John Gerard, S.J.
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John Gerard, S.J. (1564-1637) was a English Jesuit priest, operating surrepticiously during a period in which the Catholic Church was banned from England. He is noted not only for successfully hiding from the English authorities for 18 years before his capture, but for enduring extensive torture, escaping from the Tower of London and, after recovering, continuing with his covert mission. He was later instructed by church authorities to write a book about his life. The autobiography of an Elizabethan John Gerard (ISBN B0000CI1BG) This is a rare first-hand account of the cloak-and-dagger world of being a Catholic Priest in Elizabethan England.
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[edit] Education abroad and first mission
Due to the prohibition of Catholics from universities in England, Gerard was sent to study at the English Catholic school in Douai, which was later moved to Rheims. Then, with the Jesuits at Clermont. As was the fate of so many Jesuits who often returned to England with foreign clothing and accents Gerard was arrested soon after he landed to begin his political mission at Dover. He was sent to the Marshalsea Prison, where many illegal priests already resided. Anthony Babington, who was later executed for treason, having been involved in a plot to free the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, posted bond to secure Gerard's release.
[edit] Second mission
He then went to Rome and was given another mission on behalf of the Jesuits to England. In November 1588, three months after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Gerard and Edward Oldcorne landed in Norfolk to begin their task of reviving the Catholics in England. Eventually, Gerard was taken to the leader of the Jesuits in England Father Henry Garnet. Father Gerard was soon a very popular figure in the illegal Catholic underworld. He impressed many as a very secular gentleman and was skilled in gambling and wore fashionable dress, a clever disguise but a very real one. Gerard wrote of many escapes from the law, hiding in priest holes.
[edit] Capture and torture
He was eventually tracked down in London, was tried, found guilty and sent to the Counter in the Poultry. Later he was moved to the Clink prison where he was able to continue his priestly mission and meet regularly with other persecuted English Catholics. Due to his continuation of this work, he was sent to the Salt Tower in the Tower of London, where he was further questioned and tortured by being repeatedly supsended by chains from the dungeon wall. He insists that he never broke, a fact borne out by the files of the Tower.
[edit] Escape
He escaped along with John Arden, with the help of other members of the Catholic underground, on a rope across the moat. Despite the fact that his handsw were still mangled from the torture he had undergone, he succeeded in climbing down. Immediately following his escape, he joined Henry Garnet and Robert Catesby. Later, Gerard moved to the house of Elizabeth Vaux. From this base of operations, Gerard continued his mission illegally reconciling many to the Catholic Church, including Sir Everard Digby (one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot). He later suspected Digby of plotting something, but did not act upon his observations, thus allowing the plot to proceed undetected. When the plot was discovered, he was a wanted man linked to the main leaders of the Catholic underground. He was denounced by Robert Catesby's servant Thomas Bates. Staying a while at Harrowden, then escaping from there to London, he left the country with financial aid from Elizabeth Vaux and the ambassadors of Flanders and Spain on the very day of Henry Garnet's execution. Gerard went on to continue the work of the Jesuits in Europe, where he wrote his major works on the orders of his superiors. He died in 1637, aged 73, in Rome.
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