ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



of articles, which in many points resemble those in the Prayer Book, and 

 to which he required their subscription.' 



On 26 October, 1577, he made a return to the council of the number of 

 recusants in his diocese, with the value of their lands and goods, suggesting 

 at the same time that more information would have been obtained by a return 

 of those refusing to receive the Communion,^ and on 18 November in the 

 same year he sent up information of other recusants, not before certified, this 

 second return including not only his own diocese, but also the county of 

 Huntingdon.^ 



The list, made about 1561, which has been already quoted, contains an 

 entry to the effect that ' Doctor Tresham, late of Oxford, was ordered to 

 remain within the bounds of Northamptonshire,' and the marginal reference 

 describes him, somewhat equivocally, as ' a man whose qualities are well 

 known.' Dr. William Tresham was a native of Great Oakley in this county, 

 and had risen to distinction in the Church under Henry VIII, whose favour 

 he had gained by advocating Queen Katherine's divorce. In 1 540 he had 

 been nominated a member of the commission for inquiring whether the 

 current ceremonial of the Church was supported by Scripture and tradition, 

 and had subsequently disputed on doctrine with Peter Martyr, and with 

 Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. Imprisoned under Edward VI, he had 

 returned to favour under Mary. Besides filling several high offices — among 

 them the vice-chancellorship of Oxford — he had held the Northamptonshire 

 livings of Towcester, Bugbrooke, and Green's Norton ; but for refusing to 

 take the oath of supremacy after the accession of Elizabeth, he was deprived 

 of all his preferments except Towcester. On promising to take no active 

 steps against the Elizabethan settlement, he was allowed to retire to North- 

 amptonshire, where he died in 1569.* 



The Treshams, whose principal seat was at Rushton, were prominent 

 during the latter part of this reign, and the opening years of the succeeding, 

 one for their attachment to the Roman Catholic church, as were also the 

 Vaux family of Harrowden and the Catesbys, owners of Ashby St. Ledgers. 

 Before 1580 they seem to have conformed more or less to the Elizabethan 

 settlement.^ Sir Thomas Tresham, whose grandfather and namesake had 

 been grand prior of the order of St. John, as revived by Mary,^ and who 

 succeeded to the Rushton estate in 1559 as a minor, appears to have been 

 brought up in the reformed faith, but he and Sir William Catesby were 

 among the principal converts made in 1580 by the famous Jesuit, Robert 

 Parsons.^ Thenceforth they were assiduous promoters of the religious 

 propaganda carried on by the Jesuit mission. It was probably because 

 these important converts of Parsons were domiciled in Northamptonshire, 

 that the county was visited in the same year by his colleague, Edmund 



' Gunton, op. cit. 71—2, where these articles are given in full. He devoted considerable attention to the 

 government of his cathedral, putting forth certain injunctions for it in 1576 {Cal. S. P. Dom. Ellz. cix, 21). 

 In 1580 a case was pending in the Court of Arches between him and one Smith, touching the deprivation of 

 the latter of a prebend for not keeping residence according to the cathedral foundation. A reference to 

 /lets of P.C. (New Ser.), xii, 249-50, xiii, 89, will show that this was thought an important, and even, in a 

 sense, a novel case. In 1582 the bishop sought confirmation for some new cathedral statutes {Diet. Nat. Biog. 

 loc. cit.). 



' Cul. S. P. Dom. ETtz. cxvii, 16. 'Ibid, cxviii, 29. 



* Did. Nat. Biog. LVII, 206. ' Ca/. S. P. Dom. E/iz. lix, 22. ' Ibid. Mary, xii, 48, 60. 



' Simpson. Edmund Campion, a Biography, 252 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. XLIII, 412. 



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