(1583 - 1589)

'The Papists ... did proudly advance themselves, as though they ought to be taken for good subjects.' So complained Sir Francis Knollys in the reactionary atmosphere after the Armada. Another crackdown on seminary priests was soon under way.

As part of this drive, just before midnight 18 May 1589, four men were arrested at the Catherine Wheel Inn, Oxford. One of them was a young man called Thomas Belson.

Thomas's family were gentlemen farmers who held land in a number of parishes in the Thame area. Their principal seat was at Aston Rowant (4 miles NE of Watlington) where Thomas's Catholic father had been a churchwarden until the religious changes of Elizabeth's reign.

The family then moved nine miles to the remote Ixhill Lodge (1 mile SE of Oakley) which stood beside a tributary of the River Thame in Bernwood Forest. Although its name has been changed, the house is still there, well hidden by the trees alongside the stream.

Ixhill
Ixhill Lodge is hidden among the line of trees to the right of centre

Ixhill Lodge was in Buckinghamshire where the magistrates were more tolerant of Catholicism than were their Oxfordshire counterparts. By moving to this remote house across the county border and assigning his lands to sympathetic friends and relatives, Thomas Belson's father considerably reduced his exposure to fines for non-attendance at Anglican services.

The Belsons' new home became a safe house for Catholic priests. One who often stayed there was Fr John Filby, elder brother of the priest captured at Henley-on-Thames when Fr Edmund Campion was paraded through the town. Fr Filby was to exercise his secret ministry in the area for more than thirty years, supported by local Catholics such as the Belsons.

Other Catholics in the area included the Bromes of Boarstall (3 miles NW of Ixhill) the Bethams of Adwell (7 miles SSE) the Easts of Bledlow (9 miles SE) and the Lenthalls and Horsemans of Great Haseley (6 miles S.). The Easts were cousins of the Belsons and Dorothy East's widower, Thomas Fitzherbert, became Rector of the English College in Rome. Margaret Lenthall married Robert Tempest of Holmeside, County Durham who was exiled for taking part in the Northern Rising. Their daughter Anne married Thomas Belson's brother Robert, a commander of the Chiltern musters.

Thomas Belson may have attended the illegal boarding school for Catholics, run by Dr George Etheridge in a medieval hall in Oxford. Etheridge was a skilled physician, musician and professor of Greek. Despite frequent fines and imprisonment he ran his school for a quarter of a century. His pupils included William Giffard, later Archbishop of Rheims, whose sister married Edward Yate of Buckland. Dr Etheridge owned a safe house for Catholics at Stanton St John (5 miles E. of Ixhill Lodge). The Belsons' frequent house guest Fr John Filby often stayed there with the lawyer Ambrose Edmonds, so the Belsons would have been aware of Etheridge's school.

It is known that Thomas Belson studied at St Mary's Hall, Oxford, which was part of Oriel College. This was an unusually independent college, which made it relatively easy for Catholics to gain admission without compromising themselves. Thomas studied under the Spanish Protestant Antonio del Corro, a rare advocate of religious freedom. In 1583 he applied for his Bachelor of Arts degree but did not undergo the final process, which would have necessitated taking the Oath of Supremacy. Instead he gave his lands and property in Brill and Oakley to his brother William and went to Rheims, where he studied at the seminary with his brother-in-law Robert Tempest. In spring 1584 he returned to England. The following summer he was arrested in London and imprisoned in the Tower.

In 1585, while Thomas Belson was still in prison, the Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, Robert Dormer of Wing, was ordered to compile a list of recusants. Each was to pay a fine of £260 (= £28,000 today) and finance a cavalryman for the Queen. Robert Dormer was himself a Catholic, which helps explain the leniency of the Buckinghamshire judiciary towards his co-religionists. The authorities knew that he harboured priests and even that Fr Edmund Campion had celebrated Mass at his house. Dormer also had many Catholic relatives. His brothers-in-law included Francis Browne of Henley Park, George Browne of Shefford, the younger Francis Englefield and the Count of Feria, formerly Philip II's representative in England. The martyred Carthusian monk Sebastian Newdigate, an uncle of Dame Cecily Stonor, was the Sheriff's great uncle.

But despite his religious allegiance, Robert Dormer did not altogether avoid the duties of his office. He named twenty-two Catholics and the threat of the new penalties proved too much for at least one. The widow Avice Lee, a neighbour of the Belsons, had refused to conform for the last two decades. Now, worn down by the struggle, she saved her lands by taking Communion in her parish church. However, two years later she was again listed as a recusant. Her younger son Roger became a guide and helper to the Jesuit Fr John Gerard, and subsequently became a Jesuit priest himself.

In the autumn of 1586 Thomas Belson, still in the Tower, was ordered 'To be banished the realm ... for conveying intelligence between Bridges the priest and others beyond the seas and some in this realm by unknown means.' Bridges was the alias of Edward Grately, a priest who had turned informer, as had Ralph Betham, a young neighbour of the Belsons.

Thomas Belson's father had to put up a bond which would be forfeited if his son illegally re-entered England. The old man promptly transferred what remained of his property to his wife and his eldest son, Robert. This meant that, if Thomas were caught in England, there would be nothing for the authorities to seize. And it seems that Thomas was soon assisting seminary priests again, and acting as a courier between them and the colleges in Rheims and Rome.

In May 1589 the authorities finally caught up with him. He was arrested with Fr George Nichols (confessor of the condemned highwayman Harcourt Taverner), Fr Richard Yaxley and a servant called Humphrey Prichard at the Catherine Wheel Inn, opposite the east end of St Mary Magdalen's Church in Oxford. At the prompting of a spy the arrested men's belongings were searched and among them were found some altar cloths. The two laymen were jailed in Oxford Castle; the priests in the Bocardo, the worst prison in Oxford.

After questioning by notables of the University the four captives were sent to London in the custody of the Sheriff's archers to be interrogated by the Privy Council. The priests had their hands tied behind their backs and their legs tied under their horses. The laymen had their hands tied. Humphrey Prichard, who was probably unused to riding, fell from his horse and suffered head injuries.

A graduate of Magdalen College called Ellis, inspired by their courage, walked alongside the prisoners all the way to London. Afraid that Ellis would tell bystanders how badly the prisoners had been treated, the Sheriff's archers had him consigned to Bedlam, the notorious Bishopsgate lunatic asylum.

The four prisoners were interrogated by Secretary Walsingham and by the Privy Council. Afterwards the two priests were sent to the Bridewell prison, one of the worst in London. They were hung by the hands for fifteen hours. During this time two informer priests confirmed that both Nichols and Yaxley were Catholic clergy.

Other tortures followed. Fr Nichols was transferred to the Tower and put in the Pit, a 20 foot deep unlit underground dungeon, full of vermin. Fr Yaxley was racked every day. Humphrey Prichard was moved to the Bridewell while Thomas Belson was kept in the Gatehouse prison, Westminster. It is probable that both were tortured. But it seems that none of the prisoners revealed any information that would prejudice their fellow Catholics.

By midsummer 1589 the Privy Council had decided to send the prisoners back to Oxford to make an example of them. All four were in such poor condition that they had to be carried in a wagon rather than on horseback.

The Privy Council wanted a show trial and Sir Francis Knollys travelled ahead to stage-manage the operation. On arriving at Oxford he raided the Catherine Wheel where Humphrey Prichard had worked and which, for many years, had been something of a safe house for Catholics. He had the landlady imprisoned for life and confiscated her belongings.

Because there was no evidence whatsoever of treason as normally understood, Thomas Belson and his fellow prisoners were tried under the recent statute imposing the death sentence on any Englishman ordained abroad who entered England, and on anyone helping such a person. The verdicts were a foregone conclusion. The two priests were convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The two laymen, as accomplices, were to be hanged.

The executions took place at Oxford in July 1589. The two priests were each dragged through the streets on a horse-drawn hurdle. The first to die was Fr George Nichols. Having been refused permission to address the crowd, he made his profession of faith. He made it clear that he was being executed merely because he was a priest. Climbing the ladder to the gallows, he made the sign of the cross on each rung and kissed it. Then he was thrown off to his death.

Fr Richard Yaxley was the next to die. He embraced the body of his dead colleague, then climbed the ladder and started to make his own profession of faith. But, before he could finish, he too was pushed off.

It was now Thomas Belson's turn to die. He hugged the bodies of the two priests and prayed that he would share their courage. He climbed the ladder, started his profession of faith and, like Fr Yaxley, was executed before he could finish. He was twenty-six years old.

Finally it was the turn of Humphrey Prichard, the servant from the Catherine Wheel. At the top of the ladder he told the crowd that he died for 'being a Catholic and faithful Christian of Holy Church'. A Puritan minister mocked him for being ignorant. Prichard replied that 'what I cannot explain by mouth, I am ready and prepared to explain and testify to you at the cost of my blood.' Whereupon he was thrown from the ladder.

The priests were decapitated and quartered, their heads and quarters being parboiled in a cauldron. Their remains were then fixed to the wall of Oxford Castle where they were mutilated by Puritan extremists. A couple of days later the remains were fixed to the town gates. The right arm of Fr Nichols is reported to have swivelled round of its own accord. Some said it pointed accusingly at the city.

Within a year of their deaths, the story of the Oxford Martyrs had been published in Italy, Spain and France. Four eye-witnesses of the executions had related the story to Richard Verstegan, an English writer, poet and publisher based in Antwerp. Verstegan relayed the reports to Cardinal William Allen in Rome and sent additional information to Spain. The story was published in Rome early in 1590. Within three months a French translation was available. Later in the year Fr Robert Persons issued the Spanish version. The incident had generated international interest and much bad publicity for Queen Elizabeth's regime.

In 1987 Thomas Belson, Humphrey Prichard, Fr Nichols and Fr Yaxley were among eighty-five English and Welsh martyrs beatified by the Pope.