An original document of the early seventeenth century in the form of a letter, kept in the archives of the English College, Valladolid (1.), gives a remarkable description of the holy life and happy death of an unnamed Recusant peer, who died in England at seven o’ clock in the morning of 2 April 1630. The letter is dated by the writer the next day and is evidently an exchange between two priests, who had been intimate with the deceased and were well known to one another.

So little has been published on this martyr (1) that it will be convenient to begin by referring to a recently discovered document which (although not having an Exchequer origin) throws some light on his family and helps us to understand, in particular:, the subsequent history of his wife's recusancy. This is a Chancery inquisition-post mortem. (2) drawn up at Leeds on 29 April, 1598 – within a month after his execution – by William Holmes, the Escheator for Yorkshire, its object being to ascertain the character of the estate held by him at the time of his death, and whether any legal obstacle lay in the way of the forfeiture, of the property to the Crown by reason of his attainder for felony.

The verses set out below occupy pages 31 to 34 of an early mmusaript (Z 3.5.2) in Marsh's Library, Dublin, and are hem printed, for the firat tbe as far aa 9s known, by the Hnd pem%ssion of the Governors of the Library. The history of this manuscript is obscure.

Robert Sutton is a name that occurs quite often in sixteenth century records. It was borne by two of the English martyrs under Elizabeth I, the only two, among the three hundred and sixty martyrs at present officially listed, to bear identical names. One of these was a layman, a school-master, hanged at Clerkenwell in October 1588 for being reconciled to the Catholic faith (1). The other was a secular priest hanged, drawn and quartered at Stafford a year earlier (2). The present note concerns the priest, but since further contemporaries of these two martyrs also had the same name, others, too, will be mentioned in the course of investigating the early years of the Ven. Robert Sutton, the priest martyr of 1587.

Over 120 priests are named in William Mawhooa’ s Diary during the years 1764 to 1790. It has not proved possible to identify all of them, and one purpose of the following annotated list is to ask the help of readers in adding to the Information given, or, where no information is given, in suggesting possible identifications. It must be admitted that a surname and the date of its first use in the Diary do not constitute a promising clue; moreover Mawhood’a spelling is often phonetic. Such additional information will make the annotation of the forthcoming edition of the Diary more comprehensive.