The Western Rising of 1549 - Martyrs for the Old Mass

                                              
I recently came across a copy of an interesting document, given to me in the summer of 1999, as a participant in a Pilgrimage on the Devon/Cornwall borders,  commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Western Rising. The Chaplain was the much loved late Fr Michael Crowdy, and the pilgrimage  leader the late Mr Robin Pannell, (Carmel Books), a knowledgeable and inspirational man, with a droll sense of humour and strong traditional Catholic views, which he expressed  firmly and fearlessly whenever appropriate.. A copy of the document entitled 'The Western Rising of 1549' (see below)  was given to those taking part in the pilgrimage, also a short written history of the Western Rising by the late Michael Davies, and published by the Latin Mass Society.

In his article Michael Davies makes some interesting points, beginning with the reminder that although King Henry VIII wanted a new wife, several in fact, he did not want a new religion. Where the liturgy was concerned he was particularly conservative, and when he died the traditional Latin Mass was still being celebrated in every church in the country, unchanged but for the removal of any prayer for the Pope or commemoration of St Thomas a Becket. 

       King Edward VI (b.1537 d.1553)  reigned 1547-53

On the King's death he was succeeded by the sickly nine year old boy King Edward VI, the son of Henry's third wife Jane Seymour. The new King was no more than a puppet of his Protestant dominated Council, whose stated aim was to obliterate the Catholic faith from the face of the land, the principal means adopted to achieve this aim being to destroy the hitherto unchanged immemorial Latin Mass and replace it with a vernacular Protestant Communion service. 

Their leader in this objective was Thomas Cranmer, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII. Cranmer lived a lie whilst Henry was still alive, secretly espousing Protestantism yet still a Prince of the Church.He even celebrated the traditional Latin Mass at Edwards coronation, but shortly afterwards used a series of injunctions to initiate the revolution. The injunctions abolished all processions, ordered the destruction of all images,including those in windows; imposed Communion under both kinds; had parts of the Mass celebrated in the vernacular; condemned any form of the recitation of the Rosary; and forbade the burning of all lights apart from two on the altar. The clergy were ordered to exhort the faithful to do away with images in their homes.

                Thomas Cranmer  Archbishop of Canterbury

In 1549 the  Latin Mass was abolished and replaced by a new 'Order of Service' in English, with Communion under both kinds, from which every specific reference to  'sacrifice'  had been removed. Apart from its doctrinal significance, the change from a totally Latin to a totally vernacular liturgy involved a cultural disaster of significant proportion as it severed the liturgical musical heritage of western Christendom, which was entirely in Latin. The imposition of the 1549 Prayer Book made clear to the ordinary Catholic that his beloved Mass had been taken from him.

The 'Western Rising' was what would be known today as a 'grass roots' reaction to the new English 'Order of Service'.The demand for the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass originated from the laity and not the clergy, most of the latter choosing to use the new service rather than incur the ferocious penalties decreed for those who refused it. In the village of Sampford Courtenay, W. Devon, the men of the village forbade their priest to use the new Service, insisting that he say the Old Mass.  As the news of the restoration of the Old Mass spread  through neighbouring parishes, many  men from surrounding villages gathered  in Sampford Courtenay determined to show unity of purpose.

Within a very short time  the Old Mass was restored in many  local parishes, and the rebels-as we shall  call them, then occupied the small town of Crediton, about 8 miles from Exeter,where they planned to gather strength for a march upon Exeter.By this time Government troops were instructed to bring the insurrection to a speedy end, and as a result drove the rebels  from Crediton by means of  firing the thatched roofs of the barns being used by them, and forcing them to disperse.

 

The victory was a hollow one, for the rebels re-grouped in larger numbers at Clyst St Mary, about 2 miles outside Exeter, under the leadership of  Sir Thomas Pomeroy and Humphrey Arundell.  The historian and Protestant Professor W.G.Hoskins, described their march on Exeter:- 

                  'With the sacred banner of the Five Wounds of Christ floating before them, and the pyx borne under a rich canopy, with crosses, banners, candlesticks, swinging censers, and holy bread and water "to defend them from devils and the adverse power," the procession of Devon and Cornish farmers and labourers, led by a few of the gentry, ignorantly pitting themselves against the whole power of the state, marched on Exeter behind their robed priests, singing as they advanced....

          The Sacred Banner of the Five Wounds of Christ

...... We do not know how many conservative or stubborn Westcountrymen marched in that hopeless rebellion, a few thousand probably. They spoke and thought for tens of thousands, no doubt, who disliked and detested the changes. The religious nature of the rebellion is made clear by the fifteen demands of the rebels (see below). 

Cranmer rejected the demands outright, accusing the 'ignorant' rebels of being led 'by the nose' by the clergy, and demanding that they surrender. The rebels refused and fierce fighting ensued with the poorly-armed rebels sometimes outnumbered four to one by Government forces, many of them foreign mercenaries, commanded by Lord Russell (Lord Privy Seal) and Lord Grey de Wilton. On the first day, some 1000 rebels were killed, and a further 900 taken prisoner and then massacred without pity.. The battle continued the next day, again the rebels were vastly outnumbered resulting in defeat but not without honour, refusing to concede as long as life and limb lasted. Few survived, yet still they fought for the old Mass, with the final battle at Sampford Courtenay involving 2000 rebels against a royal army of 8000 trained troops, with as many as 1200 rebels killed.

Groups of rebels still kept up the fight, with a final confrontation at Kings Weston in Somerset, where exhausted and outnumbered, they suffered 'great slaughter and execution', with 104 men taken prisoner. Singly or in pairs they were hanged in Bath, Frome, Wells, Glastonbury, Ilminster, Dunster, Milverton, Wiveliscombe and other Somerset towns. In Devon, every crossroad seemed to contain a gibbet from which hung the putrefying corpse of one of the humble Catholics involved in the fight for the old Mass, a fearful reminder of the price that had been paid for daring to uphold the Faith of their fathers. A total of at least 4000 Westcountrymen died for the traditional Mass at the hands of  the Royal army.

The new English 'Order of Service'  had received its baptism of blood. The Magistrates were ordered to enforce the use of the Prayer Book, and the church bells used in every parish by the rebels " to stir the multitude and call them together" were to be removed with the exception of the smallest which could be retained " to call the parishioners together to the sermons and divine service". Thus were the peasants of the West induced to accept "the very godly order set forth by order of parliament for common prayer in the mother tongue                                  

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"On Pentecost Sunday, by law, the Traditional Latin Mass was abolished in England. It was the last in a series of anti-Catholic actions of the government, with almost no opposition from the bishops. From that date a New Order of Service was to be used, designed to please Protestants and to make those who attended it week after week become gradually Protestants themselves. For nearly all of England this was most unwelcome. For the faithful in Cornwall and Devon it was totally unacceptable. They took up arms. The year was 1549, two years after King Henry VIII had died. These are the requests made by these faithful Catholics, willing to die for their faith" ---

      The Western Rising of 1549

Articles of us, the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall, in divers Camps, by East and West of Exeter.

1. We will have the general council and holy decrees of our forefathers observed, kept, and performed, and whosoever will gainsay them, we hold them as heretics.

2. Restoration of Statute of  Six Articles of  Henry VIII against heresy.

3. We will have the Mass in Latin as was before, and celebrated by the Priest without any man or woman communicating with him.

4. We will have the Sacrament hang over the High Altar and there to be worshipped as it was wont to be, and they, which will not thereto consent, we will have them die like heretics against the Holy Catholic Faith.

5. We will have the Sacrament of the Altar but only at Easter delivered to the lay people, and then only in one kind.

6. We will that our Curates shall minister the Sacrament of Baptism at all times, as well in the week as on the holy day.

7. We will have holy bread and holy water made every Sunday, Palms and Ashes at times accustomed. Images to be set up again in every Church, and all other ancient old ceremonies.

8. We will not receive the New Service because it is but like a Christmas game, but we will have our old service of Matins, Mass, Evensong and Procession, in Latin as it was before. And so we the Cornish men (whereof certain of us understand no English) utterly refuse this new English.

9. We will have every preacher in his sermon and every priest at his Mass, pray especially by name for the souls in Purgatory as our forefathers did.

10. Calling-in of the English translation of the Scriptures, that is unauthorised translations.

11. Demanding the release of  Dr.Moreman and Dr. Crispin, two Canons of Exeter, who were imprisoned in the Tower.

12. Demanding the recall of Cardinal Pole and his promotion to be of the King’s Council.

13. Demanding the restriction of number of servants a man might have.

14. Restoration of half the abbey and chantry lands and endowments, and foundation of two abbeys in every county.

15. For the particular griefs of our country we will have them so ordered as Humphrey Arundell and Henry Bray, the Kings Mayor of Bodmin, shall inform the King’s Majesty, if they may have safe conduct under the King’s Great Seal to pass and repass with a Herald of Arms.

By us: Humphrey Arundell     John Thompson, Priest

           John Berry                     Henry Bray, Mayor of Bodmin

           Thomas Underhill          Henry Lee, Mayor of Torrington

           John Sloeman                 Roger Barrett, Priest

           William Segar          

      

   Chief Captains                      The four Governors of the Camps                                       

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 All you holy English Saints and Martyrs,  pray for us and for our Holy Catholic Church.

Holy Mary,  pray for England thy Dowry.

'Father Francesco, in Paradise remember this lamb of yours'

'Tribute to Father Francesco Pitocchi C.SS.R'  by Don Angelo Roncalli, from  'Journal of a Soul'.
(continued from previous post)
             

      'During the following years I found the same overflowing kindness; and on the numerous occasions that I returned to Bergamo from Rome, accompanying my Bishop and master, Mgr Radini Tedeschi of revered memory,  my heart impelled me to hasten at once to San Gioaccino, Monterone, or Sant’Alfonso, to find my dear Father Francesco. Again I would confide in him my joys, anxieties, and the various events of my life, and receive advice, encouragement and comfort from him. He was pleased to be remembered, especially from far away, and to have news of his former Bergamasque students, and the passing of time made no difference to the kindness he continued to show his children..
      What tranquillity there was in his goodness! In all the various circumstances in which I saw him, I never heard a word or saw a gesture betray even the slightest disturbance of his spirit. This imperturbable, sometimes implacable serenity, when on certain occasions he demanded from one of us acts of great but necessary self-denial, seems to me to have been one of his most effective means of earning our measureless esteem and the perfect confidence of the consciences which he directed.
      He had a sure touch in directing souls, treating them according to the needs and temperament of each, urging this one on and holding the other back, sometimes praising and at other times correcting, always watchful and perceptive in his guidance, yet always gentle, one might almost say motherly.
         This kindness seemed all the greater and made the more lasting impression because it drew dignity and splendour from the example he set before us of resigned and contented serenity amidst the atrocious physical sufferings which tortured him for so many years.
      We always knew him as a man in pain. In fact it was his physical sufferings which prevented him from devoting himself to wider and more exhausting ministries in his Congregation, or from going away from Rome. When with sorrow and filial compassion we saw that bent head which he could only raise with the greatest pain, because of the violent contraction of the nerves, and never, never heard a word of complaint that the Lord should have sent him this mortification, we used to say that truly his resemblance to his saintly founder and father, St Alphonsus, was perfect.
        As he was always in pain and always cheerful, his continual appeals to us to seek the holy will of God in all things were irresistibly persuasive. He helped us with advice and with prayer to discover this will of God, and having found it encouraged us to follow it with no other thought, no pre-occupation with any personal ambitions or interests, but with generous and loving hearts in the service of God.

       The supreme wisdom of the spiritual direction given by Father Francesco Pitocchi was in this simple but sublime doctrine, in this training of every soul to work for the triumph of the will of God and His kingdom, in the soul itself as well as in the whole world: ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”.
      The last time I saw him was a few days before he died, he was in great pain in his humble cell at Sant’Alfonso.  His last words to me were, “What God wills, Don Angelo, and as God wills……this alone…..this alone”
      I would, I could, add much more. But I am held back by the thought that the most sacred pages in the history of our souls are those which every one of us guards religiously in his own heart.

      Of special memory to me is the 1904 vacation, the last I spent at the seminary, Father Francesco was with us in the country at Roccantica. With little notice and  a certain reluctance, I was obliged to preach a short sermon, and having had no opportunity to prepare anything, I simply quoted  from the ‘The Imitation of Christ’, on the subject of  ‘The four things that bring much peace to the soul’
It is heavenly doctrine: who can forget it?
 

1.    Seek, my son, to do another’s will, rather than your own
2.    Choose always to have less rather than more
3.    Always seek the lowest place and to be inferior to everyone.
4.    Always desire and pray that the will of God may be wholly fulfilled in you.
 
      I then added a few words of my own which, as I was at the time absorbed in reading the life of St Francis, related to the story of Brother Leo on the mountain of La Verna, who, when the Poverello was raised in ecstasy, ran forward to clutch his feet and kiss them, weeping and crying: ‘My God, have mercy on me a sinner, and through the merits of this holy man grant me your grace’
      I still see before my eyes Father Francesco’s smile of pleasure at the subject and example chosen.  ‘You see’ he said to me, ’how obedience has come to your rescue. Always obey, simply, and good temperedly: leave the rest to the Lord. It is He who speaks to our hearts.’
      Eighteen years later I think with great emotion of the truth of that doctrine. When I think of him, my dear departed Father, my soul finds comfort in seeking him in that light of glory to which, we may hope, he was raised, much higher than the tall beeches of La Verna. Like humble Brother Leo, I love to contemplate him and, almost as if I were kissing his feet, I repeat with tears of sadness and love: ‘Father Francesco, Father Francesco, in Paradise remember this lamb of yours. And you, my God, have mercy on me a sinner, and through the merits of this holy man, grant me your grace.’

Don Angelo Roncalli
Rapallo, December 14, 1922.  Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Ack  ‘Pope John XXIII  Journal of a Soul’  pub.First Four Square Edition 1966

Father Francesco Pitocchi C.SS.R - 'God is all and I am nothing'

Father Angelo Roncalli (c1910) -centre row, 3rd from right,

- personal secretary to Bishop Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi of Bergamo (centre) from 1905-1914.

      

A tribute to the memory of Father Francesco Pitocchi C.SS.R. by Father Angelo Roncalli.

                      Rapallo, 14th December, 1922

                The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

      I had the good fortune to meet him first towards the end of 1902, twenty years ago. I had just returned to the Roman Seminary after my military service, to resume my theological studies, and prepare myself for holy orders.

      At the conclusion of our first meeting he gave me a motto to repeat to myself calmly and frequently:-

‘God is all, and I am nothing’ – this was like a new principle that opened to my gaze new horizons, unexplored, full of mystery and spiritual beauty.

And I was satisfied.

That motto, which at once began to cut down any pretensions of personal pride, was like the first chapter of a precious book which, from that evening, Father Francesco taught me to read for my spiritual edification.

      When I think now how much I owe to my dear Father’s wise teaching I blush at the small profit I derived from his loving instructions; but I also feel great satisfaction, which seems to me legitimate and holy, because those two years of immediate preparation for my priesthood were indeed, through the mercy of God and through the work of this worthy minister of his, the most fruitful and the richest in ideas and directives for the training of my spirit.

      I used to go to see Fr Francesco, as did many of my companions, when he visited the Seminary, generally twice a week.  He would listen with great kindness, but did not say very much, often contenting himself with a thought from Scripture sufficient to convince us that he really cared for the soul of each one of us as if the Lord had sent him for that one alone; such was the interest he showed in our weaknesses and in our puny efforts to overcome them, which he supported with fatherly kindness. When we left him, kissing the cross on his stole or his hand raised in absolution or blessing, we felt as it were, new vigour, pleasurable and powerful, an enthusiasm, a great enthusiasm, to do good, which, in spite of so many failings - I speak for myself - was the best part, the beauty and the joy of our youth as seminarists.

      Sometimes Father Francesco could not come to the seminary, either because his physical sufferings prevented him or because he was prevented by other and graver responsibilities: so we were allowed to go to see him at San Gioacchino. There in his cell, so neat but so humble, our dear Father was completely at home, in his own setting; it even seemed as if his face, words and bearing became even more holy and persuasive against that background of simplicity and monastic and apostolic poverty. That poor simple bed - how poor it looked - with the small wooden cross placed on the rough coverlet, the bare desk, the few paper devotional holy pictures which hung on the white walls, and the few books of moral or ascetic theology scattered around, the general atmosphere of piety, conferred a singular and convincing authority on the loving warnings he gave us concerning detachment from wealth, honours, and all ambitions, even the ambitions of ecclesiastical life. He spoke of the wisdom of being faithful in little things as a habitual discipline of the soul, which would have the effect of training us in a holy generosity and an enthusiasm for the adventures and sacrifices of the priestly apostolate in the service of Jesus Christ, the Church, and the souls of men.

      In Father Francesco’s humble cell we breathed, like the sweetest perfume, the spirit of his great heavenly patron and father, St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.

                      St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696-1787)

      St Alphonsus, what a glory and what an example he is for the Italian clergy to study and venerate! We have been familiar with his life and works from the first years of our ecclesiastical training, and it is true that this great Doctor and Bishop whose spirit was to pass beyond the Alps and be miraculously spread abroad after his death, producing a wonderful flowering of apostleship and holiness, presents in his beloved person all that best corresponds to the genius of Italy, alert, shrewd, full of common sense and at the same time full of liberty, substance and poetry.

      Father Francesco Pitocchi knew his St Alphonsus, loved him and led others to know and love him with a fervour which aroused admiration. From his lips there flowed with astonishing facility episodes and details of the great Saint’s life, which he knew how to produce at the right moment, as examples and encouragements for us in the various events of our lives: he would repeat to us thoughts and words taken from his writings, which he always kept by him and advised us to read frequently.

      
      He used to say that St Alphonsus never grows old, and that his simple, modest writings contain inexhaustible treasures of doctrine, of sacred learning and that wisdom which is eternal and the very sap of holiness.

      He had great respect for other religious institutes, especially the Jesuits who had been the teachers of his youth, but he always felt himself to be heart and soul, a Redemptorist, content with his vocation for which he was thankful to God; faithful to the point of scrupulous self-sacrifice to his Rule and enthusiastic about his Congregation. He loved to tell us its good works, the glories of its apostolate throughout Europe and in the foreign Missions, and the old and new fruits of its learning and its work for the sanctification of souls.

      The secret of the attraction which Father Francesco exerted on everyone around him, and even on those who only met him once, lay in his truly fatherly character and the way in which he at once interested himself in everyone’s needs, as well as in his great discretion, his gentle, patient charity and his unalterable calm.

Discretion is the most important quality of a director of souls. The possession of it is a great gift of God: a gift that is granted to few.

Father Francesco had this gift in the highest degree.  Without any of those searching enquiries that disconcert the penitent, but with the immediate intuition of the man of God, he knew at once how to understand the moral character of whoever came to him, and to see to the depths of his soul. After knowing him for a month or two he knew all about a young man’s past and present: even the future was apparent to his clear gaze.

      We understood this: he read our eyes, he read our hearts. And our hearts opened to him spontaneously; we felt we had to tell him everything, interest him even in the smallest things; and so it happened that his advice and direction quietly and sweetly permeated the whole of our life in its various manifestations and interrelations: pious practices, studies, physical health, success and failures, happy or melancholy adventures, everything. For every problem or event he had the right word, the advice, the corrective, the comfort. He was admirable in adapting his ministry to the various characters and the variety of circumstances. Everyone seemed to draw from him all that he needed and that which was right for him.

      The two years in which I was able to profit from frequent and continuous contact with Father Francesco, were difficult years for young seminarists, in so far as the wind of modernity, sometimes impetuous and at other times gentle and caressing, which was later to degenerate, in part, into so-called Modernism, was blowing almost everywhere, and was to poison the heart and soul of many; especially during the first months it was a temptation to everyone. We students were so fortunate, for so long as we stayed with Father Francesco we were in no danger of being seduced by dangerous novelties. His great spirit of discretion, averse to all extremes, knew how to withhold consent from all that was uncertain, imprudent or insufficiently examined. He was intent above all on establishing in the consciences he directed the superior and balanced judgement that would make us shun futile arguments, thus teaching us the wise art of proceeding from words to things, from learning to life, to the life of priests and apostles.

      And his charity, St Paul’s ‘charity of God’, how it shone in Father Francesco’s eyes, on his smiling lips, in his whole person! To go and open one’s heart to him, and feel at once his response, warm with fatherly tenderness, took but a moment. And his kindness was expressed in patience, the long-suffering of Christ, an endless bearing of our troubles and indiscretions, a sweetness which was not sentimental but sober and dignified, which tempered correction, rendering it more acceptable. His words were serious and stern when necessary, and in days of gladness as in days of uncertainty and trouble, he found refinements and a warmth of speech the memory of which still moves me.

      What memories I have of August 11, 1904, when as a newly ordained priest I returned from Rome to say my second Mass: the whole villa lit up, the seminarists waiting to meet me, the welcome from my Superiors, always too kind and indulgent towards me, but most of all I remember the first priestly embrace of Father Francesco.

       In December that year he insisted that I make my first attempt to preach in public. It was to be on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the fiftieth anniversary of that dogma, and it was to the Children of Mary in Our Lady’s chapel at San Gioacchino. I wrote everything down, and on the preceding evening recited it all to my Father, on my knees, after confession. He listened to me, smiling kindly and encouraging me.

      The next day, complete failure!  I was at once put off by the general atmosphere which to me, a countryman, seemed too aristocratic. I lost my presence of mind, my fluency, my fervour; I even lost my way in my own manuscript: I confused the New Testament with the Old, the witness of the Doctors of the Church with the imagery of the prophets, St Alphonsus with St Bernard, the middle with the beginning, and the beginning with the end: in short, a disaster!  When I had finished and tore myself away from that altar, I was like a shipwrecked man cast up on a shore, completely lost.

      Once in the presence of Father Francesco, in his little room near the sacristy, he encouraged me with such kindness in his bearing and his words, that in the end I was content to have suffered that mortification, which he made me offer to Our Lady, with a resolve to attempt another public sermon as soon as possible.

(to be continued)

From ‘Journal of a Soul’ by  Pope John XXIII

Four Square Editions 1966

                        

                         

                        Pope John XXIII - Papal Coat of Arms

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'The cross of the wicked thief, endured with impatience, became to him a precipice leading to hell; while the cross endured with patience by the good thief,  became to him a ladder to paradise'

('Thoughts from St Alphonsus' compiled by Rev C S Neiry C.SS.R  -  Burnes, Oates,Washbourne 1927)

'O Holy Mary, Mother of God, guide and protect thy people, especially our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI'