18th Jun - B THOMAS WHITBREAD, SJ (1618-1679)

 Five Jesuits, including Thomas Whitbread, the Provincial Superior, were falsely accused of plotting to assassinate King Charles III and overthrow the government. 

    They were themselves the victims of a plot hatched by the infamous Titus Oates, a man whom the provincial had refused to accept into the Society. No plot against the king was ever 

    planned, but the plot against the Jesuits was all too successful. Whitbread was a native of Essex but he attended the Jesuit college at Saint-Omer in Flanders. 

    He entered the Society at the age 17 and was ordained at the age 27. Two years later he returned to England and enjoyed a fruitful apostolate of more than 30 years. 

    In 1678, during the first year of his term as provincial superior of the Jesuits in England, Father Thomas Whitbread visited the communities on the continent that trained Catholics 

    from England. At Saint-Omer he encountered Titus Oates, a student at that school who asked the provincial to be admitted into the Society of Jesus. 

    Oates had been an Anglican minister but had been dismissed because of poor behaviour. Then he converted to Catholicism and studied at the English College in Valladolid, Spain, 

    but was thrown out of that school. Whitbread did not trust Oates' character or motivation, declined to accept such a candidate, and ordered him to be expelled from Saint-Omer 

    because of unsatisfactory behaviour there. In 1679 three more Jesuits were arrested on the basis of more false evidence provided by Stephen Dugdale, a convicted embezzler. 

    Fathers William Harcourt, John Gavan and Anthony Turner were included in the original charge of plotting against the king. Oates again claimed that he had witnessed the meeting at 

    the White Horse Tavern. Father John Gavan served as the spokesmen for the Jesuits, and answered the deceitful claims of the prosecution. 

    The defence produced 16 witnesses from Saint-Omer testifying that Oates had been at the college on that day and not even in England. Despite the clear weight of the evidence on 

    the side of the defence, the court instructed the jury to believe the prosecution witnesses rather than those of the defence. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, 

    condemning the five Jesuits to die for treason. The martyrs thanked the king for his merciful intentions, but firmly noted that they could not acknowledge any guilt for a 

    plot that never existed. They would not accept pardon if it meant they had to lie. They paused for private prayer again, and then the cart pulled away. 

    The bodies were pulled down and quartered, but friends were able to claim them and give them burial in the churchyard of St. Giles-in-the-fields.






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