A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



This reference to the need of capable clergymen able to give suitable in- 

 struction indicates a want which was felt not only in the bishopric. An 

 interesting document of this time shows that the north and west of Yorkshire 

 were suffering from the same lack, and indicates the proposed establishment 

 of a large Church of England seminary or university at Ripon for the supply 

 of efficient pastors, a scheme which, fifty years later, may have suggested 

 Cromwell's first draft of the University of Durham.^'*'' The reports for the 

 bishopric continue for some time to exhibit a state of affairs which was slow 

 to improve. Then, two years after the letter of Bowes, Dean James tells Cecil 

 that ' this poor country and city ... is very backward in religion, there 

 being 200 recusants, esquires, gentlemen, and others of meaner calling.' ^^* 

 Bishop Matthew sat occasionally on the High Commission, whatever the 

 reference to a recent change noted above may mean, but in general, as he grew 

 older he became more lax towards recusants.'"* 



The last years of the sixteenth century were marked by repeated visita- 

 tions of the plague, and by agricultural distress. An epidemic visited the 

 district in 1597, and was followed by severe scarcity of food. 



Many have come 60 miles from Carlisle to Durham to buy bread, and sometimes 

 for 20 miles there will be no inhabitant. In the bishopric of Durham 500 ploughs have 

 decayed in a few years, and corn has to be fetched from Newcastle, whereby the plague is 

 spread in the northern counties. ^^^ . . . The poverty of the country arises from decay of 

 tillage. . . . Colleges and cathedrals are impoverished because tenants cannot pay their 

 rents ; then whole families are turned out, and poor borough towns are pestered with four or 

 five families under one roof.^^^ 



The accession of James I raised great expectations in the bishopric, as 

 elsewhere. A return dated August, 1603, shows a significant change in the 

 number of recusants, it being stated that ' 196 recusants lately, and especially 

 since the death of Queen Elizabeth, have been seduced or, after their 

 conformity, restored to papistry.' '" It is, however, expressly stated that few 

 are ' of any account,' the rest being ' either tenants or servants, or otherwise 

 dependants upon those recusants.' If the total number is to be added to the 

 survivors of the 200 returned in 1597,'^* the aggregate has been doubled in the 

 short interval, and the rate of progress is rapid in the years that follow. It 

 may be convenient to summarize here what can be gathered as to this 

 progress during the reign of King James. The severity which followed the 

 discovery of Gunpowder Plot produced much dissatisfaction amongst the 

 disappointed Romanists.'"' Seditious rumours were on several occasions 

 delated to the members of the Court of High Commission, and the inquiries 

 made prove how widely the disappointment was felt. Now and then a 

 member of an old family or some person of position is apprehended for 

 unwise language, and the case is forwarded to London as a proof of High 

 Commission zeal. The name of a Bulmer occurs now and then in this way, 

 and Lady Adeline Neville, sister to the earl of Westmoreland, Sir Thomas 

 Gray, Sir Thomas Danby, and others are also mentioned. ''° A few details as 



'-' Printed in Peck's Desiderata curiosa. '■'^ S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 262, No. 11, 



^-' Cal. Bord. Papers, ii, I 331. 



'" S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 262, Nos. 10, 1 1. "* Ibid. 



'-" Ibid. Jas. I, vol. 3, No. 42 ; cf. ibid. vol. 13, No. 52^. 



'™ Ibid. Eliz. vol. 262, No. 11. 



'" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1603-10, pp. 286, 294, 332, &c. ™ Ibid, passim. 



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