Henry Morse by Philip Caraman

Henry Morse

Priest of the Plague

by Philip Caraman

The Catholic Book Club, undated, c. 1958, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little foxing, pages age-toned, dustjacket shows edge and shelf wear with small tears, chips and creasing (see photographs) 

'About this book the author writes: "For a long time I have wanted to study the life of what I might call an 'ordinary' priest in the seventeenth century.  I took a risk and settled on a man whose name was unknown.  As I gathered information about him - in London, Rome, Liege and elsewhere - I realised how fortunate my first choice had been.  Henry Morse led me into many fascinating by-paths of seventeenth century England: book-smuggling, the London underworld, ecclesiastical feuds, prison and camp life, the plague, organised blackmail and thuggery".  After he had been twice imprisoned and twice exiled.  Henry Morse returned to England in 1633 and worked unsparingly among the plague-stricken poor of London.  Again exiled and again returning, he was eventually arrested in Cumberland, shipped from Newcastle to London and executed at Tyburn in 1645.  In his astonishing career and in his heroic courage, especially during the plague, which is described in vivid and terrible detail, Henry Morse is a figure no less admirable than John Gerard.'