being ordained priest, while under the canonical age, at Soissons, 18 March 1589–90, by papal dispensation, he returned to England as a missioner. He was apprehended by Topcliffe while celebrating mass in the house of Swithen Wells in Gray's Inn Fields, London, 7 Nov. 1591, with two other priests and four laymen. On 4 Dec. they were brought to trial, Geninges being dressed in a fool's coat which had been found in Wells's house. The next day the jury found the three priests guilty of high treason for returning to the realm contrary to the statute of Elizabeth, and the laymen were convicted of felony for aiding and assisting the priests. They were all executed at Tyburn except Geninges and Wells, who were executed on 10 Dec. (O.S.) 1591 under peculiarly revolting circumstances before the door of the house in which they had been captured in Gray's Inn Fields.
‘The Life and Death of Mr. Edmund Geninges, Priest, Crowned with Martyrdome at London, the 10 Day of Nouember in the year MDXCI,’ appeared at St. Omer in 1614, 4to. There is a perfect copy of this extremely rare work in the Grenville Library, and another in the Huth collection. The title-page, the portrait of Geninges, ‘Ætatis suæ 24, Ao 1591,’ and eleven quaint prints illustrating his life from childhood, are all engraved by Martin Bas. The whole work is in prose except ‘The Author to his Booke’ and ‘The Booke to his Reader,’ three six-line stanzas, each on A 2. On A 3 is a letter signed ‘J. W. P.’ addressed to ‘Maister J. G. P.’ These initials probably represent John Wilson or Watson, the author of the ‘Roman Martyrologie,’ 1608, and John Geninges [q. v.], the brother of Edmund. It is not at all clear from the letter whether Wilson or John Geninges was the author of the biography. Challoner, however, ascribes the authorship to John Geninges. A reprint of the work ‘without any substantial alteration’ appeared at London in 1887, 4to, under the editorship of the Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J.
Another work relating to Edmund Geninges was printed under the title of ‘Strange and Miraculous News from St. Omers, being an Account of the wonderful Life and Death of a Popish Saint and Martyr named Mr. Edmund Gennings, Priest, who was executed for treason some years since; with a relation of the miracles … at his death. Wherein may be observed what lying wonders the Papists are made to believe’ [London, 1680?], fol.
[Challoner's Missionary Priests; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 89; Douay Diaries, p. 423; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. ii. 415, 423; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. i. 275; Bibl. Grenvilliana, pt. i. p. 270; Harwood's Lichfield; Cat. of the Huth Library, ii. 589; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 874; Stanton's Menology, p. 590; Stow's Annales (1615), p. 764.]
GENINGES, JOHN (1570?–1660), Franciscan friar, born at Lichfield in or about 1570, was brought up in the protestant religion, but became a catholic after the execution of his elder brother, Edmund Geninges [q. v.] He entered the English College at Douay, was ordained priest in 1607, and was sent on the mission in the following year. In 1614 or 1615 he was admitted into the order of St. Francis. In 1616, in his capacity of vicar and custos of England, he assembled at Gravelines about six of his brethren, including novices, and within three years he succeeded in establishing at Douay the monastery of St. Bonaventure, of which he was the first vicar and guardian. In 1621, with the assistance of Father Christopher Davenport [q. v.], he founded the convent of St. Elizabeth at Brussels for English nuns of the third order of St. Francis. On the restoration of the English province of his order he was appointed its first provincial, in a chapter held at Brussels on 1 Dec. 1630. He was re-elected provincial in the second chapter held at Greenwich on 15 Jan. 1633–4, for another triennium, and again in the fourth chapter at London on 19 April 1640. He died at Douay on 2 Nov. (O.S.) 1660. Dr. Oliver states that his portrait is preserved in the house of St. Peter's Chapel, Birmingham. To him is generally ascribed the authorship of the curious biography of his brother, published at St. Omer in 1614 [see Geninges, Edmund]. He also wrote ‘Institutio Missionariorum,’ Douay, 1651, 16mo.
[Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 416; Douay Diaries, i. 19, 34; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5 Rep. p. 468; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, pp. 540, 541, 551; Parkinson's Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. 261; Petre's Colleges and Convents, pp. 44, 90; Wadding's Scriptores Ord. Minorum.]
GENT, Sir THOMAS (d. 1593), judge, was the eldest or only son of William Gent, lord of the manor of Moyns, Steeple Bumpstead, Essex, of ancient family, by Agnes, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Carr of Great Thurlow, Suffolk. He was educated at Cambridge, probably at Christ's College, where one ‘Gent’ matriculated as a pensioner in 1548. He entered at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar, and was Lent reader there in 1571 and 1574. He was appointed on 2 April 1571 to the lucrative office of steward of all the courts of Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford.
