Priest hunter
Bounty hunters who captured Catholic priests during Penal Times.
During Penal Times, a priest hunter worked for the English or later British government to track down or seize Catholic clergy. These bounty hunters included volunteers, seasoned soldiers, and former spies.
Quick Facts
- First executed seminary priest
- Cuthbert Mayne (1544–1577)
- Notorious elizabethan priest hunter
- Sir Richard Topcliffe
- Priest hunter in ireland
- Turner
Facts from the source article.
England
After the Rising of the North of 1569 and the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis (1570), the Crown adopted increasingly repressive measures against Catholics. The Bulls, etc., from Rome Act 1571 forbade publishing papal documents and importing crosses, beads, pictures, and tokens called Agnus Dei. From the 1570s, missionary priests from continental seminaries entered England secretly. The Religion Act 1580 fined and imprisoned those celebrating or attending Mass. The Jesuits, etc. Act 1584 commanded all Catholic priests to leave within forty days or face high treason penalties, and those harbouring them were fined and imprisoned; informers received one-third of forfeitures. A second Jesuits, etc. Act 1584 declared anyone ordained abroad who entered England a traitor and their harbourers felons. Nicholas Woodfen (Devereux) and Edward Stransham, Douai students, were executed at Tyburn on 21 January 1586. Sir Richard Topcliffe, described by John Gerard as "old and hoary and a veteran in evil", personally tortured and played mind games with captured priests. He fell from favour after his role in the arrest, trial, and execution of Robert Southwell.
Ireland
During the Elizabethan era in Dublin, Lord Justices Adam Loftus and Sir Henry Wallop coerced Thomas Fleming, 10th Baron Slane, to arrest and deliver Dermot O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, to Dublin Castle. Around 1680, persecution intensified after Titus Oates' claims of a Catholic conspiracy. A company of soldiers under a priest hunter named Turner killed Fr. Mac Aidghalle while he said mass at a mass rock on Slieve Gullion, County Armagh. Local oral tradition says Redmond O'Hanlon avenged the priest and sealed his own fate. A 1709 Penal Act required priests to take the Oath of Abjuration, recognize Queen Anne as Supreme Head of the Church, and declare Transubstantiation "base and idolatrous"; refusers were arrested and executed. Priests who conformed were deported, aiming to eliminate the Catholic clergy within a generation. Most priests registered with magistrates to preach, but bishops could not. In 1713, the Irish House of Commons declared prosecution and informing against Papists an honourable service, reviving priest hunting. Rewards ranged from £50–100 for a bishop to £10–20 for an unregistered priest.
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