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A Catholic Petition to the Earl of Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

A. J. Loomie S. J.
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Extract

In the Folger Library in Washington is a large folio manuscript which Dr. James McManaway has recently established as compiled “by some one deeply interested in the affairs of Essex, perhaps by one of his clerks.” The identification of the clerk has yet to be made; a note in the top left corner of the manuscript's front cover “Die Veneris Julii 1, 1601 per me Ricardum Greeneum” is a promising lead, but a Richard Green has not as yet been discovered among the extant records concerning the Earl of Essex. Dr. Mc Manaway writes of this manuscript's contents as follows :

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 1963 , pp. 33 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1963

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References

Notes

1. Pressmark: Folger Library Ms. V.b.214. See McManaway, J., “Elizabeth, Essex and James” in Elizabethan and Jacobean Studies Presented to Frank Percy Wilson, ed. Davis, H. and Gardiner, H. (Oxford, 1959) pp. 219–230.Google Scholar The author discusses the evidence that this manuscript contains Essex's copy of the Scottish Bond of Association circulated in the autumn of 1599.

2. Ibid. p. 221.

A few additional descriptive details are desirable. This document is the next to last in an unpaginated section at the end of the manuscript. It is not an original but a transcript covering four and one half pages of script, and is in the same hand as the preceding and succeeding documents. In its present version the transcript runs continuously, whereas from internal evidence it is quite clear that the clerk in copying had before him various pages whose correct order he did not stop to arrange.

3. See Dietz, F. C., English Public Finance, 1558–1640, p. 87 Google Scholar note 4: “The informer then offered a composition to the recusant and when this was agreed upon and paid, the informer arranged with some trustee of the recusant to lease the land at a low rate during pleasure. In this way recusants had to pay grievous fines to informers, pay a certain rent for their lands to the Queen, and lose their movables. One Felton seems to have had a considerable part in this work. During a five year period he is said to have increased the revenue £1000 annually, and to have made £3400 for himself.”

4 Hurstfield, J., The Queen's Wards, pp. 181–189,Google Scholar Neale, J. E., “The Elizabethan Political Scene.” Essays in Elizabethan History, pp. 78–83.Google Scholar Mac Caffrey, W. “Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Politics” in Elizabethan Government and Society pp. 95–126.Google Scholar

5. The need for a composition of recusancy fines can be seen as far back as May and October 1586. Cat. State Papers Domestic, 1581-1590, pp. 331, 365.

6. Bossy, J. A., “English Catholics and the French Marriage, 1577-81,” Recusant History, vol. v (1959) pp. 2–17.Google Scholar

7. e.g. Black, J. B., The Reign of Elizabeth, (2nd ed.) p. 451.Google Scholar

8. Gerard, J., Autobiography of a Hunted Priest (Caraman, P., ed). Double-day, Image Series, pp. 60-62, 169, 207-8.Google Scholar

9. Keeton, G. W., Trials for Treason, (London, 1959) p. 67.Google Scholar

10. For Constable's career see George, Wickes, “Henry Constable, Poet and Courtier,” Biographical Studies vol. II no. 4, pp. 272–300;Google Scholar also John, Bossy, “A propos of Henry Constable,” Recusant History vol. VI. no. 5, pp. 228–237.Google Scholar

11. H. M. C. Salisbury Ms. vol. vii p 86 letter of Feb. 28/March 10, 1596/7.

12. Biblioteca Vaticana, Ms. Lat. 6227 f. 140, letter of 1 Dec. 1597.

13. Cal. S.P. Spanish, 1587-1603, p. 681, Citing B.M. Add. Ms. 28420. The editor, M. A. S. Hume, has misdated the despatch; it mentions Thomas Stapleton, who died on 12 Oct. 1598, as still alive and contemplating a journey to Rome.

14. For Thomas Wright see Stroud, T. A.. “Father Thomas Wright: a Test Case for Toleration,” Biographical Studies, vol. I, no. 3, pp. 189–219.Google Scholar

15. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, vol. iii, part 2, doc. 65 “An licitum sit Catholicis in Anglia arma sumere, et aliis modis reginam et regnum defendere contra Hispanos.”

16. Ibid. Para. 10 and 11.

17 Lambeth Palace Ms. vol. 659 f. 262, letter of 3 Oct. 1596.

18. Archivo General de Simancas, Estado, 615 f. 78, decipher.

19. Archivio Segredo di Vaticano, Nunziature Diverse, Tomo 264 f. 233, The following statutes were specified: 24, 25, 26, of Henry VIII thatwere revoked in 1 and 2 of Mary and restored in 1 Elizabeth, 1 and 5Elizabeth on the oath and the Primacy, 1 and 23 Elizabeth on the finesand attendance at Mass, 13 Elizabeth on devotional objects, 29 and 31 Elizabeth which extended the penalties against recusants.