Pilgrim Ways

Forgotten Shrines ushered in a new perspective on English Catholicism which clearly influenced Robert Benson's Come Rack, Come Rope (1912). It would later affect Evelyn Waugh as he painted his picture of "great-families" Catholicism in Brideshead Revisited (1945). Dom Aidan says that "making the martyrs known was at the centre of Camm's apostolate. " The monk was instrumental in obtaining many relics, reliquaries, the stained glass windows and the embellishment of the martyrs' altar in the Shrine of the Martyrs. In his Diary he recorded, on June 26th, 1912: "I have a brilliant idea for decorating the Oratory of the Martyrs at Tyburn. The new altar will be put within a model of the Tyburn tree, which will form a sort of baldacchino for it. I sketched out my idea and took it to Dom Sebastian, who is very pleased with it and will work it out." This is the altar which stands at Tyburn today.

Dom Bede was able to use a legacy from his father to build the novitiate at St.Benedict's Priory, Royston. He celebrated the funeral Mass and burial of Marie-Adele Garnier at Royston in 1924 and twice gave the annual Tyburn retreat as well as writing numerous accounts of the life of the convent's foundress and the martyrs whose lives are commemorated there. He later published a sequel to Forgotten Shrines entitled Pilgrim Paths In Latin Lands (1923) and Nine Martyr Monks: The Lives of the English Benedictine Martyrs Beatified in 1929 (published 1931). Undoubtedly the beatification of a further eight five martyrs in 1987 owes much to the work which he undertook. In Forgotten Shrines, Dom Bede takes us to some of the homes of some of the great families of England; but first and foremost these were Catholic families. He recounts their deeds and the terrible toll which they paid.

Padley, Derbyshire.

His pilgrimage begins with the Fitzherberts of Norbury Hall, in Derbyshire. Then he introduces us to the martyrs of Padley, at the other end of the county. Here, he says, "the secluded parish of Hathersgate has ever been a stronghold of the faith, and there has never been a time when the holy Mass has not been said in some secret corner of the district. To the little flock, hidden away in the heart of the Peak District, Padley Chapel has always been a sacred shrine, and of late years it has become the goal of an annual pilgrimage under the auspices of the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom." Among the martyrs of Padley was the Venerable Nicholas Garlick who was caught, in 1588, celebrating Mass in Padley Chapel. He was hanged drawn and quartered, with two other priests, at Derby and interred at Tideswell.

Warblington Castle Dom Bede then takes us to the border of Hampshire and Sussex and to the ruins of Warblington Castle. This was the favourite home of Blessed Margaret Pole. She was the last surviving member of the royal house of Plantagenet, niece of Edward IV. Having supported Catherine of Aragon against her husband, Henry VIII, she became protector of Princess Mary. She was also mother of Reginald Cardinal Pole, who in his book, De Unitate Ecclesiae, had vigorously denounced the king's iniquities. The Cardinal opted for a life of exile but Henry exacted a terrible price on the Pole family. Lord Montague, the Cardinal's brother, was executed. His little nephew was thrown into the Tower. In 1539 Cardinal Pole's mother was also sent to the Tower and two years later she was executed at East Smithfield Green in the precincts of the Tower. Her last words were "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake." Warblington remained for many years afterwards a constant place of hospice- known as the Common refuge - open to priests and to persecuted Catholics