Southwell, Robert (1561–95), Jesuit, priest and martyr. Born at Horsham St. Faith (Norfolk), the son of Sir Robert Southwell, a recusant who later conformed, Robert was educated by the Jesuits, first at Douai, then at Paris. He wished to join the Society of Jesus at the age of seventeen. Refused because he was too young, he walked to Rome and was admitted there in 1578. He became prefect of Studies at the English College, Rome, was ordained priest in 1584, and left for England in 1586. He arrived in London at the time of the Babington Plot and narrowly escaped arrest; for most of his seven years apostolate he lived at Arundel House in the Strand, the home of Anne Dacres, whose husband Philip Howard was imprisoned in the Tower. In 1592 Southwell was arrested by Topcliffe at Uxenden (Middx.), imprisoned in the Tower and at Newgate and was tortured at least nine times. After three years of this treatment he appealed to be either tried or set at liberty. He was then brought to trial at Westminster Hall, condemned for being a priest and was executed at Tyburn, aged thirty-three, on 21 February.
This event greatly shocked both the court and the country: like Campion, Southwell had a particularly acute mind and sensitive personality. He was, for example, a notable writer both of prose and of lyric poetry. His most famous works include: An Epistle of Comfort (letters addressed to Philip Howard), An Humble Supplication to Her Majestie (an exposure of the Babington Plot), Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears (1594), A Short Rule of Good Life (published posthumously in 1598) and A Fourefold Meditation (1606). His best-known poems are The Burning Babe and St. Peter's Complaint (a long narrative of the Life of Christ). A portrait in crayon, based on a lost oil painting, survives at Stonyhurst College (Lancs.). He was canonized by Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Feast: 25 October.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- C. Devlin, The Life of Robert Southwell, Poet and Martyr (1956)
- P. Janelle, Robert Southwell the Writer (1935)
- R. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (ed. J. H. Pollen, 1928)
- J. H. McDonald, The Poems and Prose Writings of Robert Southwell (Roxburghe Club, 1937)
- standard edition of his Prose Works by W. J. Walter (1827) and of the poems by J. H. McDonald and N. P. Brown (1967);modern editions of Spiritual Exercises and Devotions (ed. P. E. Hallett, 1931), of An Humble Supplication to her Majestie (ed. R. C. Bald, 1953), of An Epistle of Comfort (ed. M. Waugh, 1966), of A short Rule of Good Life (E.R.L., lxxviii, 1971)
