SOUTHWELL
164
SOUTHWELL
and Chichester, but also a large portion of the former
Diocese of Winchester. The Church may also be
Baid to owe the world-wide devotion of the BrowTi
Scapular to this diocese, as St. Simon Stock, its prop-
agator, was bom in the Weald of Kent towards the
end of the twelfth century.
Another striking characteristic of this diocese is the very marked iacrease shown in the numbers of churches, clergy, and CathoUc population. Thus in 1882 the Diocese of Southwark comprised South London, the five counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Berkshire, and Hampshire, and the Channel Islands. On the appointment of BLshop Coffin in 1SS"2 the diocese was divided, and the Counties of Berkshire and Hampshire, together with the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands, were separated from the diocese and erected into the new Diocese of Portsmouth. Before the division Southwark had 148 pubUc churches, chapels, and stations, with 247 priests. After the division the present diocese started afresh with only 93 public churches, chapels, and stations, served by 198 priests. The diocese now has 218 public churches, chapels, and stations, with a popu- lation of almost 120,000 Catholics, whilst the number of priests attached to or working in the diocese amounts to 591, a higher total than any other EngUsh diocese. Besides the above-mentioned public places of worship, there are also 160 private chapels, either belonging to religious communities or in private houses, where Mass is as a rule celebrated daily.
."^ might be expected from the foregoing facts, the clergy of this diocese, owing to the encouragement they have always received from a succession of broad-minded and progressive bishops with high ideals and exceptional gifts of organization, have always been noted for their zeal, initiative, and gift of combination amongst themselves for the further- ance of every- good work. It has always been their pride to have the most up-to-date and best-equipped schools in the coimtry, and they led the way in the foundation of voluntary pupil-teachers' centres, for the training of the coming generation of teachers, before the work was made a public charge. The clergj' of South London especially have also dis- tinguished themselves by the active share they have always taken, with their bishop's hearty approval, in the great work of local government and adminis- tration, man}' of them having done splendid work for religion on public bodies such as the former Lon- don School Board, as well as upon the Boards of Guardians and the local councils. The South London League, a non-political body for the pro- tection of Catholic interests in South London, with the bishop as president, bears witness to the very successful way in which the clergy as well as the laity of all parties have discovered the secret of successful organization on a purely Catholic platform, to the exclusion of party or national politics.
Ever since 1891, when it was first started, "Pastoralia", the popular little clergy review for the discussion of pastoral topics, has been edited by a committee mainly of South Ijondon clergj', and h:\s a large circulat ion amongst 1 he clergy of English-speaking lands. Its ])ages are full of interest as giving an insight into problems and difficulties the Church h:i8 to face in great cities, as well :us the practical means by which new methods are evolved to meet present- day exigencies.
Symdi Diacesis Soulhwarcensin. ISHO-ISOS (London, 1868); The Catholic Directory (London, 1850-1911), passim; Pastoralia (London, 1891-1911), paasim.
W. M. Cunningham. Southwell (Sotwel), Nathan. See Bacon, Na-
TI1.\NIKL.
Southwell, RoDEUT, Venerable, poet, Jesuit, martyr, h. ;i( Ilorslnm St. Fiiitli's, Norfolk, England, in I'liil ; hanged at Tyburn, 21 Feb., IMo. His grand-
father. Sir Richard Southwell, had been a wealthy
man and a prominent courtier in the reign of Henry
VIII. It was Richard Southwell who in 1547 had
brought the poet Henry How;ird, Earl of Surrey, to
the block, and Surrej' had vainly begged to be allowed
to "fight him in his .shirt". Curiously enough their
respective grandsons. Father Southwell and Philip,
Earl of Arundel, were to be the most devoted of friends
and fellow-prisoners for the Faith. On his mother's
side the Jesuit was descended from the Copley and
Shelley families, whence a remote connexion may be
established between him and the poet Percy Bysshe
Shelley. Robert Southwell was brought up a CathoUc,
and at a verj' early age was sent to be educated at
Douai, where he was the pupil in philosophy of a
Jesuit of extraordinary austerity of life, the famous
Leonard Lessius. After spencUng a short time in
Paris he begged for admission into the Society of
Jesu.s — a boon at first denied. This disappointment
elicited from the boy of seventeen some passionate
laments, the first of his verses of which we have rec-
ord. On 17 Oct., 1578, however, he was admitted at
Rome, and made his simple vows in 1580. Shortly
after his no\iceship, during which he was sent to Tour-
nai, he returned to Rome to finish his studies, was or-
dained priest in 1584, and became prefect of studies
in the English College. In 1586 he was sent on the
English mission with Father Henry Garnett, found
his first refuge with Lord Vaux of H:irrowden, and
was known under the name of Cotton.
Two years afterwards he became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel and thus established relations with her imprisoned husband, Pliilip, Earl of Arundel, the ancestor of the present ducal house of Norfolk, as well as with Lady Margaret SackviUe, the earl's half- sister. Father Southwi'll's prose elegj', "Triumphs over Death", wa- ;ulJn-~r,l to the earl to con.sole him for this sister's |irriii;iUiii- death, and his "Hundred Meditations on tlic Love of God", originally written for her use, were ultimately transcribed by another hand, to present to her daughter Lady Beauchamp ("The Month", June, 1900, p. 600). Some six years were spent in zealous and successful missionary work, during which Father Southwell lay hidden in London, or passed under various disguises from one Catholic house to another. For his better protection he af- fected an interest in the pursuits of the country gentle- men of his day (metaphors taken from hawking are common in his writings), but his attire was always sober and his tastes simple. His character was sin- gularly gentle, and he has never been accused of tak- ing any part either in political intrigues or in religious disputes of a more domestic kind. In 1592 Father Southwell was arrested at Uxenden Hall, Harrow, tlirough the treachery of an unfortunate Catholic girl, Anne Bellamy, daughter of tlie owner of the house. The notorious Topcliffe, who effected the capture, WTote exultingly to the queen: "I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly used. " But the atro- cious cruelties to which Southwell was subjected did not shake his fortitude. He was examined thirteen times under torture by members of the Council, and was long confined in a dungeon swarming with ver- min. After nearly three years in prison he was brought to trial and the usual punishment of hanging and (juartering was inflicted.
Father Soutliwell'swTitings, both in prose and verse, were extremely popular with his contemporaries, and his religious pieces were sold openly b>' the booksellers though tlieir authorship was kno^-n. Imitations abounded, and Ben Jonson declared of one of South- well's pieces, "The Burning Babe", that to have writ- ten it he would readil.v forfeit many of his own poems. "Mary Magdalen's Tears", the Jesuit's earliest printed work, hcensed in 1591, probably represents a deliberate attempt to employ in the c;xuse of piety the euphuistic prose style, then so i>opular. "Triumphs
