POUNDE, THOMAS

Jesuit lay affiliate and confessor; b. Belmont, near Winchester, England, May 29, 1539; d. Belmont, March 5, 1615. Thomas was the elder son of William Pounde, wealthy country gentleman, and Anne Wriothesley, sister of Thomas, Earl of Southampton. Until c. 1562 he was educated at Winchester, then at Lincoln's Inn, London. Thomas, admitted to Elizabeth's court and appointed esquire of the body, outwardly remained a Protestant until, following a humiliation at court (c. 1569–70), he retired to Belmont and was reconciled to the Church. Four years of spiritual preparation followed: two as a hermit, two with Thomas Stephens. In 1574 while preparing to leave for Rome, he was arrested in London. According to Pounde's own reckoning, over the succeeding 30 years there followed 15 imprisonments of varying lengths and in numerous prisons. During this time he was also fined £4,000 for recusancy. He was admitted to the Jesuits in 1579 by a letter from General Everard Mercurian that was smuggled to his prison cell in the Tower of London. His brief treatise "The Six Reasons" (1580), an attack on the scriptura sola position, was circulated in manuscript among English Catholics. In 1604 following James I's accession, he was released and retired to the seclusion of his Belmont home until his death. His lengthy imprisonment may well be the longest for any English Catholic layman of the period.

Bibliography: h. foley, ed., Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, 7 v. (London 1877–83) 3.2:567–657, includes numerous documents in full. j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time (London–New York 1885–1902) 5:354. Publications of the Catholic Record Society v. 22; 39; 51. w. r. trimble, The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England 1558–1603 (Cambridge, Mass. 1964).

[h. s. reinmuth, jr.]