The congregations which I have chosen to study here are those of Alnwick, Ellingham, Haggerston, Berrington and Berwick; the materials used are those described in an earlier essay, published in Recusant History in April 1967. They are: the returns of papists of 1767 and 1780; the religious census of 1851, districts of Alnwick (no. 559), Belford (560) and Berwick (561); the registers of Roman Catholic estates for Northumberland (Surtees Society, cxxxi, 1918) and Durham (ibid., clxxiii, 1958); and the mission registers and allied documents. None of these last are published. They consist: for Alnwick, of the baptismal registers (including confirmations and some marriages), 1794-1840 (PRO R.G. 4, nos. 1572 and 3911); for Ellingham, of baptismal registers (confirmations, marriages, deaths), 1779-1840 (R.G. 4, nos. 2483 and 2915), and an almost complete set of annual Easter communion lists, 1811-40 (originals in R.C. presbytery, Seahouses, Northumberland); for Haggerston,of baptismal registers (some marriages), 1790-1830 (R.G. 4, no. 1802), a register of deaths, and of Easter communicants, 1834-56 (originals in R.C. presbytery, Lowick, Northumberland); for Berrington, of the baptismal register, 1804-16 (R.G. 4, no. 2482); for Berwick, of baptismal registers, 1804-40 (R.G. 4, no. 1402). For knowledge of, and access to, such of these mission records as are not deposited in the Public Record Office, and for numerous other kindnesses, I am deeply indebted to Fr. W. Vincent Smith of Lanchester. Co. Durham.

This is not a family history of the Brandlings of Northumberland from their first appearance in history in the sixteenth century, for they were not a staunch Catholic family with a record of determined recusancy. The Brandlings had Catholic leanings in the mid-sixteenth century, and two of the family were recusants. By the early seventeenth century, however, the family appears to have conformed entirely. And then in the second half of the century the main branch and their cousins of Hoppen and Alnwick Whitehouse appear as Catholics, most probably as the result of Catholic marriages in the previous generation. A century later, and the main branch had conformed, and the junior branches had died out. The Brandlings were therefore a “fringe” recusant family, but even so they had a certain impact on the Catholic life of the North, and their history is not without interest for students of recusancy.