Blessed Adrian Fortescue

On 8 July, the Order kept the feast of the patron of the Grand Priory, Blessed Adrian Fortescue, a member of the Order martyred under the persecution of the Church in England by Henry VIII.

A solemn Mass was celebrated at Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, during which a relic of the Holy Martyr was displayed - not a First Class relic, as so far as we know, nothing of his body survived, but a second class relic, taken from the case of his famous Book of Hours, preserved by the Constable-Maxwell family and now in the care of Douai Abbey.

The celebrant of the Mass, Fr Gerard Skinner, Magistral Chaplain, preached a wonderful sermon which is set out below.

Sermon on the feast of Blessed Adrian Fortescue

“Not so many years ago, an American diocesan newspaper joyfully displayed on its front page a photo of their bishop ordaining men as deacons. Blazoned over the photo the headline ran, ‘Ordained to be served, not to serve’. Ah, the dangers of proofreading . . but that inversion of the Lord’s words serves well as a description of many in the Tudor court. One might see this thought in the minds of the proud and ambitious and, recalling our recent celebration of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, one might add that such people believed that they must increase whilst others must most certainly decrease.

Blessed Adrian’s life and death is a fine reflection of that of St John the Baptist who sought to serve others by letting the light of the Son of God shine ever brighter than his own light, who was humble yet had the courage to stand up to a king.

Adrian Fortescue was born circa 1480, the son of Sir John Fortescue of Punsbourne, Hertfordshire, England. He was cousin of Anne Boleyn, made a Knight of the Bath in 1503 and was favoured by King Henry VIII, taking part in Wars against France in 1513 and 1523.

Widowed once and married twice, he had seven children. In 1532 he was received as a Knight of Devotion into the Order of Saint John, becoming a Dominican Tertiary at Blackfriars, Oxford, the following year.

In 1539 he was attainted of High Treason without trial by an act of Parliament which condemned fifty persons who opposed the ecclesiastical policies of Henry VIII. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, around this day in July, together with The Venerable Sir Thomas Dingley, another Knight of the Order.

The Order has revered him as a martyr at least since the early seventeenth century, Pope Leo XIII declaring him Blessed on 13 May 1895.

As many of you will know, Blessed Adrian wrote a series of maxims – a kind of rule of life - on the fly leaf of his Book of Hours. They can be found transcribed in our Order’s Prayer Book. His lines are simple and sincere and sometimes similar in intent. His first maxim is the foundation of all that follows:

‘Above all things,’ the Beatus wrote, ‘love God with all thy heart.’

‘Continue in awe of God, and ever have Him before thine eyes.’, he later counsels himself, and us too.

‘Resort to God every hour.’ He advises.

And then, in a country that had become most dangerous to Catholics, it is perhaps unsurprising that quite a few of the maxims urge discernment:

‘Judge the best’, he says;

‘Delight not in familiarity with persons unknown to thee.’

‘Be not partial for favour, lucre or malice, but according to truth, equity, justice and reasons.’

For someone familiar with court and with the stratagems by which many sought to advance themselves Blessed Adrian admonishes himself with the words, ‘raise thy desire or longing from earthly things’ and ‘Advance not thy words or deeds by any pride.’

The wise take note of the Baptist’s desire that the Lord increase and that they decrease, that they keep their eyes fixed on the Lamb of God.

At about the time that Blessed Adrian may have written his maxims, Sir Thomas Wyatt was looking out from his cell window in the Tower of London as George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton were beheaded – a sight that stained his memory thereafter. Two days later they were followed to the executioner’s block by Anne Boleyn.

In the same month as these executions, May 1536, Wyatt wrote a poem reflecting on the fate of those who rose high at court and who then experienced a reversal of fortune.

He ends each verse with a Latin refrain that translates as ‘Around the throne thunder rolls’.

The title of the poem is descriptive of how Wyatt was feeling:

Innocentia (Innocence)
Veritas Viat Fides (Truth, Wyatt, faith)
Circumdederunt me inimici mei’ (My enemies have surrounded me)

The poem itself well illustrates the perils of ambition or, indeed, Blessed Adrian’s warning, ‘Advance not thy words or deeds by any pride.’ – ‘raise thy desire or longing from earthly things.’

Wyatt wrote:

Who list his wealth and ease retain,
Himself let him unknown contain.
Press not too fast in at that gate
Where the return stands by disdain,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.

The high mountains are blasted oft
When the low valley is mild and soft.
Fortune with Health stands at debate;
The fall is grievous from aloft,
And sure, circa Regna tonat. 

These bloody days have broken my heart.
My lust, my youth did them depart,
And blind desire of estate.
Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.
Of truth, circa Regna tonat. 

The Bell Tower showed me such sight
That in my head sticks day and night.
There did I learn out of a grate,
For all favour, glory, or might,
That yet circa Regna tonat. 

By proof, I say, there did I learn:
Wit helpeth not defence too yern,
Of innocency to plead or prate.
Bear low, therefore, give God the stern,
For sure, circa Regna tonat. 

Our Blessed martyr, Adrian Fortescue, did indeed ‘give God the stern’ and if in youth he may have ‘pressed fast’ at the gate of advancement in the King’s sight, by the last decade of his life it was the gates of heaven and the Kingship of Christ that held his attention. He would have understood that ambition for those in secular employment can be good as long as it is tempered by ‘giving God the stern’ - in the words of St Thomas More, ‘serving God first’.  It was to be said of Blessed Adrian that ‘he died for his faith in Him whose acts Parliament was not competent to repeal.’ And thus he received the promises he hoped for in his final maxim where he tells us,

‘if you keep these precepts, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you in all other things necessary and, thus doing, you shall be with Christ in heaven, to whom be glory, laud, honour, and praise everlasting.’

Amen.”