book iii

. p. 191).

Through the later researches of Dr. Challoner, we now know the story relating to one of these heads. John Cornelius, or Mohun, was born of Irish parents in Bodmin. He studied at Oxford, but not adopting the new religion, went afterwards to Rheims, and later to Rome. He was sent upon the English mission, in which he laboured for about ten years. He was apprehended in April, 1594, in the house of the widow of Sir John Arundel, on the information of a servant of the house. Mr. Bosgrave, a kinsman of Sir John Arundel, seeing him hurried away without a hat, put his own hat on the priest’s head; for this he was arrested. Two servants of the family, Terence Carey and Patrick Salmon, were also arrested. Cornelius was sent to London, and there racked to make him give up the names of Catholics who had harboured him. Refusing to make any discovery, he was sent back into the country, tried, and, with his three companions, executed at Dorchester on July 2, 1594. The three were simply hanged: Cornelius, as guilty of high treason, was drawn, hanged, and quartered. His head was nailed to the gallows, but afterwards removed at the instance of the town. His quarters were buried together with the bodies of his companions. Dr. Challoner does not tell how the head of Cornelius was recovered by friends, nor does he say anything more of the others. It is probable that the three other heads of Strype’s account were those of the companions of Cornelius (“Memoirs of Missionary Priests,”