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William Carter (c. 1549–84): Recusant Printer, Publisher, Binder, Stationer, Scribe—and Martyr

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

T. A. Birrell
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Extract

In 1999 the Bodleian Library acquired a tract volume containing an hitherto unrecorded and unknown publication of William Carter. The item itself has been fully described by Geoffrey Groom in the Bodleian Library Record (Oct. 1999) and to celebrate the acquisition I gave a short talk to the Friends of the Bodleian Library on the subject of Carter's career: the present article is a considerably expanded version of that talk.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , May 2006 , pp. 22 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2006

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References

Notes

1 Allen, William, A true sincere and modest defence of English Catholiques [1584].Google Scholar William Cecil, Lord Burghley will be referred to as Cecil throughout.

2 Gibbons, John & Fenn, John (eds.) Concertatio ecclesiae Catholicae in Anglia (4° Trier 1588).Google Scholar Facsimile reprint 1970 with preface by D. M. Rogers.

3 Foley, H., Records SJ vol. III (1878) passim; CRS 2 (1906) p. 179.Google Scholar

4 Quoted Southern, A. C., Elizabethan Recusant Prose (1950) p. 351.Google Scholar Spelling and orthography have been modernized in this and subsequent quotations.

5 Greg, W. W., Licensers for the Press …to 1640 (Oxford 1962).Google Scholar

6 There is a printed fragment of Leslie's Defense of the Honour of Mary Queen of Scots (1569) among the Yelverton MSS (now BL MS Add 48027 ff 284–91), also probably part of Carter's papers. Aylmer's references to ‘another book’ and to ‘other new forms of letters’ are obscure.

7 CRS 5 (1908) p. 30. This spy is referred to by Pollen and others as ‘P.H.W.’, but the ‘W’ is a quasi notarial squiggle.

8 Harleian Society Registers vol. 48 p. 118.Google Scholar

9 CRS 5 (1908) p. 39.

10 For favourable accounts see Graves, M. A. R., Thomas Norton the Parliament man (1994)Google Scholar and ODNB.

11 See W. W. Greg n. 5 above.

12 BL MS Add. 48023 f. 57b.

13 BL MS Add. 48029 (Yelverton 33) f. 58sq.

14 BL MS Harley 6035 f. 48b. For Fleetwood see the excellent article by Harris, P. R. ‘William Fleetwood Recorder of the City, and Catholicism in Elizabethan London’ RH vol. 7 no. 3.Google Scholar This reference is not included in ODNB.

15 Aubrey, J., Brief Lives (Oxford 1898) vol. II p. 159.Google Scholar

16 The full composition of the Bench has to be reconstructed from cursory references in the text. Procurator generalis, Attorney General Popham; Scriniarius, Recorder Fleetwood; Primarius Iudex. Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench Wray; Loci Communes Judex, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Anderson. The reference to ‘quidam Schuttus’, i.e. without any title, adds a note of authenticity. Shute was Second Baron of the Exchequer, a technical title that had only been created in 1579, which enabled him to enter the ranks of the higher judiciary—it was evidently unknown to the author of the text of the trial.

17 See note 2, above.

18 Knox, T. F. (ed.) First and Second Diaries of the English College Douay (1878) pp. 318 and 319.Google Scholar

19 See note 4 above.

20 See Groom, G., Bodleian Library Record Vol XVI (Oct. 1999) pp. 499–502.Google Scholar

21 Catalogue of the Books in the Library of the British Museum… to the Year 1640, 3 vols. (1884).

22 Sir Thomas Cornwallis is a case in point: see McGrath, P. and Rowe, Joy, ‘The Recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, Proc. Suffolk Inst. of Archaeology, vol. 28 (1958–60) pp. 226–71.Google Scholar

23 There is no article on Loarte in either the Catholic Encyclopaedia or the New Catholic Encyclopaedia. Gilmont, J. F., Les ecrits spirituels des premiers Jesuites: inventaire commente (Rome 1961) pp. 260–268 Google Scholar is useful. There is an extensive article in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite Vol IX (Paris 1976) by Manuel Ruiz Jurado.Google Scholar

24 Edwards, F. (ed) The Elizabethan Jesuits (1981) pp. 153 & 375.Google Scholar

25 Bodley MS Rawl D.320. I am indebted for this reference to Dr. Stefania Tutino's article in RH vol. 27 May 2004. For Thomas Pounde see Foley, H. Records SJ Vol. III (1878) pp. 567–657.Google Scholar

26 Francis Waferer later became a priest: Anstruther, G. The Seminary Priests vol. I (1968) p. 368.Google Scholar

27 Other copies of the Treatise on the Divorce are at BL MS Add. 33737; BL MS Arundel 51; MS Yelverton 72 (now BL); New College Oxford MS 311. There are modern editions by N. Pocock (1878) and Charles Belmont (Paris 1917).

28 For Le Grand see Niceron Memoires (Paris 1734) vol. 26.

29 Clement, P. (ed.) Lettres de Colbert (1861–82) vol. 7, pp. 124, 134–5, 178;Google Scholar Jolly, Claude (ed.) Les Bibliotheques sous l'Ancien Regime 1530–1787 (Paris 1986) pp. 162 and 178 n. 96.Google Scholar

30 Carter's texts are printed by Holleran, J. V. in A Jesuit Challenge (Fordham U.P. 1999).Google Scholar

31 Strype Annals vol. 2 pt. 2 pp. 360–64; Strype Parker vol. 3 pp. 212–14; Wright, T. (ed.) Queen Elizabeth and her times (1838) vol. 2 p. 155;Google Scholar HMC 12 Rep. App. IV letter of Beale to Earl of Rutland 18 Sept 1581.

32 In the quotations from State Trials given below, I have corrected the text from Sloane 1132. There is another copy, in a better hand but probably less authentic, at BL MS Harley 6265.

33 Fr. Henry More SJ had a copy of this ms. when he was writing his Latin history of the English Jesuit province (1660): he refers to it as ‘Actio Westmonasteriensis’.