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The Elizabethan Priests: Their Harbourers and Helpers1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Patrick McGrath  and
Joy Rowe
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Extract

This paper is concerned primarily with the people who sheltered and helped in various ways the priests without whom Catholicism could not have survived in Elizabethan England. The Marian priests were, of course, the first who needed harbouring, and some of them continued to be protected by the laity to the end of Elizabeth's reign and beyond. From 1574 the seminary priests began to come to this country, and in due course they as well as the Jesuits were singled out for special treatment as far as harbouring was concerned. In the fifteen-eighties and the fifteen-nineties the number of seminary priests at work in England seems to have fluctuated between 120 and 150 in any one year. The Elizabethan Jesuits active in this country were never more than three or four in any one year in the fifteen-eighties, and rarely more than twelve in the fifteen-nineties. Compared with the surviving Marian priests and the seminary priests, the Jesuits were very few, but they have left a great deal on record relating to harbouring, and historians sometimes give the impression that they organised the whole business.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , May 1989 , pp. 209 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1988

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References

Notes

1 This article is based on a paper which we read to the thirtieth conference on Post Reformation Catholic History at St. Anne's College, Oxford, in July 1987.

2 The term Marian Priest is a convenient one to use for all those who were ordained before the change in religion under Elizabeth I and who did not conform to the new church.

3 See Patrick, McGrath and Joy, Rowe, ‘Anstruther Analysed: the Elizabethan Seminary Priests’, Recusant History 18, pp. 1–13.Google Scholar

4 For a general discussion of the Marian Priests, see Patrick, McGrath and Joy, Rowe, ‘The Marian Priests under Elizabeth I’, Recusant History 17, pp. 103–120.Google Scholar

5 See Hugh, Aveling, Post Reformation Catholicism in East Yorkshire, East Yorkshire Local History Society, 1960;Google Scholar The Catholic Recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire 1558-1790, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1963; Northern Catholics: The Catholic Recusants of the North Riding of Yorkshire 1558-1790, 1966; Catholic Recusancy in the City of York, 1970.

6 Christopher, Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, Cambridge, 1973.Google Scholar

7 Roger, B. Manning, Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex, Leicester, 1969.Google Scholar

8 Foley 7, p. 1240.

9 Hugh, Aveling, Northern Catholics, p. 42;Google Scholar Ann, Forster, ‘Bishop Tunstall's Priests’, Recusant History 9(1968).Google Scholar

10 Hugh, Aveling. The Catholic Recusants of the West Riding, p. 216.Google Scholar

11 Hugh, Aveling. ‘The Marriages of Catholic Recusants, 1559-1642’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14, pp. 68–83.Google Scholar

12 Cashman, M. J., ‘The Gateshead Martyrs’, Recusant History 11, p. 121.Google Scholar

13 Foley 5, p. 728; Hodgetts, Topographical Index.

14 Anstruther, p. 159; Christopher, Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, p. 250.Google Scholar

15 Haigh, op. cit. pp. 251, 283.

16 Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 29-30.

17 Patrick, McGrath and Joy, Rowe, ‘The Marian Priests under Elizabeth I’, Recusant History 17, p. 113.Google Scholar

18 23 Elizabeth I cap. I

18 27 Elizabeth 1 cap. 2.

20 Gerard, Autobiography, p. 45.

21 Gerard, Autobiography, passim.

22 Evelyn, Waugh, Edmund Campion, 1952 edition, p. 151.Google Scholar

23 Caraman, Garnet, p. 128 ff.

24 Anstruther, p. 174.

25 There is a great need to work out, in so far as it can be done, the geographical distribution of the priests at different times.

26 Anstruther, pp. 309-10, summarising SP 14/18 no. 51.

27 For a short biography of Nicholas Woodfen, see Anstruther, p. 385 and Challoner, pp. 112-113.

28 Anstruther, pp. 391-3 using SP 12/242 no. 121 and Lansdowne 96, no. 62. See also Patrick, McGrath, ‘Apostate and Naughty Priests in England under Elizabeth I’, in Opening the Scrolls, edit. Dominic Aidan Bellenger, 1987, p. 71.Google Scholar

29 Troubles 3, p. 18.

30 Hodgetts, Topographical Index. Recusant History 16, p. 181.

31 Weston, Autobiography, pp. 22-23, 28 note 3; Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 45, 46.

32 See Gerard, Autobiography and Caraman, Garnet, passim.

33 Gerard, Autobiography, p. 68ff.

34 Gerard, Autobiography, p. 81ff.

35 Aveling, Northern Catholics, p. 158ff. For George, Errington, see Cause of Beatification and Canonization, p. 1193ff.;Google Scholar Katharine, M. Longley, ‘Blessed George Errington and Companions’, Recusant History 19;Google Scholar Cashman, M. J., ‘The Catholic Underground on Elizabethan Tyneside, Northern Catholic History, 13 pp. 3–10.Google Scholar

36 Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, pp. 280. 289.

37 Anstruther, pp. 29-30; Patrick, McGrath, ‘Apostate and Naughty Priests in England under Elizabeth I’, in Opening the Scrolls, edit, Dominic Aidan Bellenger, pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

38 Gerard, Autobiography, p. 40.

39 Weston, Autobiography, p. 69ff. See also pp. 77, 78 note 15. In his note Fr. Caraman gives Weston the credit for establishing a network covering the whole of the country. This seems to go far beyond the evidence and to ignore numerous networks built up by other people.

40 Troubles, 3, pp. 299-300: Hodgetts, Topographical Index, p. 203.

41 This seems to be the number of Elizabethan hiding holes given in Hodgett's Topographical Index.

42 Hodgetts, Topographical Index, p. 164.

43 Hodgetts, Topographical Index, p. 168.

44 Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, p. 280.

45 We are compiling a list of harbourers and those whom they harboured, but it is at presentincomplete.

46 See Appendix, p. 229ff.

47 Challoner, pp. 106-107.

48 See p. 220 and Appendix, p. 229

49 Troubles 3, pp. 93, 94.

50 Challoner, pp. 134, 141.

51 ibid.

52 ibid.

53 Richard Flower, vere Lloyd, also Floyd, Flewell and Gray. See Cause of Beatification and Canonization, pp. 691-725.

54 Challoner, pp. 160. 161.

55 ibid. pp. 165-166.

56 ibid. pp. 174-177.

57 Aveling, The Catholic Recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1558-1790, p. 220; Challoner, p. 232; Anstruther, p. 9.

58 Cause of Beatification and Canonization, pp. 1294-1318; Challoner, p. 233.

59 Cause of Beatiflcatio and Canonization, pp. 1473-1529.

60 Challoner, p. 261.

61 ibid. pp. 101-102.

62 ibid. pp. 142-145.

63 ibid. pp. 146-147.

64 ibid. p. 135.

65 Cause of Beatification and Canonization, pp. 756-830; Christina Kelly, Blessed Thomas Belson: His Life and Times 1563-1589, passim.

66 Anstruther, p. 103; Challoner, p. 168, gives his name as Diconson or Dickenson.

67 Challoner, pp. 174-175.

68 ibid. p. 197.

69 ibid. pp. 198-202.

70 ibid. p. 260; Anstruther, p. 358.

71 Anstruther, p. 347.

72 Challoner, p. 176.

73 ibid. p. 250.

74 ibid. p. 238.

75 Gerard, Autobiography, p. 51; Challoner, p. 234; CRS 5 pp. 366-367.

76 The Condition of Catholics under James I, edit. John Morris, London, 1871, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar This longaccount of searchers cannot be reproduced in full here.

77 Caraman, Garnet, p. 42.

78 Caraman, Garnet, pp. 131-135; Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 41-43.

79 Troubles 1, p. 151.

80 Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 58-65.

81 Recusant History 16, pp. 149-150.

82 Troubles 1, p. 151; Caraman, Garnet, p. 135.

83 Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 28-29.

84 Anstruther, p. 284.

85 Weston, Autobiography, pp. 34-36.

86 Troubles 1, pp. 174-176.

87 Weston, Autobiography, pp. 3-4.

88 Foley 3 p. 278.

89 Foley 4 p. 214; Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 44-45.

90 Troubles 3, pp. 13-140.

91 Cause of Beatification and Canonization, pp. 1475-1529. This quotation is on p. 1486; Anne, M.C. Forster, ‘Who was John Norton the Martyr?’, Recusant History 6.Google Scholar

92 Anstruther, p. 103; CRS 5, p. 200.

93 Christina, Kelly, Blessed Thomas Belson, p. 85ff.Google Scholar

94 Anstruther, p. 301.

95 ibid. p. 358.

96 Aveling, I. C. H., Catholic Reusany in the City of York, 1558-1791, p. 204.Google Scholar

97 See pp. 218, 219 and Appendix, p. 230; p. 231

98 Anstruther, pp. 307-308, 368.

99 Aveling, I. C. H., Catholic Reusany in the City of York, 1558-1791, pp. 35, 39, 42, 45, 46, 65, 70, 181–182.Google Scholar

100 The work of those who guided the priests about the country has been unduly neglected. Here we can give only a few references but we hope to return to the subject later.

101 Weston, Autobiography, p. 3.

102 Weston, Autobiography, p. 23 and p. 28 note 4. Fr. Caraman suggests that Weston probably learnt this practice from Parsons, but priests must surely have made use of guides long before the Jesuits came to England.

103 CRS 39, pp. 331-340. Gilbert went on to make many more comments on the arrangements which should be made to ensure the safety of the priests as they endeavoured to win converts for Catholicism.

104 For Pounde, see Foley 3, pp. 567-657.

105 Cause of Beatification and Canonisation, 1193ff.; W. Fee, The Martyrs of Northumberland and Durham (CTS pamphlet); Katharine, M. Longley, ‘Blessed George Errington and Companions’, Recusant History 19;Google Scholar Cashman, M. J., ‘The Catholic Underground on Elizabethan Tyneside, Northern Catholic History, 13, pp. 3–10.Google Scholar

106 Challoner, p. 101.

107 Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, p. 280.

108 Christopher, Devlin, The Life of Robert Southwell, 1956, p. 128.Google Scholar

109 Foley 6, pp. 720. 723.

110 ibid. pp. 721, 725.

111 CRS 2, p. 284.

112 Challoner, p. 197.

113 ibid. p. 259.