Laurence Vaux

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Laurence Vaux (also called Vose) lived from 1519 to 1585. He was an English Catholic priest and a member of the regular canons. He died in prison for his faith.

Vaux was born in Blackrod, Lancashire. He studied in Manchester and at the University of Oxford, where he was ordained in 1542. He earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Oxford in 1556. He began as a fellow, and then in 1558 he became the warden of Manchester College. This church had been turned into a college years earlier and was supported by Lord Thomas la Warr; it had been restored to Catholic use by Mary I in 1557.

In 1559, Elizabeth I’s officials visited Manchester College and summoned Vaux and the fellows. Knowing what might happen, he had already hidden the college deeds and church plate. He soon became a marked man and, in 1561, he fled to Louvain (in present-day Belgium). There he ran a school for the children of English Catholic exiles and prepared a catechism for them.

Back in Europe, Catholics debated how far they could outwardly conform to the English church. Pope Pius V sent two exiles, Sanders and Harding, to declare that attending the Church of England services was a mortal sin. Vaux went to Rome in 1566. The pope spoke with him about the decision, and he was sent back to England to spread the papal ruling.

Vaux returned home and led a vigorous campaign against the new reforms, especially in Lancashire. The English government issued a warrant for his arrest in February 1568. He escaped again to Louvain. There he joined the canons regular at the Priory of St. Martin’s. He was clothed in the religious habit on Saint Lawrence’s Day, August 10, 1572, and he made his profession the following May. Before taking his vows, he made a legal arrangement to guard the deeds and valuables he had saved, until the college could be restored or Catholics could live there again.

After his profession, he was made sub-prior. When the prior resigned in 1577, there was pressure to elect Vaux, but some feared he would use the position to train many Englishmen for the mission. In 1580, at the request of Cardinal Allen, he was sent to Reims to resume work in England. He left Reims on August 1 and reached Boulogne on August 12, traveling with a Catholic soldier and a Frenchman who betrayed them. They were caught in Dover and then at Canterbury and Rochester, after information from a spy.

Vaux was imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Westminster. The Bishop of London, Aylmer, asked him if he wrote a catechism in English, and Vaux admitted that he did. The first three years of his imprisonment were relatively mild, helped by powerful friends. Later, a letter from him mentioning his catechism was intercepted, and it noted that about 300 copies had already reached Manchester. He was moved to the Clink in Southwark, where he died.

Contemporary accounts say he was brought before Aylmer in 1585 and found guilty, dying soon after. The catechism he wrote in Louvain in 1567 became very popular, with several editions published in Antwerp and Liège. It follows the common format of catechisms: it explains the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the commandments, the sacraments, and aspects of Christian life and ceremonies. The Liège edition of 1583, reprinted in 1885 with notes, also includes Vaux’s writing on the Use and Meaning of Ceremonies, which discusses things like holy water, candles, incense, and vestments.