WHEN COSMAS NEVILL II died on 1 June 1829 at the ripe old age of 81’ the family were within striking distance of having to quit their traditional home of Nevill Holt in the East Midlands, for only two more generations of Nevills were to reside there. The first of these was Cosmas II'S second son, Charles, the eldest son, Cosmas III, having predeceased him. While his father was alive, Charles Nevill seems to have preferred living in London to residence at Holt. In 1821 he married Lady Georgiana Bingham, youngest daughter of the second Earl of Lucan, and the couple then spent some time in Paris where their first child, Lavinia Elizabeth, was born on 23 January 1824. Subsequently she was conditionally baptised by a Catholic priest at Holt. Their next child, another daughter, Charlotte, was born in London on 10 March 1827 and the Register of Nevill Holt chapel does not mention her baptism. Though Cosmas II died in June 1829, Charles and Georgiana were in no great hurry to settle in the Leicestershire countryside, for their third child and heir, Cosmo George, was born in London on 3 June 1830 and was baptised by the Rev. Mr. Fryer. Their fourth child, Louisa, was also born there, on 21 September 1831, as was their fifth, Richard, on 15 December 1832. Their sixth and last child, William, was likewise born in London, on 21 April 1834.2

This article considers some of the men and women who served in the Privy Chamber of Elizabeth I and those men who held significant positions in her outer Chamber for evidence of Catholic beliefs, sympathies or family connections. It then discusses the careers of five men who at various times in Elizabeth’s reign were members of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners. It will show that their court careers were decisively affected by their Catholic beliefs and connections and, in one case, by a temporary repudiation of Catholicism. Their careers witness both to a fluidity of religious identity that facilitated their advancement at Court and to a narrowing of this identity over the course of the reign.

The Englishmen who were members of the Italian or Cassinese Benedictine Congregation in the seventeenth century have been neglected, mainly because, unlike the Englishmen who joined Spanish monasteries, the Cassinese did not perpetuate themselves and thus did not produce historians who would keeptheir memory alive. This is a pity, since several of them are important figures: Robert Gregory Sayer (1560-1602), who gained an international reputation as a moral theologian, which, it has been claimed, remains unrivalled among Englishmen; Roland Thomas Preston (1567-1647), whose prolific literaryoutput against the papal deposing power at least assures him of a place in the history of Anglo-Gallicanism; and Robert Anselm Beech (1568-1634), who was the agent in Rome who negotiated the setting up of the Benedictine mission to England and defended it against attack.

The Anglo-Italians failed to perpetuate themselves because in 1616 they refused to unite with the other English monks, mainly in order to remain loyal to Preston, whom the others condemned for his writings. This article deals, first, with their attempt to found a community of their own at Paris, and, then, with their final years as a group. These two episodes have not been noticed before, and they have to be reconstructed entirely from manuscripts in the archives of the Archbishop of Westminster, the Abbey of S. Pietro at Perugia, the Congregation ‘de Propaganda Fide’ and the Vatican Library.

Although Catholics were marginalized and strongly associated with Jacobitism under the early Hanoverians, the reign of George III saw a gradual assimilation of Catholics into mainstream political culture. The Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain played a key role in this process by emphasizing passivity and loyalty. The bishop who most strongly personified this Jacobite to loyalist transition was George Hay (1729-1811). A convert to Catholicism from the Scottish Episcopalian faith, Hay served the Jacobite Army as a medic in 1745 and was imprisoned following that conflict. After his conversion and subsequent ordination, Hay became coadjutor of the Lowland District of Scotland in 1769 and was promoted to the Apostolic Vicarate in 1778. Hay actively engaged with many high-profile statesmen and political thinkers, including Edmund Burke. Most notably, he constructively utilized Jacobite political theology to criticise revolutionary ideology. His public involvement in politics was most remarkable during the American and French Revolutions, when he confidently deployed the full force of counterrevolutionary doctrines that formerly alienated Catholics from the Hanoverian state. However, since the Age of Revolution presented a stark duality between monarchy and republicanism, Hay’s expressions of passive obedience and non-resistance endeared him and the Catholic Church to the British establishment.

The iron-mining by Sir Thomas Preston of The Manor in Furness, Bart., is an interesting interlude in Restoration economic and legal history. First, it attests to the existence of iron-mining in Furness long before the eighteenth century and provides valuable insights into mining conditions and operations. Secondly, when Sir Thomas, a Catholic, attempted to dispose of his properties, including the iron-mines, to the Jesuits and the poor of Dalton parish, his cousin, Thomas Preston of Holker, Esq., initiated proceedings in the Court of Exchequer, claiming that the estates were forfeit because they had been granted for superstitious uses. In this article, the iron-mines will be examined both as lucrative producers of haematite ore and as a focal point of legal controversy.

Sir Thomas Preston, second son of Sir John, was born in 1643. By 1665 he had succeeded to the family titles and estates after the deaths of his father and brother. He married twice, his second wife being Mary, the daughter of Caryll, Viscount Molyneux of Sefton, whose marriage portion was £4,000, with £2,000 paid in 1666 and the remainder in 1667. They had three children: Francis, who died an infant in 1672; Mary, who married William, Marquis of Powis; and Anne, who married Hugh, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. Thus the 1660’s brought a happy marriage, children, and an improving financial position. The 1670’s brought the loss of his son and heir in 1672 and the sudden death of his second wife, after which Sir Thomas elected to abandon the world and enter the Society of Jesus. The two decades in his life are mirrored in the fate of his iron enterprise, which prospered in the ’sixties but then decayed rapidly.