GERARD
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GERARD
almost superhuman; he could remain in hiding days
and nights in a hole in which he could not stand up-
right, and never sleep, and hardly change his position:
he could joke on the gyves that were ulcerating his
legs. He seems never to have forgotten a face or a
name or an incident. Writing his autobiography
twenty years after the circumstances he records, there
is scarcely an event or a name which recent research
has not proved to be absolutely correct. As a literary
effort merelv, the Life is marvellous." ("Academy",
9 July, ISSi.)
In those times of danger, no prudence could always effectually ensure a priest against capture. Gerard was taken prisoner, July, 1594, through a servant, whose secret treachery was not suspected. He passed two years in smaller prisons, and was then sent to the Tower, where he was cruelly tortured, being hung up by his hands, of which torment he has left a very vivid description. His courage and firmness, however, were such, that his examiners lost hope of extracting secrets from him, and he was relegatetl to the Salt Tower, where he cleverly contrived to say Mass. In 1597, he managed to escape by means of a string thrown one night by a friend from Tower Wharf into the Cradle Tower. By this string a rope was drawn across the moat, and with its assistance he managed eventually to get across, but with great difficulty, as his hands were still helpless from the torture.
Until the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (q. v.), at the end of 1605, he continued his adventurous life as a missioner in England, but he was then obliged to slip away disguised as a footman in the train of the Spanish Ambassador. The rest of his life was spent in the English colleges on the Continent. He wrote, in 1607, "A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot", and af- terwards his autobiography, " Narratio P. Joannis Ger- ardi de Rebus a se in Anglia gestis". He strongly befriended Mary Ward (q. v.) in her attempt to found an active religious order for women, and passed the last ten years of his life as spiritual director of the Eng- lish College at Rome.
Morris. Trnubles of our Catholic Forefathers (London, 1871); The Life of John Gerard (3rd ed., London, 1881); Gillow, Biii. Did. Eng. Cath., s. v.; Cooper in EHct. Nat. Biog,, s. v,
J. H. Pollen.
Gerard, Miles, Venerable, martyr; b. about 1550 at Wigan ; executed at Rochester 13 (30?) April, 1590. Sprung perhaps from the Gerards of Ince, he was, about 1576, tutor to the children of Squire Edward Tyldesley.at Morleys, Lancashire. Thence in 1579 he went to the seminaries of Douai and Reims, where he was ordained 7 April, 1583, and then stayed on as professor until 31 August, 1589 (O. S.), when he started for England with five companions. At Dun- kirk the sailors refused to take more than two passen- gers; so the missioners tossed for precedence, and Gerard and Francis Dicconson, the eldest (it seems) and youngest of the party, won. Though bound for London, they were driven out of their course into Dover harbour, where they were examined and ar- rested on suspicion (21 Nov., N. S.). A contemporary news-letter says that they were wrecked, and escaped the sea only to fall into the hands of persecutors on shore, but this is not consistent wdth the official records. These show that the prisoners at first gave feigned names and ambiguous answers, but soon thought it better to confess all. After many tortures in the worst London prisons under the infamous Top- cliffe, they were condemned as traitors, and "taken to Rochester, where they were hanged and quartered", says Father John Curry, S. J., writing shortly after- wards, "and gave a splendid testimony to the Catholic Faith".
Pollen. Acts of English Martyrs (1891), 314; Challoner; GiLLOw; Catholic Record Society (190S), V, pp. 169-171, 173 sqq.;
Nox, Douay Diaries, pp. 160 sqq.
J. II. Pollen.
Gerard, Rich.^hd, confessor; b. about 1635; d. 11
March, lOSO (O. S.). The Bromley branch of the
f ierard family, which divided off from the original stock
of Bryn in the fourteenth centurj-, grew to power and
affluence through GUbert, solicitor-general to Queen
Elizabeth, and as such an active persecutor of Catho-
lics. Inileed he is said to have obtained the estate of
Gerard's Bromley, through a court intrigue, from the
Catholic Sir Thomas Cierard of Bryn (father of John
Gerard, S. J.), as the price for which the knight bought
off the prcsecution against him for adhering to Mary
Queen of Scots. In 1603 Ciilbert's son Thomas was
made Baron Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, Co. Stafford,
but his grandson (the subject of this article), Richard
of Hilderstone, Co. Stafford (by John, a younger son,
d. 1673), was a Catholic, though how he became
one is not known. Richard was a friend of the Jesuit
missioners, had three sons at their college of St-Omer,
and was trustee for them for some small properties.
It would seem that he had been invited to a little
function on the feast of the Assmnption, 1678, when
Father John Oavan (the future martyr) made his pro-
fession, at the house of the Penderels at Boscobel, who
had sheltered Charles II after the battle of Worcester;
and that after dinner the party visited the celebrated
"Royal Oak", in which Charles had hidden. This
came to the knowledge of Stephen Dugdale, after-
wards an infamous informer, and became the occasion
of Richard's imprisonment and death. For, during
the fury of Oates's Plot, when witnesses were being
sought to attest the innocence of the Catholic lords
who were impeached, Richard Gerard manfully came
forward, and his evidence was likely to have proved of
capital importance. To obviate this, Dugdale ac-
cused him of having contributed to the funds of the
alleged plotters (perhaps with some reference to the
pensions paid for his boys at St-Omer) and of having
conspired to murder the king. Examined by the
Lords' committee (19 May, 1679) he confessed to the
innocent meeting at Boscobel, and was thrown into
Newgate, where he langiii.shed ten months without
trial before he was freed by tleath. He was fortunate
in being attended during his last hours by Father
Edward Petre, who, in a letter written 29 March, 1680,
speaks of his constancy and of his dying wish to be
buried by the side of his friend. Father Whitbread,
then recently martjTcd.
Several years later his third son, Philip (b. 1 Dec, 1665), having entered the Society of Jesus 7 Sept., 1684, unexpectedly became seventh and last Lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley (12 April, 1707, O. S.), through the deaths of various cousins and older brothers. Philip never claimed the title, and gave up all rights to the estates for a small yearly pension of £60, being obliged to leave the country by the action of a near connexion, the Duke of Hamilton, who ad- vertised the reward of £1,000 for his arrest as a priest. It is curious that the four lords who have been among the English Jesuits all lived at the same time. Philip Gerard (d. 17.33) was the contemporary of Father Gil- Ijert Talbot (d. 1743), who became Earl of Shrewsbury in 1717; also of Father William Molyneux (d. 1754), who was Viscount Sefton in 1745; also of Father Charles Dormer (d. 1761), who was Baron Dormer in 1728.
FoLEv, Records S. J.; Journals of the House of Lords; KiRK, Biographies of English Catholics (1909), 9S; GiLLOw, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath., s. v.
J. H. Pollen.
Gerard Majella, S.\int, b. in Muro, about fifty miles south of Naples, in .April, 1726; d. 16 Oct., 1755; beatified by Leo XIII, 29 Januarj', 1893, and canonized by Pius X, 11 December, 1904. His only ambition was to be like Jesus Christ in His sufferings and hu- miliations. His father, Dominic Majella, died while Gerard was a child. His pious mother, owing to pov- erty, was obliged to apprentice him to a tailor. His
