ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Hampshire and to commit them, both men and women, to safe and close 

 restraint, those of the best quality to Farnham Castle and the rest to the 

 common gaol at Winchester. 1 



In January, 1591, the bishop caught one, Richard Johnson, a 

 seminary priest, in the act of saying mass, and caused him and his con- 

 gregation to be at once imprisoned. He immediately reported the good 

 news to the council, and was ordered to send up Johnson and another to 

 London. 2 



On 7 July, 1591, Roger Dickinson, a priest from Rheims, was 

 executed at Winchester. The specially piteous thing about this execu- 

 tion was that a pious old labourer, Ralph Milner, was butchered at 

 the same time for aiding and assisting the priest. He left behind a 

 wife and seven children. 3 Seven maiden ladies of Winchester and the 

 neighbourhood, at whose houses Dickinson had been in the habit of 

 celebrating mass, were also sentenced to death, but they were re- 

 prieved. 



Bishop Cooper lived to see yet another religious execution in his 

 cathedral city. This time it was a lad of nineteen, James Bird, the son 

 of a gentleman citizen of Winchester. Becoming a convert to Romanism, 

 he went abroad for his education to Rheims, as it could not be attained 

 in England. On his return he was arrested, kept for some time in 

 Winchester gaol, and on persisting in his refusal to go to church was 

 executed on 25 March, 1593, and his head stuck on a pole over one of 

 the city gates. 4 



Bishop Cooper, who died in the spring of 1594, was followed by 

 two successors of very short and uneventful reigns. In May, 1597, 

 Thomas Bilson, who had been a prebendary of Winchester and warden 

 of the college, was translated from Worcester to this bishopric. He 

 was a considerable scholar, and had won the queen's gratitude by writing 

 at her command a treatise entitled Of the True Difference between Christian 

 Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion. Its aim was to justify the queen in 

 taking up the cause of the Netherlanders who revolted against Philip. It 

 served its purpose, but was afterwards much used, with fatal results, to 

 justify the resistance to Charles I. 



In September, 1599, Bishop Bilson secured the arrest of one, 

 Edward Kenyon. The bishop, who was at Waltham, committed him 

 to Winchester gaol, charging the keeper in writing to keep him closely 

 as a traitor, for he had confessed to being a seminary priest, and was 

 therefore guilty of high treason according to the Act of 27 Elizabeth. 6 



Shortly after this Kenyon escaped from Winchester gaol, and the 

 bishop wrote to Cecil complaining of the gaoler's dissolute carelessness 

 in the keeping and dismissing of recusant prisoners, and urged that he 

 should be severely punished. He pointed out that the manor of Wood- 



1 Acts of Privy Council, 1590, pp. 105-6. 8 Ibid. 1590-1, p. 234. 



3 Challoner's Martyrs, i. 173-4, z8o-z. Milner was offered his life if he would but promise to 

 attend church. 



4 Ibid. i. 193-4. 6 Dm. State Papers, Eliz. cclxxii. in. 



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