21 February 1595 A.D. English Jesuit and Poet, Robert Southwell, was Hanged and Quartered for Treason
21 February 1595 A.D. English Jesuit and Poet, Robert Southwell, was Hanged and Quartered for Treason Graves, Dan. “Conscientious Poet Robert Southwell.” Christianity.com. May 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/conscientious-poet-robert-southwell-11630041.html . Accessed 20 Feb 2015. The death of Robert Southwell on this day, February 21, 1595 dramatizes the fact that neither high birth, sincerity, poetic gifts, nor a sweet disposition can protect one from persecution. Chances are, if you have seen Southwell's name at all, it has been attached to the poem "The Burning Babe" in an English literature anthology. The Christmas Babe is none other than Christ, who says: My faultless breast the furnace is; The fuel, wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke; The ashes, shames and scorns; Shakespeare read Southwell's poems and Ben Jonson said he would gladly destroy many of his own if he might thereby...