THE FIRST VOLUME of Fr. Godfrey Anstruther's TheSeminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales, 1558-1850 appeared in 1968, and in subsequent years it was followed by three other volumes. For various reasons, Fr. Anstruther did not complete the fifth and final volume, although he had collected a great deal of material for it. His achievement was remarkable, all the more so because it was carried out single-handed, not with the assistance of a team of scholars, and he used a great range of source-material in foreign as well as in British archives. This major contribution to the history of post-Reformation Catholicism has not always received the credit it deserves, and it is a sad comment on the historical awareness of the English Catholic community that the volumes did not sell as well as they should have done. Inevitably in a work of such magnitude, there were a number of errors, but those who are ready to point out details which Fr. Anstruther got wrong must never forget how much he got right and how his monumental and much-used dictionary has provided scholars with a solid foundation on which to build.

CHRISTOPHER HILL'S Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long parliament’ has long been the standard work on the financial composition of the post-Reformation English church. Over the past fifteen years, however, historians have taken a second look at the material covered by Hill and have begun to formulate new questions about it. Historians such as Felicity Heal and Rosemary O'Day have led new investigations into the economic conditions of the English church. Despite this renewed interest, no one has tackled the more difficult subject of recusant finances. Here is a world hidden behind aliases and secret trusts and one that remains almost totally unexplored. In a series of articles to appear in this journal, I shall venture ‘where angels fear to tread’ and attempt to make sense out of the complicated and confusing records of Jesuit financial activity. This article, which will serve as an introduction to the series, will be concerned with the constitutional development of the Society of Jesus, the spiritual exhortations to poverty as an evangelical counsel and a religious vow, and the legal entanglements of the penal laws in England. It is essential to remember that, first and foremost, the English Jesuits were religious bound by vows, specifically the vow of poverty. All financial activities and investments were restricted by that vow as it was then understood throughout the Society. Future articles will examine the income and the investments of the early Jesuit mission and its eventual subdivision into colleges and residences.

‘IFICAN trust oaths, he is mine as much as I can expect any Papist to be’. With this double-edged compliment, Charles 1 silenced the misgivings of Secretary Windebank and in 1635 despatched Captain Arthur Brett to the Vatican, ostensibly as personal representative of Queen Henrietta Maria, but actually on ‘the greatest and most active employment your Majesty [the King] hath in foreign parts’. The purpose was to frustrate the Roman Catholic mission to England by establishing a mole in its headquarters, but it was never accomplished. On 30 January 1636 Brett reported that he was detained in England by adverse weather and ill-health, and on 17 March he died.’

Post-Reformation Catholicism in England is popularly associated with the gentry before the Industrial Revolution and with the Irish urban proletariat afterwards. I have insufficient knowledge to comment on the social structure of post-eighteenth century Catholicism, but in my opinion historians, such as Professor Bossy, Mr. Aveling and, to a lesser extent, Dr. Haigh, have rightly emphasised the part played by the gentry in the expansion, or at least survival, of Roman Catholicism during the early seventeenth century. The gentry were arguably the most important social group in England and were best able to provide the necessary shelter and finance for the Catholic priests who operated in an intermittently hostile Protestant state. Indeed, I am inclined to agree with Professor Bossy that without the gentry there would have been no Catholic community. But community there was, and the gentry formed only part of it. It is the other part—the plebeian element—which is considered in this paper.

IN VOLUME 14 of the Catholic Record Society, in an introductory survey mainly devoted to the foundation and history of the English Poor Clares of Gravelines, brief mention is made of their daughter-houses: Aire (established 1629), Rouen (1644) and Dunkirk (1652). Today all four houses are represented by St. Clare's Abbey, Darlington, where are preserved four manuscript volumes relating to the Rouen community: a Register of death-bills’ and three books of annals whose contents adhere closely to chronological order and which are titled ‘Rouen I’ (covering most years of the period 1644 to 1701), ‘Rouen II’ (1702–69) and ‘French Revolution’ (1791–1857).

THE HISTORY of Catholicism in Salisbury from Reformation times until the earlier years of the nineteenth century has been told in so far as it is known in the Victoria County History of Wiltshire, in the volume of the Catholic Record Society devoted to recusancy in that county and in an article in The Month: ‘John Peniston's Reminiscences’.’ As an introduction to what follows the information contained in these may be briefly summarized.

FROM THE very interesting article by Canon Bamber, ‘The Secret Treasure of Chaigley’ (Recusant History, 17/4), it seems clear that the skull belonged to someone who had been publicly executed in the way suffered by the martyrs, who was not Philip Holden, nor one of the Lancashire Martyrs unless he be Bl. Miles Gerard, who was executed at Rochester. Might I suggest that the head is that of Dan George Lazenby, a monk of Jervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire? He was condemned to be executed at York in August 1535 for refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, the only one of his community at the time to stand firm, and he would have been hanged, drawn and quartered.