SOME HOSTILE
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II . BLESSED THOMAS ALFIELD & VEN. THOMAS WEBLEY. July 6, 1585. , Blessed Thomas Alfield native of Gloucester , son of an Eton master, scholar of Eton and fellow of King's College , Cambridge , came as a new convert to Douay in 1576. In March, 1581 , he returned a priest to the English mission . In April, 1582 , he was a prisoner in the Tower. Failing undertorture , or threat of torture , he yielded so far as to consent to go to church, and was released. He then returned, penitent , to the college at Rheims . In September , 1584, he was back in England distributing a large supply, which he had brought over, of Allen's newly printed Defence of Catholics. This was the offence for which in July, 1585 , he was brought to trial and condemned to death under the statute of 23 Eliz., c. 2, against " seditious " books . For a detailed hostile account of his trial see C.R.S. , v, p. 117, to which the present report may be regarded as a sequel . Concerning Thomas Webley (who is not yet beatified) we learn from this report much valuableinformation : his birthplace, his familyhe must have been nearly related to John Webley, who was Mayor of Gloucester in 1583-4, and to Henry Webley, the martyr of 1588 his apprenticeship to a London dyer who was either himself named Crabb or had married a widow of that name ; his conversion through a journey made with B. Thomas Alfield . That must have been in or before 1582. In 1585 he was caught helping the priest to distribute Allen's book. Being still an apprentice he was left on bail in the charge of his master : then hastily summoned to trial and executed within twentyfour hours, obstinate to the last. The registers of the Dyers Company perished in the Great Fire, or they would certainly have told us more about young Thomas Webley. For Topcliffe's report (March 18, 1584-5) on him and his friend William Crabb see C.R.S. , v, p . 105. It is worth noticing that when later on (April 25, 1586) Crabb was taken in an attempt to cross the seas, he was in the company of Henry Webley. The full title of Allen's book, for distributing which these two martyrs suffered , is as follows : A TRUE, SINCERE AND MO | DEST DEFENCE OF ENGLISH CATHOLIQUES that sufferfor their | Faith both at home and abroade : against a false, seditious and slaunderous Libel intituled ; THE Wherin is declared, EXECUTION OF JUSTICE IN ENGLAND. how uniustlie the Protestants doe charge Catholiques with treason ; how untrulie they deny their persecution for Religion ; and how deceitfullie they seeke to abuse strangers about the cause , greatnes, and maner of their sufferinges, with divers other matters | pertaining to this purpose. I No date or place , 8vo . , 222 pp. was written by Allen in English in the summer of 1584, and translated into Latin under his direction the same year. The Latin title is AD PERSECUTORES | ANGLOS PRO CATHOLICIS domi forisque persecutionem suf | ferentibus , contra falsum seditiosum et contumeliosum Libellum, inscriptum | IUSTITIA BRITANNICA , | vera, sincera et modesta Responsio, Scripta primum idiomate Anglicano , et deinde translata in Latinum. -No date or place , 8vo.,
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Both these editions, the English and the Latin, were printed at the same press at Paris, according to Alfield, but perhaps more probably
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