tu4tMUtUtMWMMMf**M MB\M lAWiHWaWIWCMMM ONE GENERATION A NORFOLK HOUSE. EALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON ONE GENERATION A NORFOLK HOUSE a Contrffmtton to eitjabetfmn ^tstorp. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. head master of king edward the sixth's school, norwich, editor of " donne's essays in divinity," ETC. ETC. SECOND EDITION. \ LONDON: BURNS AND OATES. 1879. VALE 8^34.21710 SI QUID IN HOC LIBELLO VEL PR.ESENS VEL POSTER A .ETAS -CEDRO HAUD INDIGNUM JUDICAVERIT MEMORI.E VIRI HONORABILIS FREDERICI WALPOLE, NAUT.E MILITIS SENATORIS AMICI NUNQUAM NON DESIDERATI TRIBUTUM SIT. PREFACE. T is sixteen years since I heard for the first time of | Henry Walpole the Jesuit Father, who was put to death at York in 1595. Under his portrait, as it hung in the Library at Eainthorpe Hall, the conversation would often turn to that strange phase of the conflict with Rome which was exhibited in the latter half of Queen Elizabeth's reign — which for the most part historians have slurred over so carelessly, and yet about which there is still so much to learn. It was in 1 866 that the Hon. Frederick Walpole seriously suggested to me that I should undertake the writing of the Jesuit Father's life. I hf.d by this time begun to see clearly that it would be impossible to narrow the subject to the limits of a single biography, unless the significance of the incidents related and their bearing upon the history of the time were first explained and clearly apprehended. The further I proceeded in my inquiries the more evident it became that my task would require me to elucidate the merely personal narrative by dwelling on matters which I had good reason to believe were but little known to us of the Church of England ; and it was the more necessary to do this, because no historian of any mark, except Dr. Lingard, has yet dealt with that portion of Queen Elizabeth's reign which was subsequent to the Armada, and because even Mr. Froude curiously ignores much that was going on during the last few years with which his volumes are professedly concerned. In 1873 I edited, with somewhat copious notes, a collection of nineteen letters of Henry Walpole, the originals of which are PREFACE. now in the archives of Stonyhurst College. Some will be dis appointed that these letters are not given fully in this volume. They were in the first instance printed only for private circula tion at Mr. Walpole's sole expense, and it was his wish that the collection should always remain a " Book- rarity." On such a point his wishes are to me law ; nevertheless, the substance of this collection has been incorporated in the following pages, and it must be confessed that the literary value of the letters them selves is but small. In the notes appended to the several chapters I have made my acknowledgment to those who have so readily and so liberally assisted me in the course of my work. Only they who have themselves had occasion to leave the beaten track and to grope among manuscripts, consult original sources, and hunt up for evidence and information in holes and corners, know how generous and how chivalrous scholars and men of learning are when they find that a student is honestly unsparing of himself, and is not satisfied with being a superficial compiler. To me the right hand of fellowship has been held out in no grudging fashion by men of European reputation who yet had never heard my name till I applied to them for such help as only they could afford. I have never applied in vain. There is one, however, to whom I am under deeper obligations than to all others — less for any direct and special aid than for that sort of influence which the master exercises over the scholar, the veteran over the tyro. This book would have been more worthy of its subject if Mr. Richard Simpson had lived to watch its progress through the press. His enormous knowledge, his vigorous and sagacious criticism, his wonderful memory and minute acquaintance with the undercurrents and byeways, the buried secrets and curious tangles of Elizabethan history, were possessions which belonged to him pre-eminently, and which he seemed to value chiefly as they qualified him to assist others in the pursuit of historical truth. In the course of the same week death snatched him from us PREFACE. and that other the nobly-born but yet nobler-hearted friend to whom this volume is inscribed. One of the greatest difficulties which I have had to contend with has been the extreme rarity of some of the books which it has been necessary to consult, and the consequent difficulty of procuring them at any cost, or even of obtaining a sight of them at any library. Of all the works mentioned in Dr. Oliver's Collections as written by Michael Walpole, not one is to be found either in the British Museum, the Bodleian, or the Cambridge Libraries. There are probably not ten copies of More's History of the English Province at this moment in England. As to Cress- well's little Life of Henry Walpole, it is probably unique ; and more than one of Parsons' minor works even a Bibliomaniac would count himself fortunate in obtaining twice in a lifetime. It was with a painful recollection of my own mistakes, loss of time, bootless journeys, and provoking waste of money, that I determined to append the short list of the rarer books which I have had occasion to use and refer to. A solitary student with limited resources, and cut off from access to the larger libraries, except at intervals of some months, works at very great disad vantage, and I would gladly spare others some of the trouble I have gone through in the long process of simply learning where to hole for information. The list is after all a meagre one, and I have not named such works as any one can consult almost any where ; but I must warn those who may feel any inclination to go at all deeply into the history of the period with which this volume deals, that they must make up their minds to be book buyers, and not be frightened at the prices they will have to pay. It was at the peril of a man's life that he ventured three hundred years ago to be in possession of some of the books which this list contains, and if we want to possess them now we cannot hope to get them below their market value. A volume of little more than three hundred pages will per haps appear to some but a small result of nearly fifteen years of research. How much easier it would have been to double the x PREFACE. bulk they know best who are best qualified to act as my critics. To tell what somebody else has told before is easy : my ambi tion has been to make some small additions to our previous knowledge, or at least to throw some little gleam of light upon what heretofore was obscure, misrepresented, or mis understood. The School House, Norwich, June 1878. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. HE reception accorded to the First Edition of this i volume was to me a great surprise : I was prepared for anything but a literary success. Practical men assured me that for a book whose very title seemed to promise that its main interest would be local, and the prominent per sonages in it, members of a single family, I could expect but a very limited circulation. Prudence suggested that no more copies should be printed than were subscribed for, and the first issue was limited to one hundred and sixty. I discovered too late my mistake, and can only express my regret to my many friends and correspondents for the disappoint ment it occasioned. As the original Edition did not and could not cover its ex penses, and as I could not afford to publish another at so costly a rate, I am glad that an enterprising Publisher has been found willing to bring out .the book in a cheaper and more convenient form. In this re-issue, some errors have been corrected and some few omissions supplied. I shall be grateful for suggestions or intelligent criticism, whether friendly or hostile. The School House, Norwich, ist March 1879. A LIST OF SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. Abbot, Robert. — A Mirrour of Popish Subtilties ; Discovering sundry wretched and miserable evasions and shifts, which a secret cavilling Papist in the behalf of one Paxil Spence, Priest, yet hving and lately prisoner in the castle of Worcester, hath gathered . . . Written by Rob. Abbot, Minister of the Word of God in the city of Worcester .... London, 1594, 4to. [The author was brother of Archbishop Abbot, and became eventually Bishop of Salisbury. • Spence was one of those ordained Deacon in Queen Mary's reign. He received Priest's Orders at Douai, and returned to Eng land as a Missioner ; but the fact of his having received his first Orders here before the accession of Elizabeth seems to have served to extenuate his subsequent indiscretions.] Allen. — De Justitia Britannica sive Anglica, quae contra Christi Martyres Continenter exercetur. Ingoldstadii, Ex officina Typographica Davidis Sartorii, Anno 1584. [See under Burleigh.] Cardinal Allen's Defence of Sir William Stanley's Surrender of Deventer. Edited by Thomas Heywood, Esq., E.S.A. Printed for the Chetham Society, mdcccli. A Briefe Discoverie of Doctor Allen's Seditious Drifts, conteined in a Pamphlet written by him, concerning the Yeelding vp of the towne of Deuenter (in Ouerrissel) vnto the King of Spain, by Sir William Stanley. (By G. D.) London, Imprinted by I. W. for Francis Coldock, 1588, 4to. Aquepontanus (Bridgewater) Joannes.— Concertatio Ecclesias Catholicss in Anglia adversus Calvino-papistas, et Puritanos sub Elizabetha Regina quorundam homrnum doctrina et sanctitate illustrium renovata . . . AugtteP: Tre'virorum, 1588, 4to. [Brido-ewater was a Yorkshireman. He was elected Rector of Lincoln SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS College, Oxford, in 1563, being then Archdeacon of Rochester, and holding other valuable preferment. He resigned it all and left England in 1574. The " Concertatio " was first published in 1583. ". . . . one Joh. Gibbon a Jesuit, and John Eenne, having taken a great deal of pains in writing the lives and suiferings of several Popish martyrs, with other matters relating to the Roman Catholic cause .... many things therein being wanting or defective, one other, Bridgewater, took more pains in enlarging and adding to it other matters, with an account of 100 or more Popish martyrs . . . . " — Wood, Ath. Oxon., Bliss, i. 626. The book is hard to meet with, and of great value for the information it contains.] Bagshaw, Christopher. — A True Relation of the Faction began at Wisbeach by Father Edmonds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, 1595, and continued since by Father Walley, alias Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits in Eng land, and by Father Persons in Rome. 4to, 1601. [Though I have not dwelt on the business of the Appellant Priests in my volume, yet it is impossible to understand the relations of the Catholic hierarchy in England towards the Jesuits, without obtaining some acquaint ance with the history of the remarkable dispute which divided the Catholic body in England at the close of the sixteenth century. Much light has been thrown upon this subject lately by the publication of the letters of Father Rivers in Mr. Foley's Records of the English Province, series i. Dr. Bagshaw was a personal enemy of Father Parsons all his life.] Bartoli.— Dell' Istoria della Compagnia di Giesu. L'Inghilterra parte dell' Europa descritta dal P. Daniello Barton della medesima Campagnia. 4to, Bologna, 1676. [I have always referred to this edition, the original folio was published at Rome in 1667.] Bell, Thomas.— The Anatomy of Popish Tyrannie : Wherein is con- teyned a plaine Declaration and Christian Censure of all the principall parts,, of the Libels, Letters, Edictes, Pamphlets, and Bookes, lately pub lished by the Secular priests and English hispanized Jesuites, with their Jesuited Arch-priest : both pleasant and profitable to all well affected readers. London, 4to, 1603. A ^he CathoUque Triumph, conteyning a Reply to the pretended Answere of B. C. (a masked Jesuit), lately published against the Tryall of the New Rehgion At London, printed for the Companie of Stationers, 4to, 1610. [One of the coarsest books of its class, but invaluable as giving many of the abominable stories which were current at the time.] Berington, Jos.-The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. Catholic Religion in England, during a period of two hundred and forty years, from the reign of Elizabeth to the present time ; including the memoirs of Gregorio Panzani .... by the Rev. Joseph Berington. 8vo, 1813. [The book was printed in 1793, but, I believe, was not published till twenty years afterwards. The introduction, extending to 1 1 1 pages, is concerned in great part with giving the history of the dissensions between the Secular Priests and the Jesuits in England at the close of the sixteenth and begin ning of the seventeenth century. The author, a Catholic priest, was vehe mently assailed by Charles Plowden, a Jesuit father, and others, for the ground he took up in this introduction, and is still denounced as ' unortho dox.' His book is never likely to be republished, and is getting rarer every year.] fr. Bristow. — Richardi Bristoi, Vigornensis, eximii suo tempore sacra Theologiae Doctoris et Professoris, Motiva. . . . Atrebati, 4to, 1608. [There is a brief life of the author prefixed to this book, which was pre pared for the press by Dr. Worthington. Scattered up and down through the volume are curious scraps of personal history which one would hardly expect to find there.] Cecil, Lord Burghley.— The Execution of Justice in England for maintenance of pubhque and Christian peace, against certaine stirrers of sedition . . . London, 4to, 1583. [It has frequently been reprinted and translated ; it was answered by Cardinal Allen in "A true, ^sincere, and modest defence of the English Catholics, that suffer for their faith both at home and abroad, against a slanderous libel entitled ' The Execution of Justice in England.' " i2mo, 1S84] A Declaration of the favourable dealing of her Majesties Com missioners appointed for the examination of certaine Traitors, and^ of Tortures unjustly reported to be done upon them for matters of religion 1583, 4to. Certamen Seraphtcum Province Anglic pro sancta Dei ecclesia. In quo breviter declaratur, quomodo Fratres Minores Angli calamo et sanguine pro Fide Christi Sanctaque eius Ecclesia certarunt. Opere et labore R. P. F. Angeli a S. Francisco Conventus Recollectorum Anglorum Duaci Guardiani, Provincial suae Custodum Custodis, ac. S. Theologiae Lectoris Primarij concinnatum. Duaci Typis Baltasans Bellen, sub circino aureo. Anno 1649. , [The copy now in my possession was sold some years ago at Sotheby s for seventeen guineas !] CHALLONER.-Memoirs of Missionary Priests as well Secular as Regular ; SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS and of other Cathohcs of both sexes, that have suffered Death in England on Religious Accounts, from the year 1577 to 1684. Gathered partly from the printed accounts of their lives and sufferings, published by cotemporary authors in divers languages, and partly from manuscript relations. . . . 2 vols. 8vo, 1 741 and 1742. [The author was titular Bishop of Debra, and his work is invaluable as a collection of authentic memorials of the unfortunate persons whose sufferings it details. A new edition in 4to, with some hideousjengravings, has lately been published, with an introduction of some considerable merit by Mr. Law, late of the London Oratory.] Creswel, Joseph. — Histoire de la vie et ferme Constance du Pere Henri Valpole, &c. . . . [See p. 168, n. 5.] De Backer. — Bibliotheque des Flcrivains de la Compagnie de Jesus, ou Notices Bibliographiques, i° de tous les ouvrages publies par les Membres de la Compagnie de JSsus, depuis la Fondation de l'Ordre jusqu'a nos jours ; 20 des Apologies, des controverses religieuses, des critiques literaires et scientifiques suscitees a leur sujet. Par les PP. Augustin et Alois de Backer, de la m6me Compagnie. Liege, 7 vols. 8vo, 1853-1861. This is one of the most remarkable bibliographical works ever published, and is essential for the student. The first edition cited above is somewhat awkward to refer to, as there are two indexes, one at the end of the fourth, and one at the end of the seventh volume. The new edition, in 3 vols. folio, is a considerable improvement upon the first. Thejirst volume was sent out in 1869 ; the final sheets have only just been issued. Unfortun ately this important edition, which (after the death of the last of the brothers de Backer) was completed by their learned associate Charles Sommervogel, is limited to two hundred copies.] Destombes. — La Persecution Religieuse. en Angleterre sous le regne d'Elizabeth. Par l'Abb6 C. J. Destombes, Superieur de Flnstitution Saint- Jean, a Douai. Paris, 8vo, 1863. [A respectable compilation, on which the author must have bestowed some pains and labour. It is of course written entirely from the Catholic point of view.] Memoire sur les Seminaires et Colleges Anglais, Fondes a la fin du xvie siecle dans le Nord de la France, et sur les services qu'ils ont rendus a la ReUgion Catholique en Angleterre ; par TAbbe C. J. Destombes, Directeur au petit Seminaire de Cambrai. Cambrai, 1852. Dodd, Charles.— The Church History of England, from the year 1500 to the year 1688, chiefly with regard to Cathohcs; being a complete REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. account of the divorce, supremacy, dissolution of monasteries, and first attempts for reformation under Henry VIII. . . . together with the various fortunes of the Catholic cause during the reigns of King James I., Kings Charles I. and II., and King James II., particularly the lives of the most eminent CathoUcs, Cardinals, Bishops, inferior Clergy, Regulars and Lay men, who have distinguished themselves by their piety, learning, or miUtary abiUties . . . Brussels, 1737, 3 vols, folio. [This is the original edition, and is very difficult to meet with. A new edition was commenced by the Rev. M. A. Tierney, F.S.A., and carried down to the end of James I. It extended to 5 vols. 8vo. At this point the work ended abruptly, and since then Tierney's papers and books have been dispersed, and wiU never be coUected again. Even " Tierney's Dodd," by which title I have quoted the book, is now difficult to procure.] Ecleshal. — Relacion de un Sacerdote Ingles, escrita a Flandres, a un cavaUero de su tierra, desterrado por ser Catolico : en la qual le dacuenta de la veinda de su Magestad a VaUadolid, y al Colegio de los Ingleses, y lo que aUi se hizo en su recebimiento. Traduzida de Ingles en Castellano, por Tomas Ecleshal, cavaUero Ingles. i2mo, Madrid, 1592. [The date of the Ucense for printing is 15 Oct., 1592.] Fitzherbert. — Nicolai Fitzherberti De Antiquitate et Continuatione CathoUcae ReUgionis in AngUa, et de Alani Cardinalis Vita Libellus. Ad Sanctissimum D. N. Paulum Quintum Pontificem Maximum. Roma;, Apud GuiUelmum Facciotum, m.d.c.viii. sm. 8vo. [The author appears to have been Cardinal AUen's secretary, and was of the family of Fitzherbert of Padly. He was a conspicuous adversary of the Jesuits, and " virulently opposed Father Parsons at Rome." — Dr. OUver.] Gee. The Foot out of the Snare : With a Detection of Sundry Late Practices and Impostures of the Priests and Jesuits in England. Where- unto is added a Catalogue of such Books as in the Author's knowledge have been vented within two yeaTS last past in London by the Priests and their Agents. As also a Catalogue of the Romish Priests and Jesuits, together with the Popish Physicians now practising about London. By John Gee, Master of Arts, of Exon. CoUege in Oxford, 4to, London (3rd edition), 1624. ["- . . Printed four times in the said year, 1624, because all the copies, or most of them, were bought up by R. Catholics before they were dispersed, for fear their lodgings, and so consequently themselves, should be found out and discovered."— Wood, Ath. Ox. ii. 391, Ed. Bliss.] New Shreds of the Old Snare, containing the Apparitions of two new Female Ghosts ;— The Copies of Divers Letters of late intercourse con cerning Romish Affairs ;— Special Indulgences purchased at Rome, granted to Divers English Gentle-beUeving Catholicks for their Ready Money ;— A SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS Catalogue of English Nuns of the late Transportation within these two or three years. By John Gee, Master of Arts . . . London, 4to, 1624. Harpspield. — Dialogi sex contra summi Pontificatus, Monasticae Vitae, Sanctorum, Sacrarum imaginum oppugnatores et Pseudomartyres : Ab Alano Copo Londinensi editi . . . Antverpiae, 1573. [The real author of this work was Nicholas Harpsfield. It is curious for containing the account of the miracle of the Cross said to have been found in a tree in Sir Thomas Stradling's park in 1559. The story caused great excitement at the time. There is a plate at p. 360 professing to give an accurate representation of this Cross, but it is rarely that copies of the book are to be found which contain this plate.] Hazart, Corn. — Kerckelycke Historie van de Geheele Werelt, naemelyck vande voorgaende ende Tegenwoordige Eeuwe, Beschreven door den Eerw. P. CorneUus Hazart, Priester der Societeyt Jesu. 4 vols. foUo, Antwerp, 1667. [Valuable only for the magnificent portraits it contains of Parsons, Campion, and others, and for its briUiant engravings.] Jouvency. — Historiae Societatis Jesu pars quinta. Tomus posterior ab anno Christi 1591 ad 1616. Auctore Josepho Juvencio Societatis ejusdem Sacerdote. Romae, 1710, folio. [Jouvency was one of the Uterary giants of the Society. Professor of Rhetoric at Paris, he edited Juvenal, Persius, Horace, Terence, the Meta morphoses of Ovid, and many other works, which have still a certain value. He was born in 1643, and died at Rome in 1719. His thirteenth book is occupied with the history of the Jesuits in England, Scotland, and Ireland, from 159 1 to 161 6. The most valuable portion of this book is the Ap pendix, which gives some curious incidents in the lives of some Jesuits who "- . . post graves serumnas in AngUae toleratas, pie placideque mortui, ab anno 1591 ad 1616."] More, Henry.— Historia Missionis AngUcanae Societatis Jesu, ab anno salutis mdlxxx ad [mjdcxix, et Vice Provinciae primum, turn Provinciae ad eiusdem saeculi annum xxxv. Collectore Henrico Moro, eiusdem societatis sacerdote. Andomari : typis Thomas Gevbels, mdclx. [Father Henry More was a great-grandson of Sir Thomas More, the Chan cellor. He was for some years chaplain to Lord Petre ; was " Minister " of the CoUege at ValladoUd in 1615 ; came to England about 1620 ; became Provincial in 1635, and continued to reside in England tiU 1649. Of all the works which treat of the history of the labours of the Jesuits in England down to the year 1635, Father More's is by far the most valuable, and un fortunately one of the rarest] REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. Munoz.— Vida y Virtvdes de la Venerable Virgen Dona Luisa de Carva- jalyMendoca. Su Jornada a Inglaterra, y sucessos en aquel Reyno. Van al fin Algvnas Poesias espirituales suyas, parto de su devocion, y ingenio. Al Rey Nuestro Senor por el Licenciado Luis Munoz. Con Privilegio, En Madrid, En la Imprenta Real, 1632. [The following is sometimes bound up with MunSz' Vida, as in my c°py-]_ Copia de una Carta, Que el Padre Francisco de Peralta de la Compaiiia de Jesus, Rector del CoUegio de los Ingleses, de SeviUa. Escriuio al Padre Rodrigo de Cabredo, Provincial de la Nueua Espana. En que se da quenta, De la dischosa muerte que tuuo en Londres la sancta senora dona Luysa de Caruajal. Y algunas cosas de las muchas, que por su medio Dios nuestro Seiior obro En Inglaterra, en nueue anos que estuuo en aquel Reyno. Y de las honras Que se le hizieron, en la yglesia de San Gregorio Magno, Apostol de Inglaterra : En el CoUegio Ingles de Seuilla, en 11 de Mayo, de 1614. Nichols. — A Declaration of the Recantation of John Nichols (for the space almost of two yeeres the Pope's Scholar in the English Seminarie or Colledge at Rome), which desireth to be reconcUed and received as a Member into the true Church of Christ in England. London, 1581. [Parsons answered this book in his " Discoverie of J. Nichols, Minister, misreported a Jesuite, lately recanted in the Tower of London ... by John Howlett." 8vo, Douai. Dudley Fenner answered Parsons.] Oliver. — Collections towards illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English, and Irish Members, S. J. Exeter, 1838. Parsons, Robert. — Ehzabethae Reginee AngUae Edictum promulgatum Londini 29 Novemb. Anni mdxci Andreae Philopatri ad idem Responsio. 8vo, pp. 36 r. [Doubtful whether pubUshed at Paris or Rome.] The Judgment of a CathoUc EngUshman Uving in banishment for his reUgion, showing the Oath of AUegiance to be unlawful. St. Omers, 4to, 1608. A Conference about the next succession of the Crowne of England, divided into two Partes. Published by R. Doleman. Imprinted at N., with License, 1594, i2mo. [The object of the book was to support the title of the Infanta against that of James I. It was made High Treason to possess a copy of this book. Copies with the folding genealogical table are very rare.] Anon [Attributed to Father Parsons.] De Persecutione Anglicana Commentariolus, A CoUegio Anglicano Romano, hoc anno Domini 1582, in urbe editus, et iam denuo Ingoldstadii excussus. Additis Literis S. D. N. D. Grecorii Papae XIII. hortatoriis ad subveniendum Anglis, &c. Ex officina Weissenhorniana apud Wolffgangum Ederum, Anno eodem. SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS [The Roman edition I have not seen, but I believe this one contains all to be found therein, and the Papal Letters besides. Another edition was published at Paris the same year, " Apud Thomam Brumennium." This tract is comprehended in Bridgewater's Concertatio, Part I.] Anon [Parsons.] Historia del Glorioso Martirio di Sedici Sacer- doti Martirizati in Inghilterra per la eofessione & difesa della fede Catolica, l'anno 1581, 1582, & 1583. Con una prefatione che dichiara la loro inno- cenza. Composta da quelli, che son essi praticauano mentre erano vivi & si trouorno presenti al lor giuditio & morte . . . In Milano . . . 1584. [Another edition of this was published next year, " In Macerata, Apresso Sebastiano Martellini," with considerable additions, e.g., the account of WiUiam Hart is nearly twice as long, and the narrative of George Hadock's execution is given for the first time.] [Parsons.] A Briefe Apologie and Defence of the Catholike Ecclesiastical Hierarchie, and Subordination in England, erected these later yeares by our Holy Father Pope Clement the Eighth ; and impugned by certaine libels printed and published of late both in Latin and EngUsh ; by some unquiet persons under the name of Priests of the Seminaries. Written and set forthe for the true information and stay of all good Catholikes, by Priestes united in due subordination to the Right Reverend Archpriest, and other their Superiors. [1601.] Sine loco aut anno, i2mo. Possoz. — Vie du Pere Henri Walpole, mort pour la Foi en Angleterre, sous EUzabeth. Par le R. P. Alexis Possoz de la Compagnie de Jesus- Casterman, Tournai, 1869. Rainoldes.— The Somme of the Conference between John Rainoldes and John Hart : touching the Head and Faith of the Church. * * * London, 1609. [John Hart has been the puzzle of friends and foes for three hundred years : he was one of Campion's associates ; condemned to death in 1581, and pardoned for some reason shortly after. This conference was not pub- Ushed till twenty-eight years after it took place, and in the meantime Hart had returned to his Jesuit friends, and been received apparently without any suspicion. There is much about him in Simpson's Campion.] Ribadeneyra. — Historia Ecclesiastica del scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra Recogida de diversos y graues Autores, por el Padre Pedro di Ribadeneyra, de la Compaiiia de Jesus. En Emberes, 1588. Sanders, Nic— Nicolai Sanderi de Origine ac Progressu Schismatis AngUcani Libri tres . . . Olivae, 1690. [This edition contains a Diary kept in the Tower, from 1580 to 1585, by Edmund Rishton the editor, which, though short and meagre, contains some curious information.] REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. Simpson.— Edmund Campion : a biography by Richard Simpson. Williams and Norgate, 8vo, 1867. [Beyond comparison the most important contribution which has yet appeared to the knowledge of the history of the Jesuit Mission to England in 1580. Slingsby.— The Lady Falkland : her Life, from a MS. in the Imperial Archives at LiUe. Also a memoir of Father Francis Slingsby, from MSS. in the Royal Library, Brussels. London, Dolman, 1861. [This work was printed from a transcript of the original MS. made by Mr. Richard Simpson.] r Smith, Richard. — Vita piissimae ac Illustrissimae Dominse Magdalenat Montis-Aucti in AngUa Vice-Comitissiae : Scripta per Richardum Smitheum Lincolniensem, Sacrae Theologiae Doctorem, qui UU erat a sacris confessioni- bus. Ad Edwardum Farnesium, S. R. E. Card. IUustrissimum, et AngUee Protectorem. S. loc. et ann. i6mo. [I. have seen it stated that this curious and precious little book was printed at Rome. Lady Montagu died in 1608. Her house was caUed " Little Rome ; " it was the resort of priests during the whole of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the peers' houses being stUl privUeged. The account given of the domestic arrangements and the reUgious Ufe in this house is most curious and almost unique.] Stapleton, Thomas. — Apologia pro Rege Catholico Phillippo II. Hispanise et caet : Rege. Contra varias et falsas accusationis EUzabethae Anghae Reginae. Per Edictum suum 18 Octobris Richemundiae datum, et 20 Novembris Londini promulgatum, pubUcatas et excusatas . . . Authore Didymo Veridico Henfildano. Constantiae apud Theodorum Samium. i2mo, 1592. [The title, Henfildanus, refers to his being born at Henfield in Sussex. This is the fiercest and most powerful attack upon Queen Elizabeth which was ever written. Nothing that has ever appeared from the pens of the Jesuits — and Stapleton was not a Jesuit — can be compared to it in eloquence, earnestness, and force ; moreover, it is singularly free from the vulgar scurrility which only too often characterises such attacks. Stapleton was, perhaps, a greater loss to the Church of England than he was a gain to the Church of Rome, but the same may be said of many of the exUes.] Tanner. — Societas Jesu usque ad Sanguinis et vitse profusionem miUtans . . . Sive Vita et mors eorum qui ex Societate Jesu in causa Fidei et Virtutis propugnatae, violenta morte toto orbi sublati sunt, Auctore R.P. Matthia Tannero, S. J. . . . Pragae, 1675, foUo. [The book is remarkable for the illustrations, many of them of great SOME OF THE RARER BOOKS merit, but ghastly enough to awaken horror rather than pleasure. Perfect copies are very scarce, as it has been a practice to cut out the plates and seU them as edifying pictures for the faithful. I have seldom had the opportunity of consulting the original Latin edition, and have been com- peUed to content myself with a German translation, published also at Prague, in foho, 1683 : in this the plates are much worn. This work must not be confounded with another work (also in foUo) of the same author, published in 1694, "Societas Jesu Apostolorum Imitatrix." The plates alone, without note or comment, of this work were published in 4to, under the title " Societas Jesu usque ad sudorem et mortem pro salute proximi laborans," without date, by the University of Prague, probably the same year as the original work. The copy in my possession is the only one I have ever seen.] Verstegan. — Theatrum Crudelitatum haereticorum nostri Temporis. Antverpias, 1587, 410. [Ant. a Wood gives a long and curious account of Verstegan : he was for many years the chief instrument for carrying on communications between the English exiles in Belgium and their friends at home. The Fathers of the London Oratory intend, I beUeve, to pubUsh a collection of his letters at some future time. In this work, which is one of very great rarity, there are eight plates of the sufferings of the Catholics during Elizabeth's reign.] Watson, William.— A Decacordon of Ten QuodUbeticall Questions concerning Religion and State : Wherein the Authour framing himself a QuUibet to every Quodlibet, decides an hundred crosse Interrogatorie Doubts, about the generaU Contentions betwixt the Seminarie Priests and the Jesuits at this present. Newly imprinted 1602, 4to. [The book contains a great deal of curious information, more or less true. On Watson's plot against James I. (for it was his) see Gardiner's History of England, 1603-1616, vol.i. p. 81. He was hung for High Treason, December 1603. There is a long and curious letter of his in Goodman's Court of King James, vol. u. p. 59-87.] A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons' Proceedings under Pretence of Promoting the CathoUc Faith in England. 4to, 1601. [No place. A very unsparing attack upon the Jesuits by one of the Secular Priests, who were opposed to the influence of the Society.] A Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman, Concerning some points objected by the Jesuiticall faction against such Secular Priests as have showed their disUke of M. Blackwell and the Jesuits' proceedings. Printed at Rhemes, 1601, 4to. REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. Yepez. — Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra, y de los martirios mas insignes que en eUa ha auido, desde el afio del Seiior, 1570. En la Qval se Descubren los efectos lastimosos de la heregia, y las mudancas que suele causar en las Republicas : con muchas cosas curiosas,y no publicadas hasta aora, sacados de Autores graves. Recogida Por el Padre Fray Diego de Yepes, de la Orden de S. Geronimo, Confessor del Rey don FeUpe II. de gloriosa memoria, Obispo de Taracona. Dirigida Al rey don FeUpe III. Nuestro Senor. En Madrid, Por Luis Sanchez Afio mdxcix. 4to. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTORY ...... I NOTES . . . . . . .II CHAPTER I. THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON NOTES J9 NOTES ....... 28 CHAPTER II. SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS . . . . .36 51 CHAPTER III. THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS . . .58 NOTES ....... 78 CHAPTER IV. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND . . . .86 NOTES ....... 103 CHAPTER V. THE KINSMEN . . . . . . 1 13 NOTES . . • ¦ • • -123 CHAPTER VI. JOHN GERARD ...... 130 NOTES ...••¦• I4S CHAPTER VII. THE MISSIO CASTRENSIS ' . . • . .154 NOTES 168 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. page THE RETURN TO ENGLAND . . . . 1 73 NOTES ....... 192 CHAPTER IX. FATHER GERARD'S " MUCH GOOD " . . . .194 NOTES . . . . . . .211 CHAPTER X. CAPTURE AND IMPRISONMENT . . . .222 NOTES ....... 244 CHAPTER XI. THE TOWER AND THE RACK . . . . .246 NOTES ....... 264 CHAPTER XII. THE TRIAL AND THE SCAFFOLD 270 NOTES ....... 284 CHAPTER XIII. THE GATHERING OF THE FRAGMENTS . . . 287 NOTES ....... 310 319 INDEX ONE GENERATION OF A NORFOLK HOUSE. INTRODUCTORY. N" the 17th of November, 1558, as the first grey dawn was gaining upon the darkness of the night, Mary ® Tudor, Queen of England, ceased to breathe. Two days later Beginald Pole, Cardinal and Legate of the Holy See, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the last Englishman who is 5 known to have been a candidate for the Papacy, died at his palace at Lambeth : Sovereign and Primate receiving the last rites of the Church according to the ritual of the See of Bome. And thus — as Mr. Froude puts the matter — " the reign of the Pope in England and the reign of terror closed together." 10 " The reign of the Pope in England " certainly did close then, and closed for ever. Whether " the reign of terror " ended, is another question, the answer to which is not to be given hastily. Among those best qualified to decide, some put that question from them as one too much surrounded with shameful 15 associations to admit of being answered pleasantly, and some reply to it with indignant and passionate denial. We are apt to say that in our days events follow one another with unexampled rapidity. We affirm, not without a touch of self-complacency, that " we live fast." Fifty years have seen 20 the passing of the Beform Bill, the Emancipation of the Slaves, the Bepeal of the Corn Laws, the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the annulling of a host of statutes that were a reproach upon our legislation. But it may be doubted whether INTRODUCTORY. any twenty years since the Peace of Amiens — fruitful as they may have been in measures exercising a profound influence upon our daily lives and habits of thought — can be compared, in the tremendous consequences they involved, with the twenty 5 years which closed with the death of Queen Mary. By a single act of the Legislature — we may almost say by a single sweep of the King's pen — at least a twentieth part of the best land in England had been made to change hands. (*) Up wards of six hundred religious houses in England and Wales io alone were given over to pillage ; (2) the dwellers in precincts once held sacred, counting, it must be remembered, by thousands, were turned adrift to live as they could, scantily pensioned, and sometimes exposed to actual penury and want. (3) Hundreds of men, gentlemen by birth and education, (4) with the student's 15 tastes and the student's retiring habits, whose lives had been spent in harmless, if unprofitable, seclusion — not seldom, too, spent in acts of piety and devotion — found themselves cast out, homeless and strange, to become suddenly the scorn and deri sion of the fickle mob or the coarse and brutal fanatics who 20 were now let loose upon them. The vulgar time-servers of the monasteries, the men whose god was their belly, easily accommodated themselves to the change ; they were soon absorbed in the multitude with whom their sympathies lay, and, being of the earth earthy, had lost 25 but little, perhaps had gained something on the whole. But it was precisely the best and most devout, the purest and gentlest spirits, upon whom the full force of the blow fell. The hypo crites could take care of themselves ; the religious and con scientious men were the real sufferers. These, clinging still 30 to their monastic dress (for they held themselves still bound by their vows), were assailed by jeers and insults wherever theyjk appeared ; (5) in the streets they were hooted at and stoned, the ribald clamour growing to such a height that at last a special proclamation was issued to restrain the violence of the disorderly. Meanwhile the vast estates so rudely con- INTRODUCTORY. fiscated were tossed about almost at random. Upstarts, enriched by spoils that surpassed their wildest dreams, played the part of gamblers : the chances of the cards had brought them wealth, but not the power to use it wisely. Sometimes a creature of the Court would get a grant of lands which he had neither the s means to cultivate, nor even the funds to pay for the expense of entering upon. The market was glutted with estates that were to be had for a song. But while the lawyers throve and made colossal fortunes, the recklessness of the gambling-table clung to the adventurers who seemed to be clutching their io gains. What came lightly went as lightly. Hungry Italians or notorious profligates grasped manor after manor only to let them slip : the booty seemed to the vultures about the Court inexhaustible, yet it came to an end. (6) In 1536 the smaller monasteries were suppressed; in 1539 1 5 the larger ones shared the same fate ; nine years later followed the dissolution of the chantries, collegiate churches, and hospitals, to the number of nearly three thousand more ; (7) and two years later, as though this were not enough, the churches were stripped of their vestments, chalices, ornaments, and bells, and the very 20 college libraries plundered of the jewelled binding of their books, if any such remained for the spoiler. Henry VIII. died in January, 1547, King Edward in July, 1553. The utter break-up of the ancient ecclesiastical institu tions of the kingdom had taken barely seventeen years. The 25 overwhelming character of the revolution is even now difficult to realise, impossible adequately to describe ; the shock which the moral sentiment of the nation experienced has never yet been duly appreciated : its effect upon the religious tone and habits of the people can hardly be exaggerated. The ordinary restraints 30 of religion had been suddenly and violently torn away; the clerical police was disarmed; the pulpits silent; the universities menaced, and warned that their time was coming next; learning and literature were smitten as with palsy ; thoughtful men looked out upon the future with dismay, almost with despair. (8) INTRODUCTORY. 6 Juiy, Such was the state of affairs in England when Queen Mary '553- ascended the throne. Less than a month before, she had been declared illegitimate and incapable of succeeding to the crown by letters patent, the draught of which her brother had prepared 5 with his own hand * At the moment when Edward breathed his last, her life was believed to be in imminent peril ; and no sooner did the tidings of his decease reach her at Hunsdon, in Herts, than she fled as fast as relays of horses could carry her, and rode night and day without halt for a hundred miles, to io Kenninghall, twenty miles from Norwich, a castle of the Howards.-}- Three weeks more and she is riding into London as Queen ; her sister Elizabeth, escorted by two thousand horse and a retinue of ladies, waiting to receive her outside the gates.+ Three days after Mass was sung by Gardiner, Bishop of Win- 1 5 Chester, in the chapel of the Tower ; and in another month, to the joy of three-fourths of the people, the Catholic ritual was generally restored throughout the land. Kecklessly as the confiscated property of the monasteries had been flung about, some still remained undistributed. In the third 20 year of her reign Mary determined to make such restitution as was still possible. In October, 1555, a Bill was laid before Parliament to authorise the surrender of all the abbey lands remaining in the possession of the Crown. All rectories, im propriations, and ecclesiastical possessions were resigned, the 25 total annual revenue, amounting to not less than £60,000, being set apart for the augmentation of small livings, the maintenance of preachers, and the providing exhibitions for poor scholars at * Froude, v. p. 500 et seq. | Ibid., vi. 82 and 310. t " . . . . queen Marie's grace came to London the 3 daye of August, beinge broughte in with her nobles very honorably & strongly. The nomber of velvet coats that did ride before hir, as well strangeres as otheres, was 740, and the nomber of ladyes and gentlemen that followede was 180. The Earle of Arundell did ride next before hir bearinge the sworde in his hande, and Sir Anthony Browne did beare up hir trayne. The ladye Elizabethe did followe hir next, and after hir the Lord marques of Exeter's wyfe."— The Chronicles of Queen Jane (Camden Society, 1850*, p. 14. INTRODUCTORY. ¦ 5 the two Universities. (9) By the same Act the Statute of Mort main was suspended for twenty-one years, that all who were so inclined might have the opportunity of making some amends for the wholesale spoliation that had been carried on. Nor was this all; a beginning was actually made in the direction of 5 restoring the monastic bodies. Once again an abbot of West minster ruled in the venerable cloister over a score or so of Benedictine monks collected under his crozier: once again Dominican friars were settled at Smithfield, and Observant friars at Greenwich, and nuns of the order of St. Bridget, were 10 summoned to take possession of their old home at Sion. (10) The legislation of the past few years had been so violent and so sweeping that only the most passionate and thoroughgoing reformers could keep pace with it. With the accession of Mary a reaction set in, the force of which none could estimate. There 1 5 can be no doubt that the bulk of the nation witnessed the return of the old ritual with unmixed thankfulness and joy. (") What course events might have taken but for that miserable Spanish marriage it is idle now to speculate upon ; it is certain that as yet the doctrines of the Eeformers had made very little 20 impression indeed upon the religious convictions of the people of England. Very soon a cry of .discontent and bitter hostility was raised. From over the sea, in the refuge at Geneva, book after book came forth filled with furious denunciations of the new Queen. John Knox, Goodman, Becon, Ponet, Traheron, and many 25 another whose name has gone down into silence, shrieked at her in language which for coarseness and scurrility stands unparal leled in literature. She was a bastard;* she was a woman, and so unfit to reign ; she was Jezebel ; she was Athaliah ; she was " this ungodlie serpent Marie, the chief instrument of all this 30 * Even Ridley had not scrupled to proclaim this at Paul's Cross. " . . . . the nexte Sonday after [July, 1553] prechyd the Bysshoppe of London, Nicholas Reddeele, and there callyd bothe the sayde ladys [Mary and Eliza beth] bastarddes, that alle the pepull were sore anoyd with his worddes, so unoherytabuUe spokyne by hym in so opyne ane awdiens."^-Chronicle of the Grey Friars, p. 78. INTRODUCTORY. present miserie in England." Volume and pamphlet and broad sheet came pouring forth in a never-ceasing stream. Every resource of furious rhetoric was exhausted, the polemics goading one another on to the wildest frenzy of hatred and disappointed 5 rage. (12) Safe in their Swiss asylum, they had nothing to fear for themselves, nothing to lose and everything to gain by fomenting discontent and sedition at home. Irritated by the hornets' nest which she could not reach, and perplexed in the maze of questions which she could not solve ; io her life one long dreary disappointment ; in her childhood sickly and ailing ; in her girlhood a forlorn and anxious recluse ; in her womanhood a neglected and forsaken wife, — the unhappy Queen sought for comfort, vainly, in the dark and morose fana ticism of her French and Spanish directors, and the stern lS persecution took its course, which slander and malice and vitu peration had done much to provoke, and which her own religious melancholy aggravated. Over that deplorable chapter in Queen Mary's history the most faithful apologists of the Church of Borne must needs be 20 content to cast a veil* And God forbid that any Christian man should seek to excuse or palliate the enormities of that terrible time, or should look back upon them with any other feeling than horror. Nevertheless, this fact has been passed over quite too lightly by Protestant writers, viz., that religious 25 persecution was no novelty on the one side or the other, that the Eeformers' hands were deeply stained in the blood of the Anabaptists, and that a restless and malignant band of malcon tents, from their hiding-places beyond the seas, were from the very first stirring heaven and earth to make the Queen's crown 30 a crown of thorns upon her brow. This uncompromising fac tion, whose one and only bond of union was their community " The foulest blot on the character of this queen is her long and cruel persecution of the Reformers. The sufferings of the victims naturally begot an antipathy to the woman by whose authority they were inflicted."— Lingard, v. 259. INTRODUCTORY. in hatred of their sovereign, stood to her precisely in the same attitude as that adopted subsequently by the Seminarists to her successor. They differed only in this, that the Protestants had no discipline, no great unity of principle, no grand unselfish aim. As a rule they were eminently plebeian ; socially they 5 belonged to a rank several grades lower than that of the men who in the next generation fiUed the Colleges of Eheims, Valladolid, and Douay ; (13) but in their restless activity in plotting and slandering they were more than a match for their Eomish successors ; and whatever excuse may be found for the 10 persecution by Elizabeth in the fierce attacks of Parsons and his fellows, is fairly to be allowed for the atrocities of Mary's reign in the abominable scurrilities of Becon and Knox. Meanwhile, in these years which intervened between the suppression of the monasteries and the accession of Mary, the 15 condition of affairs in the Church of England was beyond measure deplorable. Parsonages were bestowed upon grooms and menials, a share of the income being reserved for the patron of the benefice ; the curates were the scorn of their parishioners, and the " rude lobs of the country " jeered at the 20 illiterate "lack-Latins who slubbered up their services, and could not read the humbles." (u) In the country parishes the eye was greeted at every turn by gaunt stone walls crumbling to ruin, sumptuous buildings untenanted, shrines that were once the treasure-houses of a 25 district and the resort of thousands of pilgrims who, in their journeyings, had circulated countless sums of money among the inhabitants of the district, (15) stripped bare and plundered to the very lead upon their roofs or the brasses in their pave ments. A chill horror had begun to haunt the. ruined cloisters, 30 and shudderings of a superstitious fear, lest the curse should light upon such as even slept upon the desecrated ground* *".... those that enjoyed them did not inhabit or. build upon the lands, but forsook them for many years, till [in] the time of Queen Eliza- INTRODUCTOR Y. Men saw, or fancied they saw, with perplexity and amazement that the spoilers who had seized the bulk of the plunder were none the richer for their booty. The old resident county families were not they whose broad acres were increased by 5 any share of the abbey lands ; * to them the spoliation was almost an unmixed loss. The prior or abbot of some neigh bouring monastery might be wanting in that fervent devotion which the monk was theoretically supposed to exhibit, but he was at any rate socially the country squire's equal, often a man io of education and taste, sometimes too a cadet of a "knightly family," and even if addicted to hunting and hawking (not to mention more reprehensible and immoral pursuits), yet in the main a genial companion whose society and hospitality made him an accession in provincial circles, while his undeniable 15 open-handedness to the poor materially lightened the burdens which would otherwise have pressed heavily upon the landlord class. It was all very well for the great nobles about the court to go on their way as if the dissolution had never taken place, they saw little or nothing of the actual working of the ,20 mighty change; but in remote. districts, in villages far away from the towns— villages to which the abbey was the town ; the gentry were brought face to face with the tremendous magnitude of the social revolution that had been effected ; and as, in their case, there had been no change of religious convic- 25 tion, the discontent among them was sullen, deeprooted, and all but universal. In the dark chimney corner during the long dull winter evenings, while the Christmas logs were sending up their lazy smoke, as his children gathered round him and stared at the 30 fire, many an old squire, still but a little past his prime, would beth a g^eat plague happening, the poor people betook themselves into the remainder of the houses, and finding many good rooms, began to settle here, fall at length they were put out by them to whom the grants of the leases and lands were made."— Spelman, p. 239, ed. 1853 * This is abundantly clear by Spelman's lists, &c. INTRODUCTORY. tell of this or that prior or monk who used to drop in in the old days and bring some relief to the monotony of their isolated lives ; he would not seldom mutter his curse upon the ribald recklessness of the parvenus who had ousted their betters and made the grand old places desolate. Sometimes, too, he would 5 sigh for a priest of the old school, into whose practised ear he might pour out his soul and seek remission of sins that .pressed sorely upon his burdened conscience. How bitterly he would mourn for " the good old times," and denounce the wild havoc that had been wrought. Generous lads heard the laments and 10 brooded over them : they got to believe that their parents' lives had been saddened and their own estates seriously damaged by that which they had been taught from childhood to regard as sacrilege, and the rising generation were in the mood to hope for little in the future and to regret very much in the past. 15' About that past, already becoming well-nigh heroic, there clung a certain romance and mystery which, to the enthusiasm of youth, it seemed supremely desirable to revive. There was yet another reason why the country gentry should feel soreness and irritation at the new order of things. When 20 all has been said that can be said to the discredit of the " Eegu- lars," it should never be forgotten that the whole machinery of education had for centuries been in their hands. (16) That education may have been as meagre and unsatisfactory as the exaggerations of Erasmus and Eeuchlin strove to exhibit it, but 25 such as it was, it was the only education offered. The dissolu tion of the monasteries meant the shutting up all the great schools in the kingdom, and leaving fathers of families to create their own supply under the pressure of the sudden demand. The country gentry saw with dismay that the old seminaries 30 had been swept away. It was no longer possible to send a daughter to a neighbouring convent school or a son to the nearest abbey. The country clergy were as ignorant as the mechanics from whom, in a vast number of cases, they had sprung ; and though here and there some monk or friar would INTRODUCTORY. be driven to earn his bread by taking service in the layman's family as private tutor (17), (and there were many instances of this), yet the supply of these men fell off every year, and in the after times the arrangement exposed the households to serious 5 pains and penalties if any suspicion attached to the too con scientious retainer. Mary's accession to the crown was to the " Country party " a promise of return to the better way. The abbey lands were gone — gone irrecoverably (even the Pope and his legate were io compelled to confess so much), but new endowments might he forthcoming, and in numberless instances a comparatively small outlay would suffice to restore the buildings that as yet had scarcely had time to fall into decay. There seemed some probability, there certainly was a hope, that a revival would 15 sooner or later set in. At any rate the beaten side could not bring itself to acquiesce in defeat, and the " logic of facts " was lost upon it. As yet men had not learned to recognise in the force of the mighty current which had swept away the abbeys, an outcome from that perennial source of discord, the anta- 20 gonism between town and country, — the one, greedy for change which might bring incalculable profit; the other, clinging to the past lest it should lose all that was worth having. Just when the country gentry began to be sanguine, Mary died ; and before a year had passed their dreams of a restora- 25 tion of the " old order" were rudely dispelled. How the bitter disappointment told upon them ; how the irritation of blighted hopes drove them to passionate outbursts of rage and abortive attempts at rebellion ; how the new Queen, with that mighty oligarchy, her council, tightened the curb, and plunged in 30 the rowels, and laid on the lash with a heavier hand the more restive and furious the team became that she was breaking to submission ; how the townsmen beat the countrymen, and the traders the squirearchy, and the new men were too strong for the old houses, — will be illustrated, I trust, by the narrative in the following pages. ( II ) NOTES. (i) Page 2, line 8. There are few questions more difficult to decide than •the amount of landed property in the hands of the monasteries at the time of the dissolution. The estimates given by various writers differ as widely as guesses usually do when they are made without sufficient knowledge and suggested by violent prejudice. The estimate adopted in the text is that of Hume, who certainly had no predilections in favour of the monks : he came to the conclusion that the aggregate of aU the ecclesiastical property in the kingdom at the date of the suppression yielded one-tenth of the national rental, and that this was about equally divided between the "secular " clergy and the "regulars." The subject has been very ably discussed by a writer in the Home and Foreign Review for January, 1864. He shows con clusively (1) that so far from monastic bodies having increased in wealth during the 14th and 15th centuries, they had certainly declined ; (2) that the sequestration and suppression of monasteries had been always going on to a far greater extent than is commonly believed. No less than 146 Alien Priories were appropriated by Henry V. ; 29 of the lesser monasteries were granted to Cardinal Wolsey alone, and more than half of the monastic foundations which had at some time or other been endowed in Hampshire, had disappeared before 1536. In Scotland, where might was always .stronger than right, the monasteries appear to have been despoiled accord ing to the caprice of the reigning sovereign, and their estates dealt with in a peculiarly arbitrary manner. — (See Historical MSS. Commission, 5th Report, pp. 647, 648.) As to the fiction in.Sprot's Chronicle, that William the Conqueror divided England into 60,000 knights' fees, and that the clergy held 28,000, and that there were then 45,000 churches in the country. it has been rightly described as " a mythical estimate which ought never to have been accepted by historians." See the preface to Tanner's Notitia by Nasmith ; Taylor's Index Monas tics, Introduction ; Lingard, History of England, vi., note E. ; Collier, Ecclesiastical History, B. 7, c. xv., p. 650. There is a very suggestive table in Appendix A, p. 1 38, of Bishop Short's Church History, giving the , number of reUgious houses founded in each reign since the Conquest. (2) Page 2, line 10. Take the following as one indication among a thousand of the wholesale character of the spoliation : — " England had been largely replenished with beU metal, since the dissolution of the monasteries ; and vast quantities of it were shipped off for gain. Nor was the land yet NOTES. (1547) emptied of it, for now it was thought fit to restrain the carriage of it abroad ; especiaUy having so near an enemy as France, that might make use of it for guns against ourselves. Therefore, July 27th, a proclamation was issued out, forbidding the exportation of that and other provisions, lest the enemy might be suppUed, and our own country and army want." — Strype's Memorials, Edw. VI., B. I, c. vi., 845. For the spoils in the shape . of jewels and plate, removed from Walsingham, see Heyhn's Hist. Reform., fo. 10. (3) Page 2, line 13. "But those that were appointed to pay these poor men, were suspected to deal hardly with them by making delays, or receiv ing bribes and deductions out of the pensions, or fees for writing receipts ; as it appeared afterwards they did, which occasioned an Act of ParUament in behaU of these pensioners." — Strype's Memorials, Edw. VI., B. 1, c. xv., fo. 118. (4) Page 2, line 14. "The ignorance of the Monks'' has, until very lately, been taken for granted by all popular writers ; and yet that, as a body, they were less learned than the secular clergy appears on examination to be almost infinitely improbable : the very contrary might be proved to demonstration if it were worth while. During the last ten years of Henry VIII.'s reign the king appointed to twenty-eight bishoprics in England and Wales. In no less than fifteen cases were the vacancies suppUed by ecclesi astics who had been superiors of monastic bodies. The list of these men is suggestive, and, as far as I know, has not been given elsewhere. Name. 1. Barlow, William 3. Bird, John . . 4. Bushe, Paul . . 5. Chambers, John 6. Hilsey, John 7. Holbeoh, Henry 8- ,1 ,> ¦ 9. Holgate, Robert 10. King, Robert . 11. Kitchin, Anthony 12. Rugg, William . 13. Salcot, John . . 14. Wakeham, John 15. Warton, Robert Office. Prior of Haverfordwest Provincial of White Friars . . R. of the College of Bonhommes at Bddington, Wilts . . . Abbot of Peterborough . . . Prior of Dominicans .... Prior of Worcester ... Prior of Watton Abbot of Osney Abbot of Einsham . . . Abbot of St. Benet's, Hulme' .' Abbot of Hyde Abbot of Tewkesbury . . '. . Abbot of St. Saviour's, Ber- mondsey Bishopric. St. Asaph St. David's Chester . Bristol . PeterboroughRochesterLincoln . RochesterLlandaff . Oxford . Llandaff . Norwich . Salisbury . Gloucester St. Asaph Date of appoint meut. 15361536 IS42 IS42 IS42IS3S15411544 1537IS42IS4S 15361539iS4iIS36 Of these I have collected the following notices : Barlow. ..." When he was Bishop of St. David's, laboured for the dis- INTRODUCTORY. 13 posing of AberguiUy College to Brecknock, whereby provision being made for learning and knowledge in the Scriptures, the Welsh rudeness might have been formed into English civiUty. ... he wrote several books agamst Popery " — Strype's Memorials, Edward VI., B. ii. c. xxvi. Concerning his learning and writings, see AVood, Ath. Ox. i. 365 ; see too Heylin's Hist. Reform., p. 54. Bird ... ." Educated in theologicals in the house or college of the CarmeUtes (he being one of that order) in the University of Oxon, where making considerable proficiency in his studies ... he wrote and published Lectures on St. Paul, &c, &c." — Wood, Ath. Ox. i. 238 ; see too Strype's Cranmer, B. 1, c. xvi. § 61. Bushe was " well skilled in physic as well as divinity, and wrote learned books." Wood says " he was numbered among the celebrated poets of the university," and that he was " noted in his time for his great learning in divinity and physic." — Ath. Ox. i. 269. [He was deprived under Queen Mary.] Chambers graduated both at Oxford and Cambridge. He has been credited with the revision of the Book of Revelation in the Bishops' Bible, but there is some doubt whether truly or not. In either case the story proves the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. — Cooper, Ath. Cant. i. 142. Hilsey "being much addicted from his childhood to learning and reUgion, nothing was wanting in his sufficient parents to advance them." — Ath. Ox. i. 113, where an account of him and his writings may be found. Holbech was " a true favourer of the Gospel, and made much use of in the reforming and settling of the Church." King. " WhUe he was young, being much addicted to religion and learning, was made a Cistercian monk .... In Queen Mary's reign .... he did not care to have anything to do with such that were then called heretics, and therefore he is commended by posterity for his mildness." — Ath. Ox. n. 775. Kitchin was the one single Bishop in the kingdom who consented to take the oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth, and to assist at her coronation. Perhaps the most memorable instance of a monk becoming a protestant martyr is that of Bishop Hooper. Who that reads Foxe's account of him (Acts and Mon. vol. vi. p. 636 and seq.) would suspect that Hooper was for some years a Cistercian monk at Gloucester 1— Strype, u.s. Stow's Survey, 1633, P- 533- (5) Page 2, line 32. Tierney's Dodd, Pt. I., art. iv. (6) Page 3, line 14. Spelman, History and Fate of Sacrilege, ch. vi. The chapter is entitled "The particulars of divers Monasteries ^in Norfolk, whereby the late owners since the Dissolution, are extinct or decayed or i4 NOTES. overthrown by misfortunes and grievous accidents." Sir Henry Spelman began to write his book in the year 1612. (7) Page 3', line 18. Henry VIII. has sins enough to answer for ; but if the pillage of " the Terror," as Mr. Green justly calls this period of our history, had not been followed by the far more sweeping robberies of the foUowing reign, it is conceivable that no very great harm would have been done, for sooner or later something like a dissolution of the Monasteries was inevitable ; but the spoliation of the Hospitals was an almost unmixed evil, and the wholesale destruction of the Colleges, Chantries, and Free Chapels was vehemently opposed by Cranmer in the House of Lords. The Hospitals, Chantries, and Free Chapels had been given to the king by a statute passed in the 27th of Henry VIII., but this had never been put in force, possibly through Cranmer's intercession. In the 2nd of Edward VI. they were again condemned. By this act no fewer than 1 10 Hospitals, 90 Colleges, and 2374 Free Chapels "were thus conferred upon the king by name, but not intended to be kept together for his benefit only." — (Heylin.) The " Free Chapels " in many cases appear to have approximated to what are now Nonconformist places of worship ; they were " free " in the sense that they were exempt from Episcopal Jurisdiction, and frequently had some thing like a special ritual. — (Tanner's Notitia, Preface ; Fuller's History of Abbeys; Taylor's Index Monasticus, Introduction; HeyUn's Hist. Reform. Anno 1547.) Perhaps the most outrageous and inexcusable robbery of all was the stripping of the Guilds. It is astonishing that historians have passed over this shameful measure with so little notice. The plunder derived from the ecclesiastical corporations was so prodigious, that it has served to draw off men's attention from the consequences which the aboU- tion of the Guilds involved. In Taylor's Index Monasticus there is a Ust of no less than 909 Guilds given over to the spoilers in Norfolk alone. In the very valuable volume of Ordinances of Early English Guilds, published by the " Early English Text Society," there are 46 mrae or less complete Ordinances of Norfolk Guilds that sent in returns to the King in Council in the 12th year of Richard II. The Guilds were merely Benefit and Burial clubs supported by the subscriptions of the members, and enriched from time to time by smaU bequests of their members. At the meetings of the Guild of St. Christopher at Norwich, a very beautiful prayer was used, which may be found at p. 23 of the volume referred to. These meetings were almost always of a convivial character, and legacies are frequently left to furnish a dinner for the brethren : thus William Walpole, of Great Shelford (in Cambridgeshire), by his will, dated 20th March, 1 500, leaves " To the prefects of the Gylds in Great Shelford, viz. :— our Lady and Saint Anne to each of them a Ewe. Item, to the prefect of the Gylde of all Halloweys in Starston, a Bullock and two quarters Barley."— [Peterborough Register, Probate Court, E. 6.] INTRODUCTORY. 15 (8) Page 3, line 35. As I .am not writing the history of the spoliations in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his son, I am unwiUing to give chapter and verse for all the statements made in the text. My readers must accept my assurance that there is abundance of authority ready at hand to sup port any and every assertion put forward. I cannot, however, resist the temptation to print the following Proclamation, which, as far as I know, has never yet been referred or aUuded to by historians of this period. It wiU be news to some of my readers that the earliest Pigeon Matches mi record were shot off in St. Raid's Cathedral ! " A Proclamation for the reformation of quarrels and other like abuses in the Church. " The Kings Majy considering that Churches holy Cathedrals and others which at the beginning were godly instituted for common prayer for the word of God and the ministration of Sacraments be now of late time in many places and especially within the city of London irreverently used and by divers insolent rash persons sundry ways much abused so far forth that many quarrels riots, frays bloodsheddings have been made in some of the said Churches besides shootings of hand guns to doves, and the common bringing of horses and mules in and through the said churches making the same which were properly appointed to God's service and common prayer like a stable or common Inn, or rather a den or sink of aU unchristliness to the great dishonour of God, the fear of his Majesty, [and] disquiet of all such as for the time be then assembled for common prayer and hearing of God's %oord(\) " Forasmuch as the insolency of great numbers using the said ill demeanes doth daUy more and more increase, His Highness by the advice of the Lords and others of his privy councU, straitly chargeth and commandeth that no manner of person or persons of what state or condition soever he or they be, do from henceforth presume to quarrel, fray or fight, shoot any hand gun, bring any horse or mule into or through any cathedral or other church or by any other ways or means irreverently use the said Churches or any of them upon pain of his highness' indignation and imprisonment of his or their bodies that so shaU offend against the effect of his present procla mation " Edward VI." Cotton MSS., Titus, B. n. 39. In the Bishop's Registry at Norwich there is a fragment of a volume of the Records of the Commission for the trial of causes ecclesiastical, from which I extract the following curious paraUel to the above : — " ix° die Martii Anno Dni 1 597 coram Rever4" in Chro : patre ac dSo : Willielmo providentia Dei Domino Norvicens Epco Ammon de Bisson comperuit who being charged to have let into the Palace chapel (where the French people by the said Reverend father his licence do resort to have divine service) a man having a piece [a gun], who there did shute to kill pigeons not only to the profaning of the place of prayer, but also 1 6 NOTES. to the endangering of the whole palace by fire and terrifying of some within the same ; the said Amnion confessed that he had so done, &c, &c " (9) Page 5, line 1. Tierney's Dodd, vol. iii. p. 114; Burnet's Refor mation, p. 587. (10) Page 5, line 1 1. Tierney's Dodd; Heylin's Reformation, p. 236 and seq. ; Aungier, History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, p. 96 and seq. From that curious and very rare book, the Certamen Seraphicum Pro vincial Anglioz, 4to. Duaci, 1649, it appears clearly that on the re-establish ment of the order not only were the old monks reinstated, but great numbers of recruits took the vows. One of these persisted in retaining the Franciscan habit tiU his death. He lived the Ufe of a hermit at Layland in Lancashire, protected by the Earl of Derby. He came at last to be regarded as a saint, and was supposed to work cures hi his retreat, not only upon men and women but cattle. He went by the name of " Father John, the old beggar man," and to the end consistently refused to touch money, though he lived on the contributions of the neighbourhood. He died at Layland about 1590, and lies buried near the north of the chancel porch. — Cert. Seraph, p. 13. (11) Page 5, line 17. " Meantime the eagerness with which the country generally availed itself of the permission to restore the Catholic ritual, proved beyond a doubt that, except in London and a few large towns, the popular feeling was with the queen." — Froude, c. 30, vol. vi. p. 83. See too Maitland's Essays on the Reformation, Essays vni. and ix. (12) Page 6, line 5. Goodman quoted by Maitland, Essays on the Re formation, p. 138. Ponet was actually " engaged as a leader, if not as an original plotter and instigator, in Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection," and narrowly escaped being taken with Sir Thomas on the 7th February, 1554. Maitland (u.s. p. 93) gives in his text the passage from Stow which details the circumstances. Goodman too was impUcated in the same rebeUion. Traheron's foul language is like the ravings of a filthy madman. See Maitland, p. 84. What must that passage be like which "is so gross that it must be omitted " ? One is tempted to think that nothing could be worse than the previous paragraph. All these men were deeply implicated in the treasonable plots of Mary's reign. (13) Page 7, line 8. Simpson's Campion, p. 46, and Allen's Apology for Seminary Priests there referred to. (14) Page 7, line 22. Strype apud Tytler, England under the Reigns of INTRODUCTORY. 17 Edward VI. and Mary, vol. i. p. 322. See too Becon's Preface to The News out of Heaven, p. 5 (Parker Society). " Your wisdoms see what a sort of unmeet men labour daily to run headlong into the ministry, pretending a very hot zeal, but altogether without necessary knowledge. . . . The smith giveth over his hammer and stithy ; the tailor his shears and mete wand ; the shoemaker his malle and thread ; the carpenter his biU and chip-axe . . . and so forth of like states and degrees ... so that now not without a cause the honourable state of the most honourable ministry, through these beastly beUy-gods and lazy lubbers, is greatly defamed, evil spoken of, contemned, despised, and utterly set at nought." . . . (15) Page 7, line 28. See Statutes of the Realm, 35 Henry VIII. c. 13. — "The King's Imperial Majesty, most benignly calling to his gracious remembrance that his town of Little Walsingham, otherwise caUed New Walsingham, which heretofore, as weU through the great and continual trade of aU manner of merchandise in times past then used and practised, as also by and through the populous concourse and resort of his people from all parts of this Realm in times past within the said Town frequented and continued, was grown and commen to be very populous and wealthy and beautifuUy buUded, is at this present by the great decay and withdrawing of the said trades and merchandise there, and by divers other sundry occasions of late happened, like to fall to utter ruin and to be barren, desolate, and unpeopled . . . &c." (16) Page 9, line 23. See the very valuable Preface to "The Babee's Book," by Mr. Furnival, "Early English Text Society," 1868. (17) Page 10, line 2. I give the following instances, from a host that might be adduced, because I suspect that the Thomas Woodhouse here named was a cadet of the Kimberley family ; and because Ralph Crockett was for some time engaged as a private tutor in Norfolk. The title " Sir " (Sir Thomas Woodhouse) was the ordinary designation of a parish priest. " Sir Thos. Woodhouse was made priest in the time of Queen Mary, a little before her death, and presented to a parsonage in Lincolnshire, which he enjoyed not a whole year, by reason of the change of religion which he could not be contented to foUow ; wherefore, leaving his Uving, he went into Wales, where for a whUe, in a gentleman's house, he taught his sons, but could not continue there unless he would dissemble his conscience. He left that place, and within a while was taken and sent prisoner to the Fleet in London, &c. &c"Stonyhurst MSS., Angl, A, vol. i. " Ralph Crockett examined, saith he was first brought up in Christ's CoUege in Cambridge, where he continued about three years . . . from thence he went to Tibnam Longrowe in Norfolk, where he taught children a year or more, &c. &c."— P.R.O. Domestic MSS., Eliz., No. 214. B NOTES. Crockett was hung at Chichester, in Sept., 1588; Woodhouse at Newgate. Add to these — " George Lingam. . . . The said Lingam harboured and lodged at one Mr. Wiltcot's, at Englefield . . . and under colour of teaching the Virginals, goeth from Papist to Papist : is thought also to be a priest, so made in Queen Mary's time, and Uke to be the man that was kept in the top of the said Parkyns' house at a time when her majesty was but ill served by her officers in a search there made." — Cotton MSS., Titus, B. in. 63. CHAPTEE I. THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 3HE family of Walpole has been settled in the county of Norfolk for at least six hundred years. Whether any faith is to be placed in the tradition which tells of an ancient charter bestowed upon some remote ancestor by Edward; whether there be Norman blood in their veins ;(1) 5 whether the founder of the house were some adherent of the Conqueror who, after the revolt of the Fenmen in 1070, received a grant of lands for his services in that dreary but fertile dis trict through which the Ouse finds its way sluggishly into the Wash, and where Hereward the Englishman made his last 10 gallant stand ;(2) — are questions which must for ever remain unanswered. Certain it is that under the Plantagenets the ancestors of this ancient Norfolk family were seated at Walpole St. Peter's, where they had a manor and lands, which they retained in their possession as late as the year 1797, when an 15 Act of Parliament compelled them to sell both the one and the other, after the decision of the great Houghton lawsuit. They appear to have migrated from Marshland in the reign of Henry II., (3) and to have taken up their residence at Houghton, where Sir Henry de Walpole held one knight's fee of the fee of 20 Blaumister, and the fourth part of a knight's fee of the Honour of Wermegay; and in the reign of King John either he or another Henry de Walpole occurs as one of those who paid a fine of £100 for release from prison, on giving security for his THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. allegiance to the king in time to come. Another of the name figures as a supporter of Simon de Montfort in the barons' war, and as taking a leading part in the rebellion ; while in the thir teenth century the Walpoles, then a " knightly family," appear 5 on more than one occasion to have held office in the royal Court. Throughout this century, too, they are conspicuous as ecclesiastics.(4) Edmund de Walpole was Abbot of St. Edmund's Bury from 1247 to 1256, at a time when,(5) thanks to the genius and administrative ability of Abbot Sampson, St. 10 Edmund's was one of the most wealthy and important abbeys in England; and Eadulphus de Walpole was successively Bishop of Norwich and Ely from 1288 to 1302, his tomb being conspicuous in the cathedral of the latter see, standing before the high altar of the church at the present day. In 1335 Simon 15 de Walpole was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,(6) about the same time that his kinsman, Sir Henry de Walpole, was returned as one of the Knights of the Shire to serve in the Parliament summoned to meet at York in the 7th year of Edward III. All through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 20 the Subsidy Eolls, which still exist in the Eecord Office, show the Walpoles to have been residing at Houghton, and to have been men of substance and influence in the Hundreds of Smethdon, Freebridge, North Greenhow, and Brothercross ; their manor of Houghton being handed down from father to 25 son, and their possessions gradually increasing as time went on. Two members of the family (7) appear to have attained to eminence as judges in the reigns of Edward III. and Eichard II., one of them being even Chancellor, if, as seems highly probable, Mr. Eye's conjecture regarding Adam de Houghton 30 be founded on fact. An offshoot of the Norfolk family became early established in Lincolnshire ; and the Walpoles of Pinchbeck were for centuries one of the leading families in the county : another branch acquired lands in Suffolk, the Walpoles of Brockley being seated there from the time of Edward I. down to the end THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 21 Thomas Walpole of y Joan Cobbe. Houghton, died 1514. j Edward W. of =f Luoy Robsart. Henry W. of =Margaret Holtoft. lriiton. died 1550. Herpley, died 1554. Houghton, died 1559. Jorm W. of = Catherine John W. of = Catherine Christopher W. r Houghton, Calibut. Herpley, Serjt.- Knyvet. of Docking and Anmer. d. 1588. j at-law d. 1558. j EdwardW. b. 1560. William W. b. 1543. Henry W. b. 1558. of the fifteenth century ; (8) and I meet with three generations of them as owners of considerable estates and a capital mansion io called Walpole's Place in Cambridgeshire, where they were evidently the chief landowners in Great Shelford and the con tiguous parishes. (9) On the 24th January, 15 13-I4,(10) Thomas Walpole of Houghton, Esq., was gathered to his fathers. He left behind 15 him two sons, and divided his estates between them; the manors descended to Edward, the elder son ; the outlying lands were left to Henry, the second ; who, though his Lincolnshire estates were larger than those in Norfolk, appears to have resided at Herpley, where he died in 1554. 20 It is with the grandsons of these two men that the present work is chiefly concerned. Edward, the elder son, had taken to wife Lucy, daughter of Sir Terry Eobsart of Siderston, a parish contiguous to Houghton, and with her appears to have obtained a sufficient marriage 25 portion. Sir Terry Eobsart had only one other child, John, or as he is usually caUed, Sir John Eobsart,(u) who twice served the office of High Sheriff for his native county. Sir John Eobsart resided at Stanfield Hall near Wymondham; and when Dudley, Earl of Warwick, was sent down to suppress the 30 formidable rebellion of Kett " the Norfolk Tanner," it seems that the earl, with his son the Lord Eobert Dudley, passed the night at Stanfield Hall, and there Lord Eobert, probably for the first time, saw the beautiful Amy Eobsart, whom he married on the 4th June of the following year, the king being THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. Thomas Walpole of -r- Joan Cobbe. Houghton, died 1514. [ d' Houghton, died 1559. Edlward W. of = Lucy Robsart. Henry W. of =Margaret Holtoft. Herpley, died 1554. John W. of = Catherine John W. of = Catherine Christopher W. Calibut. Herpley, Serjt.- Knyvet. of Docking and Anmer. Houghton, d. 1588. at-law^ d. 1558. ! 4- Edward W. b. 1560. William W. b. 1543. Henry W. b. 1558. present at the ceremony, which was carried out with great 10 magnificence. Upon the newly-married pair the Manors of Siderston and Bircham, and other property, were settled, with remainder, failing issue, to the right heirs of Sir John ; in other words, if Amy Eobsart should prove childless, the offspring of Edward Walpole of Houghton would in right of their mother 15 inherit the Eobsart property. Henry Walpole, the younger brother of this Edward, had married a Lincolnshire heiress, (12) one Margaret Holtoft of Whaplode, and with her he came into large and valuable estates. As an equivalent, his father had settled upon him a 20 considerable landed property in Herpley, Eudham, and the adjoining parishes. Edward Walpole of Houghton, though his wife had been no. portionless damsel, was by no means so rich a man as his brother ; nevertheless by prudent management he contrived to 25 increase rather than diminish his resources, and at his death, in 1559, he was able to make ample provision for three sons, — John, Eichard, and Terry. John, the eldest son, succeeded his father at Houghton in the first year of Queen Elizabeth. He too had married well. 3° His wife was Catherine, eldest daughter of William Calibut of Coxford, Esq., (13) a man of wealth and substance, whose ancestors had been for some generations large landowners in this part of Norfolk, but, as he had no son, his inheritance would devolve at his death upon his daughters. For some time it looked as if the Houghton estate would pass away to THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 23 the Herpley Squire, for daughters only were at first the fruit of the marriage. It was not till the beginning of 1560 (u) that a son appeared. The child was named after his grandfather, Edward, and in the following year another son was born, who was called after his mother's surname, Calibut. 5 Not many months after the birth of the elder son Amy Dudley died, and died childless; and thus, when the year 1560 ends, we have John Walpole of Houghton tenant for life of the Norfolk and Suffolk manors, owner in fee-simple of an exten sive property in the former county, and heir-at-law to all the 10 Eobsart estates at the death of Lord Eobert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, a man of vigorous constitution, and not yet thirty years of age. (*5) Meanwhile, as has been said, Henry Walpole of Herpley had died six years before, leaving behind him three sons, with two 15 of whom only have we much concern. (16) His eldest son had died before his father, leaving, however, issue who inherited the Lincolnshire estates. The second son was John Walpole of Herpley, one of the most successful barristers of his time. He was of Gray's Inn, and was appointed Lent Eeader of that 20 society in the third year of Edward VI. In the first year of Queen Mary he was returned M.P. for Lynn; the next year he was raised to the degree of Serjeant-at-law, and Dugdale has left us an account of the magnificent feast which was given at the Inner Temple on the occasion of his receiving the coif. (17) 25 It is evident that his practice was extensive and his income correspondingly large, and as fast as he made his money he pro ceeded to buy land in Norfolk, and especially in his own part of the county. (1S) But while he was adding manor to manpr, and in the midst of a career which must have led to the highest 30 honours and emoluments of his profession, he was cut off in the prime of life, leaving behind him an only son, William, a boy of thirteen, and four daughters, all unmarried and under age. Christopher Walpole, the Serjeant's younger brother, and third son of Henry Walpole of Herpley, had been amply provided for THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. Thomas 'Walpole of =r Joan Cobbe. Houghton, died 1514. j Edward W. of = Lucy Robsart. Henry W. of =Margaret Holtoft. Houghton, died 1559. Herpley, died 1554. c John W. of = Catherine John W. of = Catherine Christopher W. 5 Houghton, Calibut. Herpley, Serjt- Knyvet. of Docking and Anmer. d. 1588. at-law, d. 1558. Edward W. b. 1560. William W. b. 1543. Henry W. b. 1558. by his father's will. At the end of Queen Mary's reign he was 10 settled at Docking Hall, a house about five miles from Hough ton. He had married Margery, daughter of Eichard Beckham of Narford, and with her appears to have obtained something like a fortune, for prudent marriages seem always to have been the characteristic of the race. A few months after his brother 15 the Serjeant's death Christopher's first child was born. (19) The boy. was baptized at Docking in October, 1558, and took the name of his grandfather, Henry. This is he who is the central figure in the narrative of the following pages. The Docking family was increased by a fresh child almost 20 every year, and at the close of 1570 it consisted of six sons and three daughters, one son, John, having died in infancy ten years before. The household at Docking had become too large for the house, and an opportunity having occurred for purchasing the neigh- 25 bouring estate of Anmer Hall, (20) with a large tract of land in Anmer and Dersingham, Christopher Walpole removed his family to the new residence in 1575 ; his estate lying immedi ately contiguous to his cousin's domain at Houghton on the one side, and to his nephew's property at Herpley on the other. 30 First and last the possessions of the three squires stretched over a tract covering not much short of fifty square miles. It was wild heath and scrub for the most part, where huge flocks of sheep roamed at large; except where the "common fields" of arable land and the small patches of meadow and pasture, supplied with cereals and fodder the population of villages THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 25 which were then perhaps more thickly inhabited than now. The peasantry were dismally ignorant, timid, and slavish ; each man's village was his world, and he shrank from looking beyond it. The turf or the brushwood of the parish gave him fuel: the bees gave him all the sweetness he ever tasted : the sheep-skin s served him for clothing, and its wool, which the women spun, served for the squire's doublet and hose. The lord of the manor allowed no corn to be ground save at his own mill; and he who was so fortunate as to own some diminutive salt-pan was the rich man of the district. (21) It is very difficult for us to throw 10 ourselves back in imagination to a time when nothing was too insignificant to be made the subject of a special bequest. Not only do we meet with instances of bed and bedding, brass pots, a single silver spoon, a table, and the smallest household utensils left in the wills of people of some substance and position ; but 1 5 old shoes, swarms of bees, half a bushel of rye, and as small a sum as sixpence, are common legacies even down to the end of the sixteenth century. The " cottage " of the labourer, a crea ture as much tied to the soil as his forefather the " villein " (who had passed with the land as a chattel when an estate changed 20 owners), was nothing but a mud hovel with a few sods for roof, and, as a dwelling, incomparably less comfortable than the gipsy's tent is in our own days. The manor-house, on the other hand, small though it were, exhibited a certain barbaric pro digality. Foreigners were amazed at the extent of English 25 households, out of all proportion to the accommodation provided for them. (22) In the latter half of Elizabeth's reign the fashion of building large houses in the country parishes prevailed to a surprising extent, and this, with other causes, hastened the ruin of many an old county family which had held its own for 30 generations; but at her accession the houses of the landed gentry were very small and unpretending, and their furniture almost incredibly scanty ; while for the agricultural labouring classes, there were tens of thousands of them who, as we understand the words, had never in their lives slept in a bed. (23) Eoads there 26 THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. Thomas Walpole of =r Joan Cobbe. Houghton, died 1514. i Edward W. of =f Lucy Robsart. Henry W. of =Margaret Holtoft. Houghton, died 1559. ! Herpley, died 1554. I , John W. of = Catherine John W. of = Catherine Christopher W. 5 Houshton, Calibut. Herpley, Serjt.- Knyvet. of Docking and Anmer. d. 1588. at-law, d. 1558. Edward W. b. 1560. William W. b. 1543. Henry W. b. 1558. were none. Fakenham, the nearest town to Houghton, was nine 10 miles off as the crow flies, and Lynn was eleven or twelve. As men rode across the level moors, now and then starting a bustard on their way, (24) or scaring some fox or curlew, there was little to catch the eye save the church towers, which are here planted somewhat thickly ; but Coxf ord Abbey, not yet in 15 ruins — indeed part of it actually at this time inhabited (25) — and Flitcham Priory, a cell of Walsingham, frowned down upon the passer-by, — the desolate ghosts of what had been but twenty years before. The great man of the family at this time was young William 20 Walpole, the Serjeant's son and heir, though his Norfolk cousins could have known but little of him. When his father was made Serjeant in 1554, (26) he entered his son at Gray's Inn, I presume in compliment to the Inn, although the boy was only in his twelfth year. He had been left to the guardianship of 25 Thomas Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, to whom, during the minority, the Manor of Felthams in Great Massingham was left to defray the charges of his ward's education ; and though on the acces sion of Queen Elizabeth (27) the wardship was bestowed upon his mother, and subsequently, on her marriage with Thomas 30 Scarlett the Serjeant's friend and one of his executors, was transferred to him and Eobert Coke, Esq., of Mileham, father of Sir Edward Coke, afterwards Lord Chief Justice ; yet the pro visions of the will were faithfully carried out, and Bishop Thirlby became de facto guardian, and superintended the lad's early education according to his father's desire. THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 27 Thus, in this district, lying between Fakenham and Ely, there was no family at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign at all to be compared with this Walpole clan in the extent of their possessions and the width of their local influence and resources. For the young heir of Herpley any future might be in store, and 5 the family connections had been extended with great prudence by the marriages of the daughters with the leading gentry of the county round, — the Cobbes of Sandringham, the Eussels of Eudham, and other substantial squires. While young William Walpole was away in London, his 1° mother, with her second husband, kept up the establishment at Herpley, and as the boys at Houghton and Anmer grew, there must have been almost daily intercourse between the several households. And now that question, which had begun to be a very serious one for many a country gentleman at this time, 15 began to press upon such men as Christopher and John Walpole — men with eight sons between them, and doubtless not with out ambition which their prospects or their pride of parentage might well be supposed to justify. If these growing boys were to take their place in the world, and make their way to distinc- 20 tion, — perhaps even follow in the steps of their uncle the serjeant, and raise the family to all that shadowy greatness which the traditions of the house were not likely to diminish, — where and how was their education to be carried on ? ( 28 ) NOTES TO CHAPTEE I. (i) Page 19, line 5. The names of members of the family which occur in the twehth and thirteenth centuries indicate a Norman origin, e.g., Regi nald de Walpole, Henry I. ; Joceline de Walpole, Richard I. Lemare de Walpole and Beatrix his wife, about the time of King John, assign lands to the prior of Lewes, the deed being executed first in St. Nicholas Chapel, Lynn, and afterwards in the churchyard of Castleacre. — (Blomefield, vin. 504). We meet also during this period with the names Egeline, Clarice, Alan, and Osbert Walpole. See CoUins, and especiaUy Mr. Rye's Paper, " Notes on the Early Pedigree of Walpole of Houghton," in the Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, part i. p. 267 et seq. (2) Page inline 11. Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 463 et seq. (3) Page 19, line 19. ColUns's Peerage, s.v., "Walpole Lord Walpole." It is evident that CoUins had access not only to charters and famUy docu ments which since his time have perished, or at least disappeared, but that the registers of Houghton and many of the adjoining parishes were placed at his disposal, and laid under contribution. I suspect that these latter were never returned to the several churches to which they belonged : there is an unusual absence of early parish registers within a radius of five or six miles round Houghton. In every case where I have had an opportunity of testing his work, I have found CoUins scrupulously accurate, and my own researches have only served to increase my confidence in him as an antiquary and genealogist of a very high order. Of course the vast wealth of manuscript sources now open to students at the Record Office and other depositories were not accessible to inquirers in ColUns's days, and I believe the Subsidy Rolls, which are a rich mine for the genealogist, were not known or even discovered till comparatively lately. (4) Page 20, line 7, Rye, u.s. p. 279. (5) Page 20, line 8. See Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda (Camden Society, 1840). This charming volume is the basis of Mr. Carlyle's Past and Present. THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 29 (6) Page 20, line 15. Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Anglic, vol. iii. 598. William Walpole was elected Prior of Ely some time before 10th August 1397. He was in possession of that office 20th September 1401 (at which time the church was visited by Archbishop Arundel), and resigned soon after.— Rymer, Fosdera, vhi. p. 9, quoted in Bentham's History of Ely Cathedral, 4to, Camb. 1771. (7) Page 20, line 26. Rye, u.s. They certainly were both Norfolk men, but can scarcely have been father and son, as Mr. Foss (Judges, vol. iii. p. 447, and iv. p. 59) suggests. (8) Page 21, line 9. Gage's History of Thingoe Hundred (4to, 1838), pp. 94 and 359 ; Gardner's History of Dunwich (4to, 1754^, p. 197. (9) Page 21, line 13. See Note 7, page 14. (10) Page 2 1, line 14. For the date, his Inquisition p.m. is the authority. —Chancery Inq. (P.R.O.) 6° Henry "VIII. Norfolk, No. 49. (11) Page 21, line 27. In his wiU he calls himself "John Robsart, Esquier." In the inquisitions taken at Ipswich on the 13th November, and at Diss in October, 1 554, he is described as a knight, as he is also in the con tracts entered into between himseU and John Earl of Warwick, in May, 1550. He was twice High Sheriff for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and bore for arms, Vert, a lion rampant or, vulned in the shoulder. The terms of the marriage contract between him and the Earl of War wick are curious. The earl settles aU that the reversion of his site, circuit, and precinct of the late Priory of Coxford, and of all that the manor of Coxford in the county of Norfolk, . . . and of the rectories and churches of East Rudham, West Rudham, Brownsthorpe, and Barmer ; and the moiety of the rectory of Barnham, and also of the manors and farms of East Rddham, West Rudham, Barmer, Tittleshall, Siderston, Thorp- market, and Bradfield, with aU their rights ..." being parcell of the Possessions and Revenues of Thomas, late Duke of Norfolk, of high treason attainted" . . . upon his son Robert Dudley and Amy, daughter of Sir John Robsart, and upon their issue, and in default of such issue, upon the right heirs of Lord Robert. He further settles an immediate annuity of ^50 on Robert and Amy, to be paid out of his manor of Burton Lisle in the county of Leicester ; such annuity to cease on the death or marriage of " the lady Mary's grace, sister to ye King's Majesty."- Besides this the earl covenants to pay to Sir John Robsart " at the seahng of these presents " the sum of two' hundred pounds. Sir John on his part settles the manors of Sidestern and Newton juxta Bircham in the county of Norfolk, and the manor of Great Bircham in 30 NOTES TO CHAPTER I. the said county, and the manor of Bulkham in the county of Suffolk, " upon himself and his wife, the Lady Elizabeth," for life, and after their death upon the said Robert and Amy and their issue ; in default of issue the remainder to revert to the right heirs of Sir John, who covenants moreover to pay an annuity oi £io a year to Robert and Amy, and at his death to leave them a legacy of " three thousand sheep to be left in a stock going on the premises in Norfolk and Suffolk aforesaid." The earl signs and seals on the 25th May, 1550. Great as the advantages appear to be on the face of these documents, as conferred by the Earl of Warwick upon his son, they proved in the issue very small indeed. The attainder upon Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, was reversed at the accession of Queen Mary, and his lands were restored to him. The annuity of £50 ceased at the marriage of Queen Mary, and Lord Robert and his wife must have been in great measure dependent upon Sir John Robsart during the whole of Mary's reign ; for it must be remem bered that Warwick (then Duke of Northumberland) perished on the scaffold on the 22d August, 1553. In addition to all that Lord Robert obtained with his wife in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk (and the Siderston property alone amounted to more than four thousand acres, with thirty-six " messuages," and fifteen " cottages ") there was another manor in Shropshire, Oldbury, which Amy inherited, and the reversion of which John Walpole of Houghton sold in 1566 to Arthur Robsart, an illegitimate son of Sir John's, for ^350. — Close Rolls, 8 Elizabeth, No. 706. This son was living at Oldbury Hall in 1595, and had then been married for about thirty years to Margaret, relict of Anthony Cocket of Sibton co. Suffolk, Esquire. She is described as " nunc uxor Arthuri Robsarte, gen., de Oulbery Hall alias Blakely Hall, in Com. Salopiae." — MS. in the Bishop's Registry, Norwich. The original of the marriage settlement is at Longleat, in the possession of the Marquis of Bath, and appears to have been discovered there some years ago by the Rev. J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. The grant of the annuity of ,£20 by Sir John Robsart is at the Record Office (Miscell. Augment, vol. vii. 112, Edward VI.), as are the p.m. inquisitions (1 and 2 PhUip and Mary, co. Stiff. 62, co. Norf. 63). The account of the marriage of Lord Robert and Amy Robsart is to be found in the Diary of King Edward VI. in the British Museum. — Cotton MSS., No. no. (12) Page 22, line 17. Blomefield, and they who follow him, all assert that she was a daughter of Gilbert Holtoft, second Baron of the Ex chequer, who died long before she was born. It is quite certain that she was not descended from the judge at all. I have printed Gilbert Holtoft's will, in the Original Papers, Norf. and Norw. Archmol. Soe, vol. viu. p. 179. He had not an acre of land at Whaplode. On the other hand, THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 31 in a Subsidy Roll of the reign of Henry VII. (?) now in the Record Office, containing the names of persons in the county of Lincoln holding lands or rents of the value of ,£40 a year, I find among the twenty-two names that of " Wills. Haltoft de Quaplode, Sen.," by which it appears he had pro bably a son named WUUam, who Uved at Whaplode at the close of the fifteenth century, from whose daughter, Margaret, the Whaplode property came to the Walpoles. The similarity in the form of the name Guilielmus, often written Gilelm and Gilbert, wiU account for the mistake. At the death of John Walpole of Whaplode, Esq., hi 1590, without issue, the estates were sold according to the instructions of his wUl, and the great bulk of his property was left to his widow, who survived him forty years. By her wiU (P.C.C. Scroope, f. 15), dated 20th October, 1629, she directed that a monument to her first husband's memory should be erected in Prestwold Church, co. Leicester, which I beheve still exists there. — Nichols, Hist. Leic. hi. 359. (13) Page 22, line 31. Though the CaUbuts had been settled in Norfolk from a very early period, their name does not occur in the Usts of gentry of the county returned by the Commissioners to Henry VI. in 1433, (FuUer"s Worthies, in. 460). The famUy appear to have first risen to wealth and importance through the success of one of its members at the bar: Francis Calibut was a Governor of Lincoln's Inn in the 16th and 24th years of Henry VII., and was Autumn Reader of that Society in the 7th and 12th years of the same reign (Dugdale, Orig. Jur.). He died on the 5th March, 9 Henry VIII., seized of the manor of Foxes alias Sandars in Castle Acre, and about three thousand acres in Castle Acre, West Lexham, East Lexham, and the adjoining parishes, with the -manor of West Lexham, the advowson of Little Dunham, and a great deal else which is specified. His son John married Bridget, daughter and heir of Sir John Boleyn, and died on the 20th February, 1553. This John left behind him two sons, John Calibut of Castle Acre, [who died at Upton, in Northamptonshire, 23d October, 1570, leaving four daughters, who divided his inheritance ;] and William Calibut of Coxford, Gent., father of Catherine Walpole, and other daughters. I suspect this William was " learned in the law : " he certainly was a man of wealth and consideration, and he lived for some time at Coxford Abbey. By his will, dated 1st August, 1575, it appears he spent his last days at Houghton, and he leaves 20s. to the " household servants " there. In the wiU of his daughter Catherine Walpole, dated 16th June, 5 James I., she leaves to her granddaughter Elizabeth Walpole, " my chain of gold sometime William Calibut's my father's, deceased, by estimation worth one hundred marks." William Calibut's own will, to one who can " read between the lines," betrays an unfair and cruel disposition of his property in favour of the Walpoles, and indicates that he was a person of strong Puritan tendencies. 32 NOTES TO CHAPTER I. What Blomefield means by talking of an Edgar Calibut who was Serjeant-at-law, I cannot understand. No such name appears in Dugdale. There was an Edward Calibut, with whom Roger Ascham kept up a correspondence for many years. Some of Ascham's letters to him have been printed, but there are several stUl unpublished in the possession of Matthew Wilson, Esq. of Eshton HaU. A Robert Calibut, of St. John's College, took his B.A. degree at Cam bridge in 1 55 1, and Henry Calibut was parson of Cranwich, co. Norfolk, from 1533 to 1560; he left some Uberal legacies behind him, but in his will he mentions no relatives of his own name. There were Calibuts at Grimeston in 1 594, and on the 24th November of that year Edward the son of James Calibdt was baptized there. As late as 1640 I find an Andrew Calibut, who marries Dorothy Curzon at St. Martin's at Palace Norwich, on the 29th June. — Francis Calibut's p.m. inq. Chancery, 9 Henry VIII., No. 125 ; John Calibut's the elder, u.s. 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, No. 52 ; John Calibut's the younger, Wards and Liveries, 12 EUzabeth, vol xii. No. 74 ; WUUam Calibut's will, Reg. Norvic. Ep. Cawston ; Catherine Walpole's will, u.s. Reg. Coker. (14) Page 23, line 2. Collins, who had seen the register, gives the date of his baptism at Houghton 28th January, 1559-60. (15) Page 23, line 13. He was born 24th June, 1532 or 1533. — Adlard, p. 16. (16) Page 23, line 16. His will, dated 15th June, 1549, and proved at Norwich 2d May, 1554, is in the Registry at Norwich ( Wilkins, fo. 255). His eldest son was Thomas Walpole, who died before his father, leaving behind him two sons, Henry and John. Henry died under age, as appears by his mother's wiU, which was proved in P.C.C, 26th January, 1579-80 (Arundel, fo. 3). She married twice after her first husband, Thomas Walpole's death, first to Thomas Fleet of Whaplode, co. Line, Gent., and second to — Horden of Camberwell, whom also she survived. Her second son, John, inherited the Lincolnshire estates, and at his death they were sold in obedience to his will, P.C.C, 13th October, 1590 (Drury, fo. 62), of which we shall hear more hereafter. The great bulk of the Lincolnshire property was left to Christopher Walpole to enjoy tiU such time as his nephew Henry, or, in the event of his death, till his nephew John should have arrived at the age of twenty-six years. Christopher Walpole must have had the usufruct of the property for at least twenty years. The fourth son, Francis, i.e., the third alive at the death of Henry Walpole of Herpley, appears to have died early. (17) Page 23, line 25. See Dugdale's Origines Juridical, ch. xlviii. The account is too long to give in extenso here, but will well repay perusal by THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 33 those who have access to the book. The sum total of the expenses incurred by the incoming Serjeants amounted to the enormous sum of .£667, 7s. 7c!., which represents at least £5000 at the present time. The feast was held in the Inner Temple HaU, on the 16th October, 1555. In the " Bury Wills " (Camden Society, 1850) there is an inventory of the goods of Margaret Bagster of Hunden, with the date 14th October, 1521, whereby it appeal's that even thus early Mr. Walpole was in practice, and had already learnt the art of getting fees out of his cUents. Serjeant Walpole's coat of arms was to be seen hi the large semicircular window of Gray's Inn Hall in Dugdale's time ; and also in one of the windows of the Refectory of Serjeants' Inn in 1599, but it had disappeared from the latter place in 1660. — Dugdale u.s. (ed. 1671) pp. 302, 320,321. (18) Page 23, line 29. He had before his death immensely increased his landed property. He is owner of manors in Wymbottsham, Great and Little Massingham, HUUngton, Congham, Depdale, and elsewhere, and of lands and houses aU over the county of Norfolk, but principally in the north. His p.m. inquisition is a long document. — Chancery, Norf. 5 and 6 Phihp and Mary. His wiU is at Somerset House. — P.C.C. Reg. Moody, fo. 6. His executors are Martin Hastings, Esq., Henry Spelman, Gent., Robert Coke, Gent., Geffrey Cobbe, Christopher Walpole, and Thomas Scarlett. (19) Page 24, line 15. The extracts from the^parish register of Docking wiU be found later on. (20) Page 24, line 23. Blomefield, viii. 395. By a curious chance the original Sheriff's order for the surrender of a portion of the Anmer estate (Blomefield, u.s. 334) came into my possession with a parcel of simUar docu ments some years ago. They were bought for me at a sale in London. (21) Page 25, line 10. The Walpoles had some salt works at Walpole, which appear to have been of some importance, as they are frequently mentioned in the wills and inquisitions of members of the farmly, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Strype, in his Memorials of Archbishop Parker (i. p. 408), writes as foUows :— "This year (1565) was a project for saltworks in Kent set on foot by several persons of quaUty ; one whereof was the Earl of Pembroke, and amongst the rest the Secretary Cecil and the Queen herseh. ... He [Abp. Parker] told Secretary Cecil that he doubted not but that they had well considered the likelihood of the matter, wishing it good success, better than he knew the like to take place about thirty years past in his county, about Walsingham side. From whence came to Norwich by cart great plenty. So that the price ofthe bushel fell from sixteenpence to sixpence. But after C 34 NOTES TO CHAPTER I. experience, they ceased of their bringing, and fell to their old salt again, three pecks whereof went further than a bushel of that white, fair, fine-salt." (22) Page 25, line 27. See the very interesting collections published by Mr. W. B. Rye, entitled England as seen by Foreigners, 4to, Lond. 1865, pp. 70, no, and especiaUy the note on p. 196. In the Household Books ofthe L'Estranges of Hunstanton I find, under the year 15 19, an account for Liveries of thirteen servants. In 1530 there is another account for wages paid to sixteen servants. — Archoeologia, vol. xxv. pp. 424 and 493. Hun stanton Hall appears by these Household Books to have been as full of visitors for the greater part of the year as a large hotel. A regular list of " Strangers " was kept, and their names appear duly recorded. The house steward apologises for the largeness of his weekly bills in a somewhat plain tive strain, but modern housekeepers would be glad indeed if they could keep their expenses down to the sixteenth century figures. Take the following as an example. It is actually the largest weekly bill at Hun stanton in the year 1533. " The xxth Weke. Straungers in the same weke. " Mestrys Cobe & hyr syster, w4 other off the ciitreye, and so the sm of thys weke besyde gyste & store . . . xxvnjs. ijd." (23) Page 25, line 35. The following from Harrison's Preface to Holin- shed's Chronicle (1577) is quoted in a note (p. 103) in Miss Sneyd's transla tion of A Relation of the Island of England, published by the Camden Society in 1847. " There are olde men yet dwelling in the village where I remayne, who have noted some things to be marveUously altered in Englande within their sound remembrance. One is the great amendment of lodging : for, sayde they, our fathers and we ourselves have lyen fuU ofte upon straw paUettes covered only with a sheete under coverlettes made of dogswain or hop harlots (I use their own terms) and a good round logge under their heads insteade of a bolster. If it were so that our fathers" or the good man of the house had a materes or flockbed, and thereto a sacke of chafe to rest hys heade upon, he thought himseUe to be as weU lodged as the lord of the towne, so well were they contented. PiUows were thought mete only for women in childbed. As for servants, if they had any shete above them, it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keepe them from the pricking strawes, that ranne oft thorow the canvas and razed their hardened hides." But see Mr. Furnival's "Forewords" to the Babees Book, E.E.T.S. 1868, p. 64 et seq. XA)fT^m "' THe Gr6at BuStard COntinued t0 ha^t this part of N or oik tiU th* century Mr. H. Stevenson, an authority on all matters of ornrthology, assures me that "the last Great Bustard killed in Norfolk THE WALPOLES OF HOUGHTON. 35 and the last of the local race, was a female, shot at Lexham in May 1838 ; another having been kiUed at Dersingham in January of the same year. The extinction of the bustard in Great Britain dates from 1838." See Mr. Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 1-42, for a complete and interesting discussion of this subject. (25) Page 26, line 15. Blomefield, vn. 155. (26) Page 26, line 22. His name may be seen in the Lists of Admissions of Gray's Inn, 1 521-1677. — Harleian MSS. No. 1912. Students entered at the " Inns " much earUer in those days than now. (27) Page 26, line 28. Entries of Preferments and Sales of Wards, from 1 Mary to 1 EUzabeth, Com. Norff., Philip and Mary, 3 and 4— P.R.O. This document seUs the wardship to his mother. By the Lit. Pat., dated 30th October, 2 EUzabeth, Court of Wards, it is assigned to Rob. Cooke, Esq., and Thos. Scarlett, Gent. An aUowance, which was then liberal, is made for his education. CHAPTEE II. SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. |HEN Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, there was only one Grammar School in the county of Nor folk, that, viz., which her father had intended to found, and which her brother actually did found, in the city of 5 Norwich^1) When the free chapels were " suppressed," the chapel of St. John the Evangelist, in the precincts of the Cathedral Close, with the houses and premises thereto belong ing, were granted to Sir Ed. Warner, Knight, and Eichard Catline, Gent., who sold their rights to the Mayor and io Commonalty of the city of Norwich. (2) Here the newly- established Grammar School was intended to be carried on, and probably was carried on in a languid, careless manner. The citizens appear to have been far more anxious to make the most of their Hospital Charter in the way of patronage and 15 doles, than to use any portion of its revenues to secure to themselves a really efficient school, and, as the natural conse quence of this policy, one of the first things we hear of is that when a Grammar School was set up at Yarmouth, in 1551, the corporation of that town found no difficulty in inducing " Mr. 20 Hall, grammarian of Norwich," to leave his post and to remove to a better-paid mastership at the more attractive seaport. (3) The school would seem to have been closed for the next year or two ; but in the third year of Queen Mary, " at an assembly SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 37 holden and kept within the Guildhall," (4) John Bukke, B.A., was appointed master of the Grammar School of the city, and under him appears to have been an usher or sub-master, one Henry Bird, who, whatever became of his chief, continued to discharge his duties as master during the whole of Mary's 5 reign ; (5) but the school was evidently starved by the city magnates, and the buildings were allowed to fall into decay. With the accession of Matthew Parker to the Primacy, a better day dawned. Mr. Walter Haugh or Hawe, a member of Arch bishop Parker's own college, and a Master of Arts of eight 10 years' standing, was appointed to the head-mastership, and a subscription was raised among the leading citizens and some of the county gentry to put the place into complete repair. (6) The school soon became famous, and among its earliest scholars was one who was destined to play an important part hereafter 15 in the politics of England, and to earn from posterity the reputation of having been one of the ablest judges that ever sat upon the bench, and perhaps the profoundest lawyer of his time. Edward Coke, the future Chief -Justice of the Common Pleas, was for seven years a boy at Norwich School, and left it 20 for Trinity College, Cambridge, in September, 1567. 0 Nor was he the only boy at Norwich at this time who afterwards attained to some celebrity : Nicholas Faunt (8) was there, who is said to have brought to England the first news of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and who, as secretary to Sir Francis 25 Walsingham, was familiar with all the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth's court; and Eobert Naunton,(9) author of the famous Fragmenta Regalia, a work which, as a wise and sagacious critique upon the reign of Elizabeth, by one who knew personally all the actors in the drama, stands alone in 30 English literature. Contemporary, too, with these, but a very different notable, was the riotous and profligate Eobert Greene, that audacious and prolific genius who even presumed to regard Shakspere as a rival dramatist. (10) Among others who sent their sons to Norwich School at this 38 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. time were Christopher Walpole of Docking, and John Walpole of Houghton. In the brief account which both one and the other give of themselves when they entered the Noviciate at Tournay many years after, each speaks of himself as having 5 been brought up in grammar and the litterce humaniores " in patria," (u) i.e., in his own county — Edward says, for four years ; Henry, aliquamdiu, i.e., for some considerable time. Henry Walpole probably entered at the school in 1566 or 1567, for in those days boys were sent to the grammar schools at 10 seven years of age. His first master was Mr. Hawe, who has been mentioned above, who died in 1569, and was buried in Norwich Cathedral. (12) To him succeeded a scholar of some eminence in his day, one Stephen Limbert, of Magdalen College, Cambridge. Magdalen College at this time was pre- 15 sided over by Eoger Kelke, a leading spirit among the Puritan faction then very strong at the university. (13) Limbert had followed in the master's steps, and was ready and eager to show himself no half-hearted disciple. In the year 1565 a violent agitation had been raised in the university against 20 the wearing of the surplice or any academical or ecclesiastical habit, and the feeling against everything that approximated to Eomish fashions in garb or ritual had displayed itself in more than one noisy and extravagant outbreak. This feeling Limbert had brought. with him from Cambridge to Norwich; and as he 25 had probably witnessed the great surplice riot in the university, so he was quite prepared to join in a similar protest against vestments, or stained glass, or organ music at Norwich, if the opportunity presented itself. In the very year he came to Norwich there had been a violent anti-ritual demonstration in 30 the Cathedral, headed hy five of the preberidaries " and others with them;" who, in the absence of the dean, but apparently with something like connivance on the bishop's part, thought proper to march in a kind of procession into the choir, and after committing various unseemly outrages, ended by breaking down the organ, and doing their best to stop the continuance of the SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 39 choral service. The bishop would have been glad enough to pass over the affair, disgraceful as it was, without notice, but when the news of these proceedings came to the ears of the Queen she was extremely indignant, and wrote a very severe letter of censure upon the bishop for his negligence, and ordered S the offenders to appear before Archbishop Parker and give account of themselves for their evil behaviour. No harm, however, seems to have come upon any of the parties con cerned, and it is to be presumed that the organ was repaired, and that things went on pretty much as before. (u) But not many io days after Henry Walpole left Norwich School, previous to his entry at'. Cambridge, a second riot occurred, and this time we read that " Innovation was suddenly brought about into the Cathedral ... at evening service ... by Limbert, Chapman, and Roberts, then of this church. These, in the time of reading 15 the lessons, had inveighed against the manner of the singing them, and termed it disordered, and wished it utterly thence to be banished. And one of them starting up at that time, took upon him to use another and a new form of service, contrary to that ordered by her Majesty and the book." By this time one 20 at least of the previous malcontents had learned his lesson : Dr. Gardiner, though he had been at the head of the former disturbance, had now succeeded to the deanery, and was not without hopes of even greater preferment, for Parkhurst was reported to be in declining health, the bishopric might fall 25 vacant any day, and the dean was too shrewd a courtier not to have an eye to his own interest. Accordingly he " stood up and confuted the reasons the others had brought," and even committed one of the offenders to prison; but with charac teristic astuteness he managed to insinuate that some of the .30 blame of these mutinous irregularities rested upon the bishop, through whose laxity mainly such things had come to pass. (15) One would have supposed that such indecent violence would have been visited with severe censure and punishment. But no ! the rioters were mildly reproved and warned against any 40 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. repetition of such a scandal; and there the matter seems to have ended, and the bishop, if he called the offenders to account, seems to have troubled them no more. Dr. John Parkhurst, who was at this time Bishop of Norwich, 5 had been a fellow of Merton and tutor of Bishop • Jewell. " Better for poetry and oratory than divinity," says Wood. He had put forth in youth a volume of Latin verse which he republished in his later years, though the critics said there were in those poems things that were at least unseemly. io In Queen Mary's time he joined the exodus, and crossed the sea; and he appears to have suffered more privations than some others of the fugitives. In Switzerland he was highly esteemed and held in honour for his learning and piety. He had settled at Zurich, not Geneva, and henceforth Zurich and 15 its ecclesiastical constitution were very dear to his heart. As firm and resolute as any man in his opposition to Eomanism, Zuinglius, and not John Calvin, was his master and pattern, and his rule he would have been glad to carry out in his own diocese. (16) 20 Dr. Gardiner's predecessor in the Deanery was John Salisbury, a man of learning and some mark. He had been a student at both universities, and a Benedictine monk at Bury St. Edmund's. Here he incurred the suspicion of heresy, and for some years was kept under restraint in the abbey by order of Cardinal Wolsey. 25 Henry VIII. appointed him Prior of the monastery of St. Faith at Horsham, near Norwich, and subsequently, in 1536, Suffragan Bishop of Thetford. In 1537 we find him Arch deacon of Anglesey; in 1538 a Canon of Norwich Cathedral; next year he was installed Dean. His deanery he continued 30 to hold with the archdeaconry and other rich preferments, till the accession of Queen Mary, when he was deprived for being married. At the accession of Queen Elizabeth he was restored. About the year 1565 he preached a sermon in Norwich Cathedral which created at the time a great sensation, and so much provoked the gentry of the county that he was accused SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 41 of favouring the old religion, and was for a time suspended once more from his deanery. He managed to defeat the machinations of his enemies, and in 1571 received a dispensa tion from Archbishop Parker to hold the bishopric of Sodor and Man, the Deanery of Norwich, the Archdeaconry of 5 Anglesey, and the Eectories of Thorpe-super-Montem in the Diocese of Lincoln, and of Diss in the Diocese of Norwich, all which he seems to have retained till his death. (17) There were six canons or prebendaries belonging to the Cathedral Chapter at this time. Of these, Edmund Chapman 10 was apparently the most pronounced as a zealous Puritan of the advanced iconoclastic school. He appears as one of the leaders of the riot in the Cathedral in 1570 and again in 1575, and his irrepressible temperament made him a somewhat troublesome personage to the authorities. At last his erratic J5 and defiant habits, and his reluctance to submit to any dis cipline, could no longer be borne, and he was deprived of his canonry for non- conformity in 1576. Bishop Aylmer, when compelled to proceed against him, was inclined to show him great leniency, and suggested that he should be sent to some 20 remote part of the kingdom, where he might be kept from doing much harm, and be, possibly, employed in doing some good as a preacher against Popery. (18) Thomas Fowle, another of the prebendaries, was implicated in the same disturbances with Chapman. He, too, was a vehement 25 Puritan, and when, in 1572, a commission was issued for pro ceeding against the popish recusants in Norfolk, his name was put upon the commission as that of a man who was not likely to spare the recalcitrant gentry. (19) Entirely of the same mind, and quite as conspicuous as the 30 other members of the chapter on the occasion of the first riot, was Dr. John Walker, a somewhat famous preacher among the Puritan clergy of the time. He, too, got into trouble in the sequel for non-conformity, but nevertheless was rewarded with , substantial preferment, and when the farce of a conference with 42 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. Campion was carried out in' 1580, he was one of those who took a leading part in the discussion. (20) The last of that band of zealots was George Gardiner, a pluralist among pluralists even in those days. He had been 5 a fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, and it was alleged that in Queen Mary's time he had been conspicuous as a persecutor of the gospellers in Cambridge. Whether it was so or not, he showed no sign of any Eomish tendencies from the time he became a Minor Canon of Norwich Cathedral in 1561, till his 10 death as Dean in 1589. He appears never to have lost an opportunity for advancing himself and his own interest, and held at various times no less than fourteen pieces of prefer ment : at his death he was Dean, Chancellor, and Archdeacon of Norwich, and Eector of Ashill, Blofield, and Forncett, besides 1 5 holding one or two other benefices scarcely less valuable. (21) Only two more of the Canons of Norwich remain to be mentioned, Nicholas Wendon and Thomas Smith, who held their stalls for ten years, but were deprived at last, when it was found that they were both laymen ! (22) 20 Thus a schoolboy at Norwich in these times was of necessity reared in a very heated atmosphere. If daily and hourly tirades against the Pope and Babylon could make a lad a sound Protestant, few schoolboys in England could have been in a more favourable position for arriving at such a frame of 25 mind. Unfortunately there is in some boys' nature a certain perversity of will which leads them to revolt from influences forced upon them too obtrusively ; and when a youth is sub jected to a hard and repressive discipline (2S) — never cheered by a gleam of sympathy or softened by a word of tenderness — 30 a time is apt to come when he turns out a stubborn rebel, and the reaction from habitual submission sets in at last in a form which his elders least desire to see, and are least prepared to expect. Moreover, though bishop, and dean, and chapter, and school master were all of one mind, it must not be supposed that SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. 43 there was no minority who — "popishly inclined" — were sulkily and obstinately clinging to their own opinions with a troublesome and uncompromising tenacity. The Norfolk gentry were almost unanimous in their dislike of Puritanism. The conflict with Rome in the latter half of the sixteenth century 5 was a war of classes ; it was almost precisely of the same character as the conflict with the Crown became a century later. In both cases, speaking generally, the " optimates " were on one side, the " plebeians " on the other, and the smoulder ing jealousy of class against class displayed itself at times in 10 other than religious bickerings. Very significant is the story of that mad conspiracy of sundry of the gentlemen of the county and others in the year 1570, which had for its object the forcible expulsion of the strangers in Norwich " from the city and the realm," and which ended in the indictment of ten of I5 these gentlemen for high treason, three of whom were hung, drawn, and quartered, and the rest kept in jail, with the for feiture of their goods and lands, for life. (**) The gentry of England were at this time almost a caste ; not a whit less arrogant, haughty, and overbearing because they must have 20 known that their order had been fearfully broken in upon of late, and knew, only too well, that they were poorer and weaker than their sires. It must be remembered, too, that though the towns had preachers enough and to spare, and though the town churches 25 were served by a ministry, some of whom were men of eloquence, zeal, and power, whose earnestness was patent and their piety sincere and glowing ; yet in the country villages, and among the agricultural population, far out of the reach of the pulpit agitators, the tidings that came at times of all this 3° turmoil of religious excitement only served to perplex and amaze. To the villager it seemed as if chaos had come again. The townsmen were going on too fast for the "lobs of the country." How could these latter unlearn the lessons of their youth so easily ? The quick-witted citizen looked down with 44 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. contemptuous pity at the slow-thinking rustic and the heavy squire, and these returned the sneer with a sullen scowl of their own. What had all these changes of the last twenty years done for them ? What were they likely to do ? When King 5 Edward died, the county clergy had been turned out of their Norfolk livings by hundreds. (25) When Queen Mary died, the Marian priests forsook their cures in shoals. What would be the next thing ? There had been no peace since the old order had changed. How pressing the need of new clergy was is i o plain from the fact that the very week after Archbishop Parker's consecration he ordained twenty-two priests and deacons at Lambeth/26) and two months afterwards no less than one hundred and fifty-five at a single ordination. It was made a matter of special provision that the newly-ordained 15 clergy should be required to serve more than one cure.(27) A new order was instituted, that of "Readers," who were only allowed to read the service, but forbidden to preach or even administer the sacrament of Baptism ; but these men were a miserable makeshift, and upon trial the newly-ordained clergy, 20 as a rule, were found deplorably wanting. Very soon it be came necessary to address to the bishops a letter forbidding them to ordain any more mechanics, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners put forth certain Articles to enforce at any rate the semblance of discipline, and, among other things, " abstin- 25 ence from mechanical sciences " was enjoined " as well to ministers as to readers." But not only was the religious destitution of the country parishes patent and deplorable, but to earnest and thoughtful men in the large towns things were not at all as they should be. 30 To a lad of any refinement of feeling, and reverence for the sacred associations of the past, there must have been something very shocking in all this organ-breaking and glass-smashing. Was it likely that men whose zeal burst forth in these vulgar and passionate outbreaks would be likely to command the respect and esteem of the gentler and more affectionate among SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 45 the rising generation ? They, too, had their fund of enthusiasm. How if that enthusiasm should find vent for itself in quite other expressions than those in which the passions of the mob were now exhausting themselves ? How if these coarse excesses of the dominant faction should defeat their own 5 object and make many a young man begin to think that there might be worse things even than "monkery" — that a sour " presbyter " was, after all, but the " priest writ large," and that it was quite possible to conceive a tyranny mpre galling and odious even than that of the Pope of Eome ? IO Meanwhile there were other scenes which a schoolboy must have witnessed in those days, which were not calculated to make him feel at ease. At Norwich itself, religious fanaticism in every form was rampant. Upwards of 4000 Flemings had their own peculiar worship, their sects, their " views," their 1 5 broils, almost their faction -fights; crazy prophets rose up in the streets, claiming to be inspired; "Anabaptists" propounded new theories of the rights of property, and even were for intro ducing a reformed code of morals. Whispers were heard of a real new revelation, whose apostle or high priest none could 2° name, whose adherents called themselves by a strange title, to be heard of by and by often enough when David George's rhapsodies should have become translated into English jargon, and when the " family of love " should have had its martyrs and confessors who suffered they scarce knew why. (28) 25 In the face of all this wild confusion, it is not to be wondered at if there was a party in England who had no love for the new learning, — a party, too, that, in the upper ranks of English society, was rather increasing in weight, influence, and num bers, though the " great middle class," the tradesmen and the 3° " common people," were all on the other side. Looking at the matter from our present point of view, we are too ready to regard the excommunication of Elizabeth as nothing but a stupendous blunder. It was a blunder because it failed ; but to the statesmen of that day, to those who were 46 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. not the least sagacious and far-sighted of their generation, the issuing of the Bull seemed a very bold and skilful move, which called for the utmost determination, promptitude, and resolve to meet it. To them it was nothing less than the menace of a 5 new crusade, and a call to the territorial aristocracy of this country to join in a holy league, not only for the restoration of the faith but for the reconstitution of society. What the enormous power of the sovereign had done in Spain, what the noblesse with the Guises at their head seemed in a fair way io of doing in France, that the papal advisers believed might be effected by the gentry of England. A counter reformation which should end in stamping out heresy was regarded as a consummation not only devoutly to be wished but even likely to be achieved. How much the Bartholomew massacre, 1 5 following so close as it did upon the promulgation of the Bull, contributed to strengthen the hands of the English government, it would be difficult to say. Certainly when the penal laws were enacted, they were directed against the gentry almost exclusively ; fines and forfeiture of goods were terrible only for 20 those who had something to lose, and it soon became a point of honour with the squirearchy to stand up for the old religion, and to throw in their lot with the gentlemanly sufferers for conscience' sake; the "good old Tories" of this time clung stubbornly to the past, and would not accept the logic of facts ; 25 but the gauntlet which the Pope threw down was taken up with a grim satisfaction by the Queen and her council, and from henceforth there was no hesitation and no mercy. Had there been no provocation? Was there not a cause? Assuredly there was. It is not for a wise man to defend the 30 one side or the other, least of all to defend the audacious and irritating aggressions which made the conflict an absolute necessity and compromise impossible. But now that that struggle may be said to be practically at an end,— at any rate ' so far at an end that the political ascendancy of the Papacy over this country at any future time is simply inconceivable, — SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 47 it may be well' to remind readers ignorant of the fact, that there were two sides in Queen Elizabeth's days, and that for young men of enthusiastic temperament and chivalrous nature, for men who instinctively chose the weaker side and threw in their lot with the persecuted rather than the persecutors, there would be an absolute fascination in the creed that seemed to them to be now remorselessly assailed, and a vehement opposition arose to the statesmanship which perhaps had been driven, and at any rate seemed pledged, to a war of extermination. At last the school days came to an end, and on the 15th of January, 1575, Henry Walpole matriculated at Cambridge. He entered at St. Peter's College, at that time presided over by 15 Dr. Andrew Perne. Dr. Perne was a Norfolk man, and his family were possessed of some landed property at Pudding Norton, not far from Houghton. He was notorious through life as a trimmer, whose astute accommodation of himself to the prevailing winds and 20 currents of opinion had made his name proverbial among the wits of the time. (w) In King Henry's days he had been preferred to the rich living of Walpole St. Peter, and to that of Pulham, in his native county. As one of Edward VI.'s chap lains, he was appointed to preach the doctrines of the Eefor- 25 mation through the remote parts of the kingdom. He signed without a murmur the Catholic Articles of Queen Mary in 1555, and the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth in 1562; in 1573 he preached at Norwich against the Puritans, and in 1580 he was engaged in a conference with Feckenham, Abbot 30 of Westminster, at Wisbeach. Witty, genial, urbane, and learned, he had a rare faculty of being able to carry off his frequent tergiversations with a grace and courtesy which any diplomatist might envy, and which actually gained him a certain measure of confidence from both sides. A latitu- 48 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. dinarian, who professed to see the good in everything, he could tolerate Papist and Puritan alike. He could even make some efforts to abate the violence of the persecutor's zeal and to moderate the rancour of polemics. His college appears to have 5 been the natural place of resort for extreme men, who might count on the protection of the master's broad shield so long as his own interests and prospects were not compromised. He would certainly " leave his men alone," and would not worry them by too prying scrutiny, or harass them with too strict a i° discipline ; and the college throve as the master prospered. (30) On the same day that Henry Walpole entered at Peterhouse, another young man of diametrically opposite proclivities was admitted at the same college. Dudley Fenner was the eldest son of a Kentish gentleman, and heir to a large estate ; he was 15 almost exactly of the same age as his fellow-collegian, and the subsequent career of the two men offers some remarkable parallels. Fenner was from the outset a rigid and fervent Puritan; Walpole as earnest and devoted a Catholic. Fenner was suspected of being concerned in the Marprelate books ; 20 Walpole certainly had a hand in Parsons' writings. Neither proceeded to a degree at the university, both being deterred by the tests and engagements which every graduate was compelled to submit to. Both were driven into exile for conscience' sake ; both were imprisoned ; both exercised their several ministries 25 in Belgium, the one as a Puritan preacher, the other as a Jesuit priest ; both were for a time employed in the same town of Antwerp, at no very long interval; and when Dudley Fenner lay upon his deathbed at Middlebwrg in the winter of 1589, Henry Walpole was lying in prison at Flushing, scarcely 30 five miles off, in hourly peril of losing his life too as an exile in a foreign land. How little could either of these young men have guessed what was in store for them as they attended the same lectures, dined in the same hall,— both of them, too, for different reasons shirking the same " chapels," and, doubtless, fiercely arguing with one another on the profoundest po.ints of SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 49 controversy, for which they were both in the sequel to suffer so cruelly, and to labour so long ! Among the Ordinances drawn up by Archbishop Parker for Norwich School, special provision was made for the teaching of Greek. (31) It is almost incredible how few at Cambridge even 5 professed a knowledge of the language or literature of Hellas. Baker tells us that at this time no more than two fellows of St. John's were " Grecians ; " and it is pretty certain that almost as few knew anything about it as now do of Sanscrit. (32) But at Peterhouse Charles Home, who was elected to a fellowship in io Henry Walpole's second year, was a distinguished Grecian, and doubtless gave lectures in the college. There, too, was Eichard Bainbrigg the antiquary, already making collections, and Degory Nichols, a divine, who scandalised people by his gay attire — "too fine for scholars." The two Bacons were fellow- commoners 15 at Trinity — Anthony and Francis the great; while at Pembroke, across the street, so near that a child might toss a biscuit from one college to the other, Spenser, by this time an M.A., whom the undergraduates would regard with some little awe, was writing his Shepherd's Calendar, Kirke and Gabriel Harvey 20 already recognising in him a poet for the ages. A year after Henry Walpole entered at St. Peter's, his cousin Edward matriculated at the same college, and along with him came four more of their kindred or close neighbours — Edward Yelverton of Eougham, one of the Cobbes of Sandringham, 25 Philip Paris of Pudding Norton, and Barclay (otherwise Bernard) Gardiner of Coxford Abbey. Of these young men now studying together at the same college, three were to become eventually members of the Society of Jesus, and another, Edward Yelverton, was destined to suffer through all 3° his life for his obstinate adherence to the Eomish cause. (33) This is not the place to dwell upon the subject of Cambridge studies during the period we are engaged with, the less so as neither Henry nor Edward Walpole proceeded to any degree at the university. That both young men were diligent students D 5© SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. seems clear from the, facility with which they obtained admission to the Society of Jesus, and we are expressly told that Henry Walpole was regarded as a man of learning and promise when he first presented himself at the College of 5 Eheims. (34) His name appears on the buttery books of the college for the last time on the 17th April 1579. He had already been entered at Gray's Inn the year before. (36) His university career had come to an end, and it remained for him now to qualify himself for a career at the bar. Whether 10 Edward Walpole remained behind at Cambridge, or had already left the university, we cannot tell. NOTES TO CHAPTER II. (l) Page 36, line 5. The Charter of Edward VI. was first printed in Bur ton's Antiquitates Capellas D. Johannis Evangelistce hodie Scholce Regies Norvi- censis, which was published among Sir Thomas Browne's posthumous works. The stipend of the head-master was at first ^ioa year, with a house free of aU charges : the stipend of the usher was £6, 13s. 4d., with a house. The head-master's stipend was doubled in 1562, and again doubled in 1610. It continued to be ,£40 a year tiU Mr. Lovering's appointment in 1636, when the head-master received ^50 a year and a house, the usher ^30 and no house. Burton's work was reprinted with some additions in 1862 by the late John Longe, Esq. of Spixworth Park. (2) Page 36, line 10. See Blomefield, iv. 59. Burton has printed the Award upon the dispute between the Dean and Chapter and the Corpora tion, which Blomefield refers to. (3) Page 36, line 21. Manship's History of Yarmouth, vol. i. p. 232. He seems to be identical with the Walter Haugh mentioned below. He stayed only two years at Yarmouth. (4) Page 37, line 1. The document is preserved among the Miscellaneous Deeds and Documents, in the archives of the Corporation of Norwich. Already the city magnates had begun to evade the conditions of their Charter by dividing the schoolhouse between the head-master and his usher, though they were bound to provide a house for each of them. " . . . . And also we do give, grant, and confirm to the said John Bukke for the exercising of the said office of Schoolmaster aU that the crypt of the late Chapel and house of St. John within the precincts of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity of Norwich', and all those houses, buildings, outer yards, and gardens whatsoever, being occupied or used as part or parcel of the said soh of the said Chapel or Charnel House. . . . Except and always reserved within the foresaid charnel or house a sufficient habitation and dwell ing for such person as now is or any time hereafter shall be Usher of the same school for the time being to live and inhabit in." (5) Page 37, line 6. Strype prints from the Baker MSS. a highly-inter esting paper, of which a copy is to be found in the Registry at Norwich. 52 NOTES TO CHAPTER II. " Articles to be inquired of in the MetropoUtical Visitation of the most reverend Father in God, Matthew, by the providence of God, Archbishop of Canterbury . . . in aU and singular cathedral and collegiate churches within his province of Canterbury." The repUes for Norwich were sent in by Mr. George Gardiner, then one of the prebendaries, and disclose a deplorable state of affahs. In reply to the question, " Whether your grammar school be weU ordered? &c." — a question which assumed that every cathedral chapter was expected to maintain a grammar school — Gardiner says, "... this respondent saith, that there is no grammar school at all within their house, saving, that, as he saith, they allow xx marks by year to one Mr. Bird who teacheth a grammar school in the city, and receiveth such scholars as they send him, of which he knoweth not one, as he saith. And the whole order of the school is left to Mr. Bird's discretion, which he thinketh to be well done, as he saith ; and beheveth that he bringeth up them that are under him in the fear of God." — Strype, Parker, B. Ui. No. 54. This paper belongs to the spring of 1 567. Five years after this Mr. Bird was associated with Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Bishop of Norwich, Thomas Lord Wentworth, and some of the most considerable people of the county, in a commission for examining suspected Papists. When Dean SaUsbury died in 1573, "great suit was made" to get the deanery for Mr. Bird, and we read that " the city of Norwich had written up for one Mr. Bird, a very godly man, and weU-learned." Mr. Gardiner, however, obtained the prefer ment. (6) Page 37, line 13. See Blomefield, iv. 60. There is a fuUer account of the restoration in Burton's Antiquitates. Some of the stained glass still remained in the windows on the north side as late as Blomefield's time (1744). In the archives of the city in the GuUdhall, I came upon a memo randum, dated 24th September 1747, of some dispute between the Cor poration and Mr. Redington, the head-master of the school at that time, in which it is said, " Corporation have repaired the glass in the windows, which are frequently broke by the scholars, and are expensive.'' (7) Page 37, line 21. His father, Robert Coke of Mileham, was one of Serjeant Walpole's executors. — See n. 18, chap. i. (8) Page 37, line 23. He was probably a son of Robert Fonde or Faunt, who was Vicar of Kimberley in 1569. He matriculated at Caius College, Cambridge, in June 1572. There are several letters of his in Birch's Elizabeth. — See Cooper's Athenm Cant. (9) Page 37, line 27. Sir Robert Naunton set up a monument to his old schoolmaster (Limbert) at Norwich, with an inscription upon a brass plate (which existed in Blomefield's time), when he was already advanced in life. This was after he was knighted in 161 5. SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. 53 (10) Page 37, line 34. There is a complete Ust of Greene's Works in Cooper's Athence Cant., where, too, may be found the best account of him. (11) Page 38, line 6. The Album of the Tournai Noviciate is now in the Royal Library at Brussels (MS. No. 1016). I have printed Henry Walpole's account of himseU written with his own hand, " Circa Natalem Dni. A0. 1 591," in the Walpole Letters, 4to, Norwich, 1873. Edward's autobiography given in the same MS. wul be found infra. (12) Page 38, line 12. The inscription upon his monument in the cathe dral is given by Blomefield, iv. 62. He entered at Corpus Christi CoUege, Cambridge, in 1552, having probably been elected to a scholarship from some other coUege. He graduated B.A. in 1554. Master's History of Cor pus, by Lamb. (13) Page 38, line 16. See Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, vol. ii. p. 218 et seq., and Baker's History of St. John's College, edited by Prof. Mayor, vol. i. p. 162. Baker's brief account of the condition of St. John's at this time is long enough to convince us of the degradation of the coUege. Prof. Mayor has coUected the notices of the Surplice Feuds and other disorders of the time in the exhaustive way which is characteristic of aU his work. — (Vol. ii. p. 586 et seq.) Stephen Limbert was entered as a sizar at Magdalen CoUege, Cambridge, 12th November 1561. On the death of Mr. Haugh he succeeded to the head-mastership of Norwich. He married Katherine Sutton of Frettenhani on the 27th April 1573 (P.R.), and by her had a family of ten children, whose baptisms are recorded in the register of St. Mary in the Marsh, Norwich, where also we find the entry of his burial, 10th October 1598. Cooper (Athence Cantab.), led astray by a misprint in Blomefield, asserts that he was a master at Norwich in 1555, which is certainly incorrect. In the MSS. of the University Library at Cambridge there is a mysterious letter of his addressed to Bishop Parkhurst, proving him to have been on intimate terms with the Bishop ; but he appears never to have taken Orders, which accounts for his not getting preferment. In Whitney's Emblems, 4to, Ley- den, 1580, there are some verses addressed to him by the author, and some prefatory verses by Limbert. When EUzabeth came to Norwich in 1578, Limbert was very graciously received by the Queen, to whom he was deputed to make a Latin speech. It is printed in Blomefield, and is a pedantic and pretentious harangue. Sir Robert Naunton's monument to Limbert has disappeared. (14) Page 39, line 10. Strype, Parker, ii. 36. This first riot took place about the middle of September 1570. The letter of Queen EUzabeth to Bishop Parkhurst on the subject is dated 25th September 1570.— P.iJ.0. Domestic, EUz., vol. lxxui. n. 68. 54 NOTES TO CHAPTER II. (15) Page 39, line 32. Strype's Annals, vol. II. i. 485. The Limbert riot occurred some time in January. Parkhurst died 2d February 1574—5. It is evident that Bp. Freake lost very little time, after his appointment to the See of Norwich, in attempting to reform his diocese, and that he carried things with a high hand. Among Lord Calthorpe's MSS. vol. ex. fo. 133, there is a curious "Petition of certain aggrieved ministers" at Norwich, who protest against slanders, defaming them as schismatics, and on their part denouncing Jesuits (five years before any Jesuit had ever set foot in England), Anabaptists, Libertines, Family of Love, &c. "... And if the Bishop proceed to urge them as he hath begun, surely it will bring a wonderful ruin to this Church here in Norwich and round about. There be already xv or xx godly exercises of preaching or catechising put down in this city by the displacing of three preachers." .... The document is dated 25th September 1576. Freake was elected Bishop of Norwich, 15th July 1 575. His election was not confirmed tiU the 14th November. Bishop Freake had been an Augustinian monk at Waltham Abbey, and was one of those who received a pension of £c, a year. (16) Page 40, line 19. Wood, Athen. Oxon. Ed. Bliss, vol. i. 412. Strype's Annals, II. i. 425. Archbishop Parker evidently had but a mean opinion of Parkhurst, and a tone of something Uke contempt is observable in his letters to him. Bishop Parkhurst had incurred the suspicion " even of the best sort for his remissness in ordering his clergy" as early as 1561. See a letter of Cecilin the Parker Correspondence, p. 149. — (Parker Soe.) (17) Page 41, line 8. Wood's Athence Oxon. ii. 808; Cooper's Athence Cant. i. 318 ; Strype, Parker, ii. 80. (18) Page 41, line 23. Cooper, Athena? Cant. i. 382 ; Strype, Aylmer, p. 36. He appears to have been deprived of his stall at Norwich in 1576, for Launcelot Thexton succeeded in February 1576-7. — Le Neve, Fasti. (19) Page 41, line 29. He was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and appears to have obtained his staU at Norwich through Sir Nicholas Bacon. He had hardly been instaUed before an attempt was made to induce him to resign in favour of John Foxe the Martyrologist. This he declined to do, and- he held his canonry tiU 1581. Strype, Annals, I. h. 44 ; and Cooper's Ath. Cant. i. 452. (20) Page 42, line 2. He became eventually Prebendary of St Paul's. There is much about him in Strype's Parker. See, too, Cooper, Ath. Cant. vol. U. p. 37. (21) Page 42, line 15. Cooper's Ath. Cant. ii. 55. He obtained the SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS. 55 Deanery by the intercession of Robert Earl of Leicester. — Strype, Annals, II. i. 448. Archbishop Parker tried to get the Deanery for his chaplain, Mr. StiU, but in vain. — Parker Correspondence, p. 451. (22) Page 42, line 19. Parker gives a deplorable account of the state of the Norwich Chapter, and, indeed, of the whole diocese, in a letter to Lady Bacon, dated 6th February 1567-8. — Correspondence, p. 311. Five years afterwards he again speaks with some bitterness on the same subject : "the church is miserable," he says. In the former letter Parker relates his interview with Smith, whom he advised to resign his stall or take Orders. Smith decUned to do either the one or the other. Nicholas Wendon, besides being a canon of Norwich, was actually Archdeacon of Suffolk and Rector of Witnesham. In 1576 he became a professed Romanist, and slipped away to the Continent, where he probably ended his career. — Le Neve's Fasti; Cooper's Athence Cant. i. 384 ; Strype's Parker, hi. 159. (23) Page 42, line 28. How cruel and pitiless the treatment of school boys was at this time is abundantly proved by such a weight of evidence as would be wearisome to the reader even to refer to. Roger Ascham's Scole master and Brindley's Grammar School may be regarded as protests against the brutaUty of the sixteenth century pedagogues. (24) Page 43, line 18. Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 284 ; P.R.O., Domestic, Eliz., vol. lxxi. No. 60, 61, 62, and vol. lxxhi. No. 28. (25) Page 44, line 6. I have gone carefuUy through the Bishop's Register for the Diocese of Norwich, for the year ending 25th March 1554, and I find no fewer than two hundred and twenty-eight new incumbents pre sented in the twelve months to benefices in the County of Norfolk alone. Only twenty-six of these were occasioned by the death of the previous holders of the livings. This subject requires a more thorough examination than it has yet received. I conjecture that in many instances the monks dispossessed by Henry VIII. were presented to benefices by Queen Mary. (26) Page 44, line 12. Strype's Parker, i. 229. Strype (Aylmer, p. 21) says, "Many of the old Incumbents (1577) and Curates were such as were fitter to sport with the timbrel and pipe than to take in their hands the book of the Lord." Grindal ordained nearly ninety persons in 1559. — Strype's Grindal, p. 53. See, too, Annals, I. i. 233. (27) Page 44, line 15. Strype, Annals, I. i. 265 ; Parker, i. 180, 194 ; ii. 85. (28) Page 45, line 25. Froude, Hist. England, x. p. 112 ; Blomefield, iii. 364 ; Parker Correspondence, p. 247 ; Fuller, Church History, B. ix. s. ii. § 10. 56 NOTES TO CHAPTER II. See especiaUy his account of the FamiUsts, s. Ui. § 36. " These Familists (be sides many monstrosities they maintained about their communion with God) attenuated aU Scriptures into allegories ; and, under pretence to turn them into spirit, made them airy, empty, nothing. They counterfeited revela tions ; and those, not expUcatory or applicatory of Scripture (such may and must be allowed to God's servants in aU ages), but additional thereunto, and of equal necessity and infalUbility to be believed therewith. In a word, as in the smaU-pox (pardon my plain and homely, but true and proper, comparison), when at first they kindly come forth, every one of them may severally and distinctly be discerned ; but when once they run and matter, they break one into another, and can no longer be dividedly discovered ; so though at first there was a real difference betwixt FamiUsts, Enthusiasts, Antinomians (not to add high-flown Anabaptists), in their opinions, yet (process of time plucking up the pales betwixt them) afterwards they did so interfere amongst themselves, that it is almost impossible to bank and bound their several absurdities." Strype (Parker, ii. 69, and Annals, II. i. 487) gives a good account of the Brownists and their eccentric founder. FuUer, u.s. B. ix. sect. vi. § 3, says, " For my own part (whose nativity Pro vidence placed within a mile of this Brown's charge [i.e., benefice]), I have when a youth often beheld him." He proceeds to tell a story of his having been carried to jail at Northampton, where he died, in a " cart with a feather bed provided to carry him." His offence was an assault upon a rate collector. — Cf, too, Annals, II. i. 483. There is a long and curious account of the Brownists in Ephraim Pagitt's Heresiography ; or, a Description and History of the Heretics and Sectaries sprung up in these times. London, 1661. Hanbury gives nearly twenty pages to Browne and his doctrines. Historical Memorials relating to the Independents, vol. i. p. 19 et seq. (29) Page 47, line 22. " Jack. What Doctor Pearne ? Why, he is the notablest turncoat in all this land, there is none comparable to him. Why, every boy hath him in his mouth ; for it is made a proverb, both of old and young, that if one have a coat or cloak that is turned they say it is P earned." From ' ' A Dialogue, wherein is plainly laide open, the tyrannical dealing of the Lord Bishop against God's children," &c. This is one of the Marprelate Tracts, and was originally published in 1589, and "Reprinted in the time of the ParUament," 1640. (30) Page 48, line 10. There is an exhaustive account of him in Cooper's Athena; Cant. In 1573 there were sixty pensioners at St. Peter's.— Cooper, Annals, ii. 315. (31) Page 49, line 5. I discovered these "ordinances" in the archives of the city of Norwich, and transcribed them in 1862. They are too long SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DA YS. 57 to reprint here. The Greek authors appointed to be read are Lucian's Dialogues, Hesiod, Homer, and Euripides, and the head-master is required to see that the boys of the sixth form " attain to some competent knowledge of the Greek tongue." (32) Page 49, line 9. See Baker's History of St. John's, by Prof. Mayor, p. 171 and 180, and the notes on the last passage, p. 598. (33) Page 49, line 31. I am indebted to the Registrar of the University, Rev. H. R. Luard, for permission to search the documents in his custody, and to make the necessary extracts from them. I find that in the January of 1579-1580 the foUowing, among others, were admitted to the B.A. degree, and I give the names here because they wUl occur again in the course of my narrative. Edward Yelverton (of Rougham, co. Norfolk) ; Robert Remington (whom Henry Walpole caUs his tutor) ; Miles Sands (who took part in the disputation at York, 1594); George Stransham (alias Potter, who subsequently became a CathoUc priest and got into trouble) ; Arthur Daubeny (of Sharington, mentioned by H. Walpole in his examination) ; Philip Paris (of Pudding Norton, a Recusant) ; John Cobbe (of Sandringham). Edward Walpole matriculated as of St. Peter's in May 1576. Dudley Fenner was a FeUow Commoner of the college. Bartley [sic] Gardiner matriculated as a pensioner in March 1577-8. (34) Page 50, line 5. 1582, 70 die Julii. Ex AngUa ad nos venit D. Hen. Walpoole, disertus gravis et pius. Douay Diary. (35) Page 50, line 7. I have to thank the Rev. J. Porter, now Master of St. Peter's, for this information, taken from the Books of the College. The entry of Henry Walpole at Gray's Inn is to be found in Harl. MSS. 1912 (Lists of Admissions of Gray's Inn, 1 521-1677). CHAPTER III. THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. " We must now take, and that of truth, into observation, that untU the tenth of her reign, her times were calm and serene, though sometimes a little overcast, as the most glorious sunrisings are subject to shadowings and droppings in : for the clouds of Spain and vapours of the Holy League began then to disperse and threaten her serenity. . . . For the name of Recusant began then, and first to be known to the world ; and tiU then the CathoUcs were no more than church Papists, but were commanded by the Pope's express letters to appear, and forbear church going as they tender their Holy Father, and the Holy CathoUc church their mother." . . . — Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia. ijITHERTO our attention has been mainly given to such incidents as may be supposed to exercise a direct influence upon the development of a thoughtful and intelligent lad, born into the world with a certain bias of his 5 own, and some of that spirit of unrest and melancholy and dis content which leads a man to the conviction that the times in which he lives are " out of joint," and urges him passionately to set them straight again. But our characters are not formed only by the direct influences which are brought to bear upon io them, nor our opinions adopted only from the things we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. Rather is it the indirect influence of events which are going on around us in that outer circle with which we have no personal contact, THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 59 that affects us most profoundly in the period when boyhood is passing into manhood. And, therefore, if we would understand the error or the heroism, the weakness or the nobleness, the fervour or the infatuation of such a life as we are engaged in reviewing, it is essential that we should endeavour to estimate 5 the significance of those larger questions and those more stirring events, which were agitating the minds of men during these eventful times. The year 1569 is a memorable one in the history of Queen 10 Elizabeth's reign. Mary Stuart was a prisoner in England, and on her as the next heir to the throne the eyes of all politicians turned. Should any one of those numberless chances occur to which we are all liable, — and to which in times of great excite ment and uneasiness men are apt to believe that sovereigns 15 must be peculiarly liable, — the Queen of Scots, it was thought, would certainly ascend the English throne, and as certainly attempt to bring back the days of the Papal dominion, and the doctrine and ritual of Rome. In the northern counties of England, more than anywhere 20 else, the great bulk of the population were averse to the Pro testant faith ; and almost all the more powerful families were vehemently and conscientiously in favour of the mass as against the new doctrines which were being slowly but steadily forced upon them. In the temper of men's minds at this time, it 25 needed very little to stir them up to deeds of violence, and it was almost inevitable that sooner or later the long-suppressed but widely-fermenting discontent should prove altogether irrepres sible, and passion grown reckless should drive on angry people to defy the terrors of the law. In November of this year, 1569, 30 the Northern Rebellion blazed forth under the leadership of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland. (J) By Christmas it had run its course, had collapsed, and the vengeance had begun. Whoever likes may read the account of that atrocious massacre, for it deserves no better name, as it is set down in 60 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. the pages of Mr. Froude's work ; and he will scarcely think the historian has been too severe upon his heroine when he tells us that "the retribution inflicted upon the northern insurgents shows undoubtedly that anger and avarice had for a time over- 5 clouded Elizabeth's character." There can be no question but that the Northern Rebellion was a religious war. As an attempt to restore the old order of things, or to put the Catholic party in a better position, the revolt of the northern earls was an utter failure ; but its effects i° did not soon pass away. There was deep discontent and horror : the " Mass Priests '' were among the sufferers, upon whom signal severity appears to have been exercised, and the lower orders were remorselessly butchered, but the gentry's lives were spared that their lands might be forfeited. A host of high-born paupers 15 were thus thrown upon the resources of their relatives and friends : discontent smouldered, but it did not die. While "the hanging business went on," and Sir George Bowes was "stringing them leisurely upon the trees in the towns and village greens," the Queen herself was being tried 20 in the Papal Court at Rome on certain grave charges affecting her right to retain possession of her kingdom and her crown. Twelve Englishmen, exiles for their religion, were examined as witnesses, and their depositions taken in due form. The court considered its verdict, and finally decided that the Queen was 25 guilty, and had incurred the canonical penalties of heresy. On the 25th February 1570 the sentence was pronounced, and the Bull of Pope Pius V., called " Regnans in Rxcelsis," was signed, and launched forth on its disastrous mission. On the 15th May, when quiet people rose in the morning to pursue their 30 ordinary duties, lo ! nailed to the door of the Bishop of London's Palace appeared a strange document — it was the Papal Bull declaring the Queen of England excommunicated, "deprived of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever," and her subjects not only absolved from all oath of allegiance, but forbidden to render to her any homage or obedience ! (2) THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 61 Only they who have little or no acquaintance with the conflict of sentiment and opinion raging in England during Elizabeth's reign, will commit the error of supposing that the Excommuni cation was an event of trifling importance. The truth is, it was the turning-point in the history of the Reformation. Hitherto 5 it had been possible for " good Catholics " to keep up some sort of conformity, and to bow in the house of Rimmon, in the hope of some turn in affairs ; now they were placed between two fires. The Excommunication was nothing less than a challenge thrown down by the Pope defying Protestant Europe IO to a conflict c\ Voutrance, which had for its object the absolute subjection of the intellects and consciences of mankind to the decrees of the Council of Trent (which had closed its sittings seven years before) ; a conflict in which all Europe should be forced to take one side or the other without hesitation or reserve, 1 5 on pain of forfeiting peace in this world and salvation in the next ; a conflict in which, while it lasted, all laws were to be abrogated, and even the ordinary conditions of warfare ignored ; a conflict in which mercy was to be forgotten till victory was sure, and neutrality to be reckoned criminal and dealt with as 20 treasonable. War was declared, and the struggle began. The Papacy, as has been said, hoped for the support of thegreat territorial lords, and of all who had more sympathy with the old order of things than with a present in which they were compelled to acquiesce 25 ao-ainst their wills. How little the Papal advisers knew of the temper of the people, — how profoundly ignorant they were of the social and intellectual revolution that had been going on in England, — how utterly they misunderstood the spirit of the age and misread the signs of the times, — the event sufficiently proved. 30 The landed interest had had its day; the townsman's turn had come ; he was for progress. What was the past to him ? He was ready to break with it root and branch ; his cry was ' Reform ; ' at any rate he was bent upon change ; he was still loyal to the name and person of the sovereign; as for the 62 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. nobles, his reverence for them had been for some time very much on the wane. Times had altered since the very name of Duke had inspired some little awe. There was but a single duke in England now, and yet Norwich cared as little for the 5 Duke of Norfolk as Exeter did for the Earl of Devon. Henry VIII. had shown the towns how little account need be taken of a peer of the realm, and how loosely his head clung to his shoulders. Even the spoliation of the monasteries had been a gain rather than a loss to the townsmen ; trade and commerce io could get on well enough without the religious orders. Men were richer, more self-reliant, more independent, and less inclined to submit to restraints, moral or religious ; as for any other restraints, say social and political ones, they did not yet see that these too must go some day ; nevertheless that day 15 was coming. Already, through many wide districts in England, and nowhere more than in the eastern counties, the town and country parties were in sharp antagonism ; the one did not know its strength, nor the other its weakness ; but the elements of dissension were slowly and ceaselessly fermenting through 20 every grade of society. Revolutions may be sudden and spas modic elsewhere : with us the nation is not roused to frenzy in an hour. When Charles I. set up his standard at Nottingham that crisis came, which a hundred years of discontent and exasperation on the one side, and wounded pride, disappointed 25 ambition, and a desperate clinging to shadows when the sub stance had perished, on the other, had been leading up to ; and the sword once drawn, the issue was not doubtful long. The first Act of Parliament passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was one " to restore to the Crown the ancient jurisdic- 30 tion over the estate ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers repugnant to the same." By the nineteenth clause of this Act it had been enacted that all ecclesiastical persons whatsoever, all civil servants of the Crown, all magis trates, and all taking any degree in the universities, should be required to swear allegiance to the Queen in a form of oath THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 63 which declared her to be supreme " as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal." It is hardly too much to say that on those two words •' spiritual things " the differences between the Catholic party and the government in England turned. Sir Thomas More Lad calmly laid his head 5 upon the block rather than bind himself by an oath less explicit and precise, and, at the accession of Elizabeth, there were not wanting many men of conscientious convictions who would have boldly faced the scaffold rather than acknowledge the claim of the spiritual supremacy of the sovereign. Granted that this 10 was taking offence at a word — yet, can we forget that some of the most momentous struggles that the world has ever known have been about a mere word which has grown to be the war- cry of millions ? Be it as it may, the oath in its new form became the cause of deep and widespread offence. A very 15 large proportion of the English gentry refused to swear allegi ance in the terms prescribed, and by their refusal forfeited at once any office or preferment they might happen to hold, and debarred themselves for the future from all positions of emolu ment and all distinctions conferring any social status. These 20 men were from this time known as the Recusants, or refusers of the oath, and the stigma and inconvenience attaching to the term began then first to be felt in its odious force. But the next Act of the same Parliament was one which touched the Catholics in a different way. The re-establishment 25 of the mass in Queen Mary's reign had caused immense joy throughout the land, and ever since the death of King Edward no other form of administration of the eucharist had been per mitted in the churches ; now it was enacted that the Book of Common Prayer alone should be used, and " to sing or say any 30 common or open prayer, or to minister any sacrament other wise . . . than is mentioned in the said book ... in any cathedral or parish church or chapel, or in any other place," subjected the offender to forfeiture of his goods, and on a repetition of his offence, to imprisonment for life. The mass 64 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. was felt to be, and known to be, the one great] and precious mystery which every devout Catholic clung to with unspeak able awe and fervour, and to rob him of that was to rob him of the one thing on which his religious life depended ; that gone, 5 it was imagined all else would go with it. But this was not all. It was bad enough for the Catholic gentry to be condemned to political extinction ; worse that they should be denied freedom of worship and the enjoyment of what was to them the highest Christian privilege ; but there io was yet another clause in this Act, which was even more galling and hateful than the others. The fourteenth clause enacted that any person not resorting to his parish church on Sundays and holydays was to forfeit twelvepence for every offence, the money to go to the poor of the parish ; the churchwardens were 15 bound to 'present ' offenders to the Ordinary, but as these had little to gain and much to lose by embroiling themselves with the Recusant squires, and where they did so, the fine could be paid without any great inconvenience, the Catholic gentry dur ing the first twelve years of the Queen's reign could afford to 20 hold aloof from the Church services without experiencing any great pressure, or suffering from much except the sense of vexa tion and annoyance. But when the Papal Bull was launched, things began to assume a more threatening aspect. A few weeks after the excommunication had been pronounced 25 Parliament assembled. One of the first Acts which it passed was one " against the bringing in or putting in execution bulls, writings, or instruments, and other superstitious things from the See of Rome." By this statute it was enacted (i.) that " if any person, after the 1st day of July next coming, shall use or put 30 in use in any place within the realm any bull, writing, or instrument . . . obtained or gotten . . . from the Bishop of Rome .... he shall suffer pains of death, and also lose and forfeit all his lands, tenements, and hereditaments, goods and chattels, as in cases of high treason." It may fairly be said that, under the circumstances, and considering the issues in- THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 65 volved and the dangers apprehended, the severity of this clause of the Act was at least morally justifiable. But there was another clause which affected the Catholics much more seriously. As a party they were now much divided upon the question whether or not they would or could accept the Bull of Excom- S munication ; if they had been let alone, the probability is that hatred of Spain and loyalty to England, feelings which were steadily on the increase, would have sooner or later done more than all these penal laws could effect ; but the statute did not stop at pronouncing the severest penalties upon those who 10 should assist in promulgating the Bull : it added that " if any person after the same 1st July shall take upon him to absolve or reconcile any person ... or if any shall willingly receive and take any such absolution or reconciliation" he should be subject to exactly the same penalties as in the former case. Further- 15 more, by the seventh clause of the statute it was enacted that "if any person . . . shall bring into the realm any tokens, crosses, pictures, beads, or such like vain superstitious things, from the Bishop or See of Rome . . . and shall deliver the same to any subject of the realm . . . then that person so doing 20 ... as well as every other person as shall receive the same . . . shall incur the penalties of the Statute of Praemunire." By virtue of this clause, any Catholic priest admitted to his orders on the other side of the Channel, and venturing to exer cise his functions in England, did so at the peril of his life ; and 25 whosoever dared to receive absolution at his hands incurred the same penalty, with forfeiture of all his worldly goods besides. As for the fine for not attending church, it remained as before, but the day was coming when the penalties imposed for this offence were to amount to the confiscation of the property of all 30 but the wealthiest proprietors. Rome had sown the wind, the whirlwind followed. On the 2d of June of the following year the Duke of Norfolk was beheaded at the Tower, — a flimsy dupe, whom more cunning conspirators had put forward as the leader of the Romish cause, • 66 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. and whose misfortune was that he had been born to a station to which in those rough times he was unequal. On the 22d of August, the Earl of Northumberland, whom the Scots had sold, suffered, at York, the tardy penalty of that Northern 5 Rebellion of which we have already heard. Two days after his execution the unparalleled enormity of the St. Bartholomew massacre occurred at Paris, and the tidings were not slow in crossing the Channel. The indignation of every generous heart blazed forth in flames of wrath, horror, and resentment; every io heart, that is, in which the moral sense had not become per verted by the insane infatuation which religious fanaticism en genders. From that day the Catholics in England began to have a hard time of it, though the worst had not come yet. For the present it would seem that the Queen's ministers proceeded iS with some moderation against the Romanising gentry, and I can not find that any general pressure was put upon the Recusants ; nor does it appear that the publication of the Papal Bull had had any great effect in adding to their number or confirming them in their resolution. (3) Nevertheless there was no inten- 20 tion of sparing those who, after time given for amendment, should still persist in siding with the Pope against the Queen. The Council, busied with the complications of Elizabeth's foreign policy and the matrimonial farces which were for ever bein« discussed, proposed, initiated, and dismissed, were content to 25 hang up the scourge that was ready at hand, and could be used at any moment if it were wanted : for the present it was not wanted, and while the burning indignation which the Bartholo mew horror had aroused was still hot, there was little to fear from the smouldering discontent and stubborn refusal " to keep 30 their church " by the country squires and some few perverse enthusiasts in the smaller towns. As though to deepen the impression which the Bartholomew massacre had produced, scarce four years after its occurrence came the horrible sack of Antwerp, and the frightful atrocities of Spanish ruffians in Belgium. (*) There was no need to exa°-- THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 67 gerate barbarities so revolting and inhuman, but the pulpit and the ballad-mongers, and subsequently the stage, severally turned them to account, the Pope being credited with his full share of the blame. While these events were succeeding one another so rapidly, and while the people at large were drawing their 5 inferences from them, the politicians could afford to wait and hold their hands. But that the Romanising gentry were not forgotten, and that a sharp eye was kept upon them, is plain enough from the following curious episode. In July 1578, the Queen started upon a " Progress." (5) Her 1° first intention was to receive the members of the University of Cambridge at Audley End, to proceed to Long Melford Hall in Suffolk, and to return by Cambridge, and thence through Hunts, Beds, and Bucks to Windsor. The plan was for some reason or other suddenly changed. On the 4th of August she slept at 15 Melford ; next morning she rode on to Lawshall Hall near Bury St. Edmund's, and thence to Hawstead. (6) On the 7th she was at Bury ; and on Sunday, the 10th, she was entertained at a house called Euston Hall, near Thetford, by a gentleman of the name of Edward Eookwood, who had but lately come of age, 20 and was newly married. (7) The house was of no great size, and confessedly unfit for the entertainment of the royal party. There were several far larger mansions in the neighbourhood, and yet Her Majesty was persuaded to visit it, for reasons which will be apparent presently. When the Queen took leavers Mr. Rookwood was admitted in the usual course to kiss Her Majesty's hand: no sooner had he done so than the Lord Chamberlain bade him stand aside, and in no measured terms charged him with being a recusant, who was unfit to be in the presence, much less touch the sacred person of his sovereign. 30 The unlucky man, quite unprepared for so sudden and unex pected an attack, appears to have made no reply ; and the scene ended by his being required to attend the Council under surveillance. When he reached Norwich, he was committed to the castle. 68 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. Four days after this incident the royal retinue crossed over into Norfolk; and on the 16th we find the Queen dining with the "Lady Style" at Braconash, about six miles from Norwich. (8) Lady Style was the " Lady Elizabeth Style " of 5 the Braconash parish register, who was at this time wife of Thomas Townshend, a man of large possessions in the county of Norfolk. (9) He appears to have kept considerable state at Braconash, and to have lived on a scale of baronial hospitality. But Mr. Townshend was under suspicion. A cousin of his, who io lived a few miles off, was actually a recusant, and was repeat edly fined for his offence; and though Thomas Townshend had himself conformed, his wife, " the Lady Style," had refused to do so. This time the Queen's host was spared, not so the guests. Nine of the neighbouring gentry, who presumably had 15 come to show their respect for their sovereign, but who hitherto had declined the oath from conscientious scruples, were forth with arrested, as Rookwood had been, dragged to Norwich, and were either sent to gaol or bound over under a bond of ^200 a piece to keep to their lodgings in Norwich until further 20 notice. (10) Nor was this all : from Braconash the cortege pushed on to Norwich. About a mile from the city it was met by a gentleman of the name of Downes, lord of the manor of Erlham, which was held under the crown by Petit Serjeantry or service of a cross-bow and a pair of spurs. Mr. Downes 25 presented the Queen with a pair of gold spurs, and in offering them addressed her in some English verses, which have been preserved. But he too was a recusant, and had not " kept his church." He was not more fortunate than the others : he was bidden to stand aside, and followed the Council into the city of 3° Norwich, where he was committed to gaol. (n) At Norwich the Queen lodged at the bishop's palace, and spent her time, as far as the bad weather would allow, in listen ing to absurd speeches and witnessing grotesque pageants ; but . on the 19th August (i.e., with the dog-days just ended) she suddenly resolved to go a hunting in the park of Cossey, five THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 69 miles from Norwich, which belonged to Mr. Henry Jernegan, ancestor of the present Lord Stafford. Cossey was at this time occupied by Lady Jernegan, widow of Sir Henry Jernegan, who had been one of the most active adherents of Queen Mary, and who had made himself very conspicuous in opposing the 5 abominable attempt to set aside Mary and Elizabeth as heirs to the crown at the death of Edward VI. In return for his loyalty he had received this very domain of Cossey at Queen Mary's hands. It would have been a little too bad, even in those times, for the widow of a man to whom Elizabeth herself 10 must have felt that she lay under deep obligations, to be in her old age molested and persecuted for her religious convictions ; nor, indeed was her son, who was now living at Wingfield Castle, interfered with for the present, though his time was coming ; and so when, three days after, the Council met and 15 made order for the committal to gaol of such of the Norfolk gentry as had not kept their church, and upon whom the hand of power had begun to press heavily, Mr. Jernegan's name was omitted, though his kinsman Mr. Bedingfeld's name figures on the list, and appears again and again hereafter. 20 These were the vexations which drove men mad, and irritated them when they were beginning to acquiesce in the inevitable. But the truth is, a detestable system had now begun to spring up, under which no one with any conscience or any religious scruples could hold himself safe for an hour. An army of 25 spies and common informers were prowling about the length and breadth of the land, living by their wits, and feeding partly upon the terrors of others and partly upon the letter of the law as laid down in the recent Acts — wretches who had every thing to gain by straining the penalties to the utmost, for they 30 claimed their share of the spoil. Armed with warrants from weak magistrates, who themselves were afraid of suspicion, or, failing these, armed with an order from the Privy Council, which was only too easily to be obtained, they sallied forth on their mission of treachery. They were nothing better than 70 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. bandits protected by the law, let loose upon that portion of the community which might be harried and robbed with impunity. In some cases the pursuivants, after arresting their victims and appropriating their money, were content to let them alone, and 5 save themselves further trouble; in others they kept them till a ransom might come from friends; in any case there was always the fun of half- scuttling a big house and living at free quarters during a search, and the chance of securing a handsome bribe in consideration of being left unmolested for io the future. (12) Chief among these miscreants, of whom we hear so much ten years after, was one Richard Topcliffe. He was of an old Lin colnshire family, son and heir of Robert Topcliffe of Somerly, by Margaret, daughter of Thomas Lord Borough. He married 1 5' Joan, daughter of Sir Edward Willoughby of Wollarton, co. Notts. He was born, according to his own account, some time in 1532, and early in life seems to have attached himself to the Court. The first notice I find of him is shortly after the col lapse of the Northern Rebellion, when he is a suitor for the lands 20 of old Richard Norton of Norton Conyers, co. York, who had made himself so conspicuous in Durham cathedral. Three years after this he appears to have been regularly in Burghley's pay, or at any rate employed by him, but in what capacity does not transpire ; and he comes out first in his character of scourge and 25 persecutor of Catholics during this same Norfolk Progress. (13) The cruelties of this monster during the next quarter of a century would fill a volume, and the expedients he resorted to to hunt down Recusants, Seminary Priests, and Jesuits would be absolutely incredible were it not that the evidence of even 30 his own admission is too strong to be controverted. In the case of poor Robert Southwell, it is certain that he seduced the daughter of one of his victims, and used her for playing upon her own father, in whose house Southwell was apprehended. (u) In November, 1594, he sued an accomplice of his own, Thomas Fitzherbert, in the Court of Chancery in a bond for £3000. THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 71 "For whereas Fitzherbert entered into bonds to give ^5000 unto Topcliffe, if he would persecute his father and uncle to death, together with Mr. Bassett. Fitzherbert pleaded that the condi tions were not fulfilled, because they died naturally, and Bassett was in prosperity. Bassett gave witness what treacherous de- 5 vices he had made to entrap him, and Coke, the Queen's Attor ney, gave testimony openly that he very well had proved how effectually Topcliffe had sought to inform him against them contrary to all equity and conscience." (1S) This was rather too disgraceful a business to be discussed in open court, and " the 10 matter was put over for secret hearing," when it would seem that Topcliffe, standing somewhat stiffly to his claim, lost his temper, and let fall some expressions which were supposed to reflect upon the Lord Keeper and some members of the Privy Council, whereupon he was committed to the Marshalsea for 15 contempt, and kept there for some months. While he was incarcerated, he addressed two letters to the Queen, which have been preserved, and two more detestable compositions it would be difficult to find. In one of them, dated "Good or evil Friday, 1595," he says, "... I have helpt more traitors [to 20 Tyburn] than all the noblemen and gentlemen of the court, your counsellors excepted. And now by this disgrace I am in fair way and made apt to adventure my life every night to murderers, for since I was committed, wine in Westminster hath been given for joy of that news. In all prisons rejoicings; 25 and it is like that the fresh dead bones of Father Southwell at Tyburn and Father Walpole at York, executed both since Shrove tide, will dance for joy ! " (16) The scoundrel was out of prison again and at his old tricks in October, the restless ferocity of the man never allowing his 30 persecuting mania to cease for an hour. The last time I meet with him is in 1 598, when one Jones, a Franciscan, was executed with the usual cruelties on the 12th July, having been hunted to his death by Topcliffe's means. (17) What became of him at last . it is not worth while to inquire, though it is the fate of such 72 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. monsters of iniquity that their names can hardly go down to oblivion. Even enormous crime insures a measure, if not of fame, yet of infamy. Qa) But besides and beyond the pressure exercised by those two 5 great levers for acting upon the Catholics, the oath of allegiance and the compulsory attendance at church, soon came another vexation. When, shortly after Elizabeth had come to the crown, the Roman ritual was put down, the bench of bishops displaced, and the oath of allegiance in its obnoxious form io was exacted of all who held office in Church or State, the same result had followed which followed when Mary began to reign ; there was a very serious exodus of the most learned and most conscientious of the clergy and of the most dis tinguished members of both universities. Of the deprived 15 bishops, all, except Scott, Bishop of Chichester, and Gold well of St. Asaph, who slipped away across the Channel, were suffered to remain unmolested, though under surveillance, and, as far as I know, absolutely unprovided for. Ten deans of English cathedrals and nearly fifty canons were 20 deprived. Fifteen heads of colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, driven out for the most part into banishment; a host of beneficed clergymen, whose number it is impossible to ascer tain; and some of the most learned scholars, professors, and fellows of colleges at both universities, bravely gave up their 25 emoluments rather than act against their consciences by taking an engagement which they were persuaded it was unlawful to be bound by. (19) In many cases these refugees had taken with them across the seas the sons of the discontented gentry, who accompanied them as their pupils ; and in not a few instances 30 the reputation of an exiled scholar attracted the children of parents who, though conforming, yet felt a deep dislike for the new regime, and an intense longing for a restoration of the old faith, to which in their hearts they clung so fondly. The exiles were not content with themselves being sufferers ; they were perpetually acting the part of proselytisers. By every THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 73 available opportunity letters of impassioned remonstrance and earnest warning were addressed to friends and relatives at home, calling upon those who still clung to their fatherland to renounce it and join their exiled brethren, describing in glow ing terms the blessedness and peace of such as had " left all 5 for the kingdom of heaven," and putting forward every con ceivable argument to bring over those who were hesitating to take the step which they felt to be irrevocable. (20) Prodigious force and point were added to these appeals, and a material guarantee was given of some hope of maintenance 10 for the exiles, by the foundation of Cardinal Allen's splendid college at Douay, which they who enter the town from the present railway station cannot fail to see, the immense build ings still existing being used to-day as a barrack for seven hundred men. Douay College was founded in 1568. During 15 the first two years its success seemed a matter of. uncertainty, but the reputation of the scholars who repaired thither and constituted the tuitional staff soon dispelled whatever doubt had existed, and the influence which it was likely to exercise in supplying England with priests strongly impregnated with 20 ultramontane sentiment, and animated by a genuine enthusiasm to " labour in the English vineyard," or to win for themselves the martyr's crown, began to be felt as a real danger which must be met by uncompromising and remorseless severity. The first victim was Cuthbert Mayne. He had been fellow of St. 25 John's College, Oxford, at the time that Campion was in residence there, and, yielding to the solicitations of his friends, had fled across the seas, and after going through a course of preparatory study at Douay, had returned to England. He took refuge with a gentleman in Cornwall, Francis Tregian by 30 name, a man of wealth and high birth, and continued with him for some time, ostensibly as steward. The spies were soon upon his track, and in the summer of 1577 he himself was apprehended, and, what was more to the purpose from the informer's point of view, Mr. Tregian was a ruined man, and 74 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. his estate forfeited. Cuthbert Mayne was hung, drawn, and quartered at Launceston on the 29th November, the proto- mart'yr of the English College of Douay, as he has since been reckoned and designated. But in that same year no less than 5 twenty-four priests were ordained at the college, and the next spring two of these " Seminarists " were executed at Tyburn ; John Nelson on the 3rd, and Thomas Sherwood on the 7th of February. (2l) By this time the English Government had begun to be 10 thoroughly alarmed. It was well known that the education of the country was in a very unsatisfactory state ; that not only was there a serious deficiency in the number of candidates for Holy Orders, but the character and ability of these candidates were very much below what was needed. Elizabeth had been 15 now twenty years upon the throne, but things had not much improved among the rank and file of the clergy. Cartwright again and again charges Archbishop Whitgift with the unde niable fact that " there be admitted into the ministry of the basest sort . . . such as suddenly are changed out of a serving- 20 man's coat into a minister's cloak, making for the most part the ministry their last refuge." (22) Some of the best of them were ignorant ranters, utterly unfit to cope with the trained dialecticians who were being reared so carefully beyond the seas ; and when the time for disputation came, as it did so 25 frequently, the fervent but uneducated Gospeller proved to his own astonishment no match at all for the gladiator of the seminaries, whose skill and success in such encounters con firmed him in his belief that the cause was good and the reasoning unanswerable which appeared, so far, to be easily 30 and triumphantly defensible. (23) If the clergy were ignorant and socially unpresentable, and so had little to teach, the condition of the schools was hardly more satisfactory. It is difficult to understand how the rising generation during the early years of Elizabeth's reign received any education at all. Up to the time of the dissolution of the monasteries there THE EXCOMMUNICA TION AND ITS RESULTS. 75 were not seventy schools in England unconnected with monastic institutions. How important a part these latter played in the education of the country is evident from the necessity which was acknowledged of making provision for the training of youth out of the suppressed abbeys; and in the 5 last twelve years of the reign of Henry VIII. no less than thirty-eight grammar-schools were founded, partly out of the abbey lands and partly by the munificence of private bene factors. In Edward VI.'s short reign the number was increased by fifty-one, of which twenty-seven claim the King as their 1° founder; seventeen more were established in the following reign ; and about eighty more were built and endowed during the first thirty years of Queen Elizabeth. (24) Thus the whole number of schools in England, even in the latter half of the Queen's reign, scarcely reached two hundred, 1 5 and these, with the Universities and the Inns of Court, repre sented the whole educational machinery of the country ; for as for the private schoolmaster, he was a person who in those days had scarcely any existence. No man might exercise the vocation of schoolmaster at all except he were duly licensed by 20 the bishop of the diocese in which he resided, and at any moment he was liable to be called to account for his opinions, political and theological. Meanwhile, considerable efforts were made from time to time to raise the standard of education at the schools, and extraordinary favour was shown to school- 2S masters in various ways. They were regarded as a privileged class, and their social status appears to have been higher as a rule than that of the beneficed clergy: they were exempted from the payment of taxes of all kinds, and from many burdens which pressed upon other members of the commonwealth, 3° and the favour shown to them on many occasions was con spicuous. (25) But there was no unanimity in the teaching of English schools; each one had his own tricks which he called his system, and each was only too ready to rush into print and publish some new primer or elementary book, 76 THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. whereby he hoped to get for himself notice, reward, or fame. The whole state of education in England was chaotic, and to this must be added the fact that there was a great deal of coarse brutality in the discipline. Ascham's beautiful " Schole 5 master " lets us into a great deal, and shows the interest that was taken in the subject of education among the upper classes in Elizabeth's reign ; but it shows us too that the good school masters were few and the tbooks bad, and the commonest feeling among schoolboys was " the butcherlie fear in making io Latines " which their pedagogues inspired of malice prepense. On the other hand, prodigious reforms had been wrought in education on the Continent. In Saxony, Wurtemburg — above all at Strasburg — normal schools had been established, whose reputation had spread over Europe. Their " directors " were 15 men not only of profound learning but of immense earnestness and enthusiasm, who contrived to animate their scholars with a thirst for knowledge and the higher culture which knew no bounds. In England, the pedagogues knew only one way of getting their pupils to learn anything, viz., by an unsparing use 20 of the rod. In Germany, this engine was almost banished from the schools which flourished so marvellously. There, too, the books were incomparably superior to our own : we were as yet in the barbaric stage. (26) Nor while the Protestant schools were gaining for themselves renown, were the Jesuits idle : it is in 25 the domain of education that the Society of Jesus has achieved its most solid triumphs. Little inclined as Lord Bacon was to look with favour upon the followers of Loyola, he yet has left us a generous testimony to the excellence of their schools and colleges. The organisation of these seminaries in the sixteenth 30 century was far in advance of anything known on our side of the Channel. Their school-books were confessedly far superior to our own, and their discipline was vigilant and protective beyond anything that had ever been known in England.(27) Though Cardinal Allen's colleges were not meant to be Jesuit colleges, and were as a rule under the government and direction THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 77 of secular clergy, yet they were, of course, organised after the most approved Jesuit model, and it was not long before they became deservedly celebrated for the quality of the instruction they imparted, and the high tone which their scholars exhibited. They were " gentlemanly " places of education ; a man could 5 hardly send a son to Douay or St. Omer if he were not a man of fortune. Moreover, he certainly would not send him there if he were satisfied with what he could find nearer home; every English lad who crossed the sea to get his education elsewhere was, by the very fact of his leaving the kingdom, 10 shown to be the son of a malcontent — of one who at best was not content with the education patronised, fostered, and sanc tioned by the Queen's ministers, and who almost certainly had strong leanings towards Roman doctrine, and favoured Rome^s claims. For a while no notice was taken of the new colleges. 15 No great difficulty seems to have been experienced by the gentry in getting licences for their children to travel abroad, and one after another they crossed over, usually in small com panies, and often under the care of a trusty tutor, who in many cases went in the disguise of a merchant or trader engaged in 20 commercial undertakings. But when Douay College began to assume more formidable proportions, and when from small beginnings it grew into an institution which aimed at supplying England with a regular succession of missionary clergy, every one of whom was bound to do his utmost to convert the 25 " heretics," and to bring them back to the bosom of the Catholic Church, then the existence of this Douay College became a standing menace, and to ignore it was no longer possible. The irritation of the government was extreme; the provocations offered by the Catholic exiles and their supporters abroad never 30 ceased ; and just when the Queen's ministers were most per plexed, the tidings came that the Society of Jesus was to enter upon a mission to England, and that Fathers Parsons and Campion had set out from Rome. NOTES TO CHAPTER III. (i) Page 59, line 32. Wright's Queen Elizabeth and her Times, i. 331. Froude's History of England, ix. c. 18. (2) Page 60, line 35. Lingard, vi. 1 10. The text of the BuU may be seen in Tierney's Dodd, vol. hi. Appendix, and a translation of it in Fuller's Church History, b. ix. cent, xvi, sect. U. § 24. (3) Page 66, line 19. This is the impression left upon my mind after much reading on the subject and much careful weighing of evidence, printed and in MS. Tierney's note in Dodd, vol. hi. p. 12, does not satisfy me, or in any way shake the conviction I have arrived at. But see Fuller's Church History, u.s ; Berington's Memoirs of Panzani, Int. p. 1 5 ; and especiaUy Simpson's Life of Campion, p. 62. (4) Page 66, line 35. See Mr. Simpson's valuable reprint, "A Larum for London, or the Siege of Antwerp,", with its wonderfully learned Introduc tion. It is surprising that this notable contribution to Shaksperian Uterature should have attracted such Uttle notice. (5) Page 67, line 10. See Nichols's Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol. U. p. 108-225. The dates given in the text are from the MS. Records of the Privy Council, to which I was allowed access in 1875. (6) Page 67, line 1 7. LawshaU was the seat of Henry Drury, second son of Sir William Drury, of Hawstead ; his elder brother Robert had died during his father's lifetime,' leaving, by Audrey, daughter of Richard Lord Rich, William Drury, his son and heir ; this William was Uving at Hawstead when Queen Elizabeth was on her progress. The Drurys were suspected, not without reason, of having no love for the ' new learning.' It is clear that Sir William Drury, who died in 1557, was a devout CathoUc. In his will, besides other bequests which indicate his leanings, he leaves a " vestiment with the Albe and all that belongeth to it, for a priest to shv in."— (CuUum's Hawstead, p. 149.) His son Henry had been returned as absent abroad, without a licence, in 1576, and must have lately come back to LawshaU when the Queen visited his house ; two of his daughters, Dorothy and Frances, were married respectively to Robert Rookwood of THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 79 Coldham Hall, co. Suffolk, and James Hubbard of Hailes Hall, co. Norfolk, and are frequently presented with their husbands as obstinate Recusants. John Drury of Godwick, co. Norfolk, another of the family, figures as a Recusant again and again. Cullum is certainly wrong in supposing that Sir William Drury, the younger, Uved at LawshaU ; he had just rebuilt Hawstead House. His uncle Henry is described as of LawshaU in the list of Suffolk Recusants as late as 1594. — Harl. MSS. 6998, No. 165. (7) Page 67, line 21. There were two famiUes of the name of Rookwood in Suffolk— (1) Rookwood of Staningfield, to which family belonged Ambrose Rook wood, who was hung for compUcity in the Gunpowder Plot. (2) Rookwood of Euston, whose representative, Edward Rookwood, was Queen Elizabeth's host. The two famiUes bore different arms, but both were staunch and devoted CathoUcs, and suffered severely during the whole of Elizabeth's reign. When James I.'s accession brought no alleviation to the CathoUcs, who had looked to him to reUeve them from the pressure of the penal laws, such men as Ambrose Rookwood grew desperate and were ready for anything. Edward Rookwood of Euston was utterly beggared by the exactions levied upon him, and I find him in the Fleet Prison for debt in 1619 ; how long he continued there I know not, but he died in 1634, EBt. 79. There is a very fair account of the Euston Rookwoods in Page's Supplement to the Suffolk Traveller, p. 775, and a very minute account of both famiUes in Davy's MSS. in the British Museum. The foUowing is extracted from TopcUffe's letter giving an account of this Royal Progress, and is too characteristic to be omitted here. TopcUffe's spelling is so original that I cannot but reproduce it. " This Rookewoode is a Papyste of kynde newly crept out of his layt wardeshipp. Her Maty, by some meanes I know not, was lodged at his house, Ewston, farre unmeet for her Highness, but fitter for the blacke garde ; nevertheles (the gentilman brought into her Maty'" presence by lyke device) her excell' Ma" gave to Rookewoode ordenary thanks for his badd house, and her fayre hand to kysse ; after w0" it was brayved at : But my Lo. Chamberlayn, noblye and gravely understandinge that Rookewoode was excommunicated for Papistrie, cawled him before him ; demanded of him how he durst presume to attempt her reall presence, he, unfytt to accompany any Chrystyan person ; forthewith sayd he was fytter for a payre of stocks ; comanded hym out of the Coort, and yet to attende her Counsell's pleasure ; and at Norwyche he was co- mytted. And, to dissyffer the gent, to the fuU ; a peyce of plaite being missed in the Coorte, and serched for in his hay house, in the hay rycke suche an immaydge of o' Lady was ther fownd, as for greatnes, for gayness, and woorkemanshipp, I did never see a matche ; and, after a sort of cuntree daunces ended, in her Ma"'' sighte the idoU was sett behinde the people, So NOTES TO CHAPTER III. who avoyeded : She rather seemed a beast, raysed uppon a sudden from hell by conjewringe, than the picture for whome it had bene so often and longe abused. Her Ma" comanded it to the fyer, wch in her sight by the cuntrie folks was quickly done, to her content, and unspeakable joy of every one but some one or two who had sucked of the idoll's poysoned mylke." (8) Page 68, line 4. She was the daughter of George Perient, Gent., of Digswell, co. Hertford, and widow of Sir Humphrey Style of Bekenham, co. Kent. Thomas Townshend, Esq., was son and heir of Sir Robert Townshend, Knt, Chief-Justice of Chester. Mergate Hall, where Queen EUzabeth dined, is stUl a house of some pretension, and part of the old oak avenue down which the Queen rode remains, though the hand of time is upon the trees, and they are dying fast. Captain Lacon, the present occupant of the house, teUs me that there is stUl a tradition of one of the rooms having been inhabited by a priest. There are some indications of the house having been at one time larger than it is now, but it was not necessary that a house in which the Queen dined should be one of any great size. It must be borne in mind that on the occasion of these " Pro gresses " the royal retinue were usually compeUed to encamp in the neigh bourhood of a halting-place. These royal visits were a dreadful infliction upon any but the very rich gentry : even so considerable a person as Sir WilUam More of Losely spared no pains to get relieved from the costly and burdensome honour, and in the Losely MSS., Kemp, p. 265 et seq., are several letters on the subject. Lady Style died in January 1580, but five years after her death I find her name on a list of recusants " dead and not resident in Norff." There was another Thomas Townshend Uving at Wearham, who with his wife, Marian Townshend, was presented to the bishop as a recusant in June 1597, and frequently afterwards. They were Uving at Wearham in the second year of James I. ; and his son [?] Thomas is returned as late as 20 Charles I., when he paid £6, 13s. 4d. for recusancy.— (MSS. in the Episcopal Registry at Norwich, and Recusant Roll, penes me.) The cousin referred to in the text was Edmund Townshend of Long Stratton. (9) Page 68, line 7. Blomefield's account of the Townshend family (vii. 132) is hopelessly confused and full of inaccuracies. He makes this Thomas to be son of a Henry Townshend (U. 84) ; he was really son and heir of Sir Robert Townshend of Ludlow, co. Salop. There is a good account of him, and a tolerably successful attempt to unravel Blomefield's tangle, by an American gentleman, Mr. Charles Hervey Townshend of New Haven, Connecticut, in the New England Historic Genealogical Register for January 1875. Some hght is thrown upon Mr. Townshend's state and lordly way of Ufe by the will of Richard Walpole (supra, p. 20, 1. 10), who in his will, dated 20th March 1568-9, leaves behind him a consider- THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 81 able estate, and among other legacies bequeaths "to my good master, Thomas Townshend, Esquire, in token of my poor heart and duty, a piece of gold of thirty shillings, and another piece of gold of lyke value to my good lady my mistress. Item, I give to master Roger Townshend my master his son ^10 to make him a Uttle chain withal in remembrance of me. . . . Item, To Thomas Barker my. fellow in household ten shUUngs." He leaves his brother, Terry Walpole, and Thomas Townshend, Esq., his executors. It is clear that he and Thomas Barker were gentlemen in waiting to Mr. Townshend. In the sixteenth century this position was looked upon as quite an honourable position for the younger sons even of men of distinction. (i o) Page 68, line 20. This daye there appeared before their LL as warned by the Sheriffe of Norff. by authority given to him by the said LL . . . [sic] Rookwood, Robert Downes, Humfrey Beningfield de Quidenham, gent , Robert de Grey de Martin, Esq., John Downes de Boughton, gent., John Drury de Goodwik', gent. And being sev'ally caUed one by one, the Bishoppe of the Diocesse and Sr Christopher Heydon and Sr WiUam Butts Knights being pfit they were particularly charged that contrary to all good Lawes and orders and against the dutie of good subjects they refused to come to the Churche at the tymes of prayer Sermons and other Devine s'vices. Ev'y one of them confessed y* it was true that they did absent themselves from the Churche as aforesaid. And being demaunded by their LL whither they wold not be contented to conforme themselves to order, and like good subjects to come to the Church ev'y one of them likewise refused so to do, uppon wch their refusall they were commanded to stand apart. And after their LL had thus passed throughe them aU and had conferred wth the B. to nnderstond howe many of them had ben formerly dealt withaU to be induced to conformitye and howe many not. There was called again . . . Roockwood and for as much as it appeared that he had not only bene conferred withal but for his continuance in ye case stood excommunicate, he was ordered by their LL to be committed prison to the Goale of the Countie of Norff. there to remayne wthout conference saving of such as shold be thought meet by the B. either for his better instructions or for direction of his necessary businesses of his Uving and famUy. Next there was called againe Rob't Downes, and for that it appeared that he had also been formly dealt wtbaU and stood obstinate, it was ordered that he shold be committed pison' to the Goale of the Citty of Norwich to remaine there in Uke sorte in all poynts as Rookwood was appoynted to remaine in the goale of the Countie. And where it appeared that Humfrey Beningfield, Rob't de Grey, John Downes, John Drury had not bene aforetyme dealt with by the B. in that case they foure being called altogether before their LL were ordered that they shold ev'y of them enter into bonds to her Ma"es use in 2oou a peece, that they shold not depart from their F 82 NOTES TO CHAPTER III. lodgings appoynted unto them in the Citty of Norwich and that they shold once ev'y day as often as they shalbe sent conferre wth the L. B. or such as he shall appoynt for their better Instructions to bring them to con- formitye. And like as their LL required the L. B. to use all good meanes that he might by himseUe and his learned Preachers to recov" them to good order. So by their LL he was authorized that in case he shold find any of them wUling to give him assurance for his obedience and conformitye in this case, that they were charged wth his L. shold give order for the deUVaunce of any such as shewed himseUe so conformable. And on the other syde if they w* were appoynted to remayne within the Cittye out of the Goales do not before the feast of St. MichaeU next coming yeld themselves upon such instruction as shalbe given unto them to conformitie and be contented to deUv' assurance to the B. for the same, His L. by this order shall have authoritie to committ them that shall stand so obstinate to th'one goale or th'other at his discretion" there to remaine in such mann as . . . RoocK- wood and Robert Downes are appoynted to do : untiU uppon their refor mation he shall find cause of their deliv'aunce, and he shaU thereof adver tise the LL of the Counsell to receave order for further proceading against them. The next daye foUowing there were called before their LL for the cause aforesaid Tho. Lovell of East Harling, Robert Lovell de Becham- well, and Ferdinando Paris de Norton Armig' Who standing uppon like obstinacye were in like sort committed to remayne at their lodginge in the Citty of Norwch as Bedingfield and the rest were, And the like bonds taken of them as of the otheres and to be used in all poyntes as th'other. The presence of The L. Treasurer The L. Chamberlaine The E. of Warwicke The E. of Leycester Sr Chr. Hatton Sr Fra. Knollys Sr James Crofte Mr Seer. Wilson \ I at the making of the said order. (Endorsed.) An order taken by the LL touching the Recusants in Norff. 22 August, 1578. Cotton MSS. Titus, B. hi. No. 66. (11) Page 68, line 30. Nichols' Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, ii. p. 132. It is not to be wondered at that Nichols should have made the mistake he has made in the Christian names of the Downes famhy ; trusting as he did to Blomefield, he could hardly avoid being led astray, for here Blomefield THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 83 exhibits inextricable confusion. Robert Downes was of Great Melton, Esq. By his wife Dorothy he had a son Edward, who was baptized 6th AprU 1574 (P. R.), and a daughter Bridget, who with her mother is returned upon the Recusant Rolls as owing money for recusancy in 1 597. This Robert appears to have had a brother John, who is presented for recusancy whue Uving at Babingley from 1592 till 1603. In his offer of compounding for his fines in 1585, he describes himself as " a poor younger brother." Robert Downes, who suffered such hard treatment in 1578, built Great Melton HaU, in which the Rev. H. Evans Lombe now resides (Blomefield, v. 21), and was a man of large property in the county. Blomefield says that his son Edward married Catherine, reUct of Sir Thos. Knyvett of Buckenham Castle. Lady Knyvett is pre sented for recusancy in 1597, being then described as wife of Edward Downes, Esq., of Buckenham, when she must have been a woman of forty at least. Melton Hall must have been in Queen EUzabeth's time one of the noblest mansions in the county, but its first owner was so impoverished by the remorseless exactions levied upon him that he was compeUed to sell the estate in 1609. It seems that the purchaser, Thos. Anguish, bought the house with all its contents, for there was still to be seen a bedstead of Mr. Downes' in the house in Blomefield's time (Bl, v. 21). Mr. Downes was in the city gaol at Norwich in 1580, where he was incarcerated with Micbtael Hare of Stow Bardolph, Roger Martin of Long Melford, co. Suffolk, Humphrey Bedingfield of Quidenham, and Edward Sulyard, Esqs. The five gentleman "had a common chamber and table, where they met and eat their meals together." Strype tells a very curious story of Mr. Downes' receiving a letter from a certain Solomon Eld red at Rome, urging him to leave England and come to Italy, where he would be received with distinction, &c. The gentlemen " could not but laugh, and it became some matter of mirth to them." They appear to have taken to romping, and at last Downes snatched the letter out of Mr. Hare's hand and threw it in the fire. " This presently made a noise, and the report came to the Bishop's ears." The affair ended by an inquiry which resulted in some letters and statements signed by the gentlemen being sent to the bishop, copies of which may be read in Strype, Annals, II. ii. 343 and 676. (12) Page 70, line 9. See the pitiful account in Morris's Condition, of Catholics under James I., pp. 35-39. See, too, Lingard, vi. 162 ; but instances might be adduced by the score. The third volume of Tierney's Dodd may be referred to as easUy accessible, but by far the most complete account of the suffering of the Catholics in Queen EUzabeth's reign, until the appearance of Mr. Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, was to be found in Yepez, Historia Particular de la Persecution de Inglaterra, pub lished at Madrid in 1 596. 84 NOTES TO CHAPTER III. (13) Page 70, line 24. See Froude, vol. ix. p. 515. The authority for the statements in the text are to be found among the MSS. at the Record Office, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. lxxv. n. 31, vol xcii. n. 31. (14) Page 70, line 32. The affidavits and correspondence bearing upon this dreadful business are to be seen in Harleian MSS. 6998, n. 19. A little while after this, Topcliffe compeUed his servant, one Nicholas Jones, to many the girl, and when her father refused to settle a manor upon her as a jointure, he kept the wretched man in prison for upwards of ten years, persecuting him with extreme barbarity. — Lansdowne MSS. lxxiii. art. 47. Tierney's Dodd, vol. in. App. p. 197. (15) Page 71, line 8. Stonyhurst MSS. Angl. A. n. 83. It appears by Harleian MSS. 6998, n. 50, that the bond was for .£3000. (16) Page 71, line 27. Harleian MSS. u.s. p. 185. The editor of the Harleian Catalogue, who usuaUy describes rninutely the contents of every document contained in the several volumes, dismisses this one with a notice of six lines, though, as he teUs us, " the book contains 251 leaves." (17) Page 71, line 33. ChaUoner's Missionary Priests, i. 361. (18) Page 72, line 2. TopcUffe's name became in his own days a bye- word. See the following letter from Standen to Anthony Bacon, 2d March 1593-4. "... Yet thanks be to God his [Robert, Earl of Essex] carriage hath been such now, as her Majesty hath found the rareness of his parts, and aU with such mildness and affability, contrary to our Top- cliffhan customs, as he hath won with words more than others would ever do with racks." — Birch's Elizabeth, i. 160. In a letter to Verstegan among the Bp. of Southwark's MSS. there is an account of the apprehension of South well. The writer says, " Because the often exercise of the rack in the Tower was so odious and so much spoken of of the people, Topcliffe hath authority to torment priests in his own house in such sort as he shaU think good." . . . The date of this letter is 3rd August 1592. (19) Page 72, line 27. There is a Ust of them given in Cardinal Allen's tract, De Justitia Britannica, but it is, of course, very incomplete. (20) Page 73, line 8. See Simpson's Campion, p. 45 et seq. (21) Page 74, line 8. Morris's Troubles, 1st series, p. 61 et seq.; Chal- loner's Miss. Priests; Lingard, vol. vi. 163. For the number of ordinations my authority is the Douai Diary, lately published by the Fathers of the Oratory. There is a careful account of the various coUeges and seminaries THE EXCOMMUNICATION AND ITS RESULTS. 85 which were founded for the -English CathoUcs in Tierney's Dodd,, and a brief but sufficient one in the Hon. Edward Petre's Notices of the English Colleges and Convents Established on the Continent. The book was edited by the late Dr. Husenbeth. See, too, Lingard, vi. 162. (22) Page 74, line 21. See the remarkable discussion between Arch bishop Whitgift and Cartwright. Answer to Admonition, chap i. div. ix. and div. xi. ; Whitgift's Works, Parker Society ; and the important paper quoted by Froude, xi. 323, n. Parsons (Responsio ad duo Edicta) treats this subject in his usual caustic fashion and with his usual power. Wldle this note was passing through the press, Harrison's Description of England was issued by the New Shakspere Society. His account of the clergy of his time is in their favour at page 3, but I am inclined to think that his own words at p. 2 1 represent a truer state of the case. (23) Page 74, line 30. Simpson's Campion, p. 163-4. (24) Page 75, line 13. Commissioners' Report upon the Endowed Schools, Chronological Tables, p. 36 et seq. On the other hand it is evident that when any of the older schools in out-of-the-way districts were possessed of landed estates, such estates were by no means safe from spoUation. A flagrant case is that of Sedbergh School. — Baker's History of St. John's, by Professor Mayor, p. 371. ft (25) Page 75, line 32. See the curious instance of Brown the Separatist, East Anglian, vol. i. p. 180 ; and on the whole subject, Strype, Annals, III. i. 76. Conspicuous examples of the favour shown to schoolmasters are Camden, Simon Hayward, and Mulcaster. Many others might be named. (26) Page 76, line 23. Von Raumer Geschichte der Pddagogik, Stuttgart, 1857. (27) Page 76, line 33. " The liberal education of youth passed almost entirely into their hands, and was conducted by them with conspicuous abihty. They appear to have discovered the precise point to which intel lectual culture can be carried without risk of inteUectual emancipation. Enmity itself was compelled to own that, in the art of managing and form ing the tender mind, they had no equals." — Macaulay, History of England, c. vi. There is a curious notice of their schools in Sir Edwin Sandys' Travels, but I have not the book at hand. The passage in Bacon referred to in the text is Advancement of Learning, B. I. c. iii. § 4. CHAPTER IV. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. " Not only the number, but the severity of these laws, is very consider able : How often do we meet with new-minted treasons, and unaccount able felonies in them ? Here is hanging, drawing, and quartering ; here is brideweUing, banishing, and selUng of people to slavery ; here is forfeiting of lands, goods, common right, and aU the natural privUeges of free-born Englishmen ; people convicted in an arbitrary way, without trial by their peers ; one man punished for the act of another. The poor distressed widow and the helpless orphan not escaping their fury. And for what aU this? Not for any disloyalty, conspiracy, or disturbing the pubUc peace : not for injuring any of our neighbours or feUow-subjects : for nothing criminal by any law, moral or divine ; but only for worshipping our Almighty Creator, according to our Ught, after the best manner we can (after a serious inquiry) apprehend to be acceptable unto Him. Or for not joining in certain rituals and ceremonies, which the imposers themselves confess to be indifferent, and the dissenters conceive to be either sinful or unwarrantable." — Henry Care's Draconica [1688]. ] HE Bull of Pope Paul III., Regimini militantis Fcclesice, which confirmed the Society of Jesus, was published on the 27th September 1540. So little did men anticipate the importance and magnitude of the work that the 5 new Order was destined to do, and the wonderful part which it was to play in the history of the world, that the new Society was expressly limited at first to sixty members, and not till a THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 87 new Bull (Injunctum nobis) was promulgated three years later was this limit exceeded. The Society in the first years of its activity numbered few Englishmen among its fathers, and the only one who appears to have been admitted during Loyola's lifetime was Thomas Lith, a Londoner, of whom we know no 5 more than that he was received, probably as a Novice, in June I555-C1) St. Ignatius died in the following year, having survived four of his original associates, and leaving behind him five (and these by far the most learned) apostles of the new Order. It was not 10 till after Queen Mary's death had driven across the Channel that army of scholars and enthusiasts, upon whom the rigour of Elizabeth's enactments pressed so hard, that the Jesuits' ranks were at all recruited from England. During the first ten years of the Catholic exodus I find between twenty and thirty 1 5 names admitted to the Society, though, with the exception of those of Eliseus and Jasper Heywood, there is scarcely one which is anything more than a name. (2) Though it be indis putable that the excommunication of the Queen, followed as it was by the events alluded to in the previous chapter, produced 20 upon the townsfolk and the great middle class precisely the contrary effect to that which was hoped and intended, yet among the Academics of either university, and among the more highly- educated of the youth of England, the perplexity was consider able. The young scholars of Oxford were still trained in a great 25 measure according to the old fashion. Anglican theology had as yet no existence. Hooker had not written a line. Andrewes was lecturing to crowded audiences' at Cambridge, but his fame was but beginning. Jewel, the great anti-papal champion, had died in 1571, leaving no one who was at all qualified to take 30 his place ; and- though he had left a valuable legacy behind him in his Apology, yet that work was only an apology after all, and from its negative character and the unimpassioned style of its composition it could never convince any one, still less "carry away" a reader. 88 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. Meanwhile the other side were exhibiting a dialectic ability which has rarely been surpassed. Young men, whose intellects were alert, excited, and eager, plunged into the great questions of the day with a zest which was apt to lead them on to side 5 with the persecuted party. The fact that the plebeian was given over to Calvin and Puritanism was reason enough to make the ' gentleman ' lean to the Romish cause. When he looked about for sources of information on the great questions at issue, he preferred to bury himself in the elaborate treatises of Laynez io or Salmeron, composed in the scholars' own language, or to read what Bristowe or that great master of Latin, Stapleton, (3) had to say in periods which did not jar against the fastidious Cice- ronian's ear. He left to the ' mob ' the cumbrous heaviness of Fulke and Cranmer. Then, as now, the members of the common 15 room were of the Pharisees' mind, — "this people that knoweth not the law are cursed." And thus it came to pass that not withstanding all the errors and crimes of the Catholic party at home and abroad, notwithstanding that every career was sternly barred to the ambitious Academic who had any fond clinging 20 to the old learning, and was not prepared to throw himself heart and soul into the party of progress and theological revolution, there yet was a very numerous minority whose sympathies were wholly with the Roman divines, and who were preparing them selves silently and unconsciously for great sacrifices when they 25 should be called on finally to make their choice. Such men were William Holt of Oriel, Henry Garnet and John Pitts of New College, and, among those elders whose university position was established and their reputation made, Gregory Martin and Edmund Campion of St. John's, and 30 Robert Parsons of Balliol. Any party that had won over from its opponents such adherents as these in the course of a year or two might be pardoned a Little exultation in its tone ; and however remarkable these converts were, and however con spicuous for learning, culture, and ability, they were but the representatives of a much larger band of zealots, who were THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 89 ready to follow wherever they led. Prominent among them all, not so much for his learning or eloquence as for a dauntless force of character, which compelled submission to his will, was Robert Parsons, fellow of Balliol. Of plebeian birth — calumny was loud in asserting something more — he was early 5 taken by the hand by his uncle, "a virtuous good priest," named James Hayward, Vicar of Nether Stowey, and sent to Balliol, of which college he became fellow, and eventually Bursar and Dean. At Oxford he had won a high reputation as an able and successful tutor, though in his own college there 10 were those who watched him with jealousy and suspicion. A formidable disputant, unsparing in conflict, and incapable of tolerating contradiction, he was one of those who are born to rule, who when they occupy any position but the highest become arrogant and domineering by their excess of energy; and who 15 rarely fail to get for themselves the implacable hatred of their opponents. The life of Robert Parsons has not yet been written : his career and character demand a more careful study than they have yet received, and the place which he filled in the history of his time has been very much under-estimated by historians ; 20 but his is a career perplexing to follow and a character difficult to estimate : the salient; points are his enormous capacity of work, his rugged directness of style, the ferocious violence of his rhetoric, and yet withal a certain vein of rollicking humour, the expression of that amazing exuberance of vigour which 25 marks him as one of the Titans of his age. Side by side with some coarseness in the grain, and no little vulgarity in the manner of the man, with a combativeness that repelled and irritated but never convinced, there were associated some very lofty and noble qualities. He was a courtier, whose success 3° was patent to all ; his ascendancy over Philip II. was unbounded ; his influence at Rome was scarcely less than at the Escurial ; the English Jesuits, for a time, he seems to have held in the hollow of his hand ; we shall mistake him much if we think of him as a mere man of the world, animated by any mean and 90- THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. common ambition. If there ever were a real enthusiast, absorbed by a genuine fanaticism in a cause which he believed to be the cause of God, Robert Parsons was one ; mere petty selfishness appears to have been a vice he could not understand. Nor was 5 this all : he was a pietist of the most ecstatic school. His Christian Directory was, for a century at least, one of the most popular and widely- circulated religious manuals in Europe, and was the book which made so deep an impression upon Richard Baxter that he dated the beginning of his religious life from the io time when he first became awakened by its fervid and soul- stirring appeal to the conscience. And yet, with all his prodigious force and vehemence, and with all the immense agencies which he had at his command, Parsons' generalship was flagrantly bad. Restlessly aggressive, he never seemed to be able to understand 1 5 what conciliation meant : he would have all or nothing ; he could never bide his time ; he could never temporise ; he could never even economise his resources. Knowing as he did that for a Jesuit father to land in England during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth's reign was to court almost certain death, he yet 20 hurled man after man against the hosts that were waiting for them, with a recklessness almost horrible to recall. We are tempted to regard him as a monomaniac, mastered by an idea which had got such entire possession of his whole nature, that his judgment was not only perverted but even smitten with the 25 blindness of insanity. What was that idea ? To me it seems Parsons' delusion was that the English Jesuits were destined to reconvert England, and to hand back to the Papacy a nation saved from " heresy," humbled by remorse, and seeking recon cilement once again on bended knees at the hands of the Bishop 30 of Rome. A delusion indeed ! but such a delusion as no logic of facts could dispel. Facts, however strong, were lost upon him, just because of the strength of that delusion. But let no man attempt to understand Parsons' enormous blunders, or his des perate ventures, or his extravagant arrogance, on the hypothesis of his being a cool politician, with far-sighted sagacity and astute THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 91 diplomacy, — these things were exactly what he was deficient in. Say rather he was a passionate partisan, without a glimmer of sentiment, without romance, with few moments of tenderness or pity, and absolutely deficient in those qualities which are the main constituents of the poetic temperament. Such cha- 5 racters may be Titanic, audacious, terrible, but nations and men are not converted by them ; and in the great conflict of opinions, in that "bridal dawn of thunder peals," when the deepest convictions of mankind are to be reached and swayed, the enthusiasm of mere obstinate determination repels and IO scares, it is the enthusiasm of love and self-sacrifice which prevails. (4) A very different man was Edmund Campion of St. John's. He, too, could boast but little of his birth. His father, we are told, was a bookseller and citizen of London, a man of no large 15 means, though there is some reason to believe he was con nected by marriage with people who moved in a higher social circle than his own. He had given early promise of remarkable ability, was sent to Oxford, and became in process of time fellow of St. John's College. Here he gained for himself the 20 character of being the most brilliant scholar in the university — conspicuous for his extraordinary readiness in debate, and for oratorical powers of a very high order. When Amy Robsart's funeral was celebrated at St. Mary's in 1560, Campion, though little more than twenty years of age, was one of those chosen to 25 pronounce a funeral oration in her honour ; five years later he performed the same task at the funeral of Sir Thomas White, the founder of his college, and when in 1566 Queen Eliza beth paid her visit to Oxford, Campion was one of those chosen to ' dispute ' before the Queen, and acquitted himself so iQ well that he made a very favourable impression, and attracted the special notice of Her Majesty, who commended him to the patronage of Leicester, while even Cecil admired and applauded. He was Proctor in 1568, but by this time his position at the university had become untenable. The oath of allegiance was 92 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. pressed upon him ; he took it, but his conscience would not suffer him to be at ease. Scruples crowded upon him till he could find no peace. Under the protection of Sir Henry Sidney, the Lord-Deputy, he crossed over to Ireland ; but he 5 was a marked man. The pursuivants were soon let loose upon him. He managed to elude their vigilance, and after one or two narrow escapes, he succeeded in crossing over to Calais, in the summer of 1571. Making his way to Douay, he remained for a year at the new college, and then set out for Rome. Next 10 year he offered himself to the Society of Jesus, and was at once accepted. For the next four years his sphere of labour was in Bohemia. It had been for some time a scheme of the Court party in Bohemia to revive the waning glory of the University of 15 Prague, and by its instrumentality, through the Jesuits, to recover for the Pope the ascendancy which had been lost since the days of Huss and Jerome. The emperor, Rudolph II., and his mother the dowager empress, sister .of Philip II. and mother of his fourth wife, were deeply interested in the success of the 20 plan, and spared no pains to bring it about. Campion was appointed Professor of Rhetoric, and became the leading spirit of the university. He threw himself with ardour into his work, and won for himself on all sides admiration, affection, and esteem. The university prospered, and the fame of the 25 English professor grew and travelled far. Young Englishmen on their journeys turned from the beaten track to confer with the exile, whose reputation had followed him from Oxford to the distant land. Some came with minds disturbed by doubts and questionings ; some from mere curiosity ; one, Sir Philip 30 Sidney, the pearl of English chivalry, to renew an old acquain tance, and to exchange kind courtesies with his father's friend. But Bohemia was, after all, a banishment, and Campion could not be left to spend his life there, though in the sunshine of a court. This was mere trifling : there was something greater for him to do ; let scholars and students teach the lads in the lecture- THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 93 room, the martyr's crown was meant for other brows. In December 1579, Campion was summoned to Rome. In the summer of that year Dr. Allen had been disturbed by tidings regarding the state of affairs in the English College at Rome, which moved him to set out for that city. In the 5 College there had been serious quarrels, and the scandal which these had aroused had been made the most of by all who watched the doings of the refugees with jealousy and suspicion. Dr. Allen came as a peacemaker, and his mediation was effec tual, at any rate for a while ; but while engaged in this work, 10 the thought which had long been slumbering in his mind acquired a distinctness and power which no longer allowed of its remaining inoperative, and he arrived at last at the convic tion that the time had come when an effort should be made, and made upon a large scale, for recovering the English people 1 5 from their lapse into heresy and schism, and bringing them once again into communion with the See of Rome. Hitherto, as I have said, the Jesuits were unknown in England. From the Continent accounts had come of their immense success as educational reformers, as indefatigable 20 missionaries, as proselytisers whose persuasive powers were said to be almost more than human. They seemed to be labouring everywhere, and wherever they came they prospered unaccountably. The amazing rapidity of growth, and the more amazing influence exercised by the Society, startled and 25 perplexed men least inclined to be scared by vague rumours ; and all over Europe the Protestant reformers began to ask themselves with some anxiety where this astonishing ascendancy of the new Order was to end. When Dr. Allen arrived in Rome in 1579, three of St. 30 Ignatius' original associates were still living — Simon Rodriguez, who died at Lisbon in the August of this year; Alphonsus Salmeron, then about sixty-four years old ; and Nicholas Boba- dilla, ten years his senior; the General of the Order being , Everard Mercurianus, who had been elected on the 1st October 94 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 1572. Campion had been his first "Postulant," and he appears to have felt a special interest in English affairs. When Dr. Allen began to urge the necessity of a mission to England, he did not lack supporters nor cogent arguments. ' Had not the 5 priests of his own seminaries shown a noble example of heroism and courageous self-sacrifice ? Could they not already boast of their martyrs ? Had not Cuthbert Maine obtained for himself the crown that fadeth not away, and were there not multitudes who were ready to follow his steps ? What had the Jesuits io done for England that could compare with the labours of the Seminarists ? They had written enough ; let them practise as they preached.' But wilier counsellors took a different view of the situation: they doubted whether the Jesuit training was exactly the best to prepare men for the rough work which the 1 5 more fanatical Seminary priests were doing, on the whole, so successfully. They hesitated to send away men of high culture and great gifts to run the gauntlet of spies and informers, to slink into hiding-places and assume disguises, to resort to every kind of cunning trick for baffling the vigilance of coarse and 20 brutal detectives. If the Seminarists did not shrink from these things, it did not follow that the Jesuits were called upon to emulate them. The Church could not afford to squander such precious material in times like these, and the experiment was too hazardous to justify the cost of the venture. But the 25 counsels of Dr. Allen and his supporters prevailed, and before the spring of 1580, Pope Gregory XIII. had been induced to sanction the new crusade. It was decided that the Society of Jesus should take its part in a mission to England. This is not the place to enter minutely into the history of the 30 strange expedition which started from Eome on the 18 th April 1580; and the less needful as it has been told once for all by Campion's English biographer. The whole company numbered, it seems, fourteen, and at its starting was led by Bishop Goldwell of St. Asaph, Laurence Vaux, the Prior of Manchester, Dr. Morton, Penitentiary of St. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 95 Peter's, and four old priests from the English Hospital at Rome. These, however, never crossed the Channel. It was soon found that men far advanced in life, though they might give a certain dignity and importance to the expedition, were not fitted for the labours and dangers which had to be encoun- 5 tered ; and the real " missioners " were the Jesuit fathers and the younger priests from Cardinal Allen's colleges, who were associated with them as fellow-workers. From the first Father Parsons was the manager and moving spirit of the little band. Of commanding stature and big of IO bone, never losing his presence of mind, ready of speech, and perfectly fearless, always cheerful and fertile in resource, he proved himself on every occasion an able leader, whom others might trust without hesitation and follow without misgiving. (6) Campinn was the preacher and pietist, whose place was in the 1 5 pulpit or the professor's chair. With the two Jesuit priests there went a Jesuit lay brother, Ralph Emerson, afterwards apprehended with Father Weston, (6) who suffered an imprison ment of twenty years for his companionship. Their departure from Rome was celebrated with no little enthusiasm, and, 20 though professedly secret, the mission was actually heralded by rumour all over Europe, and their every movement was watched by English spies. They marched on foot, only the old and feeble using horses; and on the whole journey we hear that Campion rode but once. They passed through Bologna, Milan, 25 Turin; crossed the Alps in July by the Mont Cenis, and at Geneva first adopted disguises. But their appearance was too remarkable to escape notice, and once they were in some danger from a cry arising in the streets that they were monks or priests. The temptation to beard Beza in his study was too 30 great, and thither Parsons went, and Campion as his servant. The details of the interview are exceedingly interesting— how he admitted them with reluctance — how he came forth at last " in his long black gown and round cap, with ruffs about his neck, and his fair long beard, and saluted them courteously" — 96 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. how they tried to drag him into an argument which he declined to continue, ' for he was busy ' — and how at last the old man with difficulty got rid of them, and bowed them out by the help of his wife. But the lust of controversy was strong among them, 5 and with a somewhat Quixotic zeal Parsons and Campion sent poor Beza a challenge to a public disputation which never came off, for the challenge was never delivered. The little band arrived at St. Omer's in the beginning of June, and here they learnt that the Queen of England had parti- 10 cular information of their movements, and had issued proclama tions especially directed against them and their plans. This and other serious news made them hesitate for awhile; but Parsons was not to be turned back, and by some dexterous diplomacy he managed to reassure the rest, and to bear down 15 the opposition that was being made to any advance. Bishop Goldwell, who was verging on eighty years of age, though animated with all the zeal and a great deal of the energy of youth, found on arriving at Rheims that it would be madness for him to continue the journey. His health had suffered 20 already from the fatigues of the last two months, and after addressing a letter to the Pope, and stating that in view of his intended journey to England being well known to the govern ment, it would be difficult and dangerous for him to land, but yet if the Pope ordered him he was still prepared to go, he 25 relinquished the attempt, and in the beginning of August re turned to Rome. (7) At Eheims the company separated into five smaller bands, each intending to enter England by a different port. There, too, another Jesuit father, Thomas Cottam, joined them, so that there were three Jesuit fathers 30 and one lay brother in all. Arrived at Calais, Parsons as usual took the lead, and on the 1 ith June he crossed over to Dover, disguised as a soldier from the Low Countries, his ready audacity carrying him almost un challenged through the searchers who were actually on the look out for him and his friends. Campion did not cross till the THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 97 24th. He was disguised as a merchant of jewels, and Emerson passed as his servant. Less fortunate than Parsons, he was stopped, brought before the Mayor of Dover, and narrowly escaped being sent up to the Lords of the Council; but the Mayor released him, and he arrived safely at last at the house 5 of the Catholic Club in Chancery Lane, on the 26th June 1580. Then began such an outburst of Catholic fervour as England had not known for many a day. The researches of Mr. Simpson have disclosed to us the fact that, some time before the arrival of Parsons and his coadjutors, a large and carefully-organised 10 society had been formed, with the special object of co-operating with the missionary priests, and furnishing them the means of carrying on their work. A number of young men of property, all of them belonging to the upper classes, and some of them possessed of great wealth, ¦ banded themselves together to 1 5 devote their time and substance to the Catholic cause, and to act as guides, protectors, and supporters of the priests who were coming to " reduce " England. We know the names of some of these young men, but it is quite certain that we know only a few ; it is evident that Catholic sympathisers were very much 20 more numerous than has been generally believed. Wherever Campion went he found an eager audience. Five days after his landing he preached in a house in Smithfield, which had been hired by Lord Paget, "gentlemen of worship and honour" standing at the doors and guarding the approaches. The effect 25 of the sermon was very great, the audience breaking forth into tears and expressions of strong emotion. Sanguine people be^an to believe that their fondest dreams would be realised, and they talked wildly and foolishly. The Queen's Council were kept informed of all that was going on ; but so powerful was 3° the combination of the " Comforters," as they were called, that though the spies and informers did their work sedulously, it was necessary to proceed with caution, and not precipitate a crisis. Campion continued to lurk about London and the neighbourhood for some time ; his movements were watched, 98 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. but for the present it seemed unadvisable to attempt his appre hension. At the end of August he was persuaded to write his famous Challenge. It was intrusted to a Hampshire gentleman of large means, Pound by name, who at one time had been a 5 courtier, but, being strongly impressed by his religious convic tions, had retired from the world, and given himself up to the exercises of devotion. He had been thrown into prison more than once for his recusancy, and apparently, whilst in the Mar- shalsea in 1 5 78, had applied to be admitted into the Society of 10 Jesus. But Pound was an impulsive person, and very soon this paper of Campion's became as widely circulated as a royal pro clamation. Meanwhile Campion had left London, and was wandering about the country, handed from house to house by the agency of the Catholic Club, and carefully watched over 15 lest the pursuivants should come upon him unawares. The myrmidons of the law were outwitted and baffled, the Lords of the Council became irritated and angry ; proclamation followed proclamation, but months passed, and Parsons and Campion were still at large. The Catholics set up a printing press, and pub- 20 lished one book after another, the Government tried their utmost to lay their hands upon it, but in vain. At last the rack was resorted to, and seven of those who at various times had been apprehended during the Jesuits' campaign were cruelly tortured in the last month of 1580, but marvellously little was extorted 25 from them ; even one of the printers was apprehended, but the press was still undiscovered. Campion continued his labours, preaching and writing incessantly, Parsons remaining in London under the protection of the Spanish ambassador, who treated him as one of his own retinue. But Campion's time came at 30 last, and on Sunday, the 16th July 1581, he was taken at Lyford in Oxfordshire, just after he had preached to a congre gation of more than sixty persons, of whom a large proportion were young Oxford students. On the 22nd he was committed close prisoner to the Tower : a week after he was placed upon the rack, to force him if possible to criminate himself, and under THE JESUIT MISSION TO EA GLAND. 99 the intolerable torture he appears to have given up the names of some of those who had befriended him. The information was not sufficient or not satisfactory, and as soon as he could bear it he was racked again. Then followed certain " contro versies," which were held in the chapel of the Tower; the Jesuit 5 father, worn with agony and all the miserable adjuncts of his imprisonment, being called upon to defend himself against all comers. To the wonder of those who flocked to see him — for the controversies were held in public — this Jesuit priest, spite of all he had gone through, comported himself with dignity and 10 courage, and was quite able to hold his own. The tide of popular feeling seemed likely to turn in his favour, for the people hated the torture-chamber, and they always love the man who stands up boldly for himself against odds. The patterers began to sing about the streets doggerels which made 1 5 Campion a hero, and the controversies were abruptly stopped. For another month after this he was kept close prisoner in his cell ; then another order came that he was to be racked for the third time. When, three weeks after this, he was put upon his trial, he had not sufficiently recovered from the effects of his 2° torture to lift his hand at the bar. Of course he was condemned to die. On the 1st December 1581 he was executed at Tyburn, little more than seventeen months after he had landed at Dover. Whoever will may read in Mr. Simpson's work the hideous details of that last tragic scene, — the dreary rainy morning, the 25 motley procession, the dragging of the wretched victims — for there were three of them — through the deep mire of the London streets, the hanging and the cutting down, and the ghastly mutilation that followed; the plunging of the executioner's knife into the quivering bodies, the flinging of the bleeding members 30 into the cauldron that stood by, so that the blood was splashed into the faces of the crowd that pressed round. Among those who stood nearest to the executioner were many who had been deeply moved by Campion's preaching, and had ioo THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. ministered to his wants in various ways ; for Campion was one of those who, animated by a real enthusiasm themselves, are sure to kindle a fire in the hearts of the young and ardent. A man's personal influence depends but little upon the goodness 5 of his cause. It was over young men, above all, that Campion's career exercised an irresistible fascination. His life appeared to them a life of heroic self-sacrifice — his death, a glorious martyrdom. When they stood beside his scaffold and witnessed all the horrors of that barbarous butchery, they could not but 10 be deeply moved. It was a scene to make the most callous shudder ; but in those who sympathised with the sufferers it must have aroused a tumult of anger, grief, and passionate revolt, under the force of which it was hard to follow the dictates of prudence. Foremost among that throng who pressed 15 nearer and nearer to catch the martyr's last words, or if possible to obtain some relic of him to keep as a peculiar treasure, was young Henry Walpole, whom we heard of last as having gone up to Gray's Inn about a year before Campion's arrival. Of his life in London we know little or nothing, but we do know that 20 Gray's Inn was at this time a favourite haunt of all who were " Catholicly " inclined — that he was a member of that Society which has been referred to is highly probable— that his leanings were all in favour of the mission is certain. When the execu tioner had finished his bloody work and flung Campion's quarters 25 into the cauldron that was simmering hard by, the blood spurted out upon Henry Walpole, and bespattered his garment. The beating heart of the young enthusiast throbbed with a new emotion ; every impulse of indignation and horror stirred within him ; and it seemed that there had come to him a call from 30 Heaven to take up the work which had been so cruelly cut short, and to follow that path which Campion had trodden. From that moment his course was determined on, and from that day he resolved to devote himself to the cause for which Edmund Campion had died. (8) The crowd dispersed, and each man went to his home. Henry THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 101 Walpole returned to his chambers : his excited feelings would not let him remain idle nor silent ; and violently agitated as he was, he sought relief for his emotion by pouring out his thoughts in verse. Not many days after there was handed about in manuscript " An Epitaph of the Life and Death of 5 the most famous Clerk and virtuous Priest, Edmund Campion, a Eeverend Father of the meek society of the blessed name of Jesus." It is a poem of thirty stanzas, by no means lacking in sweetness and delicacy of feeling ; and in the temper of men's minds at the time of its composition, was calculated to produce io a profound sensation.'(9) Copies could not be multiplied fast enough for the demand, and at last it was privately printed by one Vallenger, together with some other poetical effusions on the same subject. Vallenger was soon called to account for his audacity, he was censured in the Star Chamber, and condemned 15 to lose his ears and pay a fine of ,£100, but he did not give up the author's name, and bravely suffered alone. (10) But though Vallenger kept his secret with unusual courage, it was not long before whispers went abroad that the true author of the poem was Henry Walpole, who forthwith became 20 an object of suspicion : he had been notoriously at Cambridge an associate with the Eomanist malcontents ; he had taken no degree; the oath of allegiance he had declined to be bound by; at Gray's Inn he had already become famous by his uncom promising habit of standing up for his own opinions, and had the 25 character of being a far better theologian than lawyer ; at the disputations between Campion and the English divines in the Tower he had been a constant attendant ; he had been present at his trial in Westminster Hall, and had stood by his side at the execution ; (n) he had taken no pains to conceal his sentiments, 30 and rather appears to have exhibited something like a spirit of bravado. His biographers assert that he had made himself obnoxious by " converting " more than twenty young men who were his associates, and that his activity as a proselytiser drew upon him at last the notice of the Council ; it is certain that 102 THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. his cousin, Edward Walpole of Houghton, was powerfully influ enced by him, and induced to refuse the oath of allegiance, and certain, too, that this circumstance had something to do with his finding it necessary to go away from London, where a 5 warrant was out against him ; even the precincts of Gray's Inn would soon become unsafe, and he rode off to his Norfolk home to escape the pursuivants. But there was a danger that by remaining in his native county he should compromise his rela tions, and after some delays he managed to get a passage on io board a vessel sailing for France. (l2) Where he landed is unknown, but he passed through Eouen, stayed some time in Paris, arrived at Eheims on the 7th July 1582, and enrolled himself among the students of Theology. Here he remained for nine or ten months, and then set out for Eome. He was 15 received as a student into the English college on the 28th April 1583, and in the October of that year was admitted to minor orders. In the following January he left the English college and offered himself to the Society of Jesus. On the 2nd February 1584 he was admitted among the Probationers. 20 After little more than a year his health broke down ; change of air and climate was necessary, and he was sent to France and completed his two years of probation at Verdun. The next two years and a half he spent at Pont a Mousson, during which time he was " Prefect of the Convictors." At last he received a 25 summons to proceed to Belgium, and by order of the General of the Society he was ordained Priest at Paris on the 17th December 1588. (13) From this time till his death we can follow his movements pretty closely; but for the present we must leave him, and turn our attention to other scenes than 30 those in which he personally took part. NOTES TO CHAPTEE IV. (i) Page 87, line 7. Oliver's Collections, sub voc. (2) Page 87, line 18. The brothers Eliseus (or Elisha) and Jasper Heywood were the sons of John Heywood the epigrammatist, who, after enjoying the patronage and favour of Sir Thomas More during the reign of Henry VIII., was "much valued" by his daughter, Queen Mary, and appears to have been admitted to her presence even during her last illness. On the accession of EUzabeth he joined the " Catholic exodus," and died in banishment at MaUnes in 1565. Of his two sons, Eliseus the elder was elected a FeUow of All Souls in 1 547, but quitting England with his father, he spent some years in traveUing, and finally joined the Society of Jesus in 1574. Jasper, the younger brother, was a far more considerable personage. He, too, was FeUow of All Souls, and was still a Fellow of the college in 1560, when he published a translation of the Thyestes of Seneca in small 8vo, which is now extremely rare. In the foUowing year he left England, and entered the Society on the 21st May 1562. He became eventually a prominent person among the Jesuits in England, and for a while was even Superior, having been sent over in 1581, shortly after Campion's death. He was apprehended in 1583, and thrown into the Clink, and from thence sent to the Tower, where he was kept tiU January 1584-5, when he was banished. WhUe in the Tower " he was permitted to receive visits from his sister, who was able to bestow upon him some care and nursing." This sister was Elizabeth, mother of John Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, whom Ben Jonson calls " a noted Jesuit." Jasper Heywood was celebrated for his proficiency in Hebrew and for his learning generally. See Wood, Ath. Oxon. ; The Athenmum, No. 2508, p. 673 ; Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, second series, pp. 34, 68, &c. (3) Page 88, line 11. BeUarmine was one of Stapleton's scholars when he was professor of Divinity at Louvain. (4) Page 91, line 11. For an account of Parsons see Wood's Ath. Oxon., by Bhss ; OUver's Collections ; De Backer, Bibliothe'que des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de JSsus, iii. 564. For Campion, see the exhaustive Life of hhn published by the late Mr. Richard Simpson. Williams & Norgate., 1867. 104 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. (5) Page 95, line 14. Among the Yelverton MSS. in the possession of Lord Calthorpe there is one which is of peculiar interest for the student of the history of the Jesuit mission. It is in vol. xxxUii., and is entitled " A generall discourse of the popes hoUnes and preists with thre deuices for ye maintenance of ther religion."' It is written in a very minute hand and with great care, by one who evidently had gone to Rome and spent several months there, with the object of making money by giving valuable intelli gence to the EngUsh government on his return. It is probably the most complete and elaborate account of the persons and habits of the EngUsh exiles in existence, and well deserves to be printed. The names, addresses, antecedents, and description of no less than 295 Englishmen are given, who were Uving in banishment in 1581. The spy describes minutely the appear ance and habits of all the members of the Mission, except Campion, who, because he had but very lately come to Rome, he appears never to have seen. His account of Parsons is as follows : " Robarte Persones, preste and Jesuite penitencer for the nacione, some tymes a studient of Phisicke, and at the findinge of [obliterated] about 40 yeres of adge, taUe and bige of statur, full faced and smooth of countenance, his beard thicke of an abrome [sic] coUore and cute shorte." The fellow arrived at Rome 5th July 1579, and lodged at the house of Solomon Aldred [see above, p. 83, n. 1 1], and thence removed to the English College, where he was received with confidence, and treated with kindness and hospitaUty. He stayed at Rome tUl the foUowing year, and he tells us that " the 17th May 1 580, Tuesday, I arrived at London in the morning, and after noon came to the court, where by means of Mr. Frauch [sic] Myles I came to the speach of Mr. Secretary Walsingham his hor." There is a glorious portrait of Parsons in the third volume of Hazart, Kerchelycke Historie van de Geheele Wereldt. Fol. Antwerp, 1669. The book is common enough without the portraits (which give it its value), but very rare in its complete form. Dr. BUss had never seen this portrait, and I am indebted to Father Remy de Buck for procuring for me the copy of Hazart in which it occurs. In the same volume is a magnifi cently engraved portrait of Sir Thomas More and a scarcely less brilliant one of Campion. I take this opportunity of expressing my obhgations to Lord Calthorpe for his great kindness and hospitality when allowing me to have access to his precious MSS. in January 1876. (6) Page 95, line 18. The apprehension of Emerson is one of the many exciting incidents in Mr. Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 2nd series, p. 40. (7) Page 96, line 26. The particulars regarding Bishop Goldwell have come to light only very recently. My authority is Mr. Maziere Brady's work, The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland, and Ireland, A.D. 1400 to 1875. 2 vols. 8vo. B.ome, 1876. Mr. Brady refers for a great deal of his information to The Month for January and February 1876. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 105 (8) Page 100, line 34. From a MS. in the Burgundinn Library at Brussels (No. 4554) it appears that Heniy Walpole himself gave the account in the text of his presence at Campion's execution, and of its profound effect upon him, to Father Ignatius BasseUer, shortly after its occurrence. Cresswell, whose Histoire de la Vie et ferme Constance du Pire Henry Walpole was written eight months after he suffered at York, had not apparently heard the story of Campion's blood spurting out upon him ; but he and Yepez mention the fact of his being present at Campion's death and at the confer ences in Westminster Hall. BartoU (DeW Istoria della Campagnia di Giesu VInghilterra, 4to, 1676, p. 411) refers to the story ; Morus does not (Hist. Prov: Angl., p. 202). For those who have access to Holinshed's Chronicle, it wiU repay them to read his account of Campion's execution. It is valuable as showing the very great excitement that that event occasioned. As to the manner in which the story is related in Holinshed, Hallam says, " The trials and deaths of Campion and his associates are told in the Continuation of Holinshed with a savageness and bigotry which I am very sure no scribe for the Inquisition could have surpassed. . . . See particularly p. 448, for the insulting manner in which this writer describes the pious fortitude of these butchered ecclesiastics." — Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 146, n. i. p. 3, tenth edition, post 8vo. (9) Page 101, line 11. The only contemporary copy of the poem which is beUeved to be in existence is now in the Bodleian Library, from which the foUowing transcript has been made. I believe it has never yet been printed in fuU, though Dr. OUver mentions the fact of four "sonnets" having been printed "in a book of about fifty pages, entituled 'A true Report of the Martyrdome of Mr. Campian, written by a Catholic Priest,' no place or year mentioned in the title." This appears to be the work mentioned by Mr. Simpson in his BibUographical Appendix to the Life of Campion, p. 350, No. 7. I have never seen the book. How much importance was attached to the foUowing poem is plain, not only from the fact of the government having made great, and apparently successful, exertions to suppress it, and destroy all copies printed or in manuscript, but from a curious coUateral piece of evidence which I was fortunate enough to stumble upon some years ago. On the 21st March 1594, i.e., thirteen years after Campion's death, "John Bolt, yeoman, late of Thornden, Essex," was brought up for examination before Sir Edward Coke, then SoUcitor- General. Among other things laid to his charge, and for which he had to give account, he was made to confess " that certain leaves containing verses, beginning with ' Why do I use my paper, pen, and ink, &c.,' are in his handwriting, wrote them in London five years since from a paper given to him by Henry Souche, servant to Mr. Morgan of Finsbury Fields, and has read them five or six times since." . . . — P. R. 0., Domestic, Eliz., vol. 248, n. 38. Elliott, Sledd, and Munday were three professional spies and informers 106 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. who were witnesses at Campion's trial. On these worthies see Simpson's Life of Campion. Norton was the " rack master, " who was committed to prison for a few days when an outcry was raised against him for his atrocious cruelty. He was soon set at liberty, and lived to ply his odious vocation upon many another sufferer in after years. Lee was William Lee, foreman of the Jury which tried Campion. There is a good deal about Elderton and Munday in Warton's History of English Poetry, edited by Hazlitt, 1871, vol. iv. p. 391. Vita Edmundi Campiani, Ang. vers. Laud. Rot. 2, supra E. C. (in Bibl. Bodl, Oxon.) Jhesus Maria. A N Epitaphe of the lyfe and deathe of the most famouse clerke and vertuouse priest Edmnd Campian, and reverend father of the meeke societie of the blessed name of Jesus. " Whie do y vse my papire yncke and penne ? or call my witts to counseU what to saie 1 such memories were made for mortaU men, I speake of saynts, whose names can not decay. An angeUs trumpe were meeter far to sounde. theire gloriouse deathes, yf such on earth were founde. " pardon my wants, y offer nawght but wyll. theire register remayneth safe above, Campian exceades the cupasse of my skyll yet let me vse the measure of my love, and geave me leave yn lowe and homelie verse, this highe attempte in Ingland to rehearse. " he came by vow. The cawse, to conquyre synne, his armour, praier. the word his terdge & shielde, his cQfort heaven, his spoile our sowles to wyne. the devyU his foe, the wicked worlde his fielde. his triumphe ioy. his wage seternall blysse, his capteine Christe, wich ever durying ys. " from ease to payne, from honour to disgrace, from love to hate, to daynger, beyng well. from safe abrode, to feares yn euerie place. contemnyng deathe, to save our sowles from hell. our new apostle cumyng to restore the feith, wich Austen planted here before. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 107 " hys native flowres were myxte with hearbe of grace. his mylde behaveour tempered well wyth skyll. A lowlye mynde possest a learned place. A sugred speache, a rare and vertuouse wyll. A saynt lyke ma was sett in earth belowe the seede of trewth yn hearyng harts to sowe. " Wyth tounge and pene the trewth he tawght and wrote, by force whereof they came to Christe apace, But when it pleased God it was his lote, he shuld be thrall, he leant hym so much grace, his pacience there dyd worke so much nor more, as had his heavenlie speaches done before. " his fare was harde, yet mylde and sweate his cheare. his prison close, yet free and loose his mynde. his torture greate, yet scant or none his feare. his offers large, yet no thyng culd him blynde. 6 constant ma, 6 mynde, 6 vertew straynge, whome want, nor woe, nor feare, nor hope culd chaynge. " from raeke in towre they browght hym to dispute, bokelesse, alone, to answere all that came, yet Christe gave grace, he dyd them all confute so sweately there yn glorie of his name, that evyn the adverse part are forst to saie, that Campians cawse dyd beare the beU awaie. " This foyle enragde the mynds of su so farre, they thowght it best to take hys lyfe awaye, becawse they sawe he wuld theire matter marre, and leave them schortly nawght at all to saie. Traytour he was wyth manie a seely sleighte yet was a ieurie packt, that cried gyltie streight. " ReUgion there was treason to the quene, Preachyng of penaunce warre agaynst the land, priests were such dayngerouse men, as hath not bene, praiers and beedes were fyght and force of hand. Cases of coscience bane vnto the state. So blynde ys errour, so false a wittnes hate. " And yet behold theise lambes are drawen to dye, treasons proclaymed, the quene ys putt yn feare, Owt vpon Satan, phie malice, phie. Speakest thow to them that dyd the gyltlesse heare ? Can humble sowles departyng now to Christe, protest vntrew 1 Avaunt foule fende, thou lyest. 108 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. " My sovereigne Liege, beholde yor subiects end. Yor secrete fooes do mysinfoorme yor grace. Who yn yor cawse theire hoUe lyfes wuld spende, As traytours dye ? a rare and monstruouse case. the bloodie wolfe eondemnes the harmelesse sheepe, before the dogge, the while the sheepards sleape. " Ingland loke vp. thie soyle ys steinde wyth bloode, thow hast made martyrs manie of thine owne, yf thow hadst grace, theire deathes wnld do thee good. The seede wyll take, wich yn such blood ys sowne, And Campians learnyng fertile so before, thus watred too, must neades of force be more. " Repent thee, Eliott, of thie Judas kysse, I wysshe thie penaunce, not thie desperate end. Let Norton thynke, wich now yn prison ys, to whome was seid, he was not Caesars frend, And let the Judge consyder well yn feare, that Pilate wasshte his hands, and was not cleare. " The wittnes false, Sledd, Munday, and the rest Wich had yor slaunders noted yn yor bokes, Confesse yor fault beforehand, it were best, lest God do fynde it writen, when he lookes In dreadfull doome vpon the sowles of men, It wyU be late, aMs, to mende it then. " Yow bloodie Jewrie, Lee, and all the leven, take heede, yor verdite wich was geaven yn hast do not exclude you from the ioyes of heaven and cawse you rew itt, when the tyme ys past, and euerie one whose malice cawsde hym saie crucU'ye, let hym dreade the terrour of that clay. " fond Elderton caU yn thie fooUshe ryme, thie scurrile balades are too bad to sell. Let good men rest, and mend thie seUe yn tyme. Confesse yn prose, thou hast not metred well. Or yf thie foUe ca not choose but fayne Write alehowse ioies, blaspheme thou not yn vayne. " Remember you that wulde oppresse the cawse, The churche ys Christes, his honour ca not dye, thowgh heU it selfe wreste her gryslye iawes and ioyne yn leage wyth schisme and ha>resie, thowgh crafte devise and cruell rage oppresse, yet skyll wyll wryte, and martyrdome confesse. THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. 109 " you thowght perhapps, when learned Campian dyes, his pene must cease, his sugred tounge be styll. But you forgeatt how lowde his death it cries. how far beyonde the sounde of tounge and guyll. you dyd not know how rare and greate a good it was to wryte hys pretiouse gyfts yn blood. " Lyvyng he spake to them, wich praesent weare, his wrytyng toke the censure of the view. Now fame reportes his learnyng far and neare, And now his deathe confirmes his doctrine trew. His vertues now are writen yn the skyes, and often read wyth holie watred eyes. " All Europe wonders at so rare a man, Ingland ys fiUed wyth rumour of his end. London must neades, for it was present than When constantly .Uj. saynts theire lyfes dyd spend, the streates, the stones, the steapps, they hale them by, proclayme the cawse, for wich theise martyrs dye. " The towrre saies, the trewth he dyd defende, The barre beares wittnes of his gyltelesse mynde, Tiburne doth tell, he made a pacient end. In everie gate his martyrdome we fynde. In vayne you wroghte, that wuld obscure his name, for heaven and earthe wyll styU recorde the same. " yor sentence wronge pronounced of hym here, Exemptes hym from the iudgement for to come. 6 happie he that ys not iudged there ! God graunte me too, to haue an earthUe doome. yor wittnes false and lewdely taken yn, doth cawse he ys not now accusde of synne. " his prison now, the citie of the kynge, his racke and torture ioies and heavenlie blysse, for mes reproche wyth angells he doth synge 1 a sacred songe, wich euerlastyng ys. for shame but schort, and losse of small renowne, he purchast hath an ever duryng crowne. " his quartered lymmes shaU ioyne wyth ioye agayne, and ryse a bodie bryghter then the sonne, yor bloodie maUce tormeted hym yn vayne, for euerie wrynche su glorie hath hym wofie. And euerie droppe of blood, wich he dyd spende, hath reapte a ioye, wich never shall haue ende. NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. " Can drerye death then daunt our feith, or payne 1 Leste lyngryng lyfe we feare to loose our ease ? No. no. such death procureth lyfe agayne. Tis onely god, we tremble to displease, who kylles but onse, and euer synce we dye. whose hole revenge torments seternally. " We ca, not feare a mortaU tormente. we. theise martyrs bloods hath moistened all our harts, whose parted quarters when we chawnce to see we learne to plaie the constant Christian parts. his head doth speake, and heavenhe precepts gyve, how we y* looke, shuld frame our seUs to lyve. " his yougthe instructes vs how to spend our dales. his fleying bydds vs learne to banyshe synne. his streight profession schewes the. narrowgh waies, wich they must walke that loke to enter yn. his home returne by daynger and distresse, emboldeth vs, our conscience to professe. " his hurdle drawes vs wyth hym to the crosse. his speaches there provokes vs for to dye. his death doth saie, this lyfe ys but a losse. his martryd blood from heaven to vs doth crye. his fyrst and last, and aU conspire yn this, to schew the waye that leadeth vs to blysse. " blessed be God, wich lent hym so much grace, thanked be Christ, wich blest hys martyr so, happie ys he, wich seeth his masters face, Cursed all they, that thowght to worke hym woe, bounden be we, to geave eeternall praise, to Jesus name, wich such a man dyd rayse. (io) Page 101, line 17. Henry Vallenger appears to have been a Norfolk man. There were several members of the family settled at King's Lynn and the neighbourhood in the sixteenth century, and it is probable that Vallenger and Walpole were old friends. (11) Page 101, line 30. See above, note (8). (12) Page 102, line 10. Bartoli tells us that an order was issued for his apprehension by the Council ; and expressly mentions Robert, Earl of Leicester, as having been incensed against him in consequence of his having THE JESUIT MISSION TO ENGLAND. in converted his cousin Edward AValpole. This is a highly probable story, as Leicester can hardly have failed to take some interest in one who, after his own death, would succeed to Amy Robsart's estates in Norfolk. Bartoli goes on to say that Henry Walpole slipped away to Norfolk, and was actu ally concealed in a hiding-place (in un fedel nascondiglio della sua medesima casa) at Anmer Hall ; that he escaped with difficulty from the pursuivants, and concealed himself in the woods by day and pursued his journey by night ; that he managed to reach Newcastle, and thence took ship for France. —Bartoli, u. s., p. 413. (13) Page 102, line 27. " 1582, 7 die [Julii] ex AngUa ad nos venit D. Hen. Walpole disertus gravis et phis." " 1583, 2° Martii, Roma missi sunt D. Henricus Walpoole, D. Tho. Love lace, &c. . . . quibuscum Verduno profecit D. Ric. Singleton." — Douay Diary, printed by the Fathers of the Oratory, Brompton. " mdlxxxiii. Henricus Walpolus, Anglus, Norfolgiensis, annorum 24, aptus ad Theologiam, receptus fuit in hoc Angloram Collegium inter alum- nos Smi D. N. Gregorii, a P. Alfonso Agazzario, Rectore, de expresso mandato III™* D. Cardinalis Boncompagni, Protectoris, sub die 28 Aprilis 1583. "Mense Octobris ejusdem anni fuit cum Ulo dispensatum in [sic] irregularitate propter heresim contracta ab 111™ Cardinale S. Severinae, et eodem mense accepit minores ordines a R"10 Asafensi [Bishop Goldwell of St. Asaph]. " Discessit e CoUegio antequam faceret juramentum in mense Januarii 1584." — Ex Archivio Collegii Anglicani de Urbe, MS. No. 303, fo. 16 b. What foUows is written with his own hand in the Album of the Tournay Noviciate, which is stUl preserved among the MSS. of the Burgundian Library at Brussels. " Ego Henricus Walpolus Nordvincensis Anglus, natus in Octobri anno 1558. In AngUa dedi operam humanioribus Utteris aliquandiu in patria, deinde in Academia Cantabrigiensi annis tribus. " Londini fere quadriennio legibus AngUcanis. " Postea Rhemis theologia? scholastica? simul et positive per annum unum, Romae simiUter fere per annum ante ingressum Societatis ; post ingressum vero duobus annis et medio theologiae Scholasticsa Mussiponti, quo tempore fere toto Prefectum egi apud Conuictores. "Admissus in Societatem Jesu Romse a R. P. N. Claudio Aquaviva GeneraU Societatis Jesu 2 februarii A° 1584, ibidem in domo probationis fui tredecim mensibus, inde ob adversam valetudinem in Francia [m] missus fere per annum mansi in domo Probationis Virdunensi, ubi etiam absolute probationis biennio uota Scholasticoruni emisi, sacrum celebrante Rdo P. Benedicto Nigrio magistro Novitiorum. " Mussiponto in Belgium missus R4- P. N. Generalis mandato, Parisiis in transitu factus fui Sacerdos 17 decembris A" 1588, cum antea a Rai"° D° NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. Suffraganeo Metensi promotus fuissem ad ordinem Subdiaconatus pridie Pascatis 26 ApriUs, et ad ordinem Diaconatus 21 Maii eiusdem anni. " BruxeUis et in castris officia Societatis prestiti per tres annos ; denique a Rd0 P. OUverio Manaraso Societatis Jesu in Belgio Provinciali, uocatusfui ad Domum Probationis Tornacensem, ubi inchoavi tertium annum pro bationis 22 octobris A" 1591 et examinatus fui a P. Joanne Bargio iuxta examen Scholasticorum, qui studia in Societate absoluerunt, respondique firmum in mea dehberatione et uotis et promissione Deo oblatis antequam ad studia me conferrem, me permanere, eique reddidi rationem vitae mese, inchoando ab eo tempore quo earn reddideram, quando ad studia missus fui. "Actum Tornaci in domo probationis Societatis Jesu. Circa Natalem Dni° a 1 59 1. Ita est Henricus Walpolus." CHAPTER V. THE KINSMEN. " A rampart of my feUows ; it would seem Impossible for me to fail, so watched By gentle friends who made my cause their own." ¦ — Paracelsus. ITH the execution of Campion the Jesuit mission for a while collapsed. Of all that band of men who in the winter of 1580 set forth with such high hopes to " reduce " England to the old Faith, only one escaped either the scaffold or the dungeon, and that one was Robert Parsons. Of 5 the rest, such as were not hung were kept in jail for a year or two, and then, to the number of twenty-one, were shipped off to the coast of Normandy, (i) Whatever effect Campion's preaching and death may have produced upon the more earnest sympathisers with his views, 10 the immediate consequences of the mission were eminently disastrous. The Excommunication had been Rome's first challenge: it had been answered by the legislation of 1570. The Jesuit invasion was the second : it was replied to by the Act of the 23rd Elizabeth; and it will be worth while at this J5 point briefly to trace the development of that penal legislation which from this time began to be put in force with dreadful H U4 THE KINSMEN. severity, and which, whether necessary or not, became during the remainder of the Queen's reign a whip of scorpions for the unhappy votaries of the see of Rome. The Act of ist Elizabeth was mainly concerned with enforc- 5 ing the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and providing against the employment of any form of worship except such as that book prescribed. The penalties of that Act were rather negative than positive, attendance at church was compulsory, yet the fine for staying away, although vexatious, could hardly io be regarded as intolerable ; to say mass in public or private was illegal, but the mass was not mentioned specifically by name. After the Bull of Excommunication was published, the Act of the 1 3th Elizabeth treated the breach between England and 15 the Papacy as a fact that could no longer be ignored, and the penalties of that Act were directed against all communion or intercourse with the Church of Rome or its emissaries, and the acceptance of absolution at the hands of its priesthood was declared to be criminal and treasonable. But when the Jesuit 20 mission assumed the character of an actual invasion, the new aggression gave occasion for the passing of the famous " Act to retain the Queen's Majesty's Subjects in their due obedience ; " with the rigorous enforcement of which that odious course of cruelty and oppression began, which has been called by conti- 25 nental historians "the English persecution." Hitherto the Catholic gentry had received some measure of toleration, though regarded with disfavour and suspicion. Henceforth they had to choose between conformity and some- 30 thing like ruin or death. By the first clause of this Act, to persuade any one to embrace " the Romish religion " or to yield to such persuasion, was to incur the penalties of high treason. By the fourth clause, "every person which shall say or sing mass " shall forfeit the sum of two hundred marks, and be im prisoned for a year; and "every person which shall willingly THE KINSMEN. 1 1 5 hear mass " is to forfeit one hundred marks and suffer a like imprisonment. But the most terrible clause was the fifth, which from this time became the real instrument of oppression and robbery upon the unhappy Recusants, and which, in lieu of the old fine for non-attendance at church, provided "that every 5 person above the age of sixteen years, which shall not repair to some church, chapel, or usual place of common prayer, but forbear the same . . . shall forfeit to the Queen's Majesty, for every month . . . which he or she shall so forbear, twenty pounds of lawful English money ; and besides over and above 10 the said forfeitures, ... be bound with two sufficient sure ties, in the sum of two hundred pounds at least, to their good behaviour." Finally, lest the very severity of this clause should defeat its object, and lest it should appear that only the Crown or the 15 great lords would benefit by the exactions to be levied on the Recusants, it was enacted by the eleventh clause that all monies forfeited by this statute should be divided into three parts; one part to go to the Queen, one-third to the poor of the parish where the offence was committed, the remaining third to the informer. 20 I have never met with the faintest trace of evidence that the poor of the parish in any one case benefited directly or indirectly by the fines that were levied. Some portion undoubtedly did find its way into the Exchequer, but they who got the lion's share of the spoil were the pursuivants and informers. 25 From this time the persecution of the Catholics in England began in earnest, and men with scruples of conscience had to ¦ make up their minds either to sacrifice their dearest convictions or to suffer for them. When Henry Walpole made his choice, and without a licence 30 crossed the Channel, he left behind him in the Norfolk home five brothers, the eldest of whom was in his twenty-second year, the youngest a schoolboy of twelve. (2) The second of these brothers, Richard Walpole, had been baptized at Docking on the 8th of October 1564. Just a fortnight before his elder n6 THE KINSMEN. brother had left Cambridge, to commence his studies at Gray's Inn, Richard Walpole had matriculated at Cambridge, having been nominated to one of the scholarships at St. Peter's College, lately founded by Edward, Lord North. (3) He continued to 5 reside at the university for the next three years, and evidently made good use of his time; but the influence of his brother was strong upon him, and when Henry found it necessary to make his escape from England, Richard soon followed him. He left England in the summer of 1584, and reached Eheims on the 10 3rd of June. He stayed there until the following spring, and presented himself at the English College at Eome in April. (4) But the influence of Henry Walpole was not confined to the circle of his brothers. It seems to have made itself felt even upon the remoter branches of the Walpole family. We have 15 seen in the previous chapter how it was directly through his persuasion that his cousin Edward Walpole of Houghton was prevailed on to take up a decided line, and openly to join the party of the Eecusants. There was another cousin upon whom, though his influence was apparently only indirect, yet it was so 20 potent and effectual as to prove in the sequel of great import ance to the future career of the whole family. When Serjeant John Walpole of Harpley died, on the 1st November 1557, he left, as has been said, one son, William Walpole, heir to his large possessions. (6) The boy, at the time 25 of the taking his father's inquisition on the 14th April 1558, was declared to be of the age of thirteen years, eight months, and six days, i.e., he was born on the 8th August 1544. We have seen that he had already been entered at Gray's Inn, and that by his father's will his education had been intrusted to 30 Thomas Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, to which see he had been trans ferred from Norwich in July 1554. By all accounts Thirlby is described to us as one of the most accomplished and graceful scholars of his age. He had been a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and his rooms were under those of Bilney, the fervent preacher who converted Latimer, and who was burnt THE KINSMEN. iij for heresy at the Lollard's Pit, near Norwich, in August 1 5 3 1. Whilst an undergraduate, Thirlby's frequent " playing upon his recorder for his diversion " seems to have annoyed Bilney, who was " driven to his prayers " by the music which disturbed his reading. Archbishop Cranmer conceived an almost romantic 5 attachment for Thirlby, " so that some thought that if he would have demanded any finger or other member of his, he would have cut it off to have gratified him ; " and this affection of the archbishop soon brought him preferment and notice. In 1538 he had been sent on an embassy to France, and from this time 10 till the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign he was constantly employed as ambassador to foreign courts, and in that capacity was at various times despatched to Spain, Scotland, the Low Countries, and Germany. He was concerned in the compilation of the Book of Common Prayer, and was one of the revisers 1 5 of the translation of the Great Bible. He was one of the executors of Queen Mary's will, and one of the supervisors of Cardinal Pole's. When Mary died he was absent from England, having been appointed to treat with France for the restoration of Calais, and he returned from that mission in April 1559,20 when Queen Elizabeth had already been three months on the throne. When the new Oath of Supremacy was tendered to him, he refused to take it, and was immediately deprived of his bishopric, but at first left unmolested. Courtier though he was, and a man apparently by no means of a stubborn nature, 25 yet the form of the oath appeared to him so offensive that he felt called upon to preach against it, although warned to desist. For his contumacy he was excommunicated, and in June 1560 was committed to the Tower. After awhile he was removed to the custody of Archbishop Parker, with whom 30 he lived at Lambeth and Bekesbourne till his death in 1570, and, though under surveillance and nominally a prisoner, was always treated with marked respect and consideration^6) ¦ When young William Walpole, on his father's death, was handed over to Thirlby's guardianship, the bishop adopted him as n8 THE KINSMEN. a member of his own household, and as such he remained until the bishop's imprisonment, when he was received into the family of Mr. Blackwell, a cousin of Thirlby's, Town Clerk of the city of London, and a man of great wealth and considera- 5 tion. When the bishop was sent to the Tower, and it seemed probable he would suffer in substance as well as in person for his recusancy, he disposed of his property, and sold or made over to this Mr. Blackwell a large mansion which he had either purchased or built in the parish of St. Andrew in the ward io of Castle Baynard, and it was here he lived while William Walpole made his home with him. (7) Three months after he attained his majority, Walpole married Mr. Blackweli's youngest daughter at St. Andrew's church, and soon afterwards appears to have settled at Fittleworth in Sussex, though frequently J5 visiting at the house of his father-in-law. (8) When Bishop Thirlby's health began to decline he begged for permission to take up his residence at Mr. Blackweli's, but he died at Lambeth before he could remove. (9) Mr. Blackwell survived him only a few months, and in his will, left the bulk 20 0f his large fortune to his widow. (10) After his death, Mrs. Blackwell lived sometimes at the London mansion and some times on her estate at North Chapel in Sussex, where she had some large iron works which her son-in-law William Walpole managed for her. He himself was largely concerned in the 25 manufacture of iron in the neighbourhood, and the Sussex ironmasters exhibited so much activity that the attention of the Government was drawn to them, and an Act of Parliament passed restricting their power of cutting down the woods for fuel, and putting other difficulties in their way. Walpole's iron works 30 must have been upon a large scale, for he had attracted the notice of the Council by casting cannon, which had been exported to the Continent, and in February 1 574, he was compelled to give a bond in the sum of £2000 to make no more "cast pieces of ordnance without special licence, and in case of such licence being granted," not to " sell them to any stranger," unless the THE KINSMEN. IIQ name of the buyer and the number and description of the ordnance were expressed in the said licence. (u) This appears to have proved the ruin of the trade for a time, for we hear no more of the Sussex iron works, and a year or two after this Mr. Walpole appears to have left Fittleworth, and removed to his 5 native county. When Parsons and Campion came over to England in 1580, Mrs. Blackwell was still living in London. She was one of those who conformed, and attended her parish church of St. Andrew ; but it is scarcely to be wondered at that she was 10 looked upon with some suspicion. Her husband had died a Catholic ; she herself was the daughter of Thomas Campion, a citizen of London, who was related to the Jesuit father, and as a natural consequence was more than once subjected to annoyance. In 1584 the Lords of the Council issued an order that the 15 Countess of Northumberland should be received at Mrs. Black- well's house at her coming to town, and next year she was presented as a recusant, though upon her protesting she suc ceeded in excusing herself from paying the exaction attempted to be levied upon her. (12) Whether her house was one of those 20 many places in and about London to which Campion resorted — whether there he met young Henry Walpole or his cousin William — it is almost idle to ask, and yet the probability of the Jesuit father's receiving some recognition from his wealthy kinswoman is so great that we are tempted to conjecture that 25 it must have been so. It was probably in consequence of the interference of the Government with the Sussex iron works that William Walpole, about the year 1580, left Fittleworth. He had purchased another estate in Norfolk not far from Dereham — the manor of 30 St. Cleres in North Tuddenham, with a large tract of land ex tending into three or four of the adjoining parishes. (la) Here he lived as a country gentleman, keeping up a large establish ment; and in February, 1582, he bought from Bishop Thirlby's nephew Henry a house in Norwich. It had a frontage opposite 120 THE KINSMEN. the Bishop's palace, with gardens abutting on the river, and had formerly been the residence of one of the city aldermen. (u) There had been no offspring from his marriage, an unhappy dis agreement arose between him and his wife, which ended at last 5 in a separation, and when Mrs. Blackwell made her will in May 1585, she expressly orders that her son-in-law be called upon to repay all sums of money that were due to her; and she leaves an annuity to her daughter, to be paid " during the time of any breach between her and her husband, William Walpole." (1S) 10 Just about this time Edward Walpole of Houghton came to reside with his cousin at Tuddenham. His position at home had become a painful one : his parents were by no means in clined to side with the Catholic party, but on the contrary were said to be Puritans, as most probably his grandfather, Mr. 15 Calibut, was. There is some reason for thinking that Edward Walpole had adopted decided views on the religious questions of the day some years earlier than his Catholic biographers have stated ; at any rate his name is never once mentioned in the wills of any members of the family who died about this time, 20 and the omission is especially remarkable in his uncle Eichard's will, inasmuch as some legacy is left to every one of his other nephews and nieces. (16) More tells us that his parents were so irritated by his obstinate opposition to their views and persistence in his own that at last his mother fairly turned him out of doors; 25 that he took refuge with a relation in the county ; that he changed his name to Poor or Pauper, and attempted to slip away to the Continent as Henry Walpole had done two or three years before. He was stopped at the port he was intending to sail' from and sent up to the Council ; but he could have had little 30 difficulty in getting released while Leicester was at the zenith of his power. Foiled in his attempt to leave England, he re turned to Norfolk, and William Walpole offered him a home at St. Cleres. (") Here he set himself to bring about a reconcilia tion between the husband and wife, who had been livino- for some time apart, and was fortunate enough to succeed in his THE KINSMEN. object. (18) Mrs. Walpole returned to her husband, and appears to have regained his confidence, and affection, though they were not destined to continue long united. Perhaps William Wal pole's state of health may have had something to do with his removal from Sussex into his native air ; at any rate he had 5 only been at Tuddenham three or four years when he felt his end was near, and a few days before he had completed his forty- third year he made his will, and arranged for the disposition of his property after his decease. If the last act of a man's life, and the only act which is irrevocable, may be accepted as a 10 trustworthy index to his character, William Walpole's will proves him to have been a man of remarkable generosity, kindliness, and largeness of heart. He had, as we have seen, no child, but he leaves to his widow a splendid provision during her lifetime, with no mean condition to hinder her marrying again: his 15 mother, his sisters, his uncles, his cousins, every servant in his large establishment, are all remembered and named, and legacies- are bequeathed to them with a princely liberality. His real heir is his cousin Edward Walpole, to whom he leaves, on the death of his wife, the great bulk of his large property ; and by 20 the way in which he more than once connects his cousin's name with that of his wife, it is evident that in making this disposi tion of his estates he does so in recognition of the service he had rendered him in bringing to an end that unhappy domestic difference that has been referred to. (19) 25 It is almost impossible to estimate the amount of a country gentleman's income in the sixteenth century, and almost as difficult to arrive at the acreage of an estate with anything like accuracy; but the lands and manors bequeathed to Edward Walpole by his cousin's will represented a rental which would 30 now amount to at least £7000 a year; and when he eventually abjured the realm, it was said that he had sacrificed more than ;£8oo a year, even after he had sold his reversionary interest in the Tuddenham property. Just six months after the death of William Walpole, Edward's father, John Walpole of Houghton, THE KINSMEN. died. (20) In his will he does not so much as name his eldest son, but leaves every acre of land which he had the power to bequeath to his second son, Calibut. The entailed property at Houghton, Walpole, and Weybread, in Suffolk, descended to 5 Edward as his heir, though subject to a life interest reserved to his widow. In the following November Robert Earl of Leicester died, and all the Robsart estates descended to the heir of Houghton, but as John Walpole in his will had left them to his son Calibut, Edward at once made them over to him, and re- 10 nounced the claim he might have put forth as heir-at-law. (21) Thus at the close of the year 1588 the two brothers, Edward and Calibut Walpole, were seized as tenants for life or in fee simple of lands and tenements in no less than nineteen parishes in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and were the lords of 15 ten manors, extending over several thousand acres. The for tunes of the house seemed in the ascendant, and it needed only a little exercise of ordinary prudence and a little worldly wisdom to assure to the Walpoles a position among the wealthiest families in the east of England ; but, on the other 20 hand, it required only a very little contumacy and a very little display of religious fanaticism to bring upon them the full force of the Government, which would not spare where there was so much to fall a prey to the spoiler. Henry and Richard Walpole had already shown how lightly they held by any worldly pros- 25 pects that might be before them. They had turned their backs upon their native country, and their cousin Edward was more than half inclined to follow them into exile. NOTES TO CHAPTER V. (i) Page 113, line 8. Rishton's Diary, which is the authority usuaUy cited for this statement, was first printed at the end of Sanders's De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani, Rome, 1690. It is given in EngUsh in Tierney's Dodd, vol. U. p. 148. For additional particulars see Morris's Troubles, second series, p. 70. Besides the twenty-one who were banished in January 1585, twenty-two more were sent from York, and thirty- two from London, in September of the same year, making up a total of seventy- two priests and three laymen. — Douay Diary, p. 12. (2) Page 115, line 33. The foUowing entries are extracted from the Parish Register of Docking : — 1 561, ye xviij daye of Maye, was Dorothy Walpole, ye daughter of Christopher Walpole, christened. 1 562, the vith daye of June, was Galeerye Walpole .... christened. 1564, the vUj"1 daye of October, was Richard Walpole .... christened. the vnj"' of December, was Margarete Walpole .... christened. 1566, the xxv'h of August, was Thomas Walpole, yb sonne of Mr. Christopher Walpole and Margereye his wife, cristned. 1567, i"' November, Alice Walpole .... 1568, 23rd October, Christopher Walpole .... 1570, 1" October, Michael Walpole .... (3) Page 116, line 4. He matriculated as a scholar of Peterhouse, 1st AprU 1579. — Matriculation Book in the Registry of the University of Cambridge. (4) Page 116, line 11. The dates are given from the Douay Diary and from the MS. Records in the English College at Rome. (5) Page 1 16, line 24. Machyn in his Diary [Camden Society, 1847], gives the following account of Serjeant Walpole's funeral, p. 156. t [1557]. "The 3 day of November was buried in the parish of St.. Dunstan's in the West, Serjeant Wallpoll (sic), a Norfolk man, with a pennon and a coat of arms borne with a herald of arms ; and there' was all the Judges and Serjeants of the coif, and men of the law, a two hundred, with two white branches, twelve staff torches, and four great tapers, and 124 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. priests and clerks; and the morrow, the mass of requiem." [Spelling modernised.] Serjeant Walpole married Jane, daughter of Edmund Knyvett, of Ashwellthorpe, Esq., Serjeant Porter to King Henry VIII., by Jane, daughter and heir of Sir John Bourchier, Knt., who was summoned to ParUament as Lord Berners. The Barony of Berners came to the Knyvetts through this alUance. Jane Walpole, the Serjeant's widow, survived him many years. She married (2dly) her husband's friend and executor, Thomas Scarlett [ch. i. n. 1 8], and by him had a second family of four daughters. (6) Page 117, line 33. Most of the details given are taken from Cooper's Athence Cantab. See, too, Camden Society's Wills (1863), pp. 46 and 52 ; Original Papers, Norfolk Archaeological Society, v. p. 75. (7) Page 118, line 11. "1562-3. The — day of February was christened at St. Andrew's in the Wardrobe, George Bacon, the son of Master Bacon, Esquire, some time Serjeant of the Acatry by Queen Mary's days. His godfathers were young Master George Blackwell and Master Walpole." . . . [Mr. George Bacon had married one of the daughters of Mr. Black- well.] — Machyn, p. 300. See, too, the next page for the notice of the churching of Mrs. Bacon :".... and after, she went home to her father's house, Mr. Blackwell. ..." (8) Page 118, line 15. " 1565, 250 Nov., William Walpole and Mary Blackwell were married at St. Andrew's in the Wardrobe." — From the P. R. communicated by Colonel Chester. Among the Close Rolls in the P. R. 0. is one dated nth May, 170 EUzabeth, in which William Walpole, of Fittleworth, co. Sussex, Esq., enters into recognisances to pay Richard Butterwick, of Bury, co. Sussex, Gent., ,£350 on the 24th November next ensuing, " at and in the mansion house of one Margaret Blackwell." Mr. Butterwick married WiUiam Walpole's sister Catharine. (9) Page 118, line 18. Bishop Thirlby died in August 1570. (10) Page 118, line 20. Mr. Blackwell's will is at Somerset House. It is dated 7th June 1567, but was not proved till the 17th October 1570. I subjoin the notes I took of it. "... My soul to God and to the most blessed and immaculate mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lady St. Mary the Virgin, and to all the Holy Company of Heaven ; ... to the parson of the parish of St. Andrew in the ward of Castle Baynard, where I am a parishioner ; ... to every poor godchild ; . .to my brother-in-law Edward Warton, Gent. . . . Executrix shall give and bestow for me xij black gowns with hoods, vj to the men, viz., my son Edward Blackwell, my son Bacon, my son Draper, my son Walpole, and my brother THE KINSMEN. 125 Campion, to be given U it shall please them to be at my funeral as mourners ; the other vj to the women hereunder named, viz., my son Edward's wife, my daughter Bacon, my daughter Draper, my daughter Walpole, my cousin Ursula Patrick, and my sister Campion. ... To the prisoners of either of the Compters in London ; ... to the prisoners of Ludgate ; ... to the prisoners of Newgate. ... To the poor people of Edgeware in the county of Middlesex, where I was born ; ... to the poor of Hendon, co. Middlesex. ... To the Right Rev. Father in God, and my most singular good Lord Thomas Thirlby, late Bishop of Ely, for a poor remembrance of good heart and wiU towards his lordship, a gold ring value five marks. ... To my cousin Henry Thirlby, son of my cousin Thomas Thirlby [sic], his lordship's brother. ... To every of my sons, Thomas, William, George, and Richard, .£100. . . . To my daughter Margaret (unmarried) ,£100. ... To Margaret my whe . . . landed property, &c, in Hendon, co. Middlesex ; the manor of ' Campions ' in Epping, co. Essex ; . . . my mansion in the parish of St. Andrew in the ward of Castle Baynard. . . . Residue to be divided ' according to the laudable custom of the city of London.' Margaret Blackwell sole executrix, Thomas Blackwell supervisor."— P. C. O, " Lyon," f. 30. (11) Page 119, line 11. In the P. R. 0., Domestic, EUzabeth, vol. 95. No. 21, there is a Ust of persons who own iron forges and furnaces in the county of Sussex, dated 15th February 1573-4- Among those mentioned are the foUowing : — " The late Earl of Northumberland one forge and' one furnace in Petworth great park, in the hands of Mrs. Blackwell. Mrs. Blackwell a forge and a furnace in North Chappell." In the same volume (No. 79), under the date of 22nd February, I find " William Walpole having the occupying of a furnace and a forge in the parish of Petworth in the county of Sussex, belonging to one Margaret Blackwell of London city, wife to William Blackwell, Town Clerk of the said city, by the grant of the said Margaret during pleasure, having married one of her daughters." The bond referred to in the text is dated Hampton Court, 22nd February, 1 6° EUz. " The condition that the above-named William Walpole shaU hereafter make' no manner of cast pieces of Ordnance of Iron without special Ucence, and in case of such Ucence being granted, shaU not seU them to any stranger unless the said stranger's name and quaUty and the number and name of the said Ordnance to be sold shall be expressed in the said licence." The bond is signed and sealed with the Walpole arms, on which is a label with a crescent for the second house. The iron works in Sussex were carried on for many years after this, and on a large scale. By the Act of 230 EUz. c. v., certain restrictions are laid upon the cutting down of "woods growing within a certain compass of London ... to be converted hito coals for iron works." Four years after 126 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. another Act was passed, 270 EUz. c. xix., entitled " An Act for the preserva tion of timber in the wealds of the counties of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, and for the amendment of highways decayed by carriages to and from iron mills there." Even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century the manufacture of iron was carried on extensively in this district, and the iron railings which surrounded St. Paul's churchyard, and which have only been recently removed, were made of Sussex iron. (12) Page 119, line 20. P. R. O. Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 184, No. 46. Mrs. Blackweli's petition to the Lords of the Council is dated 26th Novem ber 1585. (13) Page 119, line 32. The neighbourhood was densely wooded a century ago, and I have talked with an old inhabitant of the viUage, whose father used to tell him of the fabulous sums of money realised by felling the old oaks, which were cut down in great numbers when the then owner of the property got into pecuniary difficulties. The old manor-house was stand ing ten or twelve years ago, and then inhabited by a farmer. The foundations and a portion of the walls stiU remain, and the ground-plan of the mansion is easily traceable. It was a house of no great size, with a frontage of about seventy feet, and surrounded by a double moat, which still exists. By certain deeds in my possession it appears that Mrs. BlackweU held lands in North Tuddenham before WilUam Walpole came to reside there. (14) Page 120, line 2. This appears by an indenture, made the 14th February in the 24th year of Elizabeth, between Henry Thirlby, of Hendon, co. Middlesex, Gent, of the one part, and William Walpole of North Tuddenham in the county of Norfolk, Esq., on the other part, . . . Henry Thirlby sells to William Walpole " All that the Messuage, &c, ... in Norwich, in the Parish of St. Martin before the Gates of the Palace of the Bishop of Norwich, as they Ue between the common lane on the west part and the tenement sometime Robert Green's, Citizen and Alderman of Norwich, and late Richard Catlyn, Gentleman, on the east part, and it abutteth upon the king's river towards the north, and upon the king's highway towards the south, &c, &c." — P. R. 0. Close Rolls, 240 Elizabeth, pt. 13. (15) Page 120, line 9. Her wiU is dated 14th May 1585, and was proved on the 4th July 1586. ... To Sir Thomas Bromley, Knight, Lord Chancellor of England, and to the Lady Elizabeth his wife, my especial good lord and lady, as a poor token ... of my hearty good wUl and love. ... To Anne Bacon my daughter, my now mansion and dwelling-house, with all the messuages and tenements thereto adjoining, . . . situate and being in the parish of St. Andrew in the ward of Castle Baynard, . . .' which THE KINSMEN. 127 said mansion my husband William Blackwell bought of my honoured Father in God Thomas Thirlby, late Bishop of Ely . . . [Anne Bacon to hold it for three years, and then to be sold, and the proceeds to be divided between her and her brother William Blackwell] ..." and for the help and succour which my wiU is she shall be to her sister Mary Walpole another of my daughters, if occasion shaU so require, viz., to allow her yearly xxli. during the time of any breach between her and her husband William Walpole. . . . To William Blackwell all my debts and money whatsoever which my son-in-law William Walpole doth owe unto me at this present, or which shall hereafter grow to be due unto me from my said son WUUam Walpole " . . . — P. C. C. " Windsor," f. 37. The property be queathed in the counties of Sussex, Hants, Surrey, Essex, and Middlesex is very large. The will affords a curious and important confirmation of the story first told by Dr. Henry More of the estrangement between William AValpole and his wife. (16) Page 120, line 22. The omission is the more remarkable, because Richard Walpole's wUl was proved in London on the 10th May 1568, when his nephew WilUam could not have been more than ten years old. — See c. Ui. n. (9) (17) Page 120, line 33. Yepez, writing in 1599 (and at a time when one or other of the three brothers Richard, Christopher, or Michael Wal pole must have been in Spain, and pretty sure to be in communication with him), says distinctly that Henry Walpole laboured for more than two years to convert his cousin : Edward Walpole certainly did not take any degree at Cambridge, which in the natural course of things he could have done in 1579. It looks as U his refusal to proceed to the B.A., which necessitated the taking of the oath, had been the cause of the indignation of his parents, who by aU accounts acted in a violent and indiscreet manner. More teUs us that, after having been unsettled for a long time, the reading of Fulke's answer to Cardinal Allen's book on Purgatory produced a pro found effect upon his mind. Dr. Fulke's Confutation of the Popish Churches Doctrine touching Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead was published in 1577, so that it was after tins year. — Yepez, Hist. Partie. de la Persec. de Inglaterra, p. 668. Historia Missionis Anglicanm . . . Collectore Henrico Moro, folio, St. Omer, 1660, f. 202. (18) Page 121, line 1. See n. (15). More mentions the circumstance without naming the cousins whom he had succeeded in reconciling ; and until the discovery of Mrs. Blackweli's will nothing was known of the affair. (19) Page 121, lint 25. His will is in Register "Spencer" f. 80, P. C. C. 128 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. ... I William Walpole, of North Tuddenham in the County of Norfolk, Esquire, . . . my Manor of North Tuddenham alias St. Clere's, . . . and aU my lands, tenements, &c, in North Tdddenham, Elsing, Hockering, and Mattishall, . . . and my Manor of Felthams in Great Massingham, . . . and all my lands and tenements ... in Great Mas singham and Little Massingham unto Mary my well-beloved wife for term of her life . . . the remainder thereof unto my cousin Edward Walpole ; ... to William Bettice my servant, house and land in Great Massingham ; ... to Martin Diat my servant, messuage, lands, and tenement in Little Massingham ; ... to my cousin John Walpole the son of my uncle Thomas Walpole, deceased, my Manor of Calis aUas Porters in Houghton, . . and all my lands, &c, &c, in Harpley, Houghton, Bircham, and Rudham, to him and his heirs, and in default of issue, or if it shall happen the said John Walpole or any the heirs of his body . . . to commit, do, or suffer any act . . . to discontinue . . . the foresaid estate to the said John or any the heirs males of his body . . . whereby the said estate in tail shall be discontinued . . . then I will the said manors, &c, shall remain to my said cousin Edward Walpole ; . . . to Katherine my weU-beloved mother, certain lands in Harpley and Denton . . . remainder to Edward Walpole . . . Manor of Borough Hall in Hillington and lands, &c, in Hillington, Congham, and East Dereham, and all lands and houses, &c, in Norwich, to be sold for purposes of will ; ... to my sisters Ursula Scarlett and Martha Scarlett, lands and tenements in Brancaster ; ... to Mary Houghton my sister ; ... to Jane Ryvett my sister ; ... to Bridgett Houghell my sister ; ... to Anne Stead my sister ; . . . I ordain executors ... Sir Thomas Knyvett, Knt., and Thomas Farmour, Esq- . . . Whereas William Yelverton, Esq., deceased . . . willed recompense to be made to me for certain lands in Rougham, containing, about xxv. acres, which in right appertained to me . . . such recompense to go to Edward Walpole my cousin ... to "Anthony Browne, Esq., and Anne his wife, my two Spanish bowls of silver parcel gilt, and one pair of andirons, and a back of a chimney of casthon standing in the haU " (probably made at the Sussex Iron Works) ; ... to Edmund Call my late servant . . . ; to James Howes ; ... to the residue of my men servants ten shillings a piece ; ... to every of my women servants five shUUngs a piece, except to Catherine Hule, to whom four marks ; ... to William Michell, my godson, and Mary his wtfe, eight acres in Little Massing ham ; ... to the poor of North Tuddenham, Harpley, Great Mas singham, and Hillington ; . . . to my uncle Edmund Knyvett. — Executed 8 October 1587. . . . Witnesses, William Browne, Anthony Browne, Charles Yelverton.— Here follows a " Testament " or Codicil :— I do clearly forgive my servant Edward Parham all such sums of money and other things as he have of mine in his hands; ... to the chUdren THE KINSMEN. 129 of my brother Butterwick and of my late sister Catherine his wife ; — to Agnes Michell my late nurse . . . ; — Residue to be divided into four parts ; — one part unto Mary my whe and my said cousin Edward Wal pole ; — the second part to my uncle Christopher Walpole and his children ; — the third part to my brother-in-law Thomas Ryvett and Jane his wife, my sister ; — the fourth part to my cousin John Walpole of Houghton, Esq., and to his children. All to submit to the advice of Richard Howell, whose costs are to be assured him. To Thomas Scarlett, Gent, (his step-father). . . . Revokes appointment of Sir Thomas Knyvett as executor and appoints in his room John Walpole, Esq., of Houghton. (20) Page 122, line 1. His wUl was proved at Norwich 13th AprU 1588, Consistory ' Homes,' f. 206. (21) Page 122, line 10. This appears from the case laid before Sir Matthew Hale, that has been already referred to. CHAPTER VI. JOHN GERARD. " Surely, Sir, There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends." — Henry VIII. FEW weeks after the annihilation of the great Armada, when the heart of England was stirred with exultant gratitude for the deliverance wrought and the victory gained — when, too, with the rising tide of indignation against 5 the arrogance of Spain, there had come a wave of very angry feeling and resentment against the Pope of Eome and all who were disposed to listen to his claims — a young Englishman of gentle birth, rare tact, courage, and ability, landed by night on the coast of Norfolk, his desire and ambition being to labour io for the conversion of England, to administer the sacraments to faithful Catholics spite of all the terrors of the law, and to act as a missionary of what he believed to be the truth, wherever the opportunity should be offered him. John Gerard was the son of Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn, in 15 Lancashire, a gentleman of great wealth and consideration in his native county ; boasting of a long line of ancestors, and connected by blood or marriage with many of the most power ful houses in the North of England ; his brother Thomas was created a baronet on the first institution of the order in 1 6 1 1 JOHN GERARD. 131 by James I., and from him the present Lord Gerard is lineally descended. For generations the Gerards had been numbered among the knightly families, but in Queen Elizabeth's time they were pronounced and uncompromising Eecusants. Sir Thomas had suffered a long imprisonment for conscience' sake, 5 and his estate had been heavily burdened by the charges and fines levied upon him. His son John's earliest recollections were associated with his father either being thrown into jail or being released ; and he himself had had the experience of more than a year's imprisonment in the Marshalsea, whither he had 10 been sent, shortly after coming of age, for attempting to leave the country without a licence from the Crown. Q-) He was born in 1 564, and brought up at home by a private tutor, who resided in the house, and who appears to have taught him very little. This deficiency in his early training proved a 1 5 serious hindrance to him in after life, and the inconvenience of it he has himself deplored. But if he never became a man of learning or a scholar, if the habits of a student seem never to have been much to his taste, he learned other accomplishments in his boyhood, which in the sequel served his purpose better 20 than any scholarship could have done. He learned to sit a horse and train a falcon, knew all the tricks and terms and slang of the hunting field, became an adept at field sports, and was familiar with the pastimes and polite accomplishments of town and country life. A year before Campion and Parsons 25 had landed, young Gerard was sent to Exeter College, Oxford, but apparently in consequence of the increased strictness in forcing the oath and exacting conformity while the excitement of the first Jesuit mission was at its height, he left Oxford after a little more than a year's residence, and seems to have passed 3° the next year or two in idling or amusing himself. While at Oxford he had been placed under the tuition of a Mr. Leutner, or Lucknor, a devout and zealous Catholic, one of the fellows of Exeter, and who subsequently resigned his fellowship and retired to Belgium, where he died. Gerard accompanied his old 1 32 JOHN GERARD. tutor to the Continent, being desirous of gaining a mastery over the French language, and of otherwise improving himself. He took up his residence at Eheims, and for three years attended the lectures at the English college, although he did not enter 5 himself as a regular student, and was left to pursue his own method of study as he chose. The result was that he read a great deal, but in a desultory and random way ; his tastes lead ing him to attend the divinity lectures, and to spend his time upon the works of the mystical writers of the Middle Ages. io While leading this aimless and unsatisfactory life, he formed a friendship with a young , man whose name he does not give, which proved a crisis in his career ; and under this influence his religious convictions became profoundly intensified. He was living with his new friend in lodgings at Eheims, when, to 1 5 use his own words, " about twenty years of age I heard the call of God's infinite mercy and loving kindness, inviting me from the crooked ways of the world to the straight path, to the perfect following of Christ in His holy Society." It is a signifi cant fact, explain it as we may, that in the latter half of the 20 sixteenth century the " call of God " for young Englishmen of culture and birth, who were Catholics, meant almost invariably a call to enter the Society of Jesus ; so completely had the new order attracted to itself all the choice and lofty spirits among the Catholics, and so wonderfully had the fathers of the society 25 impressed the minds of men with a belief in their sanctity, self-abnegation, and the sincerity of their devotion to a great cause. (2) Shortly after this crisis in his life, he was seized with a dangerous illness while at Claremont College in Paris, and on 30 his recovery he put himself in communication with Father Parsons, explaining to him his desire to join the society. Parsons, with characteristic astuteness, advised him before taking the final step to return to England and settle his affairs, as he had some property it was necessary to dispose of. He took his advice, and went, and, having finished his business, he JOHN GERARD. I33 attempted to slip out of the country, but the vessel he sailed in was compelled to put back by stress of weather, and he was arrested, sent up to London, and thrown into prison. After an incarceration of more than a year he managed to get free, and made the best of his way to France, and thence to Rome' 5 Cardinal Allen had the sagacity to see how much there was in this young zealot, and at once made choice of him as a valuable emissary to use in England ; and although he was some months under the canonical age, he obtained a dispensation from the Pope, and procured his admission to priest's orders in the 10 summer of 1588. On the 15th of August in the same year he was received as a novice into the society, and a few weeks afterwards was sent upon his mission to England. (3) John Gerard was now twenty-four years of age. In person he was tall, erect, and well set ; his complexion dark, his eyes 1 5 with a strange piercing look in them, a prominent nose, full lips, and hair that hung in long curls ; " his beard cut close, saving little mustachios and a little tuft under his lower lip." He was particular in his dress, and rather affected gay clothing. At his ease in any society, he could accommodate himself with 20 consummate adroitness to whatever company he found himself in ; always courteous, he yet knew when to assert himself with decision ; in speech deliberate, and not voluble, he had the gift of holding his tongue when it was the time to be silent : when it was the time to speak he weighed his words and could use 25 them well. Such was this remarkable man, a man whose influence was destined to make itself felt to an extraordinary extent in the upper ranks of English society for the next seventeen years, and who, though he was dogged and hunted by a legion of spies, with a price set upon his head, yet died 30 quietly in his bed at last. Meantime, however, he passed through imminent perils and hairbreadth escapes ; he was apprehended in 1594, and flung into the Tower; here he was exposed to the horrible agony of being hung up by the wrists to the roof of his dungeon for hours, and when he fainted 134 JOHN GERARD. under the cruel torture, he was let down and restored to con sciousness only to be tortured again and again. The amazing nerve and courage of the man did not fail him for a moment in this fearful ordeal ; and although the strain was so fierce that 5 he lost the use of his hands for months, and the very jailors were moved at the sight of his sufferings, not a word could be wrung from him to implicate or compromise associate or friend. He escaped from the Tower in 1597, and at once returned to what he believed to be his duty, — comforting the persecuted, 10 confessing the penitent, visiting the desolate whose convictions were opposed to the dominant creed, administering the sacra ments, although to do so was, ipso facto, to incur the penalty of death ; holding his life in his hand, yet always cheerful, fearless, and unwearied; never swerving from the path which seemed 1 5 to him a path that God had marked out for him ; if under a delusion and in error, yet true to his convictions and consistent in his aims, — an example so far, and a reproach to most of us who think our faith so much purer than his, while our lives can bear so much less to be tried and weighed in the balance. (4) 20 When Gerard wrote the account of himself and his mission to England, the events he recorded were so recent that it was necessary to conceal the names of many of his friends, who were still alive in England and liable to be called to account at any moment for having befriended him ten or fifteen years 25 before ; but by careful study of his narrative, and by the help of documents which have only lately come to light, we are able to follow his movements pretty closely, so far as his sojourn in Norfolk is concerned. He landed, as has been said, in the end of October 1588, at a point on the Norfolk coast, between 30 Happisburgh and Bacton, and after passing the night with his companion, Father Oldcorne, in a wood, where they were soaked with the rain and half perished with the cold, the two separated at dawn, Father Oldcorne keeping to the coast until he arrived at Mundesley, where he joined a company of sailors who were making their way to London, and, casting in his lot JOHN GERARD. I35 with them, was allowed to pass unchallenged by the searchers and officers who were everywhere on the lookout for Semi narists and Jesuits from abroad. Gerard turned his back upon the sea, made for the nearest village, and after dexterously getting all the information he could pick up from labourers 5 in the fields and any one he met, he at last boldly went to a village inn, probably at Sloley or Stalham, where he passed the night, and ingratiated himself with the innkeeper by buying a pony which the man wanted to sell. Next morning he rode off on his new purchase, and while passing through a village, 10 probably Worstead, he was stopped and told that he must give an account of himself to the constable and the beadle of the place. Here he was in great danger of being taken before a magistrate, but as this would have involved some trouble to the officials, for there evidently was no magistrate in the immediate 15 neighbourhood, and as he adopted a defiant and imperious manner, the beadle let him go on his road, the man of birth and education proving too much for the plebeian, who was only accustomed to deal with members of his own class. Gerard trotted away on his pony, well pleased to have escaped 20 his first peril. The place of his landing had been singularly favourable for him. If he had left the ship ten miles further to the northward he would have been compelled to pass through North Walsham or Aylsham on his way to Norwich, and would have been almost infallibly detained by the searchers 25 at either of these towns ; but as it was he had only inconsider able villages to go through, and had very little to fear until he should arrive at the cathedral city. On the high road he caught up a packman who was also journeying to Norwich, and the two rode together for some miles. Gerard got from 30 him all the information he required, and taking the advice of his new friend he avoided entering the city by St. Augustine's Gates, and crossing the river at Hellesdon he made a circuit of the walls, entered by the Brazen Doors, close to the present Militia Barracks, and came to an inn which the packman had 136 JOHN GERARD. told him of — one of the many inns on the Market Hill " within a stone's throw of the castle." (5) Here he put up, and while he was sitting in the chimney corner his next piece of good fortune happened to him. The Recusants who had been com- 5 mitted to the castle ten years before were still incarcerated there, subject to every kind of vexation and imposition, and suffer ing severely in their estates by their long detention. They were, however, occasionally allowed to go out of the prison for a few days at a time, and it chanced that when Gerard had arrived 10 in Norwich one of them had just received his liberty for a brief interval to look after some matters of private business. (6) He came to the inn where Gerard was staying, and attracted his attention by naming a gentleman who had been a fellow- prisoner with Gerard in the Marshalsea some years before. 15 Gerard inquired who he was, and found out that he was a stubborn Recusant who had been in prison for many years for his religion. This was enough : it was not long before he had told his new acquaintance that he was a Catholic like himself, and anxious to make his way to London. Could he help him ? 2° Of course the man who himself had been in jail for ten years could hardly assist another at so critical a moment, but he would tell him of some one who could, and would introduce him to one whose power was greater and inclination no less sincere than his own. That very day a gentleman was coming 25 into Norwich, as zealous an enthusiast as himself, and who, although he had not yet suffered for his opinions, was prepared to do so if the times should require the sacrifice. Gerard has concealed the name of this friend, but there is now no difficulty in identifying him as Edward Yelverton, son 30 of William Yelverton, Esquire of Rougham, and as the circum stances of his meeting Gerard and his subsequent close con nection with him produced important results, not only to the fortunes of the Walpole family, but to the interests of the Catholic party in Norfolk for the next twenty years, it may be advisable here to give some account of so conspicuous a personage. JOHN GERARD. i37 William Yelverton of Eougham was one of the richest men in the county of Norfolk. He was twice married, and by both wives had a large family. (7) His children had almost all married into the wealthiest and most influential families in the Eastern Counties. From his second son, Sir Christopher Yel- 5 verton, who was one of the Justices of the King's Bench, the Viscounts Longueville and Earls of Sussex are descended, from a daughter of which noble house the present Lord Calthorpe traces his lineage. His eldest son, Henry, had married a daughter of Sir William Drury of Halstead, whose son was 1° created a baronet in 1620. Another son, Charles, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and one of his daughters, who had first married Thomas Le Strange of Hunstanton, had allied herself two years before Gerard's arrival with Philip Wodehouse, son and heir of Sir Eoger Wodehouse of Kimberley, ancestor of the 1 5 present Earl. (8) Edward Yelverton was the eldest son of his father's second wife, Jane, daughter of Edmund Cocket of Hempton, co. Suffolk, Esq., and had inherited at his father's death, by virtue of a marriage settlement, a considerable estate in Grimston and the adjoining parishes, extending over between 20 two and three thousand acres. Here he lived according to the fashion of the time, keeping open house, and having as inmates, besides his own family, a younger brother, a sister who had lately been left a widow, who acted as his housekeeper, and a brother-in-law whose name I have as yet failed to discover. (9) 25 As has been said, he had been at Cambridge with the two cousins Edward and Henry Walpole, and was a little their senior, being now about thirty years of age. He had lost his first wife shortly after his marriage, and when his sister Jane was left a widow by the death of Edward Lummer of Manning- 3° ton, co. Norfolk, in 1588, with a very scanty provision and with her marriage portion squandered, he had offered her a home, although she did not sympathise in his enthusiasm for the Eoman doctrine and ritual. He had taken his bachelor's degree , at Cambridge, but never proceeded further, and it is not im- 138 JOHN GERARD. probable that his leaving the university may have been due to the same influences which led so many at this time to give up their hopes of a university career, and to content themselves with the obscurity of a country gentleman's life. (10) 5 When Gerard's first acquaintance in Norwich parted from him, he went in search of Mr. Yelverton, and according to •appointment, met him in the nave of the cathedral. (n) In the course of the interview Gerard frankly confessed himself a priest of the Society of Jesus, and explained his desire to io present himself before his superior in London with the least possible delay. Mr. Yelverton, instead of furthering this plan, insisted on taking him to Grimston, mounting him on the horse which his servant had been riding, and leaving the man to follow with Gerard's pony. From Norwich to 1 5 Grimston was too long a ride for one day, and they put up for the night at one of the country houses on the road, possibly Tuddenham, where William Walpole's widow was now living, or Elsing Hall, the seat of Mr., afterwards Sir Anthony, Brown. (12) Next day they arrived at Mr. Yelverton's, and 20 Gerard was introduced as a friend who had come to spend some time with him. Though the secret of his priesthood was kept with the utmost jealousy, Gerard never concealed the fact of his being a Catholic ; he was in about as safe a neighbour hood as there was in England south of the Humber ; the squires 25 in this part of Norfolk had by no means moved with the times, they were Catholics almost to a man. People discussed the great questions between the Churches of England and Eome freely and openly, and scarcely a single one of the old county families was without some prominent members who 30 were already or were soon about to be sufferers for their faith. The Townshends of Rainham, the Cobbs of Sandringham, the Bastards of Dunham, the Bozouns of Whissonsett, the Kerviles of Wiggenhall, and many others of less note and importance, all figure in the Recusant Rolls, and all were within a ten miles' ride of Grimston ; the county swarmed with squires who, though JOHN GERARD. 139 they " kept their church," yet had small love for the new order of things, and would have welcomed a change to the old regime with something more than equanimity. (1S) When Gerard dropped down into the midst of this neighbour hood of malcontent gentlemen who were quite inclined to attri- 5 bute all the inconveniences they might experience from the natural course of events or their own extravagance to the effects of the persecution, which they were not likely to under-estimate, it is not surprising that his success as a proselytiser surpassed his most sanguine expectations. He tells us that his new 10 friend carried him about with him " to nearly every gentleman's house in the county," Yelverton having the sagacity to see that Gerard was no ordinary man, and that he could take care of himself with tact and discretion. Doubtless among the inner circle of the faithful it was soon suspected that this Mr. 15 Thompson, for this was the name he went by, must_needs be something else than he professed to be. How if this captivating young gentleman with the courtly manners and charming address were — might they whisper it ? — a priest, or something worse ? To be sure he could hold his own with the squire in 20 the hunting field, or slip a hawk from his wrist with the best of them ; take a hand at the card table, or enjoy a seemly joke with a frolic glee that made him welcome wherever he came ; but what did that flash of the dark eyes mean when the ribald tongue broke out into blasphemy and filthy language ?(u) At 25 times how grave he was and silent ; with all this gaiety and vivacity, his mind was clearly always running upon serious things. Other men talked on matters of controversy as if such themes were outside of themselves, he spoke with a solemn earnestness that impressed his hearers most profoundly. 3° Nor was this all : in accounting, or attempting to account, for the effect which a man produces upon others, we mistake the matter much if we allow ourselves to believe that the prosely- tiser's success is even mainly due to his skilful use of cunningly- constructed syllogisms and all the tricks of logic. Converts i4o JOHN GERARD. are not made by arguments, and none knew this better than the Jesuits themselves. Conviction is the result of a very complex process, and he who leaves out of account the personal element from his calculations will never be able to understand the 5 secret of many a strong man's failure or weak man's triumphs. In these matters it has again and again been proved that the main factor must always be that subtle and indefinable some thing which can only be classed under the head of personal in fluence, and which some, in their despair of explaining its potency, io have designated as " mesmeric force." It is abundantly clear that Gerard possessed this strange power of attraction and per suasion to a marvellous extent. During the few years of his sojourn in Norfolk and Suffolk, the number of converts of both sexes which he made would appear absolutely incredible, if the 15 evidence were not so conclusive, and the proofs had not come to us from so many different quarters. At least ten young men of birth, and belonging to the most considerable families- in the two counties, left England and joined the Society of Jesus before the close of Elizabeth's reign, and in every instance we 20 can distinctly trace his influence ; and, indeed in the majority of cases they themselves attribute their conversion to Gerard by name. He has indeed so much understated the importance of his own work, that it looks as if he had scarcely been aware how great was the effect of his labours ; and it is only 25 very recently, after the lapse of three centuries, that modern research has enabled us to form a truer estimate of the extent of his influence. Among the first who found their way to Grimston was Edward Walpole, drawn back to Houghton by his father's 30 death, to look after his affairs. Between him and Edward Yelverton there had long been a perfect understanding, and Yelverton was not likely to keep the great secret from one who was so sure not to betray it. Ever since Henry Walpole had fled the country he had kept up a correspondence with his relatives at home, and letters had passed by every available JOHN GERARD. H, opportunity. Of course he had been careful not to let his cousin's enthusiasm cool, and the blundering policy of the Government which attempted to crush out all fanaticism, whether in the Romanist or the Sectary, as heinous crime, and which yet did not allow the criminal the resource of 5 running away from his persecutor, had in the meantime continued as vexatious as ever. The rigour had not abated and the irritation had intensified. So far Edward Walpole had been only a Nonconformist; at worst he had absented himself from church, and thereby 10 rendered himself liable to the fine for Recusancy, but he had ,not been formally "reconciled" to the Church of Rome. When he heard of Gerard he soon presented himself at Grimston, which was only five miles from Houghton, and with little delay embraced the opportunity of giving in his adhesion 15. to the Jesuit emissary. At Anmer Hall, too, Henry Walpole's youngest brother, Michael, was now living with no very definite plans for his future career, — restless, discontented, and ready for any venture, — of ardent and enthusiastic temperament, — just at 20 that age and just in that mood in which a youth is readiest to surrender himself to the sway and direction of a powerful mind. There was no need for any conversion in his case. Had not his brother, that hero of the house, stood by Campion's side at the gallows ? had he not had already to 25 hide from the pursuivants, to run for his life ? and was he not now a exile for the faith which the mob were howling at ? Was not that same brother himself a Jesuit Father, from whom over the sea came letters of earnest pleading, and the fervent words which told of inward peace and a trust that 30 knew no doubt or any thought of wavering ? And lo ! here, on the other side of Grimston heath, in the house of his brother's friend, it was whispered that a Jesuit priest was staying as a guest. He had come none knew whence, and they scarce knew how — the witchery of a certain mystery and 142 JOHN GERARD. romance was round him. Perhaps he might prove a second Campion; perhaps he too was ambitious of the martyr's crown. Certainly he was living every hour of the day holding his life in his hand, and sure, if detected, of being dragged away to 5 horrible torture and death. And yet he went in and out as gay and fearless as the country squires with whom he mixed familiarly on terms of equality, and as much at his ease as if there were no penal law upon the statute book. It is easy to see for a young man of chivalrous nature, with the love of io adventure strong in him, all this must have exercised an overpowering fascination. And accordingly we find that young Michael threw himself into Gerard's arms and attached himself to him with entire devotion. From the first he became his trusty companion and constant attendant, shared his perils, 15 acted as his messenger, served him as his esquire in his journeys, clung to his side wherever he went, and proved a most valuable coadjutor and friend. (15) There were two other brothers of the Anmer family who, as time went on, became subject to the Gerard influence. Geoffrey 20 Walpole, the second son, never seems to have been troubled by any scruples of conscience. There is not the slightest evidence that he had any sympathy with the uneasiness and discontent which troubled the minds of other members of the household. Whether he was more phlegmatic or less romantic, more stable 25 or less earnest, we shall never know ; it is, however, certain that he was the only one of the six sons who never suffered for his religious opinions. Just a year before the arrival of Gerard in Norfolk, Christopher, the fourth son, had entered at Caius College, 3° Cambridge. He wras then nineteen, and therefore several years older then the usual age at which at this time freshmen went up to the university. He had passed the previous two years under a scholar of some eminence, Thomas Speght, master of Ely school, and one of the earliest editors of Chaucer. Speght was a Peterhouse man, and had been there under Dr. JOHN GERARD. 143 Perne, and was probably, like him, a latitudinarian, with more taste for literature than theology. (16) It is probable that young Christopher Walpole had not been originally intended for one of the learned professions, and that it had been decided to send him to Cambridge only after his brother Richard had 5 relinquished his hopes of a university career ; but we are assured that he made the best use of his time, and that he was a diligent student. When he came home to Anmer for the long vacation of 1589, he must have made Gerard's acquaintance for the first time, and he was the next to 10 succumb to the fascination of the young Jesuit priest. He never returned to Cambridge. More than half disposed to throw in his lot with his two exiled brothers, he was ready enough to yield to Father Gerard's persuasive powers. His position at the university was henceforth no longer tenable. 15 He could not rest where he was. Oaths and declarations, sermons in the university pulpit, which he was bound to listen to, attendance at the college chapel, and compulsory communion with heretics, — all these things were threatening him. He could not conscientiously face them, and the time had come 20 when he believed that he must needs make his choice — remain in England and conform, or leave it, and enjoy that liberty of conscience which was not possible at home. There was still one other brother, Thomas Walpole, a young man of twenty-two, who without any occupation, and apparently 25 without any taste for learning and study, was at this time idling at home. He, too, it seems, could not make up his mind to conform, and be content with things as they were. But what could he do ? These Walpoles clung together with a stubborn pride of family that disdained to purchase advancement by 30 bowing in the house of Rimmon ; and when his brothers were already so deeply compromised, Thomas Walpole would not be disloyal to his kin. As for the polemical questions in dispute, he would leave them to others to wrangle about, but 144 JOHN GERARD. his brothers' cause should be his cause, and with them he would stand or fall. And thus round the hearth at Anmer, five miles or so from Father Gerard's retreat, five young men, the eldest of them six 5 and twenty years of age, might be seen sitting moodily in that winter of 1589, with no future before them, and no career open, living under a ban. At any moment some emissary from the Government might knock rudely at the door, some pursuivant might come to call them to account and press the oath upon 10 them, some spy might report that they no longer put in an appearance at that parish church which was almost contiguous to their hall ; every message from the outer world was full of threatening, there was no field for their ambition, no outlet for their enthusiasm, no scope for the exercise of such powers as 15 they were conscious of possessing. Of course they became fanatics ; of course they became more and more possessed by one idea; of course the sense of wrong and injustice mastered their reason and judgment ; the rites of a religion which was proscribed seemed to them to be the only things that were 20 worth living for, and became in their eyes all the dearer and more precious because every time that they took part in them they were running a tremendous risk, and braving the terrors of the persecuting laws. In the midst of this condition of affairs, news came from 25 across the sea which burst upon the brothers with fresh dismay — Henry Walpole had been arrested at Flushing, and was now lying in a dungeon in imminent peril of his life. His captors demanded a ransom. Who would come to his side and bring the deliverance ? NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. (i) Page 131, line 12. The main authority for all statements regarding Father John Gerard and his family, is Mr. Morris's Condition of Catholics under James I., with its able Ufe of Gerard, derived chiefly from his own autobiography, and illustrated by very copious extracts from MSS. in the Record Office and elsewhere. Gerard was imprisoned in the Marshalsea " from the beginning of one Lent " (1 584) to the end of the following (1585). (2) Page 1 32, line 27. On the New ReUgious Orders founded in the six teenth century, see Ranke's History of the Popes, Book ii. sect. 4. (3) Page 133, line 13. Morris, p. 11. There are several descriptions of Gerard's person, dress, &c. The following has been given by Mr. Morris, but it will bear reprinting here, affording, as it does, so good an instance of the wretch TopcUffe's pecuUar style of composition and more peculiar spelling. " Jhon Gerrarde, ye Jhezew' is about 30 years oulde Of a good stature sumwhat higher then Sr Tho Layton & upright in his paysse and counte nance sum what stayring in his look or Eyes Currilde heire by Nature & blackyshe & not apt to have much hehe of his bearde. I thincke his noase sum what wide and turninge Upp Blubarde Lipps turninge outwards Espe ciaUy the over Lipps most Uppwards toword the Noase Kewryoos in speetche If he do now contynewe his custome And in his speetche he flourrethe and smyles much & a falteringe or Lispinge, or doobhnge of his Tonge hi'his speeche." Another description of him from the MSS. at Hatfield will be found in the Appendix. (4) Page 134, line 19. Horrible as the details are, Gerard's account of his torture in the Tower is so vivid and so powerful that I cannot refrain from giving it here in his own words. " Then we proceeded to the place appointed for the torture. We went in a sort of solemn procession ; the attendants preceding us with lighted candles, because the place was underground and very dark, especially about the entrance. It was a place of immense extent, and in it were ranged divers sorts of racks and other instruments of torture. Some of these they 146 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. displayed before me, and told me I should have to taste them every one. Then again they asked me U I was willing to satisfy them on the points on which they had questioned me. ' It is out of my power to satisfy you,' I answered ; and throwing myself on my knees, I said a prayer or two. "Then they led me to a great upright beam, or pillar of wood, which was one of the supports of this vast crypt. At the summit of this column were fixed certain iron staples for supporting weights. Here they placed on my wrists manacles of iron, and ordered me to mount upon two or three wicker steps ; then raising my arms, they inserted an iron bar through the rings of the manacles, and then through the staples in the pUlar, putting a pin through the bar so that it could not sUp. My arms being thus fixed above my head, they withdrew those wicker steps I spoke of, one by one, from beneath my feet, so that I hung by my hands and arms. The tips of my toes, however, stiU touched the ground ; so they dug away the ground beneath, as they could not raise me higher, for they had suspended me from the topmost staples in the pillar. " Thus hanging by my wrists, I began to pray, while those gentlemen standing round asked me again U I was wiUing to confess. I replied, ' I neither can nor wiU.' But so terrible a pain began to oppress me, that I was scarce able to speak the words. The worst pain was in my breast and belly, my arms and hands. It seemed to me that all the blood in my body rushed up my arms into my hands ; and I was under the impression at the time that the blood actually burst forth from my fingers and at the back of my hands. This was, however, a mistake ; the sensation was caused by the sweUing of the flesh over the iron that bound it. " I felt now such intense pain (and the effect was probably heightened by an interior temptation), that it seemed to me impossible to continue endur ing it. It did not, however, go so far as to make me feel any incUnation or real disposition to give the information they wanted. For as the eyes of our merciful Lord had seen my imperfection, He did 'not suffer me to be tempted above what I was able, but with the temptation made also a way of escape.' Seeing me therefore in this agony of pain and this interior distress, His infinite mercy sent me this thought : 'The very furthest and utmost they can do is to take away thy life ; and often hast thou de sired to give thy Ufe for God : thou art in God's hands, Who knoweth well what thou sufferest, and is all-powerful to.sustain thee.' With this thought our good God gave me also out of His immense bounty the grace to resign myseU, and offer myself utterly to His good pleasure, together with some hope and desire of dying for His sake. From that moment I felt no more trouble in my soul, and even the bodUy pain seemed to be more bearable than before, although I doubt not that it really increased, from the con tinued strain that was exercised on every part of my body. "Hereupon those gentlemen, seeing that I gave them no further answer, departed to the Lieutenant's house ; and there they waited, sending now JOHN GERARD. 147 and then to know how things were going on in the crypt. There were left with me three or four strong men, to superintend my torture. My gaoler also remained, I fully beUeve out of kindness to me, and kept wiping away with a handkerchief the sweat that ran down from my face the whole time, as indeed it did from my whole body. So far, indeed, he did me a service ; but by his words he rather added to my distress, for he never stopped beseeching and entreating me to have pity on myseU, and tell these gentle men what they wanted to know ; and so many human reasons did he allege that I verUy believe he was either instigated directly by the devil under pretence of affection for me, or had been left there purposely by the perse cutors to influence me by his show of sympathy. In any case, these shafts of the enemy seemed to be spent before they reached me, for though annoy ing, they did me no real hurt, nor did they seem to touch my soul, or move it in the least. I said, therefore, to him, ' I pray you to say no more on that point, for I am not minded to lose my soul for the sake of my body, and you pain me by what you say.' Yet I could not prevail with him to be silent. The others also who stood by said : ' He wUl be a cripple all his Ufe, if he Uves through it ; but he will have to be tortured daily till he confesses.' But I kept praying in a low voice, and continually uttered the holy names of Jesus and Mary. " I had hung in this way till after one of the clock, as I think, when I fainted. How long I was in the faint I know not ; perhaps not long ; for the men who stood by Ufted me up, or replaced those wicker steps under my feet, until I came to myseU ; and immediately they heard me praying, they let me down again. This they did over and over again when the faint came on, eight or nine times before five of the clock. Somewhat before five came Wade again, and drawing near said, ' Will you yet obey the commands of the Queen and the Council 1 ' " ' No,' said I, ' what you ask is unlawful, therefore I wiU never do it.' " ' At least, then,' said Wade, ' say that you would like to speak to Secretary Cecil.' " ' I have nothing to say to him,' I replied, ' more than I have said already ; and if I were to ask to speak to him, scandal would be caused, for people would imagine that I was yielding at length, and wished to give information.' "Upon this Wade suddenly turned his back in a rage, and departed, saying in a loud and angry tone, ' Hang there, then, tiU you rot ! ' " So he went away, and I think all the Commissioners then left the Tower ! for at five of the clock the great bell of the Tower sounds, as a signal for all to leave who do not wish to be locked in all night. Soon after this they took me down from my cross, and though neither foot rior leg was injured, yet I could hardly stand." (5) Page 136, line 2. Any reader of Gerard's narrative, with some local 148 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. knowledge, wiU be able to follow him in his route to Norwich by the help of my account in the text. Bacton is the furthest northern point at which the landing could have taken place. Had the' vessel put him ashore at Mundesley, Sheringham, or Cromer, he would have almost necessarily had to pass through North Walsham or Aylsham, where he would have been at once brought before a magistrate. On the other hand, had he landed at Bacton itseU, he could scarcely have faUed to mention Bromholin Priory, which was then not quite in ruins. It is clear that the place of landing must have been between Happisburgh and Bacton, and that Father Oldcorne, " keeping to the coast," .must have faUen in with the sailors at or near Mundesley. The bridge over the river at Hellesdon existed certainly as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, and the fields outside Norwich at this time were aU open. Gerard seems to have crossed the Dereham Road, and to have " made his circuit of the city," tUl he found himseU on one of the main London roads, and, avoiding the long street from St. Stephen's gates, which would have exposed him to observation, to have crossed what was then the common land outside the waUs, and entered by the " Brazen Doors." Not many days before Gerard's arrival in Norfolk, an order had been sent down to the Sheriff of Norfolk (Sir John Peyton of Isleham, co. Cambridge) ". . . for that their L.L. understand that the Recusants that are prisoners in the Common Jail within that county do much harm, and infect the county, by the liberty which they enjoy there, their L.L. have thought good to have such of them whose names are contained in the enclosed Schedule to be removed from thence to Wisbech, and therefore did wUl and require hhn to cause them to be immediately delivered to the charge of this bearer [ ] George, keeper of the same house, and also to be assisting unto hhn in the safe conveyance of them thereto." — Privy Council Records. Then follow the names :— i. Walter Norton. 2. George ( a mistake for Robert) Downes. 3. Robert Lovell. 4. Ferdinand Paris. 5. Humphrey Bedingfeld. 6. Robert Graye. It appears that a complaint had been sent up to the Council in August, against James Bradshaw, keeper of the Castle at Norwich, "being com plained of to have given more Uberty to such [as] are obstinate Recusants than is fit," and in consequence a letter was sent down to Freake, Bishop of Norwich, ordering him "to inform himseU of the behaviour of James Bradshaw . . . and of his disposition in religion, and how he hath kept the same Recusants, and what liberty they have had," &c. Of the gentlemen named, Ferdinand Paris was of Pudding Norton, Co. Norfolk ; he had large estates also in Cambridgeshire, but he seems to have been at last ruined by the exactions levied upon him and his family. JOHN GERARD. 149 Robert Lovell was a younger brother of Sir Thomas Lovell of HarUng. Humphrey Bedingfeld, of Quidenham, was a younger brother of Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh. In another order in the Privy Council Book, dated 20th March, 1 588-89, the Sheriff of the County is instructed that, "Whereas Humphrey Bedingfeld, Gent.,* hath been long time a prisoner for recusancy in Norwich Jail ; forasmuch as there is good [hope] of his conformity in religion U he might have conference with; some such as are given [sic] therein and for his health's" sake. He was required to take order that Bedingfeld might be delivered to the custody o/Mr. Rowe, parson of Quidenham, to remain with him in his charge f»r the purpose aforesaid untU he shall have order for the contrary. Causing good bonds to be taken of Bedingfeld that during the time of his commitment as aforesaid, he depart not above two miles distant from the house or dwelling- place of the said Rowe." On Robert Downes, see Notes 10 and 11 to Chapter III. : he was an uncle of Francis Downes of Lavenham, who was ancestor of Lord Downes, in the Peerage of Ireland. Robert Graye, of Merton, had married a sister of Mr. Lovell's. His epitaph in Merton church is given in Blomefield, ii. 305. He was ancestor of the present Lord Walsingham. The order for the removal of these gentlemen to Wisbech was not carried out tiU AprU 1 590. A month before, a letter had been ordered to be writ ten to " Richard ArchenstaU, Esq., with a copy of the orders sent down by their L. L. for the keeping of the Recusants." "1. First the knights and principal gents are to be allowed two men apiece for their necessary service, U they require it, and the others but one man apiece. " 2. It is meet that they shall be placed in the Bishop's Palace in Ely, in such rooms as by him to whom the charge is committed shall be thought most meet and convenient for that purpose. " 3. They are to be used with all courtesy, but not to suffer them to have conference with any stranger but in his own presence, or some such trusty person as he shall depute. "4. For their bedding, hangings, and such like furniture, the parties themselves to furnish the same, to whom the keeper shaU give notice thereof to the end they make provision accordingly. "5. He shall make them acquainted with the diet that is set down in the Fleet, whereof a note is set down herewithal, both for the allowance and the number of the dishes, and ¦if they shall desire any increase, then are they to compound with him for the same. " 6. It is meant that they shall be permitted to converse together at their meals and at such other times as by him to whom the charge of them 15° NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. is committed shall be thought meet, so as they do forbear formal speeches unfit for good subjects against the Queen's Majesty or any States of the Realm having governance thereto. (?) " 7. So likewise they are to be permitted to walk together at such times as by their keeper's discretion shall be thought meet, in such places as are not open to the town of Ely. " 8. Order may be taken that some of the watchmen of the town of Ely be appointed to watch about the house, in such places as by the keepers shall be thought most meet and needful, and so it is to be referred to his own discretion to consider what number of men he shall think sufficient to keep both for their better safeguard and service. " 9. Every night they are to be shut up in their chamber at a convenient hour. " Orders to the same effect to Mr. Fynes for Recusants to be placed under his charge at Banbury Castle or Broughton, Mr. Fynes his house, &c, &c." Doubtless the same orders held good at Wisbech. (6) Page 136, line in. In these same Records of the Privy Council, I found two instances of ' leave of absence ' being granted to the Recusant gentry :— 1. "7th January 1587-88.' A warrant to the keeper of Norwich Jail to take bonds of Walter Norton, Gent., remaining prisoner under his custody, with two sufficient sureties in the sum of ,£1000 to Her Majesty's use, with condition to return himseU prisoner at the end of one month following into his custody, and thereupon to set him forthwith at liberty." 2. " 19th June 1589. A letter to Sir Edward Clere, to take gobd bonds of George Willoughby, of St. Mary Magdalen in Marshland, Esq., to Her Majesty's use, for his forthcoming upon notice given him at his house in Marshland, and for his good demeanour and weU-nsage of himseU during the time he shaU be employed about the repairing of the sea banks, drains, and draining of marshes ; thereupon to give order for his Uberty and release- ment from the custody of Robert Bozun, Esq., to whose keeping he was the last year committed for recusancy, that he might remain within the circuit of sixteen mUes about his said house in Marshland." (7) Page 137, line 3. In the answers given by one of his grandchildren Charles Yelverton, to the usual interrogatories presented to him on his entering the English CoUege at Rome, on the 14th December 1601— copies of which are now in the archives of the RoUs House— he says that his grandfather had twenty children. Some of these may have died young ; I know of only fifteen, and there are only fifteen figured upon his brass,°still existing in Rougham church ; these are, however, all represented as' men and women : the following scheme gives them at a glance : JOHN GERARD. 151 Anne, daughter of Henry 7 William Yelverton of Roug--f 2. Joan, da. of Edm. Cocket of Farmor of Basham. | ham, died 12 August 1586. 1 Cocket, Esq., co. Suffolk. ¦1. Henry Yelverton of Rougham, died 26 April 1601 (p.m. in£,)=Bridget, da. of Sir W. Drury of Halstead. -2. William Yelverton, B.A., Pembroke Coll. Camb. 1573, said to have settled in Ireland ; but query did he not die young — v. patr. ? -3. Sir Christopher Yelverton, one of the Judges of the King's Bench =Mary, da. of Thos. Catesby of Whiston, co. Northants. He died 1607. ¦4. Launcelot Yelverton, Clerk, Rector of the parishes of Sculthorpe, Geist, and Castle Rising, died 1577 ? ¦5. Humphrey Yelverton of Bawsie.= Elizabeth, da. of Francis Bastard of Grimstone, Esq. He died Nov. 1585 ; she, March 1591. ¦6. Winifred. =Owen Ducket of Worthing. -7. Anne. = (i) Thos. Rede of Wisbeach. (2) John Hawkins of , co. Essex. -8. Martha. = (1) Thomas Fincham of Fin- cham, Esq. (2) John Heigham of Giffords, co. Sua". -9. Frances. -10. Jane=Edward Lumner of Manning- ton, Esq. He died 1588. . Edward Yelverton of Grimstone. =(1) 1 (2) Nazareth, da. of Edm. Bedingfeld. He died 1623. . William Yelverton of Hertford. =Graoe, da. of .... Newport of , co. Bucks. He died 1616 ; she in 1624. -13. Sir Charles Yelverton, Knt. He died in debt, 1629. -14. Ferdinand. Query died v.p. ? 15. Grisell. =(1) Thos. Le Stranqe. (2) Sir Philip Woodhouse. (8) Page 137, line 16. Thomas, eldest son of Hamon Lestrange of Hunstanton, Esq., died in the eighteenth year of his age, February 1st, in the 23rd year of EUzabeth (1582), without any issue by GriseU his wife, daughter of WilUam Yelverton of Rougham. — Blomefield, x. 319. In the muniment room at Hunstanton (A. 60) are deposited " Articles of agreement made the 19th March, in the 25th year of EUzabeth, by the arbitrament and good mediation of Henry Doyly, Thomas Farmor, Nathaniel Bacon, and Charles CornwaUis, Esquires, as well by the fuU and mutual consent of Sir Roger Woodhouse, Knight, for and on behalf of Philip Woodhouse, Esq., his son and heir apparent, and Grisell his wUe, of the one part ; and John Peyton, Esq., for and on behalf of Nicholas Lestrange, Esq., on the other part ..." In accordance with which arbitration made on the 15 th August, 27 EUzabeth, the manors of East Lexham, with West Lexham, Dunham, &c, were made over to Grisell Woodhouse for her Ufe (A. 61). (9) Page 139, line 25. The brother and sister present no difficulty. The brother was almost certainly Charles Yelverton, who had been a witness to William Walpole's will at Tuddenham a year before, and who shortly afterwards obtained some office at Court, though what that office was I have not yet discovered. The sister, Jane Lumner, had been left very scantily provided for by her husband, who died very much in debt, as appears by 152 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. her petition to the Court of Chancery in 1 597, where she speaks of herself as " being very well descended, and having also received a good portion in marriage." (See Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, vol vm. pt. iv.) She continued " an obstinate Recusant," as she is frequently described to be upon the Lists of Presentments made to the Bishop of Norwich annually. She had two daughters, who sympathised with their mother and suffered with her. I find her name always included in the Recusant Lists down to 161 5. During the twenty years, more or less, when her name appears on the rolls, she changed her residence three or four times, and it looks as if she had become poorer and poorer under the pressure of the exactions levied upon her. The Ucense for 'Edward [sic] Lumner de Mannington' to marry 'Jane Yelverton de Rougham' is dated 5th July 1569. (10) Page 138, line 4. Edward Yelverton took his B.A. degree in 1 579, being then of Peterhouse, Cambridge (MS. Records in the Registry of the University). During his undergraduate days his future brother-in-law Philip Woodhouse, Dudley Fenner, and Christopher Heydon, were among the feUow commoners, and Edward Walpole, Henry Walpole, Bartley (alias Bernard) Gardiner, and Philip Paris, probably a son of Ferdinando Paris of Pudding Norton, were among the pensioners. See, too, n. (33), chap. ii. That Edward Yelverton was twice married is asserted in the Visitation of Norfolk, now in course of publication by the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, p. 269. Who his first wife was I have been unable to discover. His second wife was Nazareth, daughter of Edmund Bedingfeld of Oxburgh. She is frequently described in the Present ments as " An obstinate Recusant." Blomefield has confounded Edward Yelverton with his son Edward Yelverton, M.D. The Grimeston and Blackborough estates were settled by indenture, dated 12th Jan., 10 Elizabeth, upon William Yelverton and Jane his wUe for life, and after their death on Edward Yelverton their eldest son, in fee tail. — Chancery Inq. p.m., S. P. 0. The p.m., inquisition on William Yelverton was held at Walsingham, 4th October, 30 Elizabeth. (11) Page 138, line 7. Though no Recusant would enter a church where divine service could be carried on, the naves of our cathedrals were regarded as no more than within the precincts. The uses to which the nave of St. Paul's was put may be seen in Dean MUman's work, and elsewhere. (12) Page 138, line 19. By a Subsidy Roll (P. R. 0.) for the 35th EUz. 1593) if?, I had that William Walpole's widow was still unmarried, and Uving at Tuddenham. The chapel is still in existence at Elsing HaU. JOHN GERARD. 153 The Brownes of Elsing were conscientious CathoUcs, but appear to have taken the oath, and so were regarded by the stricter Romanists as ' schis matics.' The foUowing letter, dated Elsing, 29th April 1876, is from the rector of that parish, and deserves to be placed on record here. " At Elsing HaU, between the grand haU and the withdrawing-room, in the thick of the wall, is a well, evidently the well of a staircase leading down wards. The curious part of this is that the opening was in the side of the room ; it was therefore no ceUar, but most probably a place of concealment. The plastered waU of the weU against the hall was broken into during the repairs some twenty years ago, and then I saw it." There can be no doubt that this was one of the many instances of a place of concealment specially constructed as a hiding hole. (13) Page 139, line 3. Far the ablest sketch which has yet been written of the condition of feeling among the upper classes on the questions at issue between England and the Papacy, is to be found in the seventh chapter of Mr. Simpson's Life of Campion. It is all the more valuable and suggestive because it comes from one who was himseU a convert to the Church of Rome, and who, in seceding from the Church of his baptism, made some real sacrifices. (14) Page 139, line 25. "He [Father Southwell] frequently got me to instruct him in the technical terms of sport, and used to complain of his bad memory for such things, for on many occasions when he fell in with Protestant gentlemen he found it necessary to speak of these matters, which are the sole topics of their conversation save when they talk obscenity, or break out into blasphemies and abuse of the Saints or the Cathohc Faith." — Morris, u s. p. xxiv. (15) Page 142, line 17. [Edward Walpole of Houghton] "persuaded his cousin Michael Walpole ... to accompany him. At this period of my story [1589] the latter was my assistant, and used to go with me as my confidential servant, to the houses of those gentlemen with whom it was necessary for me to maintain such a position." — Gerard's Autobiography. See, too, Morris's Condition of Catholics, p. lxv. ; and Oliver's Collections sub voc. '¦Michael Walpole.' (16) Page 143, line 2. " Christophems Walpole, Alius Christopheri Walpole, generosi, ex oppido Anmyre oriundus hi comitatu Norfolciae, litteris grammaticis institut: s in Schola communi Eliensi sub mago Sypght. Per licenciam, adolescens annorum 19, admissus est in collegium Brum Utterarum gratia pensionarius minor commeat' scolar. 25 Octobris 1587, fidejuss. et pro eo magr. Christoph. Grimston, art. mag. et hujus cohegii socius." — Matriculation Book, Caius Coll., Cambridge. There is a good account of Speght in Cooper's Athence Cantabrig. Cooper, in his account of Christopher Walpole (u. s.), has confounded him with his brother Richard. CHAPTER VII. THE MISSIO CASTRENSIS. HEN Robert Earl of Leicester set sail from Harwich on his disastrous expedition to the Low Countries, the avowed object of his going was to wrest the United Provinces from the grasp, of the Spaniards, and to free 5 from Spanish domination the much-enduring and much-strug gling people whose heroic determination and courage had long attracted the amazement and admiration of Europe. But the Earl of Leicester had over-estimated his own powers : his royal mistress knew him better than he knew himself ; she had her io own misgivings of her favourite, and had taken a true measure of his qualifications for the mission he was so eager to discharge. What was he that he should aspire to lead armies, and play the sovereign over a stubborn people with a passion for freedom and a hatred of foreign control? When the Queen yielded JS to the earl's importunity, she yielded with the worst possible grace, and left him to support the honour of England and to pay his ragged followers from his own very limited resources. Q-) At war a novice, at diplomacy a child, Leciester had as his antagonist in the field the most consummate captain of the age, 20 and in statecraft, the astute and high-minded patriot, John of Barneveldt. His failure was predicted from the first ; but few THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 155 could have anticipated the disgraceful rebuff's he received, or foreseen the contemptible incapacity he exhibited, till humilia tion after humiliation discovered his utter shallowness, and made it evident that under no circumstances could that handsome fop, the darling of the drawing-room, have proved himself worthy to 5 be a leader of armies. Character, principle, and mental force were needed, not mere personal grace, prettiness, and the languishing accomplishments of a perfect ladies' man. On his first arrival, Leicester was welcomed with enthusiasm, and almost immediately elected Governor-General of the 10 United Provinces ; but his popularity was short-lived ; deficient in tact, temper, courtesy and knowledge of men, his arrogance became every day more offensive, and his lack of all soldierly qualities more glaringly manifest. After eight months of ab solute inaction, he made the abortive attempt to intercept a 15 convoy at Zutphen; in this attempt Sir Philip Sydney — Leicester's nephew — lost his life while recklessly charging the enemy, a mad and riotous proceeding such as could only have occurred under a general who had no proper control over his officers.(2) In four months more Leicester was back again in 20 England, having effected nothing. Nay ! not quite nothing. He had won the fort which was a formidable menace to Zut phen; he had secured Deventer, one of the most important cities of the United Provinces. Deventer had been wavering in its allegiance. There was a 25 very powerful Catholic faction there. The religious sympathies of its leading inhabitants were strongly in favour of the old religion, and the magistrates were almost to a man not only deeply discontented with the English domination, but in heart tending more and more towards the Spanish side. On the 20th 30 October, 1587, Sir William Pelham, "the stout marshal," as Motley calls him, made his entry into the city, summoned the magistrates into his presence, and on the following day removed them from their office, demanded the keys of the gates, imprisoned the old officials, and created new ones, staunch 156 THE MISSIO CASTRENSIS. Protestants all of them. Deventer was safe, and Zutphen's fate sealed ; for though the fort was gone the town still held out against the English besiegers. The next question to settle was, who should be the new governor of Deventer ? 5 There were in Leicester's army a strange assemblage of soldiers of fortune — men of reckless daring, absolutely without principle ; adventurers who were free lances, and ready to serve on either side for plunder or pay ; fellows who were no more to be trusted than common blacklegs or banditti. Such a creature io was Rowland Yorke. His career pointed him out as a man with the ferocious courage of a wild beast when his blood was up, but who seems to have had no single virtue except an absence of all fear of God or man. One less worthy of a post of confidence it would have been impossible to pick out from 1 5 the whole force under Leicester's command ; and yet to him was committed the duty of holding the fort of Zutphen against the Spaniard, and of ensuring the capture of the beleagured town, which that fort now commanded. This was a bad enough blunder, but a worse blunder followed. 20 There was another leading captain in the army, — Sir William Stanley, — a restless and ambitious soldier, son and heir of a stubborn Recusant in Cheshire, who had long rendered himself conspicuous by his determined opposition to the Protestant cause in his own neighbourhood, and had given the Earl of 25 Huntingdon in the north of England a great deal of trouble by his factious activity in support of the Romanists, and his vigi lance in thwarting every attempt to prejudice the cause to which he was attached. Such as the father was such was the son. First, and above all things, a religious zealot, whose 3° passionate hatred of everything in the shape of Protestantism, and whose intense 'Vaticanism' blinded his judgment and smote his conscience with a stupid palsy. He too had served on both sides, for patriotism he had none. The sentiment of loyalty to one's native country was, in Queen Elizabeth's days, incomparably weaker than, thank God, it has become among us THE MISSIO CASTRENSIS. 157 since ; and the frenzy of religious bigotry thrust into the back ground, if it did not quite overpower and extinguish, the sacred associations of fatherland. (3) It may seem to some a paradox, but it is nevertheless a fact, the truth of which becomes more and more evident as we study 5 the history of Europe in the sixteenth century, that patriotism, as we now understand the term, was a sentiment but feebly apprehended under the last of the Tudors, indeed it was a sentiment that as yet had scarcely any existence. In Prance men were not Prenchmen but " Leaguers " or " Huguenots " in 10 the sixteenth century, as they had been "Armagnacs" or " Burgundians " in the fifteenth. It was Michel de l'Hopital who first inspired his countrymen with any enthusiasm for France as France : the party of the " Politiques " were the earliest representatives of French patriotism. In Germany the 1 5 national sentiment was even fainter. The Reformation had done a great deal to divide men into rival factions quite irre spective of their birthplace. The opposite feeling, where it existed, was not so much national as feudal, and where allegiance to the ' dominus ' had faded, it had tended to transfer itself, 20 less to the temporal sovereign than to the shadowy power that represented the idea of religion, — the Church and its head. It was not till after the tremendous catastrophe of the Armada, and when the restlessness of Spanish ambition had familiarised men's minds with the prospect of an actual invasion of tlieir 25 country, that they began to appreciate the glory of being Englishmen, and recognised distinctly the paramount claim upon their loyalty which England, as a nationality, demanded of them, whatever their religious convictions or whatever their creed. 3° Sir, William Stanley had not risen to such a standing-point as this. He had persuaded himself that a heretic queen was no queen over him. Enough, that she had been pronounced excommunicate, and by the Pope deposed. Others might split hairs, if they pleased, on the question whether that excommuni- 158 THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. cation were published with due formalities; for him, he accepted it as final, and with that acceptance the foundation of his loyalty to the sovereign crumbled away. Henceforth he seemed to himself set free from every engagement which 5 could bind a man of honour. Cut adrift from his anchorage upon the fundamental principles of moral obligation, right and wrong were tossed about in his mind in a hopeless embroglio ; and so treachery had come to be regarded in the light of a sacrifice, and the huge proportions of some monstrous villany, io in the misty chambers of his darkened brain, grew into an image of heroism surrounded by a halo of lurid glory. No more conspicuous instance can be pointed to in this time of a man thoroughly saturated with the detestable doctrine that the end justifies the means. 15 And here it seems to me that we are brought face to face with that bad side of sixteenth century polemics which all the special pleading in the world can never avail to excuse ; the tendency, viz., to exalt the claims of a creed above those of morality, — a tendency to- sever the one from the other, even 20 to the verge of antagonism, — a tendency to defend the interests of religion at the expense of her principles, in common with all those who enclose the essence of religion in the nutshell of a dogma. With upright and earnest natures the devotional element for the most part absorbed the factious and immoral 25 perversions which reckless disputants were even then beginning to foist upon the theology and ethics of the age ; but with men of narrow intellect and low morale, cursed as they so often are with a passion for intrigue, the interests were the essence, and all else was form. Such men gave their lives to the one ; they 3° accommodated themselves on occasion to the other. Stanley had come to regard the interests of the Church as the idol which he was bound to propitiate by any and every means : with a mind perplexed and confused by problems that fasci nated all the more because he had not the wit to solve them; a spurious pietism goading him on he knew not THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 159 whither ; wounded of late in his pride by certain untoward slights that stung him sorely ; disappointed in his ambition, too, for he had been passed over by less meritorious com manders ; and with visions of a more brilliant career — he was just the man, sooner or later, to make his name infamous to 5 posterity by some act of flagrant and eccentric villany. When Leicester left him at Deventer with almost irresponsible power, he felt that his opportunity had come, and he lost no time in availing himself of it. Mr. Motley has described in his own vivid way the incidents IO of the shameful treason in which Stanley and Rowland Yorke were the chief actors. In his pages the whole story may be read in its minutest details. Here it is enough to say that, by a plan cunningly concerted between the two traitors, the fort of Zutphen was delivered up by Yorke, and Deventer 15 surrendered by Stanley, to Tassis, the commander of the Spanish force, on the selfsame day (29th January 1587). Sir William Stanley could sell himself ; he could not sell the honour of his officers. As to the Irish kernes who formed the rank and file, it was an easy matter with them 20 to change, sides. They cared nothing for heretic England and her excommunicate Queen : they cared very much for their own religion, which they had some reason for believing was to be mercilessly persecuted and proscribed. They were almost savages, the terror even of their own side ; wild marauders 25 to whom war meant unlicensed pillage ; uncouth of look, barbaric in speech, hardly at all amenable to discipline, they rejoiced that they were rid of all control from the English yoke, and exulted in being soldiers now of the " Most Catholic King; " but the regiment came rapidly disorganised, it became 3° necessary to find new officers at any rate, and that without delay. There were in Belgium no small number of English gentle men who had taken refuge with the Spanish governor from time to time, when their religious convictions or political 160 THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. partizanship had rendered their stay in their own country dangerous or impossible. The exodus at the beginning of the Queen's reign has been mentioned before — it was an exodus then of men of real learning, piety, and accomplishments — men 5 who had made great sacrifices, and who desired only to live in undisturbed enjoyment of their religion ; but when the rebel lion in the north collapsed, a very different company crossed the Channel — this time no zealots, but mere malcontents who had raised the standard of revolt, and in many cases actually io borne arms against their sovereign ; adherents of the northern earls and of the Duke of Norfolk ; men deeply implicated in plots and treasons, and bitterly and personally hostile to the Government at home. Making common cause with these, too, there had come over many an ardent supporter of Mary Stuart 15 — some of them sincerely and loyally devoted to her cause — some of them professional conspirators who took up that cause as a party cry — -but in either case equally vehement in denouncing the wickedness of those who had compassed her death upon the scaffold. All these were the political exiles. There were 20 others again, who were merely eager for any military employ ment, and cared not to which side they lent their swords. War was the trade they chose, and if they were Catholics, they preferred the Spanish service to that under any Protestant power. When Stanley's captains threw up their commissions, 25 the difficulty was got over by accepting the services of the unemployed and hungry volunteers, idling about the purlieus of the Brussels Court. It took less time than might have been ex pected to supply the place of the English officers. It was perhaps less easy to fill up the blanks which death and disease made in 30 the rank and file. There could be little or no hope of any more Irish recruits ; the new soldiers must needs be of very mixed nationality, some were Italians, some French, some Flemings, some few Spaniards ; it mattered little where they came from, for the Irish kernes spoke a tongue which none could understand but themselves. There was one thing, however, that was THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 161 essential. In the Irish regiment there could be no difference in religion allowable ; that at any rate was a thing not to be endured ; for if the strongest tie which bound these wild soldiers together was a unanimity in their creed, it was needful that all due precautions should be used to keep up that fanaticism 5 which went far to make them fiery zealots in the shock of war. In those days army chaplains were absolutely unknown ; men went forth to battle, or died after it, " Unhouseled, disappointed, unannealed, No reckoning made, but sent to their account 10 With all their imperfections on tlieir heads." The priest had no place in the camp, and it was assumed that he was better away ; but to the honour of the Jesuits be it said, the first organised attempt to introduce the recognition of re ligion into an army in the field originated with them. 15 In the autumn of 1586, the Prince of • Parma had been very powerfully impressed by a Jesuit father, Thomas Sailly, a native of Brussels, whose health had broken down during his labours in Russia, and who had been sent home to recruit, bearing import ant despatches and commendatory letters from Stephen Battor, 20 King of Poland. With this introduction, he soon acquired a remarkable ascendancy over the Viceroy, became his confessor, and after a while induced him to establish what may be termed a Missionary Staff of Jesuit fathers, entrusted with the spiritual welfare of the soldiery. (*) Sailly and his little band of mis- 25 sioners set themselves to their work with heroic energy — preaching in the camp at every opportunity ; attending day and night upon the sick and wounded in the hospitals : on the battlefield comforting and shriving the dying ; doing all those offices of charity which have been undertaken so nobly in our 30 own time by those devoted philanthropists who unconsciously, during the German campaign in France, were splendid imitators of the Jesuit fathers of three hundred years ago. In the hottest fight these men were to be seen carrying the wounded to the rear, and bending over the dying to catch their last words of 1 62 THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. penitence or prayer ; in the furious turmoil of some town stormed and sacked, they were foremost in rescuing women and children from the brutal lust and cruelty of frenzied ruffians who had lost all self-control. More than one or two fell vic- 5 tims, sometimes to disease, sometimes to their excessive rash ness in exposing themselves to fire, sometimes to their unwearied exertions, which were more than flesh and blood could bear ; but the admiration and profound respect which their unselfish labours earned for them, and the novelty of the work they gave io themselves to do, and did so well, added enormously to the estimation in which the Jesuits were held in Belgium then and long afterwards. The Missio Castrensis had been established about two years when Henry Walpole was sent to join it. His readiness of 15 speech and abundant culture, his captivating manner and extraordinary facility as a linguist, his long and careful train ing, and perhaps, too, his birth and connection with some who were conspicuous in the army, marked him out as an eminently fit man for work of this kind. He himself, in his examinations, 20 tells us that his business was to hear confessions in French and English, Spanish and Italian, of all which he was a master, and we may be sure that he threw himself into his new duties with no half-heartedness. But he had not long entered upon this career before misfortune overtook him. Flushing was one of 25 the towns which, in 1589, was held by a garrison chiefly of Englishmen. Its commander was Sir Robert Sydney, a brother of Sir Philip Sydney, and so nephew of the Earl of Leicester, to which earldom he was himself raised by James I. in 161 8. In one of Henry Walpole's journeys to minister to the soldiery, 30 or it may be in some attempt to confer with friends in the town,— for friends there he certainly had, — he was taken prisoner and committed to close custody. (5) We are told that he was confined in the common prison of the town in the depth of winter, with nothing but his soutane to cover himself with, nothing but filthy straw to lie on, and associated THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 163 with a herd of the vilest criminals incarcerated in the loath some jail for every sort of atrocity, — wretches who were ready to strangle him for the sake of his scanty garments, and who, if the story be true, actually had a design of murdering him and making it appear that he had committed suicide. But 5 even in this pitiful condition he did not lose heart or suffer his zeal to grow cold. There is a touching incident which comes to our notice during this the first great trial of his earnestness, which shows that his religious enthusiasm had not been extinguished or diminished during his confinement. It 10 appears that after a time the rigour of Henry Walpole's imprisonment was to some extent relaxed, and that he was granted some sort of liberty on parole. The indulgence so accorded him was turned to account, and at once he set him self to exercise his ministry in the town. There was a poor 15 Flushing man named George Nachtegael, who had been originally apprenticed to a tailor, and afterwards had travelled to Madeira as a merchant's clerk. He had returned to his native place after an absence of four years, and was there when Henry Walpole was captured. What brought the two 20 together we are not told, but before long the impression produced by the Jesuit father upon the poor mechanic was so profound that when the order of release arrived, Nachtegael resolved to pursue a religious life, and to offer himself as a lay brother to the Society. He seems to have followed Henry 25 Walpole to Brussels, where he was received as temporal coad jutor to Father Oliver Manareus, in November 1592 ; and when, two years after, Edward Walpole was passing his time of probation at Tournay, Nachtegael was sent to the same house of noviciate, and doubtless furnished him with many of those 30 particulars of his cousin's imprisonment which have been preserved. (6) Among the English officers serving at Flushing was one Captain Russel, a Norfolk man. He was one of the Russels of West Rudham, a parish contiguous to Houghton ; and was 1 64 THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. a cousin of the Walpoles. It would have been dangerous for any recognition to pass between the kinsmen under the circum stances, but the soldier soon managed to find means of alleviating the suffering of the priest, to provide him with 5 additional clothing, and, what was of more importance, to communicate with his Norfolk friends, and give them intelli gence of his perilous position. The news had no sooner reached England than Michael Walpole determined at once to cross the seas, and go to his brother's side. His training under io such a wary diplomatist as John Gerard, and the practice he had already had, fitted him admirably for a mission which required caution, tact, and presence of mind ; and the young man had already, it seems, determined to offer himself to the Society, and to forsake his country at the earliest possible 15 opportunity. Slipping away accordingly, in December 1589, without a licence, he made his way to- Flushing, and before long managed to get access to his brother, and to confer with him in his prison. Already it had been intimated that a ransom would be accepted for his release, and the money 20 having been found, partly by his relatives and partly by his Brussels friends, he was at length set at liberty in January 1 590, having learned, as he himself says, by his imprisonment, " to know better both God, the world, and himself." It is at this point that the important series of letters contained 25 in the archives of Stonyhurst College comes in. They cover a period of fifteen months, and furnish us with a very valuable picture of the deplorable state of affairs among the English refugees in Belgium during the two years after the Armada. They corroborate in the minutest particulars the miserable 3° account which Lewknor (?) gave of them in 1591, and they show us the petty jealousies, quarrels, intrigues, and poverty of the deluded pensioners of the Spanish king, whose allowances were always coming and always in arrear.(7) They tell us of the gradual dwindling away of the wretched Irish rabble by courtesy called a regiment — till it almost seemed likely to THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 165 disband from lack of commanders. They give us notices of the coming and going of Jesuit priests and political agents and Spanish generals. Now and then there are scraps of news from home, and sometimes faint whispers of dark intrigues going on, or of wars and rumours of wars that might be imminent. But 5 free and unrestrained as these letters are, and written as they are in full confidence and affection by one Jesuit to another (Cresswell), there is not from beginning to end one single word or hint which indicates anything approaching, I will not say to treasonable designs, but even to an acquaintance with the i° existence of such designs on the writer's part. Setting aside such religious views as we should of course expect to meet with, these letters exhibit to us a man of intense enthusiasm, of lofty piety, of fanaticism if you will, but one whose faith was the very life of his life, and the mainspring of his every 15 act and thought and word. As literary compositions they are of little value ; as contributions to the history of the time. they possess an interest only for the professed student, whose busi ness is to pursue research below the surface of perfunctory manuals ; but, as faithful representations of the habits of 20 thought and tone of feeling prevalent among a whole class of able, devout, mistaken men, whose lives were marred and whose minds were unbalanced by the hideous tyranny under which they suffered, these letters have a value of their own. The last of them is dated from Brussels, the 17th October 1591525 the first from the same place, 31st January 1590. I am in clined to regard this as the most useful, and at the same time the happiest, period of Henry Walpole's life. He was actively employed, after having been for several years in a condition of tutelage. He was called upon to exercise his 30 priestly function, a prospect to which he must have looked forward for years. He was set free from the restraints of such tuition work as in the case of a man of ambition and active intellect is apt to become irksome, and he was once more brought into close intercourse with his old connections and 1 66 THE MISSIO CASTRENSIS. friends. I am not sure that there is not some slight difference in tone between the earlier and the later of these letters : in the later there is more of the man of the world, more of human sympathy, and more interest in the old associations from which 5 he had been for some time removed. But if these two years were memorable years to Henry Walpole himself, because of the active employments in which he was engaged, they were more memorable as they affected other members of his family. Michael Walpole, as has been ioseen, left England in December 1589, and after remaining apparently for some months with his brother, proceeded to Rome in the spring of the following year, and entered at the English college there on the 1 2th May, accompanied by another Norfolk gentleman, Thomas Goodrich. (8) About the same 1 5 time the youngest brother, Thomas, also crossed over into Flanders, and obtained a commission in the Spanish army. A few months after this Edward Walpole of Houghton, too, " ab jured the realm," taking with him his cousin Bernard Gardiner, the two men being received into the English college on the 20 20th October, and before another year had passed Christopher Walpole, accompanied by two other Norfolk gentlemen, Thomas Lucie [query Lacy ?] and Anthony Rouse arrived at Rheims.(9) Of all those six sons of Christopher Walpole of Anmer, only one was left in England to represent the family. Meanwhile 25 with every new arrival in Belgium came fresh tidings of the wonderful religious excitement that prevailed among the upper stratum of society in the Eastern Counties, and the news of this one and that one whom he had known in his youth, having been induced to surrender home and country for what he re- 30 garded as the good cause, evidently disturbed Henry Walpole not a little. Oh! if he too might be once again at home, labouring in the mission field. The yearning grew, till he be came unsettled. The discipline of all those years of self-denial and self-control could not avail to keep him quite silent as to his wishes. " Gerard doeth much good ! " he writes to his THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 167 friend Cresswell. Was there any hope that he might be called to join him ? His heart turned to England — to the old Norfolk home — to the old hall under the shadow of the old church tower. " Gerard doeth much good ! " Might not he do some work too, and take again his father's blessing, and see his 5 mother's grey hairs, and the sisters that had passed from child hood to womanhood during those years of his absence ? Was there danger in the venture ? Gerard had braved it and was still unharmed, and if the worst should come the risk was as nothing to the prize — the prize of the martyr's crown. While 10 thoughts like these were flitting through his brain, suddenly in the October of 1591 he received a summons to present himself at the noviciate at Tournai, NOTES TO CHAPTER VII. (i) Page 154, line 17. Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic is, and must always remain, the chief authority on all matters connected with the history of the Low Countries during the sixteenth century, and I must therefore content myself with a general reference here to that most able and exhaustive work. In Captain Devereux Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, vol. i. ch. vii., there is a letter of Sir F. Knollys to Robert Earl of Essex, from which it appears that Leicester was not the only man who embarrassed himself considerably by the immense outlay incurred in his expedition. On the treatment of Leicester by Queen Elizabeth, see Froude, vol. xii. c. 33. (2) Page 155, line 20. There is a very spirited account of the affair, given by Stowe in his Chronicle, which has been extracted by Mr. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, vol. ii. p. 316. (3) Page 157, line 3. A careful history of the events leading up to the surrender of Deventer, and a very satisfactory account of Sir William Stanley's life and family history, is to be read in Mr. Heywood's Intro duction to Cardinal Allen's Defence of Sir WiUiam Stanley, edited for the Chetham Society, 185 1. (4) Page 161, line 25. See Imago Primi Sasculi Societatis Jesu, folio, Antwerp, 1640, p. 804 et seq. (5) Page 162, line 32. Father Cresswell (to whom almost all the letters of Henry Walpole are addressed which have come down to us) thus tells the story, "... un iour allant a pied d'un College a aultre par ordonnance de ses superieurs, il fut prins par les soldats de l'ennemy, & emene captif en la ville de Flessingne en Zelade, qui est en la puissace des rebelles, & a guarnison de soldats Anglois, lesquelz le retindrent plus d'un an entier, le traictant fort mal : Et par ce qn'ilz ne le peurent tuer comme ilz desiroient, pour estre la prison en la main & puissance du Magistrat naturel du pays, ilz offrirent a aucuns larrons qui estoient captifz avec luy, la vie & liberie pour de nuict le mettre a mort : dequoy le pere se doubta, & pour escbapper de ceste mort il eut necessairement besoing de veiller THE MISS 10 CASTRENSIS. 169 plusieurs mois presque toutes les nuictz, ce qui luy causa un perpetuel tourment, comme luy mesmes depuis l'a racStd II a aussi souffert extreme froidure, pour navoir eu aultre vestemSt qu'une seul vielle soutane : dont ayant compassion certain Capitaine heretique n5me Rusel qui l'avoit cogneu en Angleterre, se despouilla d'un pourpoint de rase qu'il portoit, & luy donna pour le revestir : En ceste maniere passa le serviteur de Dieu sa captivity iusque a ce que nostre Seigneur y remedia par aultre voye, qui fut en inspirant un sien frere qui estoit en Angleterre de venir a Flessingue, ou changeant son propre no, il entra au service du mesme Capitaine qui tenoit son frere prisonnier, par ou il eut commodite de le veoir & traicter avec luy, mesmes le pourveoit de tout ce que luy estoit necessaire. D'avantage il procura que les catholiques Anglois estans en Flandres le rachept assent, comme iis feirat le renvoyans a Bruxelles : & fut si grand la devotion que eut ce ieune iouvenceau son frere, voyant la vertu & patience du pere Henry, que au mesme instant il delibera de quieter le monde,