 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to episode nine of The Authority, the series we are doing on the great authors of Western civilization and looking at the authorial authority of the authors in understanding their works. And in the first eight episodes, we covered the period from the pre-Christian classical era. So for the time of Homer, 700 or 800 years before the time of Christ, up to Geoffrey Chaucer, 1300 years or so, 1400 years after Christ. So we covered a period of almost 2000 years from the classical period right through to the medieval period. Now however we're moving into what historians call the early modern period. We are now going to find ourselves in the 16th century, the 1500s, which is the age of Shakespeare. But we're not going to begin with Shakespeare. He's coming next. But for this episode, we're actually going to begin with someone who knew Shakespeare almost certainly. Certainly Shakespeare and this person knew of each other and they probably knew each other personally. The person of whom I'm speaking is Saint Robert Sutherl. Perhaps we should begin by clearing up the confusion about the pronunciation of his name. I was always taught and told that the way to pronounce his name was Sutherl, but it's spelt Southwell, S-O-U-T-H-W-E-L-L. And several years ago, I was at a conference in England, and actually there was a descendant of Saint Robert Sutherl and he said that he pronounced his name Southwell. So who knows how you're supposed to pronounce it, but old habits die hard and I'm going to continue to call him Saint Robert Sutherl. So who was this saint? Well, he was a Jesuit and we need to understand the times in which he was living because it was a very dangerous time in England, indeed a deadly time in England to be a Catholic and certainly a deadly time to be a priest or someone who sheltered priests from the authorities. Indeed, it was punishable by death to be a Catholic priest in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which is the period in which we're dealing here, and was punished by death to hide a priest from the authorities. So Robert Sutherl was a convert to the Catholic faith. He was not raised as a Catholic, but upon becoming a Catholic, he felt a vocation to the priesthood and went abroad and studied for the priesthood in Rome and became a Jesuit. He returned to England knowing that if captured, he would face torture and a slow excruciating death by means of hanging, drawing and quartering. And I'm going to let you do your own research on the gruesomeness and slowness and barbarism of that particular way of putting someone to death. So he was born in 1561 or 1562 and died in 1595. So he's almost the exact contemporary of Shakespeare, a similar age, a year or two older. And we should know that in Robert Sutherl's time, poets were the best-selling authors. So we don't, in the day and age in which we live where poetry is anything but in the ascendant, we don't tend to think about poets as being best selling authors. But the age of the author, the age of the novel had not yet arrived. The first international best selling novel was the Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which was published the first part of it in 1606 and the the second part in 1616. So Robert Sutherl is writing in the 1590s. So it's 10 years or so, 10 or more years before the, should we say, the dawn of the age of the novel. So in his time in Elizabethan England, the best-selling authors and the best known authors were either poets or playwrights. And so Robert Sutherl, as a poet, was a best-selling poet and a household name in literate circles. We know that Queen Elizabeth the first was was was familiar with his poetry. So he was as a Jesuit priest who was also a best-selling author, the most wanted man in England, because of course he was a dissident voice that was being widely read. So we, before we're gonna finish the episode, we're looking at some of Robert Sutherl's poems themselves. But I want to look at the Shakespeare connection. So in a book I wrote called The Shakespeare on Love, which looked at the the Catholic dimension of Romeo and Juliet, there's an appendix called the Jesuit connection, looking at the connection between Shakespeare and the Jesuits. And the Jesuit to which to whom he was most closely associated was Saint Robert Sutherl. So Robert Sutherl was ministering to the Catholics of London during the period that Shakespeare was in London. Shakespeare probably arrived in London in the late 1580s, which is around the time that Robert Sutherl arrived in London. And until Robert Sutherl's arrest in 1592, he was ministering to London's Catholics. Shakespeare as a as a as a believing Catholic, and almost certainly a secretly practicing Catholic, we'll look at the evidence for that in our next episode, would certainly have known Sutherl on that basis alone. But there's there's more evidence for them knowing each other, not least in the fact that Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, also also had some Robert Sutherl as his personal confessor. So the Earl of Southampton knew some Robert Sutherl very well, evidently, we know Robert Sutherl stayed with the Earl of Southampton. And as I said, that he was the Earl of Southampton's personal confessor. Personally, I believe this in itself is proof that Shakespeare would have known some Robert Sutherl. They were also distant relatives, distant cousins. And we know that some Robert Sutherl alludes to Shakespeare in some of his letters to the Earl of Southampton. And we certainly know that Shakespeare alludes to some Robert Sutherl in several of his poems and plays. So we look at some of these now, at how Shakespeare alludes to some of Sutherl in some of his plays. So in the Merchant of Venice, we, there's three tests, the test of the caskets, the test of Shylock, and then the test of the rings and the test of the Shylock and the test of the caskets, the way to win the heavenly reward of the hand of Portia in marriage is to choose the leaden casket, signifying death, reminding us perhaps of a coffin. So the three caskets are gold and silver or lead. To lead is to choose death. And so this is the lead up to this with Bassanio, who's he's the person whom Portia loves. And this is a thinly veiled reference to the suffering of Sutherl Sutherl. We should say the Merchant of Venice was written at around the time of Sutherl's execution. When Sutherl Sutherl was arrested in 1592, he then spent three years or two and a half years in captivity, being tortured on several occasions upon the rack and upon a new torture device that they thought nobody could withstand. And there's actually evidence of one of St. Elizabeth's, St. Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, the first torturers gave evidence that Robert Sutherl was put on this new torture device, which is supposed to be so painful that nobody could resist confessing under it, being hanging there and refusing to give any information. So great courage in this man. So that being said in the scene, let's look at this scene from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and see how it alludes to St. Robert Sutherl. Bassanio says, let me choose, for as I am, I live upon the rack. And Portia says, upon the rack, Bassanio, then confess what treason there is mingled with your love. Bassanio, none but that ugly treason of mistrust, which makes me fear the enjoying of my love. There may as well be amity and life between snow and fire as treason and my love. Again, let's just take a brief break from this exchange here that, of course, the love of Catholics is the love of Christ and his mystical body of the church, the love of the blessed sacrament, which is banned from England because the masses banned from England and priests are banned from England. And to be a Catholic or to be a priest was you were charged with treason. So then confess what treason is mingled with your love, says Portia, because he's upon the rack, he's being tortured for treason. None but that ugly treason of mistrust, which makes me fear the enjoying of my love, makes me fear the practice of my faith. And Portia says, I, but I fear you speak upon the rack where men and force do speak anything. So basically, when you're when you're tortured, you'll make any confession, whether it's true or not. Promise me life and I'll confess the truth, says Bassanio. And then Portia's well then confess and live. And then Bassanio says confess and love had been the very sum of my confession. Oh, happy torment when my torturer does teach me answers for deliverance. But let me to my fortune and the caskets away then says Portia, I am locked in one of them. If you do love me, you will find them out. Since this exchange between the lover and the longed for beloved comes in the midst of an array of references to subtle's earlier work. So Shakespeare alludes to Shakespeare's poetry in the Merchant of Venice. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it represents a clear allusion to subtle's own recent experience upon the rack at the hands of a torturer seeking to force him into a confession of the alleged crime of treason with which he had been charged. Such a conclusion is reinforced still further and juxtaposed with subtle's own words in his humble supplication to Her Majesty. And this is a quote from St. Robert's subtle. What unsufferable agonies we have put to upon the rack. One so torches apt to utter anything to abridge the sharpness and severity of pain. Yet even an unskillful layman would rather venture his life by saying too much than hazard his conscience in not answering sufficient. That's the end of St. Robert's subtle's quote. What else is Bassanio doing as he ponders the choices presented to him by the caskets if not venturing his very life in the choice of death, the lead and casket over worldly temptations, gold and silver caskets. He is willing to quote hazard all he had as the casket demands if it is the only way to gain his love. The parallel with Robert subtle's willingness to die for his faith, hazarding all he has his willingness to lay down his life for his friends is obvious. Also want to be in in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the long graveyard scene in Hamlet is is a memento mori. It's a reminder of death. And for Catholics, the memento mori, the reminder of death is meant to remind us of the four last things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. But we see in this long graveyard scene that the scene we all know, you know, with the Hamlet with a scar, alas, parloric, anuhim, Horatio. This is an ongoing dialogue with with some of Robert subtle's poem upon the image of death. So we see holding the skull and ask Hamlet ask Horatio whether the skull of Alexander the Great might have looked much the same when buried in the earth. Hamlet muses whisper on the fact that even the greatest men in history must return to dust. So to quote Hamlet, Alexander died. Alexander was buried. Alexander returned to dust. The dust is earth. Of earth we make loam. And why have that loam where to he was converted? Might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperius sees a dead and turn to clay might stop a whole to keep the wind away. Many of Shakespeare's contemporaries must have seen the obvious allusion in Hamlet's discussion of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar within the context of a memento mori with a verse from Robert subtle's own famous poetic memento mori upon the image of death. Quoting from that poem now that all the east did quake to hear of Alexander's dreadful name and all the west did likewise fear to hear of Julius Caesar's fame, yet both by death in dust now lie who can who then can scape but he must die. Again, there are other allusions in Hamlet to Sir Robert Suther, but we'll leave it there. Perhaps my my my favorite is is from King Leah. And there's a story story behind this I'd actually like to share with you. So I was in Rome on pilgrimage and I was by myself. And I had time on my hands. So I found an Italian restaurant and sat down to enjoy dinner and evening meal. And I ordered a bottle of good house wine, red wine from the restaurant, finished my meal. I still had some wine left. So rather than leaving the wine and leaving the restaurant, I thought I would hang around. I was in no hurry to go anywhere and finish the wine and do and read the book that I was currently reading, which at the time was the collected poems of Sir Robert Suther. And I came across a poem by Sir Robert Suther that previously I had not known called Deceased Release. And this poem is very interesting, powerful, because it's written in the first person in the voice of Mary Queen of Scots. And it's written in her voice on the eve of her execution, she's about to be beheaded the following morning on the orders presumably of Queen Elizabeth the First. Mary Queen of Scots many people believed and most Catholic believes was the true heir to the throne and Elizabeth the First was not the legitimate Queen because the marriage in which she was conceived was not legitimate marriage because Henry was still married legally to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. So anyway that's Elizabeth and politics. So it was obviously in Elizabeth's interest to get this heir to the throne out of the way. And so she probably signed the death warrant. So this poem is called Deceased Release and the voice is of of Mary Queen of Scots on the eve of her of her execution. And the image of the poem is that in being crushed that her martyrdom will rise to heaven like a pleasant fragrance like incense itself that in laying down her life there will be this sort of perfume if you like of martyrdom. And she said I will be as God's spice being crushed. And when I read that my eyes opened wide in astonishment and because I was reminded of the lines from King Leah where King Leah says to Cordelia as they're about to go to prison and face their own deaths that they will be God's spies. Shakespeare as we all know is a great lover of word play of puns and plays upon words. So God's spice God's spies. The Jesuits. So this is the powerful thing about that particular time or one of the powerful things is it's in the words of Mary Queen of Scots on the eve of her execution. But it's in the first person the poet will also be executed in an even more brutal fashion for his Catholic faith a few years after the poem was written. And the Jesuits were known as God's spies because they of course they they couldn't go about openly because they would be punished by death to be a Jesuit in England. So they were undercover working by day as school teachers or gardeners but also secretly ministering to the Catholics in their priestly functions celebrating mass confession etc. So they were God's spies but of course once captured and tortured and then put to death they were God's spice just in the imagery that some other users of this poem about Mary Queen of Scots. So let's listen to this speech by from King Lear and see the intertextual allusion to the poem by some Robert Suther deceased release. Come let's await a prison. We too alone will sing like birds in the cage when thou dost ask me blessing I'll kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live and pray and sing and tell old tales and laugh at gilded butterflies and hear Paul Rogue's talk of court news and we'll talk with them too who loses and who wins who's in who's out and take upon the mystery of things as if we were God's spies and we'll wear out in a wall prism packs and sects of great ones that ebb and flow by the moon. Lear gets his desire instantly as Edmund orders them to be taken to prison. His response is one of joy. Upon such sacrifices Michael Delia the gods themselves throw incense. It is indeed difficult to read these lines without the ghostly presence of martyred Catholics coming to mind. The Jesuits were traitors in the eyes of Elizabethan and Jacobian law but were God's spies in the eyes of England's Catholics. If court they were imprisoned and tortured before being publicly executed. Since it seems likely that Shakespeare had known subtle and since it is even possible that he might have been among the large crowd who witnessed subtles being executed the words of Lear resonate with potent poignancy upon such sacrifices the gods themselves throw incense. All of this would have been deducibly enough without the deliberate connection to subtle's poetry that Shakespeare embeds cryptically in the midst of Lear's politically charged words. We have seen how the phrase God's spies would have seen be seen as a reference to the Jesuits at least in the eyes of the Catholics and Shakespeare's audience but the connection becomes unmistakable when connected with subtle's poem deceased release. This poem written the first person with Mary Stuart Queen of Scots as the narrator refers to the executed queen as pounded spice. Quote the pounded spice both taste and scent doth please in fading smoke the forced doth incense show the perished colonel springeth with increase the lopid tree doth best and soonest grow God's spice I was and pounding was my dew in fading breath my incense savoured best death was the mean my colonel to renew by lopping shot I up to heavenly rest. Although the poem is clearly subtle's tribute to the executed queen of scots it's being written in the first person gave it added potency following subtle's own execution. Like the martyred queen of whom he wrote subtle was also pounded spice whose essence is more pleasing and valued for being crushed God's spice I was and pounding was my dew as a Jesuit in Elizabethan England subtle had been one of God's spies who being caught became God's spice ground to death that he might receive his martyrs reward in heaven upon such sacrifices Shakespeare exclaims through the lips of Leah the gods themselves throw incense. There are other references to Shakespeare to subtle's works in other Shakespeare plays and in some of the Shakespeare's sonnets but time will prevent us from exploring still further Robert Suther's influence upon Shakespeare and apart from his being a significant metaphysical poet in his own right the very fact that he was such an influence and such an inspiration to Shakespeare is enough to make him of interest however I want to draw attention attention to an excellent book if those of you want to understand to Robert Suther bit more bit more deeply this is a book called Suther's fear the influence of England's secret poet by Gary Bouchard and in it he shows basically Suther's influence not just on Shakespeare but on some of the other great poets throughout history so Edmund Spencer great contemporary of Shakespeare and Suther George Herbert one of the great metaphysical poets John Dunn another one of the great metaphysical poets Richard Cresshaw who will be looking at in the future episode of The Authority were all greatly influenced by some Robert Suther that they're all their contemporaries or near contemporaries from writing in Elizabethan and Jacoby in England in the late 1500s early 1600s but two and a half centuries later the great Jesuit poet Gerard Manny Hopkins was also greatly inspired and consoled by the poetry of this great Jesuit martyr who was canonized in 1970s one of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales I want to finish the episode however with the short time we have left with looking at one or two of Suther's poems beyond the one that we've looked at already deceased release or and upon the image of death and this I'm going to be taking the selection from this book which Tan Books published poems every Catholic should know and there's actually quite an extensive selection by some Robert Suther in here indicative and reflective of the fact that I think every Catholic should know the poetry as a Robert Suther and also the fact that he's a great favorite of mine so just go through some of the some of the poems in here just by title and we'll read from one to conclude Mary Magdalene's complaint at Christ's death the Burning Bay which is probably the best known of Suther's poems often anthologized it's a Christmas poem New Heaven New War and again this is used as the metaphysical conceit the paradox that the piece of Christ is the weapon by which we fight the spirit of world in this New Prince New Pomp that the Prince of Peace values poverty not pomp circumstance and riches the same themes continued in content and rich I dread in grace's court and rich with virtues rights faith guides my wit love leads my will hope all my mind delights so what is wealth is it monetary wealth is it gold or silver or is it grace do we what should we want to dwell in grace's court it should be what want to be enriched with virtues rights we want to be guided by faith we want our will to be led by love we want a hope to delight the mind this is the true wealth that causes someone to lay down their life for their friends and to lay down their life for Christ as Robert Suther does ultimately in martyrdom and there's a wonderful long poem of the Blessed Sacrament of the altar and again this obviously is a defense of the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament which is under attack at the Dreamers of Robert Suther's time so here we see some Robert Suther like that later great priest poet Saint John Henry Newman using his poetic gifts to evangelize and by way of defending the faith through apologetics poetic apologetics another one of poems seek flowers of heaven we should that that that was we should seek are those that that belong in heaven not those that belong in the world the assumption of our lady so again using his poetic gifts to defend the doctrines of the faith from those doctrines that had become contentious at the time a child my choice so he's great love for the for the Christ child we're seeing various of his poems and then deceased release we've already mentioned about some Mary Magdalene but the one poem I haven't mentioned yet is upon the image of death which inspired the famous graveyard scene in in Hamlet and I'd like to finish this episode on this great Jesuit martyr saint and poet influence on Shakespeare and other poets with his poem upon the image of death before my face the picture hangs that daily should put me in mind of those cold qualms and bitter pangs that shortly I am like to find but yet alas for little I do think here on that I must die I often look upon a face most ugly, grizzly, bare and thin I often view the hollow place where eyes and nose had sometimes been I see the bones across that lie yet little think that I must die I read the label underneath that telleth me where to I must I see the sentence each that sayeth remember man that thou art dust but yet alas but seldom I do think indeed that I must die continually at my bed's head a hearst doth hang which doth me tell that I yet morning may be dead though now I feel myself full well but yet alas for all this I have little mind that I must die the gown which I do used to wear the knife wherewith I cut my meat and eek that old and ancient chair which is my only usual seat all those do tell me I must die and yet my life amend not I my ancestors are turned to clay and many of my mates are gone my youngers daily drop away and can I think to scape alone no no I know that I must die and yet my life amend not I not Solomon for all his wit nor Samson though he were so strong no king nor person ever yet could scape but death laid him along wherefore I know that I must die and yet my life amend not I though all the east dequake to hear of Alexander's dreadful name and all the west did likewise fear to hear of Julius Caesar's fame yet both by death in dust now lie who then can scape but he must die if none can scape death's dreadful dart if rich and poor his beck obey if strong if wise if all do smart then I to scape shall have no way O grant me grace O God that I my life may mend since I must die and on that sobering and priceless note I'll bid you adieu from this episode of the authority please do join me next time until then goodbye and God bless this has been an episode of The Authority with Joseph Pierce brought to you by tan for updates on new episodes and to support the authority and other great free content visit theauthoritypodcast.com to subscribe and use coupon code authority 25 to get 25% off your next order including books audio books and video courses by Joseph Pierce on literary giants such as Tolkien Chesterton Louis Shakespeare and Belach as well as tans extensive catalog of content from the saints and great spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life to follow Joseph and support his work check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at jpearse.co and thanks for listening