ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



within the parish of St. Albans and there none other but such as are become 

 Recusants since his Majesty's reign.' They remained obstinate in spite of the 

 suasion of Mr. Roger Williams, parson there, but all were found ' to carry 

 themselves peaceably not seducing others to our knowledge being persons 

 of mean account and ability.' " There were David East a pewterer, 

 Margaret Smyth, maid-servant to her uncle Leonard Wilkes a haber- 

 dasher, Thomas Shepham a weaver, Richard West and his wife, sojourners, 

 and Sarah wife of Richard East." Christopher Moore was the only recusant 

 in the county who in 1 6 1 2 desired to be compounded with for the oath of 

 allegiance.*^ 



The Recusant Rolls of 1679 show only nine names, those of John 

 Downes, labourer, and John Newport, gentleman, both of Furneux Pelham ; 

 of John Belson of Hertingfordbury, Basil More, esq., of North Mimms, 

 William Gawen, gentleman, of Harpenden, and Walter Lord Aston, 

 William Newport, George Parson and Francis Hinde, all of Standon.*' 

 The lists of persons charged under the Recusancy Acts in February 1682—3 give 

 names of offenders in Rickmansworth, Berkhampstead, Thundridge, Cottered, 

 Wyddial, Tring, Meesden, Ardeley, Clothall, Ashwell, Hertingfordbury, 

 Flaunden, Little Gaddesden, Barley, Cheshunt, Reed, Royston and Therfield.** 

 At first sight this looks as though Roman Catholicism had spread far and 

 wide over the county ; comparison of the names, however, with those of 

 Quakers who are known to have suffered under these Acts leads to the con- 

 clusion that the majority of those indicted and fined belonged to the Society 

 of Friends. At the same time known Roman Catholics were fined, and 

 fined time after time." A congregation seems to have already grovvn up at 

 Standon, where Walter Lord Aston lived at the Lordship. Father P. 

 Southcote, a Benedictine, lived here from 1705 to 171 7, and recusants of the 

 neighbourhood, if known to the family, attended the chapel.'" In 1751 the 

 last Lord Aston died and the house was let. It passed into the hands of 

 Bishop Challoner, under whom Father Richard Kendall opened a school 

 there in or about 1753, but moved it to Hare Street four years later." By 

 this time the Church in England had become regularly organizedj^" and in 

 furtherance of his scheme for providing Roman Catholic education Bishop 

 Talbot in 1771 bought a house at Old Hall Green." Father Kendall's 

 students moved here in 1769, and the school, afterwards St. Edmund's 

 College, became the centre of a district which included the whole of 

 Hertfordshire." In 1780 the 'Standon congregation' was formed by about 

 seventy Roman Catholics from Royston, Buntingford, Puckeridge, Watton, 

 Ware, Stanstead, Standon and Magdalen Laver in Essex.'* The mission at 

 Old Hall Green was the only one in Hertfordshire in 1786.'" In 1850 the 

 church of Mary Immaculate and St. Gregory the Great was opened at Hertford, 

 and this was followed by that of the Sacred Heart and St. John the 

 Evangelist at Bushey in 1863. Since that date twenty further chapels have 



" Rec. of the Old Archd. of St. Albans, 131. « Ibid. ^^ Lansd. MS. 153, fol. 526. 



*'' Exch. L.T.R. Recusant Rolls (Chancellor's Ser.), R. 57. No entries for Hertfordshire occur on 

 Rolls 45-53, 55, 58, 59, 62. *« ibid. R. 60. « Ibid. R. 58. 



'0 Ward, Hist, of St. Edmund's Chapel, 21. 



" Ibid. 21, 31, 34 ; Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, i, 40. 



" Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, i, p. xi. " Ward, Hist, of St. Edmund's College, 35. 



" Ibid. 39. " Ibid. ^^ Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival, i, 40. 



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