Catholicism through Protestantpolemic; and the recusant Catholic community'sconstructions of itself through writing,artifacts, and even physical space (Corthell;Dillon; Kilroy;Lake and Questier;Marotti, Catholicism]Shell; Yates).As these lines of inquiry suggest,our interestin religiousconstructedness has tended to be focused on the formationof religiouscommunities. We seem reluctantto consider the deliberatefashioning of holiness,as thoughwe might infectthe studyof earlymodern religiousbelief with an anachronisticelement of postmodern cynicism.To suggest,for example, that a mystic or martyris engaged in a consciousact of self-fashioningis to riskappearing disrespectful - or worse, ignorant- of the earnestnessof earlymodern piety.To avoid this difficulty,

R&L 38.3 (Autumn2006) 65

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 66 Religion & Literature we habituallyread devotional,martyrological, and hagiographicliterature as the unmediateddocumentation of what people of the period thought and believed. The literaryconstructedness of these artifactsis bracketed, quarantinedas a threat to the authenticityof faith. Brad Gregory'sSalva- tionat Stakeis an exemplarystudy in this mode, reading martyrologyas a transparentrecord of early modern Christianbelief. Gregory'sstated goal is to "plumb the living souls" of early modern martyrs,thereby produc- ing a reading that is "intelligibleon the martyrs'own terms"(1, II).2 The imperativesof genericconvention, which I will argueare absolutelycentral to both the event and text of martyrdom,exert no calculableinfluence on the martyrologicalworld Gregorypresents nor on the conclusionsdrawn from that world. - This essay takes seriouslythe notion of religiousconstructedness the constructednessof not just sacred communities but sacred experience. In particular,I want to examine the active and conscious constructionof martyrdom,first by victimsthemselves and then by those chargedwith the taskof generatingmartyrology. We knowlittle about earlymodern religious experiencebeyond the texts that documentit. How then can we have direct access to that experience "on the martyrs'own terms"without attention - to the literaryterms - the conventionsand structures which shape that documentation?And what of those kindsof religiousexperience, like martyrdom,which are as much about a faith event as the storythat's circulated - of that event?How does the victim'santicipation of being narrativized of - being recuperatedby devotionaltext and memory impact the experience of martyrdom?Indeed, does martyrdomever entirelyprecede martyrology? My point of entryis the 158 1 convictionand executionof FatherEdmund Campion, the firstJesuit executed in England for treason under Elizabe- than anti-Catholicpolicy. Campion's trial demonstratesthe ways in which the statutesagainst English Catholicstrapped recusants in an inescapable circularargument that reproducedits own signs of treasonwhile simulta- neously alienatingthe Catholic subjectfrom the discursivemechanisms of martyrdom.The rhetoricalsubstitution of treasonfor martyrdomis made possibleby their structuralsimilarities: the figure of religiousexceptional- ism is structurallyanalogous to the figure of consummatepolitical crime, and thus the constructionof both martyrdomand treason depends on what is fundamentallythe same discursiveoperation. I wish to suggestthat by reading the texts surroundingthe Campion case with attention to his effortsto inscribehimself into the martyrologicaltradition, we can see the structuralfissures that the charge of treason produces for martyrological discourse.Ultimately, I argue, it is a formal rather than a confessionalor

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALICE DAILEY 67 politicaldivide that rendersthe chargeof treasonsuch an effectivemeasure for containingthe Catholic mission to England. The construction of a martyr depends on transposingthe historical events of an individual'slife and death into the suprahistoricalnarrative thatconnects Christ, the martyrsof the earlychurch, and the contemporary victim throughtypological reiteration. Martyrology's stories of witnessing, torment, and constancy in death convert its subjectsfrom mere instances of sufferingand religiousdissidence into transcendentfigures of Christian exemplarity.The constructionof martyrdomis made possibleonly through strictnarrative repetition. Augustine wrote that it is the cause,not the death, that makes a martyr(non poena sed causa); but this is in fact only part of the equation.The reproductionof martyrdomdepends on the legiblenarrative rehearsalof martyrmodels. In his study of medieval hagiography,James Earldescribes the genre as "literaryiconography" in which "theindividual, by conformingthe patternsof his moral behaviorto the largerpatterns of history,enters into a typologicalrelationship with that history"(21, 18).The legibilityof the martyricon Earl identifiesis key:if an individual'sactions are inconsistentwith establishedmartyr formulas or cannot easily be read as reiterationsof apostolicor Christologicalsuffering, the individualwill not transcendthe death event. In other words,if a victim does not fit the mold, he or she can neitherbe interpretednor reproducedas a martyr.Moreover, the mold is inflexible:the victims must be persecutedfor their faith; they must openly confesstheir faith and readilydefend it againstthe adversary, who representsheretical belief; they must die in defense of the faith and cannot appearto will theirown deaths;in theirmanner of death, they must exhibitconstancy and piety;and ideally,death is attendedby miraculousor providentialevidence of God's favor. The Elizabethangovernment's strategic relocation of Catholicdissidence into a discourseof secularcrime truncatesthe victim'saccess to this para- digm. In place of martyrdom'stypological recapitulation, the seculartrial producesa storyof treason,duplicity, and attemptedregicide. This is made possibleby the Reformation'sconsolidation of religiousand temporalpower under the Crown, which posed a problem- at least philosophically- for the Catholic recusant, whose allegiances became divided between mon- arch and pope. This problemwas exacerbatedin 1570 when Pope Pius V issuedthe bull excommunicatingElizabeth, deposing her from power,and absolvingher subjectsfrom obedience to her.Through this action, the pope essentiallypositioned the entirebody of EnglishCatholics as enemies to the Crown, threateningthat any who continuedin obedience to her would be "innodate[d]in the like sentence of Anathema."3Spurred by the very real fears of domestic rebellion, foreign invasion, and assassinationthat grew

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out of the bull, the Queen and her ministersdeveloped severalstrategies designed to rid the realm of those Catholicswho held with the pope over their sovereignand to protect the state from the internalthreat they might pose. By 1585, Parliamenthad passeda seriesof laws naming any Catholic priest in England a traitor.The immediate targets of these policies were Jesuitand seminarypriests, who, it was believed,were being sent to England from the Continent to stir up rebellion and prepare English Catholics to takeup arms againsttheir Queen in supportof a papal-sponsoredinvasion. A 1571 Act of Parliamentreminded subjectsthat not only direct actions against the state but also "imagining"or "intending"the Queen's death, dethronement,or defeat by foreignpower were points of treason.4A 1582 royal proclamation,5followed up by a 1585 Act of Parliament,6made it illegal for Catholic priests to remain in or come to England on penalty of death for treason, on the stated presumptionthat any who did so were acting secretly against the Queen. Aiding, maintaining,hiding, or failing to turn in a known priestwere also declaredacts of treason,punishable by death.Two proclamationsof 159 1, citing the insidiouslysecretive nature of Catholicpriests as particularcause for alarm, erected panels of inquiryto questionsuspected priests and abettorsand establisheda seriesof questions intended to probe suspects'allegiance to the Queen.7 James came to the thronewith plans for greaterreligious toleration that were quicklyset aside in the wake of the GunpowderPlot of 1605. In responseto the Plot and the perceivedthreat posed by secretCatholics, James's administrationpassed an act in 1606 that includedthe Oath of Allegiance, which suspectedCatholics would be requiredto take. The contents of the Oath revealmany of the anxietiesthat arose from Elizabeth'sexcommuni- cation and subsequentCatholic plots, real or imagined. It requiredone to state thatJames was the true and legitimateking of England;that no pope or foreign power could rightfullydepose him or release his subjectsfrom obedience to him; that "notwithstandingany declarationor sentence of Excommunication,"his subjectsmust maintain faithfulallegiance to him and defend his person and throne;and that, regardlessof any statement issuedby the pope to the contrary,it is "impiousand Hereticall"to believe that subjectsmay depose and murdertheir sovereign(James 89). The Catholic Church respondedto these mechanismsby claiming religious persecutionon the groundsthat the questionsbeing askedof Catho- lics, characterizedin governmentliterature (like James's own defenseof the Oath) as touching only secular allegiance, were fundamentallyquestions of religiousconscience. But their claim to martyrdomwas underminedby the charge of treason, a problem even Catholic apologistsadmitted. The relocationof Catholicdissidence into a discourseof secularcrime had far-

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALICE DAILEY 69 reachingeffects on the productionof Catholic martyrdom.For a number of reasons,the chargeof treasonand its attendantlegal developmentsmade it very difficultfor Catholic victims and their martyrologiststo establish the typologicalconnections that would enable them to transcendtrial and executionand find a place within the sacrednarrative of God's persecuted Churchon earth. Edmund Campion was one of the first two Jesuits, along with Father Robert Persons,to be sent on the mission to England. After training for the priesthoodin France,he re-enteredthe countryin 1580 in disguiseand under an assumedname. Once his activitiesin Englandwere detected by Cecil'selaborate spy network,his capturewas made a priority.The impetus to arrest him was boosted by the publicationof a private document that he had composed to defend his missionaryactivities in the event of his capture. Campion had entrusted the treatise to a Catholic friend whose zeal led him to share it with others. When it eventuallycaught the attention of authorities,the audacityof the document that came to be known as Campion's"Challenge" or "Brag"incited the governmentall the more vehementlyagainst him.8 His capturein July 1581 was regardedas a major victory by the state. He was paraded through London on horsebackwith a sign on his head proclaiming,"Campion, the SeditiousJesuit." He was then taken to the Tower,where he was torturedon the rack in an effort to extract informationthat would lead to the arrestsof other Catholics. Six months aftercapture, he and the other priestsapprehended with him were tried and convictedfor treason.They were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburnon December 1, 1581. Campion'sconviction hinged on two primaryissues: the alleged meetings he had conductedwith other Catholics,in which Elizabeth'sdeath and overthrowwere plotted, and his opinionsregarding the Queen'ssupremacy. As the sixteenthcentury wore on and the state became more experienced at prosecuting recusants, these concerns would become streamlined to produce treasonconvictions that invitedsteadily decreasing public dissent. Witnesseslike Anthony Munday,who was broughtin to providetestimony of Campion'ssupposed meetings and plots,might easily be discredited,and questionsabout the rightsof the Queen were challengedas unlawful- with some success- by Catholic apologists like Cardinal William Allen.9 But Campion'scase is illustrativeof the overarchingrhetoric that would domi- nate Catholic treasontrials for decades to follow. In his opening argumentsto the court, the Queen's council laid out the relationshipbetween Catholicismand treasonthat provideda templatefor subsequenttrials. Catholic priests, he claimed,

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must come secretlyinto the realm, they must change their habit and names; they must dissemble their vocations, they must wander unknown- to what end? To dissuadethe people from their Allegiance to their prince, to reconcile them to the pope, to plant the Romish Religion,to supplantboth prince and province- by what means?By sayingof Mass,by administeringthe Sacrament,by hearingConfessions. (Howell 1052-3)

This argumentequates the behaviorof Catholics- the secrecyand duplicity necessitatedby the laws enacted against them- with treasonousplots to overthrowthe state by arguing that secrecy is a symptom of treason. SituatingCatholic doctrine and practice within this discourseof treason, the state makes the argument for Catholicism as a category of political sedition rather than a matter of religiousconscience, preemptivelychal- lenging Catholicclaims of religiouspersecution. The factspresented in the trial- Munday'sdubious testimony and the priests'ambiguous statements regardingthe Queen'ssupremacy - were then normalizedinto this broader rhetoricalscheme of Catholic treason. The state'scase againstCampion and his fellow priestswas founded on the premise that the pope was above all a political enemy of the English state, a point drivenhome by the prosecution'srehearsal of the bull of ex- communicationand its implications.The pope was posited as the author of all treasonousplots againstthe Queen, with Catholicpriests acting as his agents in England,ministers commissioned "to execute the Bull sent from Pius Quintus againsther majesty"(1053). Witnesseswere broughtforth to testifyto meetings with papal emissariesin Rheims and Rome where the defendants"conspired the death of the queen'smajesty, the overthrowof the religionnow professedin England,the subversionof the state"(1049). Among the various plots they were accused of hatching, the priestswere said to have planned to ambushand stab Elizabethwhile she was out on a walk or set her barge on fire as she floated down the Thames (1067-8). Campion,the most notoriousas well as the most eloquentand outspoken of the defendants,denied the chargesand accused the state of persecuting Catholicsmerely for religion.The fact thathe and his fellowpriests had been offered clemency in exchange for going to Protestantsermons was proof, he argued, that "Religionwas cause of our Imprisonmentand the consequence of our condemnation"(1055). This argument,to which Catholic apologistswould return, insistson religiousaffiliation as a strictlyspiritual categorythat has no relationshipto questionsof politicalsedition. But the link between ecclesiasticalpower and secular rule was long establishedin the history of the Catholic Church, and the papal bull had renewed its currencyby pointedlypoliticizing religion in England.

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In response to the claim that he and his fellow priests were sent into Englandfor seditiouspurposes, Campion stated, "Weare dead men to the world, we only traveledfor souls;we touched neither state nor policy,we had no such commission"(1054). His remarkswere immediatelyseized on by the prosecutionin an effort to discredithis claims of ascetic religiosity and politicalinnocence: Were it not that your dealing afterwards[after Campion came into the realm] had fully bewrayedyou, your present Speech perhaps had been more credible;but all afterclapsmake those excuses but shadows,and your deeds and actions prove your words but forged; for what meaning had that changing of your name, whereto belonged your disguisingin apparel,can these alterationsbe wroughtwithout sus- picion?Your name being Campion, why were you called Hastings?You a priestand dead to the world,what pleasurehad you to roystthat? A velvet hat and a feather,a buff leatherjerkin, velvet Venetians, are they weeds for dead men? Can that beseem a professedman of religionwhich hardlybecometh a layman of gravity?No; there was a furthermatter intended; your lurkingand lying hid in secretplaces, concludeth with the rest, a mischievousmeaning: had you come hitherfor love of your country, you would never have wroughtin ; or had your intent been to have done well, you would neverhave hated the light and thereforethis beginningdecyphereth your Treason.(1059)'°

Under the prosecutor'sskillful management, Campion'sattempts to hide himself are treated as manifest evidence of treason which, in turn, is in- tendedto undermineanything he may say in his own defense.The luxurious clothing that he donned to avoid captureis used to challenge his religious commitment, likewise suggestingthat his purposes for being in England were secularrather than spiritual. Campion acknowledgedhis attirebut contestedthe conclusionthat it in any way proved treason. Rather, he said, his disguisewas necessitatedby the persecutionof Catholicsand was consistentwith the model of apostolic behavior:

I wished earnestlythe plantingof the gospel. I knew a contraryreligion professed. I saw if I were known I shouldbe apprehended.I changed my name: I kept secretly.I imitatedPaul. Was I thereina traitor?But the wearingof a buff jerkin, a velvet hat, and such like is much forcedagainst me, as though the wearingof any apparelwere treason,or that I in so doing were ever the more a traitor.I am not indictedupon the statuteof Apparel,neither is it any part of this presentarraignment. ( 1060) Campion confrontsthe logic imposed by the prosecutionby arguing that wearinga disguiseand plottingtreason are not the same thing.The parallel he drawsbetween his own behaviorand thatof the apostolicmissionaries was reiteratedby anotherpriest tried with him, Ralph Sherwin,who described his secret ministryas a model of "the apostlesand fathersin the primitive

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 72 Religion& Literature church"(1064). Such comparisonswere rejectedby the court: "yourcase differethfrom theirs in the primitive church, for that those apostles and preachersnever conspiredthe death of the emperorsand rulersin whose dominions they so taught and preached" (1064). According to the logic of political crime, secrecy proves the treason, and treason invalidatesthe secrecy. Campion and his fellowpriests were caught in a circularargument from which there was no viable exit. The legal statutesagainst Catholicsforced Englishmissionaries into hiding and disguise;in turn, hiding and disguise providedthe state with proof of the very treason it feared. In its effort to protect the state against crime, the law itself produced a set of behaviors that it then seized on as evidence of that crime. In responseto this quag- mire, Campion attemptedto legitimize Catholics'condemned actions by linkingthem to the uncontestedsanctity of the originaryChristian church: "Atwhat time the primitivechurch was persecutedand that Paul laboured in the propagationand increaseof the Gospel, it is not unknown,to what straitsand pinches he and his fellows were diverselydriven" (1059). The - legitimizingreligious narrative Campion provides that secrecyis evidence of the true, persecutedchurch - has no efficacywithin the context of the seculartreason trial. There, what might be offeredas evidence of persecution is construedas evidence of crime, ultimatelyundermining one of the basic tenets of martyrology:that persecutionitself witnessesto the truthof the victim'scause. The priests'attempts to justify their position were furthercomplicated by the vexed relationshipto secular and ecclesiasticalauthority that the treasontrial exposed. The martyrologicalimperative of witnessingto one's faith, in conjunctionwith the papal bull, placed the Catholic defendantin a difficultposition: his or her allegiance to the Crown had been directly prohibitedby papal authority,which Catholicswere equallybound to obey. The competing demands of sovereignand pope left the English Catholic caught between two equally dismal and damnable categories,the traitor and the excommunicateheretic. The trial accounts of Campion and his companionsreveal the priests'fraught attempts to avoid both categoriesby situatingthemselves in a delicate medial space. As a consequence of this tension,however, they become alienatedfrom the discoursesof both secular loyaltyand Catholic constancy. Before his formal trial, each defendant was interrogatedregarding his allegiance to the Queen and pope. The governmenthad carefullydevel- oped a series of questionsmeant to probe recusants'beliefs regardingthe pope's right to depose temporalmonarchs, the lawfulnessof violent rebellion against the Queen, and the part they would take in the event that a

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papal army invaded the realm. The questionswere put to the defendants and their answersrecorded for use in the prosecution'scase against them. For the most part, however,the defendants'answers were vague and non- committal.Campion's fellow priestsRalph Sherwin and AlexanderBrian refusedto offer opinions on the pope's right to depose on the groundsthat doing so would imperiltheir own lives.11Brian remarkedthat the question was "too high, and daungerousfor him to answere,"and Sherwin"prayeth to bee asked no such question, as may touch his life" (1078). Two others, Thomas Cottam andJohn Shert, affirmedthat they "swervethin no pointe from the Catholique Faith"but refused to elaborate their understanding of what Catholic doctrine demanded in present political circumstances (1080).William Filbee went so far as to confirmthe pope'spower to depose but would not be pushed to apply this doctrine to the case of Elizabeth, claimingthat "touchingthe Bui of Piusquintus he can say nothing"(108 1). Campion himself made a bolder breakwith Catholicorthodoxy, testifying that he thoughtit unlikelythat the papal bull was lawful:"the divines of the catholicchurch do distinguishof the pope's authority,attributing unto him ordinationand inordination,potestatem, ordinatem, whereby he proceedethin mattersmerely spiritual and pertinentto the church,and by that he cannot excommunicateany prince or potentate"(1062). In all of their answers,the Catholicdefendants sought to avoidposition- ing themselvesas traitors- as men who challengedor rejectedthe Queen's authorityover her subjects.But in theircareful efforts to sidestepincriminat- ing statements,they failed to affirmthe rightsof the pope, a cornerstoneof Catholicorthodoxy.12 Their claims of religiouspersecution were therefore confoundedby their own reticence to boldly confess the faith. This is the ingenious effect of the treason proceeding:it placed the defendant in an impossible situation. If he affirmed the righteousnessof Catholic doctrine- i.e., the pope's right to dethroneElizabeth and absolveher subjects of allegianceto her- he fell into a discourseof treasonthat substantiated anti-Catholicsentiment and foreclosedthe possibilityof achievingmartyr- dom. On the other hand, if he did not uphold papal prerogative,he failed in one of the necessaryacts of Christianmartyrdom, the confessionof the tenets of faith. In either case, the reproductionof exemplarymartyrdom wasjeopardized. The repositioningof religiousdissidence within the structureof secular law is what produces this crisis. The treason trial rendered it extremely perilousfor the Catholic defendantsto confesstheir religion- not because they would die, which is essentialto martyrdom,but because they would die as criminals.13For the EnglishCounter-Reformation, two fundamental imperativesof Christianmartyrdom, persecution for religionand confession

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 74 Religion& Literature of religion,became radicallyfractured from one another.In consequence, defendantslike Campionwere trappedin a place of claimingthat theywere persecuted for religion at the same time they were working to dissociate themselvesfrom perilousCatholic doctrine.Probed once more at the trial about his opinion of the pope's supremacy,Campion finallystated, "I say generallythat these matters be merelyspiritual points of doctrineand disput- able in schools,no partof mine indictment,not to be given in evidence,and unfit to be discussedat the King's Bench" (1063). While Campion argued that the trial was a religiouspersecution, he simultaneouslyhad to argue that religioncould have no place in the trial,demonstrating how the charge of treasoncut the defendantoff from access to legitimizingorthodoxy. Taken as a whole, these elements produce a prosecutionscene whose overall structureis markedlydifferent from what we find in patristicand H medievalmartyrology - or even inJohn Foxe'sActs and Monuments. Rather than a theological or doctrinaldispute between one religiousfaction and another,we are presentedwith a secularizeddebate in which the established church and its theology have no visible role. Instead of being carried out by rival theologians,the prosecutionis manage by the representativesof secular law, and the justice handed down is authorizedby secular rather than ecclesiasticalpower. Throughout these trials,the governmentinsists on Catholicism as a fundamentallypolitical category by concentrating attention on the antagonisticrelationship in which the pope's bull placed Catholicsubjects vis-a-vis the Queen'ssupremacy. Government propaganda, legal prosecution,and execution scenes focus on the Catholic as a political enemy to the state, so that the individual'stheology - central to a heresy case- is shiftedaway from view. As such,priests' trial scenes concentrate not on questionsof religiousdoctrine like transubstantiationbut on the issues of supremacyand seditiousbehavior: how defendantsregard their duty to the Queen in light of the papal bull, what co-religioniststhey met with or helped, where they secretlyattended mass. Within this structure,there is little opportunityfor acts of religiousconfession or for the elaborationof theology.In the case of Campion, the defendantwas granteda theological disputationwhile imprisonedin the Tower,but neither he nor his prosecu- tors ever mentioned that interviewduring the course of his trial;it had no place in the proceeding.Although Campion and his co-defendantsoften openly statedtheir Catholicism,the mechanismsof the treasontrial trans- form this into a political- not religiousconfession. The confrontation between disparatebelief systemsprovided by a heresytrial sets up precisely the narrativeparadigm required for martyrological transcendence, while the treasontrial forces the victim into an alternativeparadigm from which he or she cannot easilyrecover. As a result,instead of being assigneda heretic-

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALICE DAILEY 75 identity,which is fundamentallyan identitydefined by faith,the condemned Catholicsubject is assigneda traitor-identity,an identitydefined by political allegiance. Most importantly,the treason charge situates Catholic subjects in an exceedingly complex relationshipto both secular and papal authority.If they are to demonstratethat they are free fromtreason, Catholic defendants cannot readilychallenge the moral authorityof the court but have to present themselvesas appropriatelyrespectful of and subduedby the sovereign. The movementaway from the Catholic-Protestantdebate central to Queen Mary'sheresy trials toward a debate between Catholic subjectsand their own temporalgovernment forecloses the victim-persecutordyad so central to the martyrologicalparadigm: the position of persecutoris occupied not by a clear enemy but by a representativeof the secularauthority to which Catholics must continually demonstrate obedience. Further, the open confessionof Catholic doctrine comes to function in the trial as proof of treason.If defendantsproclaim their belief in papal supremacy- the only point of religiousorthodoxy raised in the trials- this provestheir rejection of Elizabeth'slegitimacy and, thereby,their treason.If, on the other hand, they deny or suppresstheir belief in the rights of the pope, Catholics are themselvesin danger of excommunication.What's more, their failure to fullyconfess the tenets of their faith separatesthem all the furtherfrom the rigiddemands of exemplarymartyrdom. Unless they are willingto give up theirfaith, which the governmentoffered as the only way out of the conun- drum, Catholic defendantsfind their relationshipsto both secular loyalty and Catholic orthodoxycompromised. They become whatJulia Reinhard Lupton describes as vexed "citizen-saints,""figures caught between two competing, mutually exclusive, social, political, and religious structures" (13). Circumscribedwithin the treasondiscourse, they cannot successfully represent themselves as at once true Catholics and true subjects of the Queen. The stakeswere high for both the governmentand the EnglishCatholic cause,both sidesshowing an acute awarenessof the importanceof successfully disseminatingtheir respectivenarratives. The Elizabethgovernment was faced with issuesof nationalsecurity and concerns about the regime's publicimage. Whether the statewas engaged in the same cruelpersecution of which the notoriously"Bloody" Mary was accusedor wasjustly defend- ing itself againstpolitical threatis a question that is played out repeatedly in the polemics of the period.15These questionshave bearing on English publicopinion as well as on a largerEuropean audience and on the country's engagement in internationalaffairs. For Catholics, the question became whether their priests and faithfullay men and women would go down in

This content downloaded from 128.119.168.112 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:02:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 76 Religion& Literature history as arch criminalsor as glorious martyrs,each presentingalterna- tive ramificationsfor the continuingviability and growth of the Catholic religion,especially in England.If Catholic apologistswere unsuccessful,if the victims could not be recuperatedinto the ranks of faithfulChristian martyrs,executed Catholics could become a liabilityrather than an assetfor the Catholiccause. Failingto assuagepublic suspicionof Catholics'activi- ties mightcompromise the Englishmission as well as potentiallyundermine Catholic authorityin other countries. Moreover,if a priest executed for treason were not successfullyrepresented as a martyr,the victim's salvation must come into question. The rival discoursesof secularjustice and Christianmartyrology posit divergentoutcomes for the victim:in the penal narrativeunrepentant victims are damned, while in the martyrological - narrativethey are saved. How the victim is recordedfor posterity traitor or martyr- ultimatelydetermines his or her eternal fate, at least insofaras the Christiancommunity can read and determinethat fate. Given these stakes, it is no surprise that Campion's case produced a heated controversy,one that graduallyescalated from rumor to popular pamphlets to official tracts by the most prominent men on either side. A short,anonymous octavo pamphlet titled An advertisement and defence for Trueth againsther Backbiters, and speciallyagainst the whispring Favourers, and Colourersof Campions,and therest of his confederatstreasons ( 1 58 1) is one of the earliest texts in the debate. Only five pages in length, it was publishedwithin the month of Campion'sexecution. The title points to the Campion case as contested territoryand announcesthe text as a responseto the effortof pro-Campion gossip to recasthis death as religiouspersecution. The authorwrites, it is maliciously,falsly, and traiterouslyby some of the secret favourersof the said Campion, and other the said condemned Traitours,whispered in corners, that the offences of these traitours,were but for their secret attemptingsas jesuites by exhortingand teaching,with Shriving,Massing, and such like actes, to move people to change their Religion [...]. (A2v) Likethe trialitself, the pamphletformulates these Catholicpractices as po- liticalacts - as "highTreasons committed against her Majestiesmost Royall person,and againstthe ancientLawes and statutesof thisRealme" (A3). The text thus acts to circulatethe principlearguments of the trial in the effort to duplicatein the court of public opinion the conclusionsadvanced in the court of law- that the claim of religiouspersecution holds no weight since religiousrites have been adaptedby Catholicmissionaries into vehiclesfor treason.In other words, the aim of the text is to organize popular debate over the Campion case by secularizingthe discussionin accordancewith the same preceptsthat governedthe trial.

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The most interestingelement of the pamphletis its representationof the defendants'attitudes toward papal supremacy. According to the author,their refusalto condemn the pope's bull againstElizabeth is tantamountto their agreeingwith it and can therebybe understoodas evidence of treason: none of them all [. . .] coulde be perswadedby any their answeresto shewe in any part their mislikingseyther of the formerBull [. . .] or of the Pope that nowe is, if he shoulde nowe publish the like Bull against her Majestie,so as they did apparantly shew their traiteroushearts stil fixed to persistin their devilishmindes againsttheir naturallallegeance. (A4)

In this formulation,the "hearts"of the priests are laid bare not by what they say but what they fail to say; the verbal lacuna operatesas a signifier of treasonand "apparantlyshew[s]" their "devilish mindes" as conclusively as any other form of testimony.The rhetoricof treasonresolves the priests' silenceinto an inflexiblesemiotic code: silence = treason.Silence ^ absence of opinion;silence ^ ignorance;silence ^ indecisiveness.The discoursesof secularlaw and public opinion operate accordingto a language in which silence is necessarilya signifierof guilt. By rehearsingand circulatingthis language,the authorof the pamphletattempts to ensure that the codes of legal discourse- rather than of a religiousor conscientiousdiscourse, for - example penetratepopular renderings of the Campion narrative. A Jesuit who was presentat the priests'execution, Thomas Alfield,soon respondedwith a pamphletof his own, A truereporte of thedeath & martyrdome l6 of M. CampionJesuite andprieste ( 1582). He positionedhis text as a rejoinder to An advertisementagainst Backbiters as well as to the "many slaunders"cir- culatingto "diminishthe honour of their [the priests']resolute departure and Martirdome"(Alfield Air). A truereporte operates on the assumptions of arsmoriendi, or the "artof dying"- namely,that comportmentat death providesa transparentindication of the stateof the victim'ssoul and clearly demonstrateswhether he or she is saved.But in this account of Campion's execution, even the death scene is made problematicby the intrusionof secular authority,evidencing the impingement of the treason charge on martyrologicalnarrative. For the most part, the account of Campion'strial is devoid of the overt verbal and behavioraltropes that permeate patristic martyrologicalmodels: there are few displaysof piety- likekneeling, prayer, or kissinginstruments of persecution- and little or no echo of traditional martyr language like lamb-to-the-slaughtermetaphors, forgiveness of persecutors,or phrases repeated from Christ'scrucifixion. What we find instead is an execution that is closely focused on the question of whether or not Campion is guilty of treason.

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At the scaffold,Campion's attention is constantlybeing turnedaway from prayerand religiousconfession to the treasoncharge. Being brought into the cart fromwhich he would be hanged, Campion proceedsto quote St. Paul, announcinghimself "a spectacle,or a sight,unto God, unto his Angels,and unto men" (AlfieldB4v-C lr). Those chargedwith overseeinghis execution soon interrupthim, "earnestlyurging him to confesse his treason against her majestie,and to acknowledgehimself gilty"(Clr). Campion responds that he is "altogetherinnocent" of the chargesbrought against him (Clr). He begs to be allowedto "speakea worde or too for dischargeof [his] con- science" but is again preventedfrom prayer and "forcedto speake onely to that point which they most urged"(Clr). Campion proclaimsthat he is "giltless& innocentof all treasonand conspiracie,craving credit to be geven to his answere,as to the last answeremade upon his death & soule,"and he forgivesthe jury who condemned him (Clr). The conversationthen turns to his clarificationof evidence presentedin court, followedby the reading of his sentence, duringwhich Campion is observedto be "devoutlyepray- ing" (C2r).Still unsatisfiedwith Campion'sfailure to admit his treason,the officialsnext questionhim on his position on the bull of excommunication and his allegianceto the pope. He maintainshimself a devoutCatholic and resumespraying, again being interruptedand ordered to pray in English rather than Latin and to pray specificallyfor the Queen. He defends his use of Latinbut wishes Elizabeth"a long quiet raigne,with all prosperity," and then he is executed (C2v). What we see in this account of Campion'sdeath is that the effortmade throughouthis trialto establishhis identityas traitorspills onto the scaffold, wherethe rivaldiscourses of treasonand martyrdomplay themselvesout in a final, all-importantpush to secure the event for posterity.The continual shiftingof attention back to the question of treason disruptsthe victim's attempt to control the terms of his own death.Just as in the trial, the two sidesare at odds about the natureof the discourseat hand, each attempting to perform a discoursethat is interruptedby the other. Campion'sdeath becomes a dramawhose genre is under contention.The state seeksto perform the scriptof a treasontrial and execution,while Campion insiststhat the operativescript is that of a religiouspersecution - a martyrdom.17 As martyrologist,then, Alfield is presentedwith a challenge. From this fracturedperformance of competingscripts, Alfield is chargedwith fashion- ing a typologicallylegible, unproblematicstory of exemplary,holy death. To manage this, he can either falsifythe historicalevents, eliminatingthe problematictreason cues, or situatethose eventswithin a largerframework of familiartypological formulas. Using the latterstrategy, Alfield essentially bookendsthe narrativeof Campion'sdeath with the conventionallanguage

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of Christianmartyrdom. He introduceshis accountby sayingthat Campion "aftermany conflictes and agonies,joyfully [came] to receivehis rewardand crowne,the kingdomeof heaven,"and the conclusionof Campion'sstory rings with familiarmartyrological tropes: "he meekely and sweetlyyelded his soule unto his Saviour,protesting that he dyed a perfect Catholike";he "triumfedon the world, the flesh, the divell, and receivedhis long desired crown"(B4v, C2v). This representationof Campionis compromisednot only by the circumstances of the execution but by the behavior of Campion himself:in his effortto proveonce and for all that he is not a traitor,he ends his life pray- ing for the Queen, a heretic excommunicatedby his church.This conflicts with his representationof himself as dying "a perfect Catholike."Alfield describesthe executedpriests as "paternesof piety,vertue, and innocencie," but the narrativereveals a deeply heterodox,problematic pattern, one that bears importantdifferences to the martryologicalparadigm evidenced by patristicand medieval models (A3r).While Alfield attemptsto close these fissuresby declaring that "all men are perswaded that those innocentes sufferedonly for religion for our fathersfaith," the circumstancesthat he describesas promptinghis text- the "mostinfamous libel," An advertisement againstBackbiters, and the rumorsthat Campion had a bad death- indicate that the public'sinterpretation of the executionwas farless homogeneously sympatheticthan he would wish (Blr, A3r). It is the close structuralrelationship between the discoursesof martyrand traitorthat creates this representationalrupture. Martyrdom is produced by transforminghistorical events (utterances,gestures, actions, death) into typologicalmarkers that allowfor the positioningof the victimin a narrative of spiritualtranscendence. Because the victim'sconscience is alwaysfinally - a cipher,and what is writtenon the heart true faithor hypocrisy- is never fully legible to any but God, the constructionof martyrdomis necessarily an act of interpretivenarration. If the martyr cannot be produced as a coherent literaryfigure, the existentialcategory of martyrdomis likewise imperiled.The same is true for the traitor.Although the victim'sinsides are exposed for all to see, the executioner'sinvitation to "Beholdthe heart of a traitor"is essentiallyan invitationto the same kind of interpretiveact that constructsmartyrdom, one that demands that the body and soul be read as part of a broaderstory of treasonthat has alreadybeen composed from the victim'swords and behavior.This story,like the martyr'sstory, is equally transcendent,situating the victim as the anti-citizen,the arch-criminal,the exemplarof the damned. The difference- and the reason that the treason chargeis so disruptive- is that the narrativestructure of treasonis far more flexiblethan the structureof martyrdom,which is alwaysbound up with the

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rigid typologicalimperatives of Christological and hagiographicsuffering. Thus Elizabeth'sdiscursive substitution of treason for martyrdom- her reinscriptionof the cipher of the heart- is essentiallythe substitutionof one narrativefor another.In place of martyrologicalexemplarity, treason providesa rival story of transcendencethat's simply easier to tell.

Villanova University

NOTES

1. This passage from Allen'smartyrology refers to the execution of Thomas Ford,one of the prieststried with Campion. 2. Gregory'sintroduction announces its hostilityto a rangeof potentialpostmodern readings of martyrology,objecting that such readingscan only fail to take early modern belief as seriouslyas it takes itself.Much of what he objects to and claims to be workingagainst, however,are hypothetical,"straw man" readings of earlymodern religionthat seem unlikely to be launchedby any reasonablescholar. But the anxiety that underliesthese objectionsis not specificto Gregory. 3. Pius V's bull, Regnansin Excelsis,can be found in the originalLatin and in an English translationin Barlow 1-6. 4. "AnAct wherebycertain offencesbe made treasons"in Elton 73-77. 5. "DeclaringJesuits and Non-ReturningSeminarians Traitors" in Hughes and Larkin 489-501. 6. "AnAct for provisionto be made for the surety of the Queen's most royal person" in Elton 77-80. 7. "EstablishingCommissions Against Seminary Priestsand Jesuits"and "Specifying Questions to be Asked of SeminaryPriests" in Hughes and Larkin86-95. 8. Campion's "Challenge"was published in a document that refuted it, Meredith Hanmer's The great braggeand challengeof M. Championa Jesuite. On the various responses to Campion's "Challenge"and his Latin treatise in defense of his faith, DecemRationes, see Milward54-59. 9. See Allen's A Briefe historieof the GloriousMartyrdom of XII. ReverendPriests and A True, Sincere,and ModestDefense of English Catholics. 10. The place name designated by the blank is excluded in the trial transcript.The prosecutor'scatalog of Campion'sattire comes froma descriptionof him thatwas circulated to aid his capture. 1 1. A particulardeclaration or testimony,of the undutifulland traiterousaffection borne against her Majestieby EdmondCampion Jesuite, and othercondemned Priestes is an account of the priests' an- swersto the six questions.This short text was publishedby ChristopherBarker, the Queen's printer,and is thereforepresumed to be an officiallysanctioned document. Because it is unpaginatedand appearsin its entiretyin StateTrials (immediately following the account of

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Campion'strial), page numbersfrom this text will referto the StateTrials version. 12. Because Pope Pius V died less than two years (d. May 1, 1572) after he issued the bull of excommunicationagainst Elizabeth, there was some question among Catholics about whether or not it was still officiallyin effect. Six subsequentpopes would hold office by the time Elizabethdied in 1603, and none cared to weigh in on the issue with either a renewalor retractionof the bull. However,Pope Paul V, who was elected in 1605, made a statementwarning English Catholics not to takeJames's Oath of Allegiance.In it, he ad- vised them that the contentsof the Oath- the rejectionof the pope's power to depose and excommunicate- were hereticaland that the Oath could not be taken without imperiling one's salvation.This decree indicatesthat, although the papacy issued no officialposition on Elizabethafter Pius's bull, the questionof papal prerogativethat was centralto trialslike Campion'sremained a consistentpoint of Catholic orthodoxy. 13. ImprisonedCatholics routinely expressed their desire for martyrdom,and Campion was no exception.Marotti reports, "When Campion had enteredEngland, he did so with no reluctance,as he said to the authorities,to 'enjoy your Tyburn.'Like other militantJesuits, he thought of himself as a martyrin the making"{Religious Ideology 91). 14. As I have argued elsewhere, Foxes Actsand Monuments successfully negotiates the demands of both historicalaccuracy and typological uniformity,principally because the Marianpersecutions were centered on the charge of heresy,not treason. 15. Coffeysuggests that the practiceof executingreligious dissenters for heresyhad come to be associatedwith Roman Catholicismand was thereforeregarded warily by a broad range of early modern English theologians, including King James, who told Parliament that "it is a sure rule in Divinitie, that God never loves to plant his Church by violence and bloodshed"(quoted in Coffey 27). 16. The text was publishedanonymously, but Alfield has long been consideredits author. 17. Forthis metaphorI am indebtedto MatthewKozusko, who generouslyread multiple draftsof this essay.

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