ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



for payment of his expenses in the diet, &c., of the prisoners a local rate was 

 ordered to be levied on the various parishes for their support."^ 



Decisive and disastrous as vi^as the result already achieved, the political 

 activity of the Jesuit Parsons (who sums up in himself the whole genius of 

 the new Jesuit tendency of the Catholic missionary movement from this 

 time onwards) was destined to bear even more potent and malignant fruit. 

 The plots of I 584 produced the two Acts (1584-5) »" for surety of the queen's 

 person, and against Jesuits and seminary priests. The latter of these two 

 Acts banished all such and imposed death on all of them found in or entering 

 the country after a certain date. It is under this latter Act that the execu- 

 tions of the Lancashire seminary priests took place from this date onwards."* 



Between 1584 and 1590 there was a lull in the activity of the Roman 

 Catholics and in the persecutions, a lull attributable either to the success of 

 the repressive measures of the administration or to the absorption of the 

 nation in the ever-impending struggle with Spain. But in 1590 a somewhat 

 milder persecution broke out. In May of that year, as a precautionary 

 measure against Sir William Stanley's threatened invasion of the Isle of 



'■' This rate led to much local disturbance and to an almost interminable correspondence between the 

 Lancashire justices or the earl of Derby and the Privy Council ; see Peck, Desid. Cur. i, 1 1 8 et seq. 

 passim; Acts of the P. C. The returns of the prisoners in the New Fleet at Manchester for Feb. April, 

 and Oct. 1582 and Jan. 1584 are given in Rambler (New Ser.), viii, and are abstracted in Lydiate Hall, 228, 

 237, and in the Introd. to Vaux's Catechism (Chet. Soc), p. Ixxvii. See also Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary 

 Priests, 160, 162, 184.. 

 ''^ 27 Eliz. cap. I, 2. 



"* At this point the material preserved in the S. P. Dom. relating to the fortunes of the Roman 

 Catholics in the county is so great that it is impossible to do more than indicate its contents and position 

 briefly. Some of the documents are printed in Lydiate Hall. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 169, No. 27, 22 Mar. 

 1583-4, names of Jesuits, &c. lately fled out of co. Lane; Bridgewater, Concert Eccl. Angl. 209 ; in 1584 

 no less than fifty Catholic gentlemen's houses were searched in Lanes. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 175, No. 21 and 

 no, lists of recusants and suspects in Lanes. (?Nov. and Dec. 1584), printed in Lydiate Hall, 226. S.P. Dom. 

 Eliz. vol. 167, No. 40, list of persons condemned at the sessions at Manchester, 23 Jan. 1584 ; printed ibid. 

 227, and in Foley, Rec. S. J. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 184, No. 33, examination, &c. of James Stonnes, priest in 

 theNew Fleet, Manchester, Nov. 1585 ; printed ibid.231. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 185, No. 85, information con- 

 cerning priests at large in Lanes. .?I585; printed ibid. 234. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 183, No. 15, lists of recusants 

 assessed to a levy, .'Oct. 1 585, amongst them being twenty- three Lancashire names ; these latter printed ibid. 

 235. S.P.Dom. Eliz. vol. 187, No. 5 i, petition of John Westby of Mowbrick, Mar. 1586 ; printed ibid. 235. 

 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 190, No. 43, note of recusancy fines in Lanes. 1586 ; printed ibid. 238. S.P. Dom. Eliz. 

 vol. 153, No. 62, Roger Ogdeyne's information about priests at Bold House, May, 1582 ; printed ibid. 221 

 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 154, No. 76, information against Richard Haydock, priest at Cottam Hall, ?July, 1582 ; 

 printed ibid. 222. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 163, No. 84, Chaderton to Walsingham concerning recusants at Man- 

 chester, and advising sessions to be kept about Preston, Wigan, and Prescot, where the people are most obstinate 

 and contemptuous; printed ibid. Peck, Desid. Cur. i, 148, the Privy Council to the earl of Derby and Bishop 

 Chaderton, 22 Mar. 1583—4. ' Some priests in Manchester gaol had better be tried in terrorem at the assizes.' 

 10 Sept. 1586, list of persons ill-aflicted to the State ; printed in Baines, i, 240, from Harl. MS. 360, and thence 

 copied in Lanes. Lieutenancy (Chet. Soc.), ii, 188, and in Lydiate Hall, 239 ; the date doubtful. 7 Sept. 1587, 

 Edward Fleetwood, rector of Wigan, to the Lord Treasurer, describing the religious state of the county and the 

 effect of the new commission for the peace which had been issued in 1586; Cott. MS. Titus, B. ii, 238 (abstracted 

 in Strype, Annals, iii (2), 488 et seq). S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 200, No. 59, names of 128 recusants on bail in 

 April, 1587. The Lancashire names are given in Lydiate Hall, 241. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 235, No. 68, 

 boldness of the recusants in Lancashire in [?]i59o. No effectual execution of the penal laws. Jesuits 

 increasing ; abstracted ibid. 242. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 235, No. 4, state of religion in Lancashire [?] 1590 ; 

 an important paper printed ibid. 243—50, concludes with a statement of recusant convictions. Before the 

 last commission, presented at the quarter sessions 941, convicted 700 ; since the last commission, presented 

 800, convicted 200. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 240, No. 138, report on the religious condition of Lanes, 

 and Cheshire ; and No. 139, notes as to the Lanes, justices; printed ibid. 257, 262-5, S.P. Dom. Eliz. 

 vol. 243, No. 52, Oct. 1592, notes as to schoolmasters ; printed ibid. 258-60. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 266, 

 No. 80 ; names of recusants assessed in Lanes., Feb. 1598, for the service in Ireland ; printed ibid. 262. 

 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 283, No. 86, Bishop of London to Cecil, April, 1602. Boldness of the recusants in 

 Lanes. ; printed ibid. 267. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 282, No. 74, Nov. 1601, names of seventeen gentlemen 

 in hiding : wrongly printed ibid. 261 under date 1593. S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 287, No. 9, Cecil TrafFord to 

 Secretary Cecil, 17 Jan. 1603. 



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