A good man is not a perfect man; a good man is an honest man, faithful and unhesitatingly responsive to the voice of God in his life-St. John Fisher
The bulk of my family have lived their lives through the centuries as Protestant Christians. But there are a few lines that I have traced to Catholic traditions. This is one of those lines.
My 12th Great Grandfather John Williams was born in 1574 in Essex County, England just outside the northeastern border of London. From there it's 20 miles south to Charring Cross, the confluence of six different routes that meet right in the heart of London. In the 1600s the area was referred to as Whitehall. It still is today but now extends from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. I visited the area in 1997. As it was in the 1600s Whitehall is still to this day the center of London and all points are measured from this very center. During the reign of King James the I the Palace of Whitehall was just to the east of this area and it was the residence of the King. And this was the same King who sponsored the English translation of the Bible, a la the King James version, so many Christians today still refer to daily.
Present day Charring Cross-The statue is King Charles I
In the 1500s and most of the 1600s Whitehall Palace was where the seat of power in England resided. In fact some of William Shakespeare's earliest plays were performed there for Kings and their courts. At one time in the area where Buckingham Palace now stands there were "Mews" or equestrian stables where the King's horses were kept. Those same stables were moved and placed inside the palace when it was built in 1703 as a residence for The Duke of Buckingham.
Whitehall Palace & Charring Cross circa 1600s
During the 1600s the Royal Mews occupied an imposing presence on the same site. It was a large classical building and in old maps of the area, "The Mews" could be seen extending to the area of today's Leicester Square. The Royal Stables had a large open area in front of them where the public could congregate in the very heart of London. And this area was where capitol punishment was carried out in the public square for all to see. And this is where my 12th Great Grandfather John Williams would spend his last hours. It was the center of all activity in the most powerful country in the world. And for one day in May 1619 all of London would revel in the death of my 12th Great-Grandfather as the fresh breath of an English spring gave way to the darkness of death.
My 12th Great Grandfather John Williams apparently had a good life early on. On December 6, 1590 he married Anne Weston, the daughter of Sir Jerome Weston of Roxwell in County Essex, England. Anne's father Jerome was the high Sheriff of Essex in 1599. The couple left Essex for London and raised three or four children and of those , William born in 1600 was my 11th Great-Grandfather. He would later immigrate to the new Virginia colony of America. In London the Williams family seemed to have had a comfortable existence. Williams served as a lawyer and orator in the Middle Temple in the heart of London.
John Williams had an unmitigated visceral disdain for King James I of England, who also concurrently was King James VI of Scotland. James was the first ruler to rule over the combined Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Williams was Catholic and King James was an acting protestant. I certainly don't defend Williams for what he did, even though he was my own flesh and blood because I don't know the conditions in which he lived. He believed what he believed. But anytime you speak out against a King you risk repercussions. And to Williams the Pope was the authority and the church was the ultimate ruling authority and all of it's creeds, canons and laws were to be followed. And apparently to Williams, King James was not to be trusted or listened to. According to Williams' writings the authority of the King did not supersede that of the Pope in Rome.
In the 1500s and 1600s the views of Catholics and Protestants were diametrically opposed. It had been that way since the Protestant reformation over a century earlier. But funny those opposing views still exist today. But it seems in today's generation Catholics and Christians can at least coexist in America without wanting to kill each other like they did in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Still it seems the inability of humans to get along with each other never changes. The war just keeps waging, whether it's words or swords, it never ends.
Oh that we should heed the wisdom of King Soloman in the Ecclesiastes , "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
King James had been baptized as a Catholic because his mother Mary Stuart was Catholic. James had come into power in his native Scotland at one year old and in England at 12 years old and once he came of age wanted to remain neutral on religious views. As he reached his 20s his thinking became more aligned with the Christian church and his views became increasingly more antagonistic towards the Catholic Church or any church that opposed the monarchy.
King James I
By the early 1600s the errors, abuses and hypocrisies of the Catholic church had come to a head and as a result there were a slew of new denominations and religious groups that had formed over the previous century or so. The animosity only got worse. The unending friction between the Catholic Church, the Monarchy and the protestant denominations had lit a fire that splintered families, communities and kingdoms.
The Puritans wanted all Papal authority negated and pressured James to act. James pushed them away and silenced dissenters. James wanted no religious opposition to the monarchy and for all of the various religions to obey and follow the laws of the monarchy. This was one of the big reasons the Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 decided to flee to America. They wanted the freedom to worship as they pleased. They did not want to be yoked to the authority of the Monarchy or the Roman Catholic Church
In Scotland it was the Presbyterians who wanted separation from the Catholics, In England not only the Puritans but the Anglicans wanted James to take harsh action against the Catholic church and renounce and reject all Papal Authority. Conversely Catholics held no love for King James. The Romans said as much, "King James is no Catholic, neither is he a Christian." King James responded by saying he was saved without the aid of Rome and a Catholic in the true historic sense of the word. Catholic Inquisitors and Cardinal Bellarmine (the pope's champion) called King James a heretic. King James said that since he was never a Catholic he could not be termed a heretic. And the argument festered.
In 1605 a massive assassination plot against King James was foiled. It was called the "Gunpowder Plot" To sum it up briefly, a group of Catholics plotted to blow up the palace while the King was in it. The plot was uncovered, the Catholic perpetrators caught and then hanged, drawn and quartered. After this plot King James passed the popish recusant act which made it a crime to obey the authority of Rome and not that of the King. This was the final straw for many Catholics. It was an act of war.
Seven years later, in 1612, my 12th Great Grandfather John Williams was expelled from the Middle Temple and was accused of being a popish recusant. In simplier terms it meant the monarchy was accusing him of following the rule of the Pope and the Catholic Church instead of the King and the Monarchy. Williams was to be fined £60 or to forfeit two-thirds of his land if he did not receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at least once a year in a Church of England Parish(the Anglican church) To Williams this was not acceptable. He would not allow himself to be forced to follow the practices of the Church of England or the Monarchy. He had no interest in obeying anything but God and the Roman Catholic Pope. But evidently Williams acquiesced to the rules for at least a few years.
But by 1619 Williams had evidently had enough and became even more bold and steadfast in his belief that King James was from the devil and had it out for Catholics. In 1619 Williams was arrested by King James' men on suspicion of being a Catholic priest. On his person was found an annotated copy of a pamphlet called "Balaam's Ass". Williams admitted to the Sheriff's men he had written it. It drew upon the Biblical account from the book of Numbers about the soothsayer Balaam. Balaam rode an ass(donkey) to Balak, in order to curse the Israelites, who were waging war against Moab, and guarantee a Moabite victory. According to the story, Balaam’s ass, after three times seeing an angel with an unsheathed sword blocking its way, suddenly began to speak, and when Balaam reached Balak, he blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them.
In the figurative sense, “Balaam’s ass” was used to describe a person who suddenly said something worthy of attention. And the term sometimes was used primarily in an ironic sense, designating a silent person who begins to speak unexpectedly and says something extremely stupid. This was the use I believe my 12th Great Grandfather intended. And it worked in offending the King. The pamphlet included the prediction that Whitehall Palace and grounds would be desolate and overgrown with grass by September 7, 1621. I haven't discerned the significance of that date but do think those statements were aimed squarely at stirring up the most dissent and more assassination attempts against King James. Also included in the pamphlet was a prediction that King James would die by 1620. ( it was errant and off by five years) Because of these inflammatory writings Williams was held and sent to trial.
On Friday May 3, 1619 Williams was convicted of high treason. The punishment; death. The following Monday, May 6, 1619, my 12th Great Grandfather was hanged, drawn and quartered against the Mews at Charring Cross at the public square at Whitehall in the heart of London.
For those who don't know about this particularly gruesome punishment, to be hanged, drawn and quartered, here's what it entails; Williams was dragged, by a horse on a wooden frame to the place where he was to be publicly put to death. Then he was hanged by the neck for a short time until almost dead (hanged). Then he was removed from hanging and placed on a table. Still alive, he was cut open in the abdomen and his intestines and sex organs removed.(drawn) The removed organs were then burned in a flame and prepared close to Williams' body. Then Williams' head was cut off, and the rest of his body hacked into four parts or quarters (quartered).
After that gruesome death, Williams remains (the quarters) were displayed on the square as an example to others who would dare commit the same crime. It was a vile and most awful way to die. The British had developed a reputation as the bloodiest country in the world and their methods of execution were barbaric and grewsome. Williams died a martyr for the supreme authority of the Pope.
Now I know why Williams' descendants left the Catholic church and became Christians.
And that is the story of my 12th Great-Grandfather John Williams of Essex County England. His son William Williams was 19 when his father was executed. William Williams immigrated to America a little more than 20 years later around 1640 and landed at Northampton County Virginia, near the Settlement of Jamestown, ironically named for King James I. William's daughter Sarah Williams married Thomas Sowell who would later remove to Bertie County, North Carolina. The Sowell family remained in Bertie County, North Carolina for three additional generations and then James William Sowell came to Kershaw District South Carolina in the late 1700s. The family remained in Kershaw County SC for three more generations and then my Great-Great Grandmother Elizabeth(Ellen) Jane Sowell from Kershaw SC, married William James David Jowers and came to Chesterfield County South Carolina. Their daughter Margaret Rebecca Jowers Demby was my Great-Grandmother. And Margaret's daughter was Catherine Nell Demby Johnson, from Jefferson, South Carolina, my grandmother.