tried at the Old Bailey on the charge of being a priest. However, as the government and Lord-chief-justice Mansfield set their faces against the prosecutions, which were instituted by a common informer named Payne, a carpenter by trade, Bishop Talbot was acquitted, as were all the priests who were then tried except one, the Rev. John Baptist Molony, who openly confessed that he was a priest, and who was condemned to imprisonment for life. Challoner himself was prosecuted by Payne, and narrowly escaped a trial at the Old Bailey. The bishop, four priests, and a schoolmaster were indicted on the same day for fulfilling their respective functions, and gave bail for their appearance. But Payne, to save himself expense, had forged some copies of subpœnas, and four of these spurious documents were in the possession of the accused persons. Payne, fearing the consequences of a prosecution for forgery, agreed with the bishop's attorney, in consideration of his forbearing to prosecute him for the subpœnas, to withdraw the indictments against the bishop and the five persons indicted at the same time. One result of the persecution at this period was that the house in which Challoner resided in Lamb's Conduit Street was purchased over his head, and he had to take refuge in another house in Gloucester Street, Queen Square. During the Gordon riots of 1780 the leaders of the mob intended to chair him in mockery, but he was withdrawn in time, and secreted at a friend's house in the neighbourhood of Highgate. He did not live long after his return to London. He was seized with paralysis as he sat at table, and expired two days later in his house in Queen Square on 12 Jan. 1781. His remains were interred in the family vault of Mr. Brian Barret, at Milton, near Abingdon, Berkshire, and the rector of that parish, the Rev. James George Warner, entered this singular record of the event in the register: ‘Anno Domini 1781, January 22, buried the Reverend Dr. Richard Challoner, a Popish priest, and titular bishop of London and Salisbury, a very pious and good man, of great learning and extensive abilities.’
Challoner inaugurated a new era in English catholic literature, and many of his publications are to this day regarded by his co-religionists as standard works of doctrine or devotion. A list of his writings, excluding a few translations and minor treatises, is subjoined:—
- ‘Think well on't; or, Reflexions on the great Truths of Eternity.’
- ‘The Imitation of Jesus Christ,’ translated from the Latin, 1706. This is the date given in the British Museum catalogue, though Barnard states that Challoner's version first appeared in 1744 (Life of Challoner, p. 92).
- ‘A Profession of the Catholic Faith, extracted out of the Council of Trent by Pope Pius IV. With the chief grounds of the controverted articles. By way of question and answer’ (anon.), 1732; 4th edit. (Lond.?) 1734, 12mo; reprinted under the title of ‘The Grounds of the Catholick Doctrine.’
- ‘A short History of the first beginning and progress of the Protestant Religion; gathered out of the best Protestant writers’ (anon.), 1733, Lond. 1735, 1742, 1753, 12mo, and, with an Italian translation, Arezzo, 1767, 8vo; Siena, 1790, 12mo.
- ‘A Roman Catholick's Reasons why he cannot conform to the Protestant Religion,’ 1734.
- ‘The Touchstone of the new Religion; or, Sixty Assertions of Protestants try'd by their own Rule of Scripture alone’ (anon.), 1734, Lond. 1748, 12mo; Dublin, 1816, 16mo.
- ‘The unerring authority of the Catholick Church in matters of Faith: maintain'd against the exceptions of a late author [Mr. J. R., a minister of the kirk], in his answer to a letter on the subject of Infallibility. To which are prefix'd eight preliminaries by way of introduction to the true Church of Christ’ (Lond.?), 1735, 8vo.
- ‘The young Gentleman instructed in the Grounds of the Christian Religion,’ 1735.
- ‘A Specimen of the Spirit of the Dissenting Teachers,’ 1736, in reply to a series of anti-catholic discourses which had been delivered by dissenting ministers in Salters' Hall.
- ‘The Catholick Christian instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifice, Ceremonies, and Observances of the Church, by way of question and answer,’ 1737; often reprinted.
- A new and fine edition, prepared in conjunction with Francis Blyth, D.D., a discalced Carmelite, of the Rheims translation of the New Testament, 1738, with annotations and proofs of the doctrines of the catholic church taken from the writings of the fathers.
- ‘The Garden of the Soul; or, a Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instruction for Christians who, living in the world, aspire to devotion,’ printed in or before 1740. This work, which has passed through almost numberless editions, continues to be the most popular prayer-book in use among English-speaking catholics.
- ‘Memoirs of Missionary Priests, as well secular as regular, and of other catholics of both sexes that have suffered death in England, on religious accounts, from the year of our Lord 1577 to 1684,’ 2 vols. (Lond.), 1741–2, 8vo; 2 vols. Manchester, 1803, 8vo; 2 vols. Lond. 1842, 8vo. An edition entitled ‘Modern British Martyrology’ appeared at London in 1836, 8vo, and
