A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



sometimes his servant, recusant : vi moneths. Warcopp : Andrew Hilton, esquier, 



endyted long synce, Alice his wife, Wenefrede his daughter, and Mary ye wife of John 



his sonne, recusants : vi moneths. Dufton : Mrs. Frauncis Boaste the wife of Mr. 



Lancelot Boaste, recusant, vi moneths. St. Michael's in Appelbie : Margaret Machell 



the wife of Hugh Machell, gentleman, recusant : xii moneths. Crosby Ravenswoorth : 



Mr. Thomas Pickering, gentleman, relapsed, and Ann his wife daughter to ye Lady 



Radcliff, and John Warriner her servaunt, recusants ; iii moneths. Morlande : Jone 



Sawkell the wife of Oswold Sawkell, a very poore woman, recusant : vi moneths. Burgh 



under Stanemoore : the wife of Mr. Henry Blenkinsopp of Helbeck esquier, Joane her 



maide, and William Colling, servauntes, which are said to be gone, Mrs. Margerie 



Blenkinsopp his mother, an old woman, and her two daughters Maudlin and Joane, 



Frauncis Blenkinsopp her sonne and Charles Blenkinsop her coosin, recusants every 



one : vi moneths. The forenamed parties have bene yerelye presented for ye space of 



these five yeres at the least unto ye graunde juryes at the assises. Henry Dethick 



chancelor to the Lord B(ishop) of Calisle.' l 



It need scarcely be pointed out that only in four parishes in Cumberland 

 and in eight parishes in Westmorland had the papal agents made any 

 permanent impression. And yet the bishop of Carlisle, Dr. Henry 

 Robinson, on his first acquaintance with the diocese, was not altogether 

 satisfied with its condition in the matter of conformity. On 26 

 December 1599 he stated that he found in his new charge more popish 

 recusants than he anticipated, yet the number which belonged to that 

 faction within his diocese was far less than within the barony of Kendal 

 and the deanery of Coupland, both of which places were within the 

 jurisdiction or Chester. Of those that had been long faulty in that way, 

 eight or nine had within the past two months reformed themselves. Of 

 the rest who persisted in their separation, the chief people by little and 

 little went out of the country as the Lady Katherine Ratcliffe, Francis 

 her son, Anne Denton the wife of Thomas Denton of Warnell, Henry 

 Blenkinsopp of Helbeck, his mother, wife and children, Thomas Sand- 

 ford of Askham, a non-communicant, and Martha his wife, a recusant, 

 with all the rest of the recusants of their several families/ 



In this great effort to produce a reaction in favour of the papacy, 

 the diocese of Carlisle contributed two heroic souls who sought and 

 found martyrdom in the interests of the Roman church. We cannot 

 withhold a word of admiration for the long and splendid services which 

 John Bost rendered to the papal cause. For many years his fame rang 

 through the northern counties as the most dangerous seminary priest in 

 the country. Vain were the efforts of the lord president of the north to 

 arrest him ; a whole army of spies was on his track, as the fugitive 

 wandered in disguise from place to place, seldom stopping more than 

 two or three nights in one house. When the time came for him to 

 yield up his life in testimony to the strength of his religious convictions, 

 it was by the treachery of friends that he was delivered into the hands 

 of the civil authorities. Ewbanke had conference once with Bost, said 

 Tobie Matthew, Dean of Durham, writing to Burghley, and was in some 

 hope to have brought him into the lord president's hands, for in their 

 youth they had been chamber-fellows in Queen's College, Oxford, and 



1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cclxii. 22. > Ibid, cclxiiii. 56. 



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