Жон Жерар: Елизавета дәуіріндегі қашқын дін қызметкерінің өмірбаяны

English Jesuit priest

John Gerard (4 October 1564 – 27 July 1637) was a priest of the Society of Jesus who operated a secret ministry of the underground Catholic Church in England during the Elizabethan era. He was born into the English nobility as the second son of Sir Thomas Gerard at Old Bryn Hall, near Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire. After attending seminary and being ordained abroad, Gerard returned to England covertly shortly after the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada. Fr. Gerard not only successfully hid from the English authorities for eight years before his capture but also endured extensive torture, escaped from the Tower of London, recovered and continued with his covert mission until the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot made it impossible to continue. After his escape to Catholic Europe, Fr. Gerard was instructed by his Jesuit superiors to write a book about his life in Latin. An English translation by Fr. Philip Caraman was published in 1951 as John Gerard: Autobiography of an Elizabethan and is a rare first hand account of the dangerous cloak and dagger world of a Catholic priest in Elizabethan England. Ignatius Press published a second edition in 2012 under the title "The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest: John Gerard, S. J."

John Gerard was born 4 October 1564, the second son of Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn Hall, and Elizabeth, daughter and co heiress of Sir John Port of Derbyshire. In 1569, when John Gerard was five years old, his father was imprisoned for plotting the rescue of Mary, Queen of Scots, from Tutbury Castle. His release in 1571 may have been influenced by his cousin Sir Gilbert Gerard who was Attorney General at that time. During that time John and his brother were placed with Protestant relatives, but his father obtained for them a Catholic tutor. In August 1577, at age 12, he was sent to the English College at Douai, which relocated the following March to Rheims. At the age of 15 he spent a year at Exeter College, Oxford, which was followed by about a year of home study of Koine Greek and Ecclesiastical Latin under a tutor, a Mr Leutner (Edmund Lewkenor, brother of Sir Lewes Lewknor Master of the Ceremonies to King James I). He then went to the Jesuit Clermont College in Paris. After some months there, followed by an illness and convalescence, in the latter part of 1581 he went to Rouen to see Jesuit priest Fr. Robert Persons. By way of disguises, he appeared very secular, being versed in gambling and wearing fashionable clothes. Gerard wrote of many escapes from the law and of occasions when he hid in priest holes, which could often be as small as 1 meter tall and half a meter wide. In 1591 Gerard became the chaplain to the Wiseman household, Braddocks, led by William and Jane Wiseman. The household included Jane Wiseman who was William's widowed mother. Gerard persuaded her to create a new home for herself and a chaplain name Bullocks which would become as additional centre for Catholicism and priest harbouring.

Gerard was finally captured in London on 23 April 1594, together with Nicholas Owen. He was tried, found guilty and sent to the Compter in the Poultry. Later he was moved to the Clink prison where he was able to meet regularly with other imprisoned English Catholics. Due to his continuation of this work, he was sent to the Salt Tower in the Tower of London, where he was further questioned and tortured by being repeatedly suspended from chains on the dungeon wall.

Gerard's most famous exploit is believed to have been masterminded by Nicholas Owen. With help from other members of the Catholic underground, Gerard, along with John Arden, escaped on a rope strung across the Tower moat during the night of 4 October 1597. Despite the fact that his hands were still mangled from the tortures he had undergone, he succeeded in climbing down. He even arranged for the escape of his gaoler (jailer), with whom he had become friendly, and who he knew would be held responsible for the jailbreak. It is speculated that he befriended the jailer so that if circumstance favored an escape, it could be turned to his advantage. Immediately following his escape, he joined Henry Garnet and Robert Catesby in Uxbridge. Later, Gerard moved to the house of Dowager Elizabeth Vaux at Harrowden, near Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. From this base of operations, he continued his priestly ministry, and reconciled many to the Catholic Church, including Sir Everard Digby (one of the future conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot).

For the next eight years he continued his ministry among the English people before he was recalled to the continent to train Jesuits for the English Mission. He eventually escaped from there to London. He left the country with financial aid from Elizabeth Vaux, slipping away disguised as a footman in the retinue of the Spanish Ambassador, on the very day of Henry Garnet's execution. Fr. Gerard went on to continue the work of the Jesuits in Europe, where he wrote his autobiography on the orders of his superiors. He died in 1637, aged 73, at the English College, Rome, a seminary.