A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



John Gage was released in the following June, 210 and Edward Gage was given 

 temporary freedom during the end of 1581 and beginning of the next year 

 that he might act as executor of the earl of Southampton's will, 211 but was 

 apparently soon afterwards re-imprisoned, as there is a petition by his wife 

 begging for his release in I583. S1S 



The rumours of the approaching attempt to bring back England under 

 the papal power by means of the Spanish fleet caused still stricter measures 

 to be taken against suspected papists, and especially against seminary priests. 

 John Paine was appointed in 1586 to search for and arrest seminaries and 

 other suspected persons on the coasts of Sussex and Hampshire, 213 Arundel 

 and Portsmouth being the ports which they most favoured ; 2U possibly as a 

 result of his energy one Phippes, a seminary priest, who may have been the 

 Nicholas Smith alias Phelps noted as frequenting Lady Copley's and Edward 

 Gage's, 215 was sent to Horsham Gaol and thence to Southwark. 216 Three other 

 suspected priests, Vaughan, Standishe, and Meryman, are noted about the 

 same time as haunting the old papists' houses in Sussex. So far the recusants, 

 though harassed with fine and levies for the supply of light horsemen, con- 

 tinually spied upon, and often imprisoned, had not paid for their faith with 

 their lives ; but in August, i 588, Mr. Edward Shelley, of Sussex, was executed 

 at Tyburn with five others, 217 and one month later four priests were brought 

 up for trial at Chichester ; 218 Ralph Crockett and Edward James had been 

 arrested at Littlehampton, John Oven at Battle, and Francis Edwards at 

 Chichester. They were brought before Sir Thomas Palmer, Richard Lewk- 

 nor, Walter Covert, Henry and George Goring, and John Shirley, and 

 accused by Thomas Bowyer of being seminary priests, which they admitted, 

 and guilty of treason, which they denied, saying that they came only to do 

 their duty in preaching and converting to the Roman faith. Upon their being 

 found guilty and condemned to suffer the usual penalty Oven's courage failed 

 him, and he agreed to take the oath of supremacy and to renounce the pope 

 and his doctrine. The other three were drawn on one hurdle to the Broyle 

 Heath, where Crockett and James gave each other absolution. Crockett then 

 ascended the ladder, and turning to the assembled crowd gave them his bless- 

 ing, at which they cried out against him, as they did also when he recited 

 certain Latin prayers. When James followed him to the scaffold he com- 

 mended his soul to God in English, whereat the people applauded him, but 

 when he also began to pray in Latin they again called out angry protests. 

 Meanwhile the terrors of the scene had so worked upon Edwards that he 

 showed himself amenable to the arguments of the Protestant ministers 

 present, and was respited in charge of Mr. Henry Blackston, one of the 

 residentiaries, under whose care he apparently became at least a temporary 

 convert. 



Although this was the only Roman Catholic blood shed in Sussex the 

 priests continued to be hunted down and arrested till the end of Elizabeth's reign. 

 Information was given in 1592 that there were three priests always residing 

 at Edward Gage's house at Bentley, and another at Mr. Shelley's at Mitchel- 



" Act, ofP.C. (New Ser ), xiii, 94. ' Ibid, xiii, 296, 377. 



111 Col. S.P. Dam. Eliz. clxix, No. 59. ' Act, ofP.C. (New Ser.) xiv, 220. 



114 Cal. S.P. Dem. ERz. ccxlvi, No. 18. Ibid, cxciii, No. 24. 



" Acts of P.O. (New Ser.) xiv, 225. '" R ec . ofEngl. Prov. of See. of Jesus, xii, 788. 



18 S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccxvii, No. I. 



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