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Ralph Sheldon (1537–1613) of Beoley and Weston: cloaked in conformity?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2019
Abstract
On two occasions, in 1580–1 and 1587, the Worcestershire gentleman Ralph Sheldon of Beoley and Weston (1537–1613) undertook to attend services in his parish church. This article seeks to make sense of these occasions of ‘conformity’, in the context of the situation and choices facing Catholics in Protestant England. It argues that Ralph consciously rejected the Jesuit message about non-attendance at the state church, a view he never abandoned. Never described by his contemporaries as ‘papistically affected’, let alone as an ‘obstinate recusant’, his later reputation as such is mistaken. By exploring the evidence relating to these occasions of official conformity, it is possible to see how he managed the challenge of being a Catholic living within the law. He could be regarded, and treated, as an obedient subject. He might thus be viewed as a church papist. However, since occasional conformity must itself also suggest recusancy, a more nuanced understanding of his position requires a reconsideration of some of the evidence.
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- © Trustees of the Catholic Record Society 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
*
An early version of this paper was read at the Tudor Stuart Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London in February 2017. I should like to acknowledge the helpful comments of many readers.
References
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52 Trimble, Catholic Laity, 105–06; Minney, Sheldons, 4-5; Morey, Catholic Subjects, 140, 142-3.
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63 Alan Davidson, ‘The Recusancy of Ralph Sheldon’, Worcestershire Recusant 12 (December 1968): 1–7. His otherwise full and accurate transcription omitted this paragraph. He could not date the episode exactly.
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74 TNA, E 401/1847.
75 Name absent from both originals and edited volumes, Recusant Roll no. 1 1592–1593, ed. M.M.C. Calthrop, Catholic Record Society 18 (London:1916); Recusant Roll 2, 1593–94, ed. Hugh Bowler, Catholic Record Society 57 (London:1965); Recusant Roll No. 3 (1594–1595), and No. 4 (1595–1596), ed. Hugh Bowler, Catholic Record Society 61 (London:1970).
76 TNA, SP 12/250, f.1v.
77 CSPD 1591–1594, p. 545, no. 92; TNA SP 12/249 ff.152-154v, 16 August 1594. Where calendaring of repetitive confessions has significantly diminished and even omitted important content both printed and original reference are given.
78 Clarke, Dorothy M., ‘Conformity Certificates among the King’s Bench Records’, Recusant History 14 (1977/78): 53–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; no relevant item is filed in TNA, KB 145/13/32. Burke, Vincent, ‘Submissions of Conformity by Elizabethan Recusants in Worcestershire’, Worcestershire Recusant 21 (1973): 1–7 Google Scholar, found no surviving Worcester diocesan records for this period. Questier, Conversion, suggests a degree of flexibility in procedural acknowledgement of conformity, 102–05,108–110.
79 Statutes of the Realm, 29 Eliz cap 6, clause 6.
80 Patricia Hyde and Alan Davidson, ‘Thomas Combes’, in Hasler ed. Commons, 1: 634–5; S.M. Thorpe, ‘Robert Walter’, in Hasler ed. Commons, 3: 576.
81 APC 20: 242-3, January; APC 21: 187; APC 22: 56, 63, 263; Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive, ER 2/22, 5 October 1591. Friendship with both men was ongoing till their death; the latter made Sheldon his executor.
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86 The episode was played down by Barnard, The Sheldons, 35, ignored by Minney, Sheldons, and misrepresented in Thorpe and Davidson, ‘Ralph Sheldon’.
87 CSPD 1591-94, p. 554, nos. 1, 2, TNA SP 12/250 f.1r-1v, 3r-3v; Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House (hereafter Cecil Papers), 13 vols (HMSO: London, 1883-1976), 4: 618-19.
88 Edwards, Plotters, 240.
89 The misinformation emanated from the plotter Young. In the same document he described Richard first as the nephew of Anglesey Williams and then as Richard’s uncle, CSPD 1591-1594, p. 531, no. 41, TNA SP 12/249 f.70, 30 July 1594. The link to Sheldon was cited by M. A. S. Hume, Treason and Plot: struggles for Catholic supremacy in the last years of Elizabeth (London 1901), 153–161, at 154; it was repeated in ‘Two Lists’ 98–9. He was not a priest, as Donno, Harington, 239, n.193, quoted by Kilroy, G., Edmund Campion Memory and Transcription (Farnham: Ashgate, 2005), 92 Google Scholar.
90 Williams was correctly identified by A. Davidson, ‘Edward Williams of Oxford: a Sheldon servant’, Worcestershire Recusant, 25 (June 1975): 2-4. Edward Williams, though never described as Sheldon’s nephew, himself said he was servant to his uncle Sheldon, reported by Young in CSPD 1591–1594, p. 545, no. 92, TNA SP 12/249 f.152-154v, Aug. 16, 1594 and CSPD 1591–1594, p. 540, no. 64, TNA SP 12/249 f.108-108v, 12 Aug. 1594 and CSPD 1591–94, p. 540, no. 65, TNA SP 12/249, f. 110r-111r, 12 August 1594.
91 CSPD 1591-94, p.544, no. 87; TNA, SP 12/249, f. 145r-146r. Phrases omitted in the calendar are in italic type. The calendared version incorrectly reads ‘Sheldon’s daughter going to mass’. Interrogators included the earl of Essex, Lord Cobham, William Waad, Francis Bacon and Sir Michael Blount, lieutenant of the Tower acting on behalf of the privy council; Edward Coke annotated some of the interviews.
92 Williams had described the circumstances between 1588 and 1591 when four daughters remained unmarried. The proposed alliance with the Thimelbys, unknown from other sources, is not an impossibility. It was perhaps abandoned when the bridegroom’s father found himself interned, sometime in 1589. Briefly released, he was quickly returned to custody: APC 20: 6–7.
93 CSPD 1591-94, p. 554, no. 1, TNA SP 12/250, f.1.
94 APC 18: 415; APC 24: 221, 224, 399; Lambeth Palace, London, MS 2008, f.49, MS 3470, ff. 135, 137, 138. He was never a knight.
95 CSPD 1591–94, p.554, no.2, TNA SP 12/250, f.2-2v. The name could be Oglethorpe, as before.
96 They can be identified from their uncle’s will, Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Worcester, as Reynold Williams, 1597/168.
97 Reignold Williams listed in 1577, Ryan, Diocesan Returns, 66; as conforming by 1586, CSPD 1581-90, p. 332, no.11, TNA SP 12/190, f. 28; in Sheldon accounts, WaCRO, CR 2632, ff. 120,184.
98 WaCRO, CR 2632, ff. 45, 120. He was possibly also in receipt of a Spanish pension, Loomie, A. J., The Spanish Elizabethans, English exiles at the court of Philip II (London: Burns & Oates, 1963), 263 Google Scholar, no. 151.
99 CSPD 1591–1594, p.531, no. 41, TNA SP 12/249 f. 70.
100 WaCRO, CR 2632, ff. 7, 8, 16, 22, 26, 50-1, 56, 68, 70, 78, 81.
101 Lists and Indexes, 295, no. 473, 26 June 1587; ‘the presentation of Thomas Whitnell to the benefice is cancelled.’
102 Anstruther, Geoffrey, The Seminary Priests 1558–1800, 4 vols (Bognor Regis: [Arundel Press], 1967 Google Scholar; and Great Wakering: Mayhew-McCrimmon 1975-77), 1: 36-8; Birmingham Archives and Heritage MS 3061/Acc 1901–003/167418, 167784; WaCRO CR 2632, ff. 61, 90. Ralph’s cousin Jane of the Broadway Sheldons married Barnabas Bishop of Brailes, William’s brother.
103 CSPD 1591–94, p. 290, no. 76, TNA SP 12/243, no.76, ff.211-216r, transcribed Michael Hodgetts in Worcestershire Recusant 5 (May 1965):18-30, continued in Ibid, 6 (December 1968), 7-20. The section where Sheldon might have been listed is now missing.
104 ODNB; Cecil Papers, 18: 34–35, 111, not Hugh Hall priest of the 1583 inquiries who died c.1597.
105 CSPD 1591-1594, p.531, no. 41, TNA SP 12/249 f. 70. The council knew it was not convenient for him to come to England until early in October.
106 CSPD 1591–94, p. 550, no.113, not calendared, see TNA SP 12/249, f.194-195r at f.194v.
107 CSPD 1591–1594, p. 555, no 7; TNA, SP 12/250 f.8.
108 CSPD 1591–1594, p. 545, no. 92; TNA SP 12/249 f.152-154v.
109 Cecil Papers, 4:618-19, Hatfield House CP 28/45. Edward was Ralph’s heir, aged 24 or so.
110 The phrases ‘by his own admission’ and ‘those he named to Lord Cobham’ make clear that there had already been at least one, and possibly two, other interviews, no longer extant, on matters other than those in the previous inquiries. Hatfield House CP 28/45. Cobham was known to maintain an intelligence network through Catholic refugees in the Low Countries, Patrick H. Martin, Elizabethan Espionage: plotters and spies in the struggle between Catholicism and the Crown (McFarland and Company: Jefferson, North Carolina, 2016), 181.
111 T. F. Knox, ed. Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen (London: 1882), 343–45. At least three copies were known to the council, all in different hands, CSPD 1591–1594, p. 291, nos. 80, 81, 82, TNA, SP 12/243, f. 221-226v.
112 Hughes, P. L. and Larkin, J. F., eds., Tudor Proclamations 3 vols (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1969), 4: 86–93 Google Scholar, discussed in Walsham, Church Papists, 68-70.
113 Oxfordshire Wills 118.113 [https://www.findmypast.com. Accessed 23 June 2019]; C 2/JasI/S22/55.
114 Quite how the phrase ‘the token of the King of Armies’ should be interpreted is debatable; it might not refer to a person but be taken, literally, to mean an image, a sign by which a person might be recognized, a suggestion for which I thank Professor Michael Questier.
115 Cecil Papers, 4:618–19
116 CSPD 1591–1594, p. 555, no 7, TNA, SP 12/250 f.8.
117 Two are traditionally identified as the brother-in-law and the stepson (b.1563) of the Blessed Margaret Clitherow. Anstruther, Priests, 1:81, II, 64, tends to overlook some of the relevant material presented here.
118 BL, Lansdowne MS, 68, no. 69, f. 157r.
119 The recording clerk, thoroughly confused, also mentioned a second man of this name as a lawyer, but not, he thought, a resident Oxford citizen: Ryan, Diocesan Returns, 98–9. Lincoln’s Inn registers record a student of this name in 1556, Records of the honourable society of Lincoln’s Inn, Admissions, 1420-1893, 2 vols (London: 1896) 1: 62.
120 CSPD 1591–1594, p. 409, no. 8; TNA SP 12/247, f. 13. No William Clitherow matriculated at Oxford.
121 T. M. McCoog, ‘Harmony Disrupted: Robert Parson SJ, William Crichton SJ and the Question of Queen Elizabeth’s Successor, 1581-1603’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 145 (January-June 2004), 149-220; BL, Ms Lansdowne 68, no. 70, f. 161r.
122 CSPD 1591–94, p. 33–34, no. 136, TNA SP 12/238, f. 203v; Calendar of State Papers Scotland 1589-93 (hereafter CSP Scotland) no. 578, p. 531–33; CSP Scotland 1589–93, no. 586, p.539–40. Shipmaster Blake thought Mr Poley had taken him back to Antwerp, CSPD 1591–1594, p. 409, no. 8; TNA SP 12/247, f. 13 (reference to Poley is omitted from the calendar). It is unclear whether he is also the Clitherow who engaged in long-term covert correspondence with London merchants, reporting on military and Jesuit affairs from 1586 until at least 1591, CSP Scotland 1585-86, p. 643–45, no. 734; CSP Scotland 1586-88, p. 30; CSP Foreign Jan-July 1589, 224–5, TNA SP 77/5/ 19A, 67B, f. 72r, 73; SP 84/41, f. 359v.
123 Such an alliance would be in line with Sheldon’s support in 1603 for his nephew Francis Plowden, whose father Edmund had argued in support of Mary Queen of Scots’ claim to the English throne: Geoffrey de C. Parmiter, Edmund Plowden, An Elizabethan Lawyer, Catholic Record Society Monograph Series (London: 1987), 4. Which Clitherow composed a treatise in support of the Queen of Scots is unclear, CSPD 1598-1601, pp. 456, 460, but cf. BL, Lansdowne 68, f.160v.
124 Hammer, Polarisation, 158–59.
125 He should be distinguished from another Clitherow, Steward of the College of Reims, sufficiently important for the spy Charles Sledd to filch his letters in 1580, Miscellanea, ed. Clare Talbot, Catholic Record Society 53 (London: 1961): 204, 239–40, 245, who was priested in 1582, Knox ed. Diaries, 188.
126 Cecil Papers, 4:618–19.
127 Devlin, Hamlet’s Divinity, 97; R. B. Wernham ed, List and analysis of state papers: foreign series: Elizabeth I; preserved in the Public Record Office, 7 vols (London: HMSO, 1964–2000), 4: nos.638–39.
128 Ibid., p. 374.
129 Ibid., p. 375.
130 Wernham, Lists, 1, nos. 638, 681–2, nos. 638, 641.
131 Thorpe, ‘Robert Walter’; epitaph in Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms Wood E.1, f. 108v-109.
132 TNA, PROB 11/86/266.
133 Turner, H. L., No Mean Prospect: Ralph Sheldon’s Tapestry Maps (Oxford: Plotwood, 2010 Google Scholar); Idem, ‘Glimpses of a Gallery: the maps and ‘paynted pictures’ of Robert Hare’, Bodleian Library Record 26 (1) (April 2013), 102–112.
134 Davidson and Thorpe, ‘Ralph Sheldon.’
135 Tierney, M. A., Dodd’s Church History of England (Westmead: Gregg International Publishers, 1971 Google Scholar), iv, xlvi-vii, TNA, SP 14/3/f. 29r; Edwards, Francis, The Succession, Bye and Main Plots of 1601–1603 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006 Google Scholar).
136 Cecil Papers, 15: 344. Markham’s sister was married to Sheldon’s heir.
137 Cecil Papers, 15: 60, Cecil Mss CP 99/13; Cecil Papers, 12: 221, 11 July 1602.
138 CSPD 1603–1610, 26, summary; TNA, SP 14/3, f.4 1 August 1603, from Skilts.
139 Cecil Papers, 20: 303.
140 CSPD 1603–1610, p. 28, 6 August 1603; TNA, SP 14/3 f.22-22v. Dated 3 August in document. Martin, Patrick H., Elizabethan Espionage: plotters and spies in the struggle between Catholicism and the Crown (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2016), 230–32Google Scholar.
141 Martin, Espionage, 230–32.
142 Cecil Papers, 18:34–36. His reference is not easy to interpret. Contemporary sources describe a Jesuit Lyster using the alias Butler, and a seminary priest Butler using the alias Lyster, Anstruther, Priests, 1: 59–60, Catholic Encyclopaedia. Minney took this as evidence that Sheldon had re-joined the Church, Sheldons, 5.
143 TNA, E 126/1 Easter 4 Jas, 15 May [1606] f. 41.
144 TNA, WARD 7/51/91 and CP 25/2/386/10JasIMic Double Counties show the lands were not sold as Thorpe and Davidson, ‘Ralph Sheldon’.
145 Walsham, Church Papists, 68–70.
146 His name was omitted from a socially conscious report on recusancy in Worcester diocese in 1596, Cecil Papers, 6: 255–272, 17 July; abbreviated as printed in Talbot ed. ‘Miscellanea’, 127–28.
147 For Abberton, Beoley, Broadway and Shrawley, A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4, ed. William Page and J. W. Willis-Bund (London: St Catherine’s Press, 1924), 7, 19, 43, 341; For Barcheston, A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 5, Kington Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London: University of London, 1949), 10; for Ditchford Frary, now in the parish of Stretton on Fosse, Birmingham Archives and Heritage, Ms 3061/Acc1901-003/167885; For Stretton on Fosse, A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 5, Kington Hundred, ed. L. F. Salzman (London: University of London, 1949), 157; for Tredington, A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 3, ed. William Page and J. W. Willis-Bund (London: St Catherine’s Press, 1913), 550; For Whichford: TNA, C 78/110/11.
148 At Beoley TNA, WARD 7/51/91; Deddington: TNA C 2/Eliz/A8/55; Flyford Flavell: TNA, C 66.1516, mm 32-42 at 41–42; Steeple Barton, TNA STAC 8/162/6, sheet 31, 23 Nov 2 Jas.; TNA C 2/Jas1/S12/32 1604;Whichford: TNA, C 78/110/11.
149 Jane, baptized in November 1567, Beoley Parish Registers; her marriage had been concluded before 1587, WaCRO CR 2632, f.202.
150 Hammer, P., ‘An Elizabethan spy who came in from the cold: the return of Anthony Standen to England in 1593’ Historical Research 65 (1992): 276–295 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 290–91.
151 Nelson, Alan H., Monstrous Adversary; The Life of Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), 337 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
152 Staffordshire Record Office, D641/4/J/4/1/3(b).
153 The Catholic sympathizer Sir Thomas Lake, clerk of the Signet and close to king James, TNA, SP 14/70, f.151; Henry Maynard, former Burghley secretary (d.1610), with whom he was sufficiently familiar to borrow money, WaCRO CR 2632, f.127.
154 Richard Eades, Dean of Worcester (d.1604), author of an epitaph on Ralph’s father’s tomb at Beoley.
155 Anthony Blencowe, Dean of Chichester and Provost of Oriel College; the Catholic Thomas Allen, Principal of Gloucester Hall, Oxford. Both received bequests in Sheldon’s will.
156 To whom Ralph had acknowledged recognizances: TNA, E 126/1 Easter 4 Jas, 31 May 1606 f. 49.
157 Nancy Briggs, ‘William Lord Petre 1575-1637’, Essex Recusant 10 (2 August 1968): 51-64.
158 Donno, Harington, 239–40.
159 TNA, C 2/Eliz/T10/3.
160 APC 32: 251.
161 Barnard, Sheldons.