RECUSANTS IN HAMPSHIRE ii 



in Hampshire, and made it a matter of conscience in 1586 

 to petition ' for certaine Orders to represse the bouldness 

 and waiewardnes of the recusants in. the Countie of 

 Southampton ', and also that ' an hundred or two of 

 obstinate recusants, lustie men well hable to labour, maie 

 by some convenient Commission be taken up and sent 

 into Flaunders as Pioners and labourers, whereby the 

 Country shall be disburdened of a companie of dangerous 

 persons, and the residue y* remaine be put in some feare 

 y* theie maie not so safe revoke as now they doe '. 



The council turned a favourable ear to the bishop's 

 appeal, and wrote to the sheriff and certain of the justices 

 authorizing the suggested sudden searches and ordering 

 them to follow the bishop's directions.^ That is why the 

 occurrence among the Goodyer papers of a list of pioneers 

 of Buriton carries with it ominous suggestions. 



Bishop Cooper died in 1594, when John Goodyer was 

 two years old, and was succeeded by Thomas Bilson, with 

 whose son. Sir Thomas Bilson, Goodyer was most closely 

 associated. Recusancy was still being punished by im- 

 prisonment in Winchester gaol, but the prisoners benefited 

 by the general sympathy of the public and were frequently 

 released. Indeed, Bishop Bilson found that the manor of 

 Woodcot, Hants, given for the safe keeping of the gaol, 

 had actually been inherited by a recusant, one Anthony 

 Uvedale, lately deceased, and had passed to his seven- 

 year old grandson, Anthony Brewning, whose parents were 

 recusants. The penalty for the wealthier recusants, that 

 was enforced about 1590, was the seizure of two-thirds 

 of their land ; and among those whose names appear 

 in the Recusant Rolls at the Record Office are Anthony 

 Uvedale (the hereditary keeper of Winchester gaol) of 

 Woodcote, near Alresford, and Stephen Vachell of Heath 

 House, Buriton, both of whom are mentioned in the 

 Goodyer papers. 



A few years later an evil system prevailed of farming 



* Acis of Privy Council, 1586-7, p. 125 ; Vict. County Hist. Hants, ii, p. 82. 



