A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



few images of alabaster and wood provided material for a bonfire ; of 

 ' divers papistical books ' the ' worst and most portable ' were sent up to 

 the Privy Council ; and there the matter apparently ended. 



The increase of recusants from 1577 to 1586 was no doubt due to 

 the activity of the Jesuits and seminary priests ; the names of half a 

 dozen or so are mentioned as connected in different ways with this 

 county. 1 It is worth noticing that some of those who bore the worst 

 characters in the official reports were harboured and countenanced by 

 gentlemen of undoubted loyalty, and sometimes retained by them for 

 years as domestic chaplains. The Dormers of Wing were never sus- 

 pected of any treason, and indeed contrived to keep themselves out of 

 the recusant lists of this county all through the reign probably by 

 occasional conformity 2 ; but they had in their house as a resident chap- 

 lain a priest who had been associated with the Babington family, 3 just 

 as Lord Montague,* another gentleman who never fell under suspicion, 

 connected with the Dormers by a double marriage, harboured some 

 traitors of the deepest dye, who were sought in vain for the prison and 

 the gallows. Further than this, members of these very families, the 

 Dormers and the Brownes, a Lee of Pitstone, and probably one of the 

 Penns of Penn, were allowed to enter the Society of Jesus, 6 their parents 

 presumably knowing to what atrocities (if so it were) their vows would 

 bind them, and the shameful death which they must face if they 

 returned to England. These facts are capable indeed of a double inter- 



1 Seven are named in S. P. Dom. Eliz. clxviii. 33 as ' harboured ' by gentlemen of this county in 

 1584. In a list of 1586 amongst those imprisoned in the Counter prison is one Davies, a ' notable cor- 

 rupter,' who conducted Campion, Parsons and Edwards throughout England : he it was who ' corrupted ' 

 William Fytton, his mother-in-law (Isabel Hampden of Stoke), and all their family with divers others. 

 He afterwards escaped (S. P. Dom. Eliz. cxcv. 72-74). 



2 This may have been easier for them to manage than for some people, as they had the advowson 

 of the parish church of Wing. The names of all their children are entered in the parish register, every 

 one marked with the sign of the cross, which does not occur in any other entries. 



3 His name was Harris : according to the confession of another priest, Robert Gray, he had had 

 much to do with Lady Babington. He had a chamber at Wing, from which he never came out, but the 

 family visited him there. S. P. Dom. Eliz. ccxlv. 98, 138. 



* Lord Montague was one of the lords temporal who opposed the Act of Uniformity in 1559. 

 Robert Gray, a priest imprisoned for the second time in 1593, was for some years his chaplain at Cowdray 

 (perhaps he may have been in the house even during the queen's visit), and went with him to visit his 

 son-in-law, Sir Robert Dormer, at Wing. A Jesuit, Fr. Curry, was often at Cowdray, and Alban Dolman 

 (in Newgate in 1586, and called a ' notorious villayne ' in S. P. Dom. Eliz. cxcv. 72-74), as well as others. 

 Gray knew all the Jesuits and priests about London, Surrey and Bucks, and their haunts. This much 

 is his own confession. His papers were said to contain recommendations to Catholics to dissemble and 

 go to church and to Parliament, so as to destroy the laws. This however is only at second hand, on the 

 evidence of Richard Topcliffe, the priest-finder. 



5 Brother William Browne, who died a novice, was the son of a sister of Sir Robert Dormer, and a 

 brother of Lord Montague. H. Foley, S.J., Records of the English Province, ii. 429, 433. Brother John 

 Dormer (ibid. i. 132) was probably a grandson of Sir Robert, son of his daughter Mrs. Huddleston. Bro- 

 ther Thomas Penn occurs in another list (ibid. i. 436). Father Roger Lee had the chief responsibility of 

 converting Mary Moulsoe, the heiress of Gayhurst, in this county, and her husband Sir Everard Digby 

 (ibid. i. 462). Father Anthony Greenaway of Leckhampstead was of humbler parentage (ibid. i. 466). 

 The object of the Jesuits was, quite frankly, the conversion of England ; we may not think England 

 wanted converting, but they were of a different opinion, and it must be owned that their convictions 

 brought them little reward or consolation in this world. The other priests, so far as the evidence of this 

 county goes, seem to have lived in considerable danger and discomfort mainly for the sake of minis- 

 tering to their brethren and sisters in the faith. Foley's Records of the English Province has furnished a 

 good many of the references given above ; but in the case of the State Papers they have all been per- 

 sonally verified. 



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