POLITICAL HISTORY 



more considerable of them, which was accomplished. They gradually 

 died, sank into obscurity or got away abroad. In 1586 there is a return 

 of such recusants as remained in the county of Surrey paying a regular 

 composition for their estates. They were only Sir William Catesby of 

 Lambeth, John Talbot of Mitcham, Francis Browne of Henley Park, 

 Edward Bampster of Putney, the Lady Katherine Copley of Gatton, 

 Thomas Pounde of Kennington, and some others owning property but 

 not actually resident in Surrey. Others are returned as dead or gone 

 away out of the country. 1 In 1587 there is a list of persons who stand 

 indicted as recusants in the county, comprising Jane Furnivall of Egham 

 (gentlewoman), Jane Saunder of Ewell, Lady Mary Vauxe of South wark, 

 John Mollinax of Nutfield, and fourteen of lower rank ; all indicted and 

 convicted. There are thirty-three more names of those who stand in- 

 dicted but not yet convicted. Further, there are fifty-four names of 

 those who, having been indicted, have been discharged by order of the 

 Council, or have conformed, or are in prison in the various Southwark 

 prisons.* Some of these prisoners may have owed their indictment to a 

 letter from the Council to the Lord Admiral and his deputy lieutenants, 

 of January 4, 1588," bidding them, in the present time of national 

 danger, arrest recusants of property or station in the county, and im- 

 prison them in the common prisons or in the houses of some of her 

 majesty's well-affected and competent subjects. Perhaps it was thought 

 decent to indict, after arrest, those who were in the common prisons. 

 But Sir Francis Browne of Henley Park, brother to Lord Montague, 

 was at this time a prisoner in Sir William More's house at Loseley, and 

 is not in the lists above. These therefore do not represent the total 

 number under arrest that year. The ladies thrust into the common 

 prisons could hardly have been a serious menace to the State. Priests 

 were of course liable to be hanged if caught. Four ecclesiastics and 

 one layman were certainly executed in Surrey under the penal laws, 

 all towards the end of Elizabeth's reign. William Way, alias Flower, 

 and William Wiggs, priests, were hanged at Kingston on September 23 

 and October i, 1588. In 1598, a Franciscan friar; in 1600, John 

 Rigby, a layman ; in 1601, John Pibush, a priest, were hanged at St. 

 Thomas' Waterings. The Government seem to have searched vainly in 

 Sir Henry Weston's house at Sutton for Morgan, a priest 4 ; and once 

 the beneficed clergy of Surrey are connected with recusancy, when on 

 July 10, 1591, orders were given to search for a priest apparently, a 

 papist certainly, concealed in a ' certain parsonage house ' in Surrey 

 known to Sir William More. 8 



The prominent county families among the recusants were the 



1 St. Pap. Eliz. Dm. clxxxix. 48. 



8 Loseley MSS. 1587, no further date, v. pt. ii. 68. 8 Ibid. January 4, 1587-8, v. pt. ii. 30. 



* Ibid. June 14, 1591, v. pt. ii. 57. Morgan was 'sometime of Her Majesty's chapel,' and 

 ' perhaps is not called by his right name.' In the same year, January iz, the house of one Richard 

 Lumleighe of Wintershull was to be searched ' for Popish books, instruments and relics, and also for 

 suspected or unknown persons,' a general warrant of the most outrageous kind. 



6 Ibid. July 10, 1591, v. pt. ii. 51. 

 I 385 CC 



