Page:The Poet's Chantry pg 004.jpg

4 disappointment. Delay tried, but did not in the least shake, his determination; so finally the coveted consent was obtained, and on the 17th October, 1578, his name was formally entered "amongst the children" of St. Ignatius. Two years later he took minor orders in Rome, and made his first vows as a scholastic of the Society. Then followed four peaceful years of study, during which Southwell was occupied with philosophy and divinity, and, incidentally it seems, with verse-making. In this case the "poetic temperament" was evidently quite compatible with hard work, for the brilliancy of his labours soon won him the prefecture of the English College at Rome. It was in 1584—probably his own twenty-fourth year—that Robert Southwell received the final rites of ordination, and stood prepared to begin his apostolic ministry.

Almost simultaneously, a law was passed in England (27 Elizabeth, c. 2) declaring any native-born subject who had entered the Catholic priesthood since the first year of the Queen's accession, and who thereafter resided more than forty days on English soil, to be a traitor, and liable to the penalty of death. Severe as it was, it nowise dampened the ardour of the Jesuits in general, nor of Robert Southwell in particular. The English mission—if most interesting—was obviously one of the most perilous in Europe: religious fanaticism had been aggravated and embittered by political hostility; the air was dark with con-spiracies for and against the imprisoned Queen of Scots; and the whole country was, to quote Mr. Turnbull's Memoir, "in a ferment of political intrigues." Alarmed by Catholic successes abroad, Elizabeth redoubled the rigour of her Uniformity Acts; the celebration of Mass was forbidden even in private houses, the fines of recusants were