A NOTABLE PILGRIMAGE

New Zealand Tablet, 17 October 1918, Page 42

A NOTABLE PILGRIMAGE

The many readers of Conte Rack , Conte Itope, by the late Mgr. Robert Hugh Benson, one of the most interesting historical novels ever written of the Tudor period in England, will hear with interest of the annual pilgrimage, which took place again this year, to old Radley Chapel, in Derbyshire, England. Radley figures largely in the scenes of the book, and, bridging over that time to the present day, one is brought literally face to face with the old places where the Test Act- —to Catholics perhaps the most sickening of penal laws, —was either resisted or succumbed to. Old Radley Chapel, now a stable, was once the chapel of the Fitzllerberts, who had estates in Derbyshire. The Pilgrimage Mass at St. Michael’s, Hathersage, was said by the Rector (Father Francis Busch), in the unavoidable absence of Father Fletcher, who was.presiding examiner at Clapham Boys’ Centre (Oxford Local Examinations) that week. It was real Radley weather, rain finding, as usual, special attractions in the great hills of Derbyshire. There were two hundred pilgrims at Grindleford station when the procession started thence to the chapel, sacred to Catholics because there Topcliffe, the arcli-priesthunter, found two penal-time priests (Nicholas Garlick and Robert Ludlam) in hiding, and had them, with Richard Sympsou (a convert clergyman), hanged at Derby, July 24, 1588. An excellent “Sermon on the Mount” was preached in the open air by the Rev. Joseph Burke, S.J. of Mount St. Mary’s College.