A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



searches, and ordering them to follow the bishop's directions and infor- 

 mation. 1 



In September, 1589, we find the bishop again inciting the council 

 on the question of recusancy. A gentleman of the county, Henry Carew 

 of Tadlethorp, was cited to appear before the bishop to answer for non- 

 attendance at church. Carew treated the summons with contempt, 

 whereupon Cooper reported the matter to the council. Their lordships 

 immediately ordered Carew to appear before them in London, committed 

 him to the Marshalsea for a month, and then released him on his 

 entering into bonds to duly appear before the Bishop of Winchester 

 within twenty days. 2 



In the spring of 1590 the bishop again wrote to the council at 

 length, sending in the names and worth of the Hampshire recusants, and 

 begging that order might be taken for ' restraining the most dangerous 

 personns and of greatest likelyhood.' In their reply of 7 April it seems 

 possible to detect a little weariness with the bishop's persistence, and 

 smiles must have passed over the faces of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord 

 Treasurer and others as they dictated to the secretary the terms of their 

 answer. Their lordships, writing jointly to the bishop and the Marquis 

 of Winchester, recognized the gravity of the case, and whilst authorizing 

 the detention in the common gaol of the worst characters, they con- 

 tinued : ' We are to praie your Lordship the Bishop of Winchester 

 seeing the matter doth concerne the cause of God and the estate of the 

 realme that you will be contented to spare your house of Farnham Castle 

 where those named in the enclosed scedule may be restrayned, with such 

 others as your Lordships shall in your discretion thinke fit to be added 

 unto them, to remayne under the charge of some discreete and well 

 affected gentleman such as you shall make choice of for that purpose.' s 



The bishop had to comply, and for some time Farnham Castle 

 became the gaol of the quieter of the recusants. Before the end, how- 

 ever, of April, Cooper was yet again in communication with the council, 

 this time accusing George Vaux, the under-sheriff of Hampshire, of too 

 great laxity towards the recusants in his custody. Vaux was summoned 

 to London, but on his promise to amend and to keep all recusants for 

 the future close prisoners he was discharged with a warning. The 

 bishop further complained that very many of the Hampshire recusants, 

 to the number of 300 or upwards, were yet at liberty, and that ' by 

 lurkinge in howses and in the confines and owtcorners of the shire ' 

 conveyed themselves out of his jurisdiction. Thereupon the complacent 

 council issued letters to the lord lieutenants of the adjacent counties 

 ordering them to yield all assistance, and to arrest those escaping out of 



1 Acti of Pr-ivy Council, 1586-7, p. 125. The Rev. G. H. Cassan, in his Lives of the Bishops of 

 Winchester, a poor compilation published in 1827, shows that the spirit of religious persecution was not 

 then dead ; for after citing Cooper's deportation proposals (ii. 47) and calling them admirable, Cassan 

 adds : ' What a pity that some such plan could not be adopted at the present time I do not mean 

 against the Catholics, but against the numerous Sectarian teachers, that now infest almost every town and 

 village, and alienate the minds of the people from their legitimate spiritual guides.' 



* Ibid. 1589-90, pp. 123, 199. 3 Ibid. 1590, p. 27. 



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