A HISTORY OF SURREY 



oath of royal supremacy. His co-operation with the Government is 

 another instance of the supreme influence of respect for the Crown then 

 with most people. On 5 November, 1569, the justices of the county 

 were instructed to submit a form of agreement with the laws touching 

 religious uniformity for signature to all the queen's lieges. Knights re- 

 fusing to subscribe were to be bound over to good behaviour in the sum 

 of >C2oo, esquires in that of 200 marks.' It was not universally signed. 

 The Loseley correspondence is full of references to declared and known 

 recusants, men and women. Some of these were in custody. White, 

 the ex-Bishop of Winchester, after being committed to the Tower, lived in 

 London in his mother's house till his death in 1560. The ex-Archbishop 

 of York lived in peace, but under surveillance, at his own house at Chobham 

 in Surrey from 1563 till his death in 1578.' The Earl of Southampton 

 and Francis Browne of Henley Park, brother to Viscount Montague, 

 were successively kept in honourable custody at Loseley by Sir William 

 More. In 1581 there were sixty-five recusants of property in Surrey, 

 paying a regular composition for their recusancy.* In 1587 there were 

 in the county 105 recusants indicted, in the common prisons or discharged 

 after making a submission which was probably feigned.* Many of the 

 gentlemen's families of the county were recusant, such as the Copleys of 

 Gatton and Leigh, the Sanders of Charlwood and Ewell, Catesbys of 

 Lambeth, Vauxe of Southwark, Brownes of Henley Park, Gages of 

 Haling, Talbots of Mitcham, Furnivalls of Egham, Fromondes of Cheam, 

 Southcotes of Westham, Hobsons of Woking, Lumleys of Wintershull. 

 Naturally enough most of these names disappear from the ranks of 

 landed gentry or sink into a much lower condition, from the harassing 

 action of perpetual fines and compositions, besides imprisonment. Some 

 gentry, like the Westons of Sutton, were notoriously Romanist in 

 sympathy, but from management or favour kept on the safe side of the 

 law under Elizabeth. Recusancy however was not confined to gentry. 

 Yeomen," and such like, are continually referred to as arrested or sus- 

 pected. The actual deaths in Surrey were few, as we have seen. But 

 besides those executed in the county, Robert Gage, of the family of 

 Gage of Haling, was hanged at Tyburn for complicity in the Babington 

 plot. Ladies," and poor women and an old woman ' were among those im- 

 prisoned. In 1584 one Hardy of Farnham was imprisoned for indiscreet 

 words concerning John Body, a gentleman, and John Slade, a school- 

 master, who had just been hanged as recusants at Andover and Win- 

 chester respectively. Walsingham himself thought it worth while to 

 direct the inquiry.' Search for books, ornaments, concealed priests, and 

 for 'persons unknown,' which means priests, was constant. In 1578 



1 Loseley MSS. v. 6. 



« Not 1579, as usuaUy said. Montague refers to his recent death in a letter to Sir W. More, dated 

 12 Dec. 1578 (Loseley MSS. x. 71). 

 ^ S. P. Dom. Efiz. clvi. 42. 



8 If'f^^- ^J'^' '^^'^' ^- P*' "• ^^- * ^^'^- "■ ^°' +^' 54- ' Ibid. V. pt. ii. 68. ' Ibid. V. i. 

 Ibid. m. 61, Jan. 1584, and another undated letter. The executions were in Oct. and Nov. 

 1583. See also S. P. Dom. Eliz. clxvii. 15. 



26 



