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Searc's Web Guide to 16th Century Ireland - Henry Fitzsimon (1566-1643)
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Email: info@searcs-web.com Searc's Web Guide to 16th Century Ireland - Henry Fitzsimon (1566-1643) |
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Henry Fitzsimon, ancestor of the Duke of Wellington, was born in Swords, County Dublin. He
was educated in Manchester and at Christ Church College, Oxford from where
he graduated in Philosophy in 1587. Fitzsimon studied at Pont à Mousson, Paris before
journeying to Rome where he converted to Catholicism. He was later appointed Professor of
Philosophy at Douay. In 1593 Fitzsimon entered the Jesuit seminary at Louvain and in 1596 he returned to Dublin as an ordained priest. Fitzsimon travelled with Hugh O'Neill through the north of Ireland and in 1599 the Earl of Essex ordered Fitzsimon's arrest in Cahir, County Tipperary. Fitzsimon evaded arrest but was eventually captured and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. He was held in solitary confinement, in an unlit cell, for the first three years of his five year imprisonment. Fitzsimon was released in April, 1604 and banished from Ireland. He travelled first to Spain; then to Luxemborg and Tournay where he became a military chaplain in the Austria and Bohemian armies. Fitzsimon returned to Rome in 1608 to write The Justification and Exposition of the Missioner throughout Ireland (1611) and a Catalogue of the Irish Saints (1615). It is believed that Fitzsimon ministered to condemned criminals in Liege in 1619 and that he accompanied the army to Bohemia in 1620 as recounted in his History of the Bohemian Campaign (1620). Fitzsimon published Buquoy Quadrimestre Iter, Progressuque quo, favente numine, ac auspice Ferdinando II Rom. Imp. Austria est conservata, Bohemia subjugata, Moravia acquisita eademque opera Silesia solicitata, Hungariaque Terrefacta and De Praelio Pragensis, Pragaeque Deditione Octava et Nona Novembris MDCXX in 1621. Nothing else is known of Fitzsimon's life until 1641 when he was condemned to hang in Dublin. Fitzsimon escaped to the Wicklow hills before making his way to a Jesuit community in Kilkenny where he resided until his death in 1643. This extract is from a letter which Fitzsimon wrote from his cell in Dublin Castle to Father Aquaviva, the Superior of the Jesuits in Rome, dated 5th of April, 1604.© Very Reverend Father - the peace of Christ be with you. God grant that we may at length be able to press to our lips the answer of your Paternity! To our great sorrow we have not heard from you for some years, on account of the difficulties of communication. Therefore, lest our letters to your Paternity should have been intercepted, I shall go back and relate some matters briefly. I have been five years in prison, and I have been brought eight times before the Supreme Court, and I have always been through God's goodness, superior to all circumstances, and proof against all attacks. The Governor of the prison has been my deadly enemy, and has often plotted against my life. He is generally considered a bad enemy and a worse friend. For three years he watched most intently to catch me celebrating Mass. At last, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, he rushed in on me just as I was ending the Pater Noster of the Mass. I saved the Sacred Host from the sacrilegious wretch; but he wrested the chalice from me, and the Divine blood was sprinkled all about the cell. He took also the vestments. My conscience tells me that I had omitted nothing to prevent such a horrid sacrilege. But the cunning of the man who lies in wait is greater than all possible precaution. Through the malignity of this man, it is very difficult for any one to speak to me. He has surrounded me with the most cruel guards and spies that his malice could find out: nevertheless, by the Divine help, I have, in the space of one month, brought back to the bosom of the Church seven Protestants, one of whom is my head warder. I have often explained to your Paternity how insolently I have been challenged by a certain pseudo-Dean [Dean Rider of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin] to defend the Catholic Truth, and how clearly he was confounded, according to the opinions of all persons, and even in his own opinion. We carried on the discussion with the pen; but since my answer had not your imprimatur, I would not allow it to be printed, though people have used prayers, and all but violence, to prevail on me to let it go to press. Wherefore, I humbly beg of your Paternity to allow it to be published, after having been examined by our Fathers. I say this with all modesty and resignation. The answer contains things which have brought not a few to the fold of Christ, and it cannot in any way be weakened by our enemies. Nothing frightened my adversary more than the confidence with which I asked the Viceroy, and Privvy Council, and the Fellows of Trinity College to be judges of our controversy, as Origen named a Pagan philosopher as arbiter in his dispute with Manes. All the Protestants felt anxious about their champion, and he feared for himself and his cause. At that time and ever afterwards I was attacked with flatteries and terrors, with promises of great wealth and threats of exile, with favours and furies... At present they deliberate about driving me into exile. Let no public petition, let no influence or authority intercede for me; and let God and his angels by my witnesses, this hatred, of which I am the object, and the exile with which I am threatened, are dearer to me than anything else in this world except death for the faith. Since the Queen's demise all things are uncertain - and people are now full of hopes and again full of fears. As far as one can judge things are gloomy enough. Religion does not strike deep and firm roots here; people, by a kind of general propensity, follow more the name than the reality of the Catholic Faith, and thus are borne to and fro by the winds of edicts and threats. However, the work of our Fathers, ever since their arrival, has been solid and brilliant. Those, who before were mere Tabulae rasae, know the teaching of the faith, and piety flourishes where all had once been a waste, and where even the name of piety was not known. Others, who are in the midst of the work, can tell you more and better than this. It is said that a storm is about to burst over us soon, but the bark of Peter cannot be endangered... Before her death, Queen Elizabeth had exhausted all her resources, so that she was not able to pay the army otherwise than by copper money which was useless. Those who refused to take it were fined. Hence all trade, fairs and building were interrupted, and great poverty and troubles ensued. No one would work for hire, or receive payments of debts... It now remains for me to most humbly beg of your Paternity, and the whole Society, to pray for us, that the word of God may be glorified with us as with you, and that we may be freed from cruel and wicked men... Of your Paternity the most obedient son and servant, Henry Fitzsimon. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008 |
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