By DEB PIROCH
The Burning Babe
As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.
Above is Fr. Robert Southwell, SJ’s most famous poem. What many who read the work in English classes may not know is that this is one of four poems in a Nativity cycle he wrote. The Burning Babe became the most powerfully known of all his writings. His fame in sainthood is coupled with fame in literature, for Shakespeare himself read and was influenced by Southwell’s noteworthy writings.
Robert was born in England in 1561, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was one of eight children. Sent to Douai, Tournay, Belgium, and later Rome, he was ordained as a Jesuit the same year that the Queen made it illegal for Catholic priests to live in England. After serving as a tutor for two years in Rome, he requested and was granted permission to go back home as a missionary. Southwell was accompanied by Fr. Henry Garnet, who soon secretly supervised Jesuits throughout the country, and they arrived in 1584.
Southwell lodged first at Arundel House, a former residence of bishops in the Middle Ages, no longer extant, in London. It was owned by the recusant Earl of Arundel’s Catholic family, and he moved around as needed to preserve his safety. For some six years, Southwell was able to function secretly as a priest in the country. He had been observed entering England and his literary work was under suspicion, but he was not betrayed until 1592.
The Earl himself was imprisoned a decade in the Tower under the sentence of execution, which the Queen for some reason never signed, but eventually died of dysentery after refusing to surrender his Catholic faith. As such, he is considered one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. When Southwell was eventually imprisoned, he finally “met” the Earl, for they would send notes to one another through a friendly dog in the Tower who would carry the notes for them. And it was for Arundel for whom Southwell wrote his Epistle of Comfort.
The manner of Southwell’s betrayal illustrates the methods condoned by the Queen’s top priest hunter, Richard Topcliffe. He used both rape and torture frequently to extract confessions. He raped another Catholic recusant, Anne Bellamy, who then confessed to the movements of Fr. Southwell, who was arrested and promptly tortured. It is possible that she simply denounced Fr. Southwell — so says the introduction to his first published collection of work in the 1800s — but that would appear unlikely as her family was implicated and her own father, uncle, and others died in the subsequent events.
Topcliffe frequently hung prisoners for hours by manacles from the ceiling. He hung Southwell in this manner but in forty hours extracted nothing from him excepting silence. Southwell was then subjected to more torture by others, which was also unsuccessful. Southwell was then imprisoned three more years in the Tower under Topcliffe’s direct supervision.
One assumes he was tortured many times; at his trial he stated he had been tortured at least ten times by Topcliffe. Another account in the Catholic Encyclopedia states he was “examined” 13 times under torture but who knows what insults to body and person he must have borne. It is said at some time his father, who was of noble blood, interceded for his son and said if he be punished, let that happen but otherwise he should be accorded treatment as a gentleman. Something worked, as the Queen ordered relief and he seems to have had food, clothing, and the basics, plus a breviary smuggled into his cell.
According to An Account of the Trial of Robert Southwell by Fr. Garnet, who for some years published Catholic material secretly in England, Southwell was asked at trial his age and answered that he was near the age of Christ, who lived 33 years on Earth.
“Hereat Topcliffe seemed to make great acclamation, saying that he compared himself to Christ. Mr. Southwell answered, ‘No he was a humble worm created by Christ.’ ‘Yes,’ said Topcliffe, ‘you are Christ’s fellow’.”
It seems likely at least some of Southwell’s poems — perhaps even The Burning Babe — were written during his time in prison, which brings to mind other great saints who wrote under similar duress, like St. Thomas More and his book entitled, Dialogue of Comfort.
After three years of waiting Southwell asked that his case be settled, hence the trial. The sentence was a foregone conclusion. He was ordered executed the following day at Tyburn, to be hung, drawn, and quartered. Normally noblemen were beheaded, but Tyburn it was. He died a brave death. It has also been stated that his companion when he came to England and the superior of the Jesuits in England, Fr. Garnet, felt it was his duty to try and attend all the executions of martyred Jesuits he could, so as to dispense Last Rites. So he may well have had the heavy duty of watching the final moments of his friend and companion, Fr. Southwell.
In his final words, the prisoner bravely denied treason and also refused the ministrations of a Protestant minister, insisting he died a Catholic. As the cart beneath him drove away, he was still attempting to make the Sign of the Cross over and over as he died. It is said that the hangman, and then some of the crowd felt pity and grabbed and pulled on his body during the hanging, so that he was spared being cut open and disemboweled — “drawn and quartered” — while still alive.
The Burning Babe was published anonymously after Southwell’s 1595 martyrdom with some other work and went into 14 editions. While other writings circulated during his lifetime, only one poem was ever openly published, but it was republished 15 times. Ben Jonson reportedly stated he would have been content to destroy many of his own writings, had he even been able to write The Burning Babe. Fr. Robert Southwell, who died at the age of Christ, in his poem The Nativity, reminds us that Christ is King — then, now, and forever. His feast day is February 21.
Gift better than Himself God doth not know,
Gift better than his God no man can see;
This gift doth here the giver given bestow,
Gift to this gift let each receiver be:
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God’s gift am I, and none but God shall have me.
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