the same cause common to us both.... I wished earnestly the planting of the gospel; I knew a contrary religion professed; I saw if I were known I should be apprehended. I changed my name, I kept secretly: I imitated Paul. Was I therein a traitor?... The wearing of a buff jerkin, a velvet hat, and suchlike, is much forced against me.... I am not indicted upon the Statute of Apparel!... Indeed, I acknowledge an offence to Godwards for so doing, and thereof it doth grievously repent me, and [I] therefore do now penance, as you see me.” This charming rejoinder (again, how More-like!) was in allusion to his rough gown of Irish frieze, and a huge black nightcap covering half of his newly shaven face. After all this mere hectoring, some pieces of “evidence” were produced. One of these was an intercepted letter which Campion himself had written from the Tower after his first and comparatively moderate racking, while it was still possible to use his hands; it was addressed to the admirable and truly holy, but fussy, Mr. Thomas Pounde, who, wild with alarm at the pretended “betrayals,” had written to remonstrate with Fr. Campion. The Queen’s Counsel now read this passage from Campion’s humble reply: “It grieveth me much to have offended the Catholic cause so highly as to confess the names of some gentlemen and friends in whose houses I had been entertained. Yet in this I greatly cherish and comfort myself: that I never discovered any secrets there declared; and that I will not, come rack, come rope!” The comment of the reader in court was an obvious one. “What can sound more suspiciously or nearer unto treason than this letter?... It must needs be some grievous matter and very pernicious, that neither rack nor rope can wring from him!” But Campion’s even more obvious answer was that there he spoke as one “by profession and calling a priest,” vowed to silence in regard to what was made known in the Confessional, and yet pressed, on the rack, to divulge secrets thus communicated to him. “These were the hidden matters ... in concealing of which I so greatly rejoiced, to the revealing whereof I cannot nor will not be brought, come rack, come rope!” Well chosen was this answer of Campion’s. It has been pointed out that if he had stated here that he had told on no one who was not already found out, he would have loosed the informers and man-hunters afresh on the whole Catholic community, until his other friends, who had not been found out, were run down. Instead of that he drew off attention by reminding the court that he could not repeat what had been sacramentally confided to him. Most of his hearers were either Catholic or had been Catholic, and acquiesced. He spoke truth, but he skipped explanations: and such is, more often than not, the highest wisdom in this complex world.