Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/123

 IS^i.J THE JESUIT INVASION. to? walls of the English College at Rome, to stir the emula- tion of the rising students. ' In their sufferings,' said Mendoza, ' they showed the graces which God reserves for his most favoured servants. Their words, before they died, were fragrant of Heaven. They declared their innocence, and they forgave their murderers. After Campian's death it was seen that they had torn away his nails. The ad- mirable lives of these priests, and their constancy in bearing such cruel tortures, give them a place among the great martyrs of the Church of God and that God permits the Catholics to be thus afflicted, and so much saintly blood to be shed in the realm, is a sign that ere long he will be pleased to restore England into the fold.' l The continent rung with the story as forty-four years before it had shrieked over the deaths of More and Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks. Then too the constancy of the martyrs was a sign that the straying flock would be recovered. The flock had been brought back, but had strayed again, and was still in the wilder- ness. The modern reader will find it hard to judge fairly the men that ordered these things. Abhorrence of deliberate cruelty provokes abhorrence also of those who were guilty of it, and the long impotence of the Catholic clergy in England renders us incredulous of the dangers that were to be feared from them. For the rack, the thumbscrew, the Tower dungeons, and the savage details of the execution, no detestation can be too 1 Mendoza to Philip, December 4 : MSS. Simancatt.