244 NORBURY MANOR HOUSE AND THE FITZHERBERTS. 
resembled the Inquisition than anything hitherto established in 
England—visited the disaffected districts, or had the delinquents 
summoned before them in London. This phase of the persecu- 
tion was specially severe between 1561 and 1563, particularly in 
Derbyshire and Staffordshire. 
Early in the year 1561, Sir Thomas Fitzherbert was sent as a 
prisoner to the Fleet, London, by these special commissioners. 
Among his fellow-prisoners were Dr. Scott, ejected Bishop of 
Chester, Dr. Cole, ex-dean of St. Paul’s, and Dr. Harpsfield, 
ex-archdeacon of London. Sir Thomas’s Derbyshire relatives, 
John Draycott and John Sacheverell, were at the same time in 
other London prisons, all for the crime of recusancy. 
On July r2th, 1563, Grindal, then Bishop of London, writing to 
Cecil, says :—‘‘Sir Thomas Fitzherbert is a very stiff man. We 
had a solemn assembly of commissioners only for his case, 
when Mr. Chancellor of the Dutchy was present, and there con- 
cluded to let Mr. Fitzherbert be abroad upon sureties, if he 
would be bound in the meantime to go orderly to the church, 
without binding him to receive the Communion. ‘That Sir 
Thomas refused.” 
A return by Thomas Bentham, Bishop of Coventry and Lich- 
field, to the Privy Council of those in his diocese ‘‘ openly known 
not to come to church,” describes Sir Thomas Fitzherbert as ‘‘a 
gentileman of great wealthe and countenance, as well in Stafford- 
shire as in Derbieshire, and in myne owne Judgement no lesse 
worthe in Landes and goodes of the yere than in markes.” And 
this return was made in 1577, after he had already suffered severely 
from fines, and from the bare-faced robbery of his cattle (whilst he 
was in gaol) by agents of the Government. Sir Thomas was 
actually imprisoned by the commissioners for thirty years, with 
only three brief intervals of freedom ; was dragged about from gaol 
to gaol, now in the Fleet, now in the county gaol at Derby, now 
at Lambeth, and now in the Tower, in which last State prison he 
finally died in 1591, at the age of 74. 
No means were neglected to try and secure his conviction for 
offences that were termed treason; but though accused of 
