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Elizabethan Priest-Holes: II—Ufton, Mapledurham, Compton Wynyates
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
At the end of the Harleyford conference Southwell rode back to London, to Lord Vaux's house at Hackney, and Garnet moved on to either Harrowden or Shoby. Weston himself says simply that he gave them ‘the names of Catholic houses where they might go and make their residence, and arranged for reliable guides to take them there': phrases which imply two important feats of organisation. There had been a number of young Catholics who acted as guides and escorts to the priests since at least the middle of 1580, led first by George Gilbert and then in 1585-6 by Lord Vaux's son Henry. But it is clear from an Italian memorandum written by Gilbert not long before his death in 1583 that the early seminary priests were itinerant and did not ‘make their residence’ in any one house. This is confirmed by a letter to Agazzari written by a priest (probably Persons himself) in August 1581, in which it is said that priests rarely stayed more than a night in one house, ‘ne longiori morapericulum creetur’. That explains why, although Gilbert advises priests to avoid discovery by changes of name, address, clothes and horses, he nowhere mentions priest-holes. It is significant that he says it will be necessary (sarà necessario) for priests to be distributed in various places, and for each one of them to stay in a gentleman's house (ogni uno stia nella casa di qualche gentilhomo), with responsibility for the household and for ‘a certain circuit around’ (un certo circuito intorno); as if this was not yet normal practice. He also suggests that the priest should pass as a relative, friend or steward of the owner, or that he should hold some honourable sinecure which will not interfere with his priestly work. As is well known, St John Payne had been doing this at Ingatestone as early as 1577, but most priests in the early 1580's seem to have been constantly on the move, at a heavy cost to their physical and psychological stamina. For them to ‘make their residence’ in a particular manor-house was a consequence of the Harleyford conference, and meant planning, direction—and priest-holes.
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References
Notes
For abbreviations see Recusant History, October 1972, p. 296.
1 Weston, 72.
2 Vaux, 158.
3 C.R.S. 39, 321-40.
4 Ibid., 77.
5 Ibid., 323.
6 Ibid., 323.
7 Sacred Congregation of Rites, Historical Section 148, Documents on Martyrdom and Cult … of … John Houghton … (1968), 189, 191.
8 Vaux, 159.
9 Vaux, 169-71; Devlin, 123-7.
10 Devlin, 13-16, 129.
11 Devlin, 15.
12 Devlin, 108-09.
13 Devlin, 128.
14 Devlin, 14.
15 S.P. 12/206/77; cf. C.R.S. 5, 133, where however ‘Uveton’ (i.e. Vveton) is given as ‘Weton’.
16 Foley, 3, 295; Caraman, The Other Face, 107.
17 S.P. 12/193/17, f. 39.
18 Simpson, Edmund Campion (1896), 320.
19 S.P. 12/193/17, f. 37.
20 S.P. 12/193/45, f. 128.
21 Ibid., f. 130.
22 S.P. 12/193/17, f. 39v.
23 British Museum, MS Cotton Titus B 3, f. 71.
24 Recusant History, 11, 121; Anstruther 246; Woolhope Club Transactions (1917), pp. 211-18.
25 C.R.S. 61, 131-2.
26 Garnet, 264; Vaux, 255, 283, 345; cf. Garnet, 43 (Whalley).
27 P.R.O. E.134/6 Jas. I/E. 4 and E.19. References to these documents will be given as follows: E.4 or E.19, followed by the name of the deponent and the number of the interrogatory which he was answering.
28 E.4 Knollys 2.
29 E.19 Gunter 7.
30 E.19 Wildey 6.
31 E.19 Gunter 7, Wildey 6.
32 E.19 Bland 7.
33 E.19 Duffield 12, Wildey 8.
34 E.19 Wildey 8.
35 E.19 Gunter 10.
36 E.19 Wildey 10-11.
37 E.19 Bland 12.
38 E.19 Duffield 13.
39 E.19 Bland 13.
40 E.19 Wildey 9, Duffield 8, Bland 8.
41 E.19 Wildey 9.
42 E.19 Bland 8, Wildey 9.
43 E.19 Bland 8.
44 E.19 Wildey 8.
45 E.19 Wildey 8, Duffield 9.
46 E.19 Bland 14, Duffield 14, Wildey 14; E.4 Knollys 3.
47 E.19 Bland 14, Duffield 14, Wildey 14.
48 E.19 Duffield 15, cf. Bland 15, Wildey 15.
49 E.19 Bland 16, cf. Duffield 16, Wildey 16.
50 Ibid.
51 E.19 Bland 19, cf. Duffield 19, Wildey 19, Gunter 19.
52 E.19 Duffield 19, cf. Bland 19, Wildey 19, Gunter 19.
53 E.19 Duffield 19.
54 E.19 John Vachell 4.
55 E.4 Knollys 3.
56 E.4 Cray 3.
57 E.19 Francis Vachell 5.
58 E.19 Bland 9.
59 E.19 Bland 14.
60 E.19 Duffield 9.
61 E.19 Wildey 14, cf. Duffield 14.
62 At this time one pound weight of gold was coined into £36 sterling: John Craig, The Mint, 424.
63 Mary Sharp, A., The History of Ufton Court (1892), 158;Google Scholar Allan, Fea, Secret Chambers and Hiding Places (1904), 83.Google Scholar
64 Squiers, 97.
65 Squiers, 94-95.
66 Devlin, 125.
67 Anstruther, 106, 115, 308, 389; C.R.S. 54, no. 499; C.S.P.D. 1591-94, pp. 463, 510; C.S.P.D. 1595-97, p. 180; C.S.P.D. 1598-1601, pp. 71, 74. I owe these and subsequent references for Mapledurham to Dr Alan Davidson.
68 C.R.S. 57, 121.
69 Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.5/14, item 6; Kent Visitations, 1619 (Harleian Society 42), p. 64; C.R.S. 60, pp. 213, 231, 238.
70 Camden to Sir Robert Cecil, Strype, Annals (1824) 4, p. 331.
71 Ibid., p. 332.
72 D.N.B. Neville, Edmund.
73 S.P. 12/254/77.
74 Strype, Annals 4, 333-4.
75 D.N.B. Neville, Edmund.
76 Devlin 294-5.
77 C.R.S. 21, 332.
78 Ibid.
79 A Sermon preached at Henly at the Visitation on the 27 of Aprill 1626. Oxford. Printed by J.L. & W.T. 1626. Cf. Alan Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire’ (Bristol Ph.D. thesis, 1970), pp. 80-88.
80 Weston, 76-77.
81 C.R.S. 13, 90.
82 Historia Provinciae Anglicanae (1660), Bk 3, 16.Google Scholar
83 C.R.S. 2, pp. 27, 180-1.
84 I owe these details to Archbishop David Mathew.
85 Troubles 2, 408.
86 Troubles, 2, 157.
87 Anstruther includes no priest of the name of Gaunt. Neither William Johnson alias Wilson, nor Robert Watkinson alias Wilson, nor Edward Jones, nor James Morris alias Jones had been ordained in 1586. Roland Morgan alias Jones does not seem to have returned to England until September 1586: Anstruther, 235.
88 The Marquis of Northampton, Compton Wynyates (1904), 31.
89 In 1512 Sir William Compton had demolished the village of Compton Superior to form a sheepwalk. Since then, there has been no village at Compton Wynyates, only the house and church: M. W. Beresford, ‘The Deserted Villages of Warwickshire’, Birmingham Arch. Soc. Trans. 66 (1950), p. 90. Until the Civil War, there was a second court, with its own moat, in front of the existing house. On the night of 29-30 January 1645 a Royalist force from Banbury, led by the Compton brothers, managed to recapture the outer court, but was unable to cross the inner moat and take the house itself.
90 Gerard, 44.