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ROBERT SOUTHWELL (c. 1561-1595) , See also: English Jesuit and poet, son of See also: Richard Southwell of See also: Horsham St Faith's, Nor-folk, was See also: born in 156o/61
.
The Southwells were affiliated with many See also: noble English families, and Robert's grandmother, See also: Elizabeth Shelley, figures in the genealogy of Shelley the poet
.
He was sent very
See also: young to the See also: Roman Catholic See also: college at See also: Douai, and thence to See also: Paris, where he was placed under a Jesuit See also: father, See also: Thomas Darbyshire
.
In 1580 he joined the Society of Jesus, after a two years' novitiate, passed mostly at Tournay
.
In spite of his youth he was made
See also: prefect of studies in the English college of the See also: Jesuits at See also: Rome, and was ordained See also: priest in 1584
.
It was in that See also: year that an See also: act was passed, forbidding any English-born subject of the See also: Queen who had entered into priest's orders in the Roman Catholic See also: Church since her accession to remain in
See also: England longer than See also: forty days on See also: pain of See also: death
.
But Southwell at his own See also: request was sent to England in 1586 as a Jesuit missionary with See also: Henry
See also: Garnett
.
He went from one Catholic See also: family to another, administering the See also: rites of his Church, and in 1589 became domestic See also: chaplain to See also: Ann See also: Howard, whose See also: husband, the first See also: earl of Arundel, was in prison convicted of treason
.
It was to him that Southwell addressed his See also: Epistle of Comfort
.
This and other of his religious tracts, A See also: Short See also: Rule of See also: Good See also: Life, Triumphs over Death, Mary Magdalen's Tears and a Humble Supplication to Queen Elizabeth, were widely circulated in See also: manuscript
.
That they found favour outside Catholic circles is proved by Thomas See also: Nash's imitation of Mary Magdalen's Tears in Christ's Tears over Jerusalem
.
After six years of successful labour Southwell was arrested
.
He was in the habit of visiting theSee also: house of Richard Bellamy, who lived near See also: Harrow and was under suspicion on account of his connexion with See also: Jerome Bellamy, who had been executed for sharing in Anthony Babington's See also: plot
.
One of the daughters, See also: Anne Bellamy, was arrested and imprisoned in the See also: gatehouse of See also: Holborn
.
She revealed Southwell's movements to Richard Topcliffe, who immediately arrested him
.
He was imprisoned at first in Topcliffe's house, where he was repeatedly put to the torture in the vain hope of extracting evidence about other priests
.
Transferred to the gatehouse at See also: Westminster, he was so abominably treated that his father petitioned Elizabeth that he might either be brought to trial and put to death, if found guilty, or removed in any See also: case from " that filthy hole." Southwell was then lodged in the Tower, but he was not brought to trial until See also: February
1595
.
There is little doubt that much of his See also: poetry, none of which was published during his lifetime, was written in prison
.
On the 20th of February 1J95 he was tried before the See also: court of See also: King's Bench on the
See also: charge of treason, and was hanged at See also: Tyburn on the following See also: day
.
On the See also: scaffold he denied any evil intentions towards the Queen or her See also: government
.
St See also: Peter's Complaint with other Poems was published in See also: April
1595 without the author's name, and was reprinted thirteen times during the next forty years
.
A supplementary See also: volume entitled Maeoniae appeared later in 1595, and A Foure See also: fould Meditation of the foure last things in 1606
.
This, which is not included in Dr A
.
B
.
Grosart's reprint (1872) in the See also: Fuller Worthies Library, was published by Mr See also: Charles Edmonds in his Isham Reprints (1895)
.
A
See also: Hundred Meditations of the Love of See also: God, in See also: prose, was first printed from a MS. at Stonyhurst College in 1873
.
Southwell's poetry is euphuistic in manner
.
But his frequent use of antithesis and paradox, the varied and fanciful imagery by which he realizes religious emotion, though they are indeed in accordance with the poetical conventions of his See also: time, are also the unconstrained expression of an ardent and concentrated See also: imagination
.
See also: Ben See also: Jonson told See also: Drummond of Hawthornden that he would willingly have destroyed many of his own poems to be able to claim as his own Southwell's " Burning Babe," an extreme but beautiful example of his fantastic treatment of sacred subjects
.
His poetry is not, how-ever, all characterized by this elaboration
.
Immediately pre-ceding this very piece in his collected See also: works is a See also: carol written in terms of the utmost simplicity
.
See Dr Grosart's edition already mentioned
.
Southwell's poems were also edited by W
.
B
.
Turnbull in 1856
.
A memoir of him was See also: drawn up soon after his death
.
Much of the material was incorporated by See also: Bishop See also: Challoner in his Memoir of Missionary Priests (1i41), and the MS. is now in the Public Record Office in Brussels
.
See also See also: Sidney See also: Lee's account in the
See also: Diet
.
Nat
.
Biog.; See also: Alexis Possoz, See also: Vie du Pere R
.
Southwell (1866); and a life in Henry Foley's Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus
.
Historic facts illustrative of the labours and sufferings of its members in the loth and 17th centuries, 1877 (i
.
301-387)
.
Foley's narrative includes copies of the most important documents connected with his trial, and gives full information of the See also: original See also: sources
.
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