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On Sunday, the first of May, 1532, the pulpit at Greenwich was occupied by Father Peto, afterwards Cardinal Peto, famous through Europe as a Catholic incendiary; but at this time an undistinguished brother of the Observants convent.
The first missioners sailed in December, 1490, under Goncalo de Sousa; of the three one were killed by the heat, and another having made himself "Chaplain to the Congolan Army," by a "Giaghi" chief. The seed sown by these friars was cultivated by twelve Franciscans of the Order of Observants. The Right Reverend Fathers of the Company appeared in 1560 with the Conquistador Paulo Dias de Novaes.
If the English monks had shared as a body the character of the Greenwich Observants, of the Carthusians of London and Richmond, and of some other establishments, which may easily be numbered, the resistance which they might have offered to the government, with the sympathy which it would have commanded, would have formed an obstacle to the Reformation that no power could have overcome.
In Italy they were called Riformati. All this confusion is now at an end, for Leo XIII, in the Constitution "Felicitate quadam," in 1897 joined all the Observants into one family, giving them again the most ancient and beautiful of their names, the Friars Minor.
The Carthusians, Brigittines, and Observants who had been induced to give way on the question of the Oath reverted to the position of More and Fisher. Their heads also were put to death, and the houses broken up. The wrath of the Pope was expressed in a Bull of Deposition; which however on second thoughts he found it advisable to hold in suspense till three years later.
And finally came the swarm of less important Orders, hundreds in number; there were the Carmelites, the Trappists, the Minims, the Barnabites, the Lazzarists, the Eudists, the Mission Fathers, the Servites, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine; there were the Bernadines, the Augustinians, the Theatines, the Observants, the Passionists, the Celestines, and the Capuchins, without counting the corresponding Orders of women or the Poor Clares, or the innumerable nuns like those of the Visitation and the Calvary.
And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers, minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice.
Many of the members of these communities were arrested and lodged in the Tower, and the decree went forth that the seven houses belonging to the Observants, who had offered a strenuous opposition to the divorce, should be suppressed. The Convocations of Canterbury and York submitted, as did also the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
And finally came the swarm of less important Orders, hundreds in number; there were the Carmelites, the Trappists, the Minims, the Barnabites, the Lazzarists, the Eudists, the Mission Fathers, the Servites, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine; there were the Bernadines, the Augustinians, the Theatines, the Observants, the Passionists, the Celestines, and the Capuchins, without counting the corresponding Orders of women or the Poor Clares, or the innumerable nuns like those of the Visitation and the Calvary.
The religious communities, the Observants, the Carthusians, the Dominicans, the Benedictines, and the few communities of nuns that had re-established houses in England during the reign of Queen Mary, were suppressed; their property was seized according to an Act passed in the late Parliament, and many of the monks and nuns were obliged to depart from the kingdom.
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