The resistance to the crowned monster Henry VIII, by the London Carthusians, an order famed and loved for its service to the poor of London, rings down through the centuries. Blessed Richard Bere is one of seven of their number who were chained to posts standing and left to starve to death in Newgate prison. A word by them would have gained them release from their dreadful human fate. That word was not given. Blessed Richard Bere died on August 9, 1537. Think of him the next time you sing these lines:
Our Fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free:
How sweet would be their children’s fate,
If they, like them, could die for thee!
The civilized English.
The English populace was not with King Henry VIII and his greedy nobles. Many times the executioner would be slipped some coin so that the blade was sharpened for beheadings or in the case of hanging, ensured that the martyr was dead before being drawn and quartered. These Carthusians not so lucky. Barbaric methods all.
Henry, a man whom the pope titled Defender of the Faith* for his apologetics against Martin Luther, became the worst and bloodiest ruler of England. He was responsible for the deaths of between 57,000 – 72,000 of his subjects. There were many rebellions during his reign over the new religion. In Cornwall Masses were still said in Latin until 1590. The more remote from London the better. For those who could the afford the fines recusant families remained quietly practicing Roman Catholics for generations.
*Stamps and paper money have a D and a F next next to the monarch’s portrait.