The final identification of what is known as the ‘Birthplace’ of Guy Fawkes has not only settled a question much disputed in York, but has led to the discovery of a number of small facts of wider significance.

It has been generally known since 1933 that Edward Fawkes, father of Guy, was a tenant of the Dean and Chapter, and that his house stood in Stonegate, for in that year the late Rev. Angelo Raine published a complete transcript of a lease made on 8 July 1579 by the Dean and Chapter to Edith Fawkes, widow, of a dwelling house in Stonegate late in her husband's tenure and occupation. Mr Raine was confident that further research would enable this house to be identified. The research has now been undertaken, and the house is found to have been on the northwest side of the street, and to be represented today by nos. 32-34 Stonegate (currently occupied by Mearas, carpet specialists, A. Simpson-East, tailor, and the Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant). All the premises appear to have been entirely rebuilt from the ground level since the sixteenth century.

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.

The second instalment of Lord Ripon's diary covers the period from March to September 1879, months when he was rapidly recovering his influence within the top levels of the Liberal leadership. With the Afghan war drawing to what appeared to be a successful conclusion, Ripon continued to serve as a valuable adviser to the party leaders on what Liberal policy should be toward post-war Afghanistan. The outbreak of yet another colonial conflict, this time in South Africa, the so-called Zulu war, deeply offended Ripon's sense of justice. But he possessed neither the interest nor the expertise in this area that he had in Afghanistan, and as a result his influence on Liberal policy on this question was negligible. Like most of his fellow-Liberals, Ripon believed that the British High Commissioner in South Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, the man responsible for initiating this war, should be recalled and censured. But otherwise Ripon had little to add in a constructive vein to a solution of British problems in South Africa. His diary contains none of the penetrating observations on the Zulu conflict that characterized his analysis of the Afghan war.

Beginning suddenly in late November 1878, George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of Ripon, decided to keep a diary. Neither in the diary itself nor in his private papers does he give a reason for this action so typical of the Victorians. Ripon maintained his diary faithfully for over sixteen months until involvement in the General Election of 1880 forced him to suspend his daily entries. He renewed the diary briefly in April 1880 following the election and kept it until just before his appointment as Viceroy of India on 29 April 1880.

The birth and parentage of Bishop Challoner have always been somewhat obscure. The first life by the Rev. James Barnard was published only three years after his death. But, though Barnard knew him for twenty years, his first chapter is disappointing. There are about fourteen pages on the marks of the Church and only about twelve lines on the early life of Challoner!

Unlike the Northern and South-Western counties, Kent has not attracted much recusant study, largely because there was nothing like the same degree of loyalty to the old religion as there was in those parts. Kent's proximity to the seat of government, the general absence of wealthy Catholic landowners, and especially the well-used ways to the Kent coast—all proved deterrents to overt ‘papistry’. The immediate danger of official disapproval appears to have been a greater reason for the comparative lack of recusancy than the alleged fact that the Marian persecution had caused a hatred of Catholicism in the shire of Kent. Whether or not the old religion was to flourish in the village communities depended, in Kent as elsewhere, on the encouragement of the local landed gentry.

Unlike parts one and two, the third section of the Ripon diary is almost solely concerned with political matters. Ripon's initial reluctance to assert himself politically, following his conversion, began to disappear as the prospect of a general election approached. He was now determined on a political career once again and as a result accepted numerous invitations to speak at Liberal party rallies in late 1879 and early 1880: so many that he began to feel that he might appear too ambitious. Toward the end of 1879 he noted in his diary that he would turn down an invitation to speak at a Liberal meeting in Leeds precisely because he had recently put himself forward so much. It is revealing of his renewed political ambition that Ripon ultimately changed his mind and went to Leeds.

Heard that Parl, is to meet on 5th Dec This right but I suspect Govt. has come to this decision in consequence of legal questions connected with the act of ’58 as regards payment of the expenses of the Afghan war rather than on constitutional grounds. Left Nocton for Studley— began Rawlinson's Eng & Russia in the East 2nd Edition—arrived at Studley—some weeks of real hard work before me I suspect.

None of the priest-holes described in the last article show the ingenuity which indicates the craftsmanship of St Nicholas Owen. The earliest dateable examples of his work are in East Anglia, at Oxburgh (c. 1589), Braddocks (1592) and Sawston (1593?). All of these are in remarkably good trim, and all can be documented from Gerard's Autobiography. But since I have already discussed these three houses elsewhere, I shall deal with them fairly briefly here, and then consider in more detail two houses in the west Midlands, Baddesley Clinton and Hindlip, where the hides can be dated to the same five years. The advantage of this procedure is that the well-authenticated examples from East Anglia can furnish a context for the discussion of Baddesley Clinton (where the identification is disputed) and Hindlip (where the house was demolished in 1814 and must be reconstructed from surviving documents).

Among the archives of the Archbishop of Westminster is a four-page list of ‘Persons of Quality’ and their chaplains and of other Mass-centres, riding-missions, etc. marked in pencil ‘between 1695 and 1710—c. 1701’ possibly because the latter was the year when the Catholic eighth Duke of Norfolk, who heads the list, succeeded to the title. It is, however, possible to assign a more accurate date to this document, i.e. between 14 September 1704 when Sir Henry Arundell Bedingfield—born in 1689 and marked ‘yet minor’ in the list—succeeded to the baronetcy and 11 May 1706 when Lord Carrington died without issue. It may be that further investigation can narrow down the date still further. The document gives no indication of the purpose for which it was compiled though the tenor of its final page suggests that it was drawn up by a secular priest, probably a member of the Old Chapter. The contents of the document are summed-up in a note added in a later hand at the end: ‘This paper tells whether the family was served by a clergyman, that is a secular priest or by a regular viz. a Jesuit (underlined) or a Monk or a Friar’.

Monday 29th Sept.

Went out stalking with Finlay got nothing, had 2 chances & wounded the fist stag but could not find him – a wild day & the wind very bad on the hill – Monro saw my stalk through a glass & says that the stag was badly wounded & turned down just behind us – There is not much news in the papers, except an account of a successful attack by the tribes on one of our convoys.

The most insistent theme in Donne's writings is his sometimes trivial obsession with suicide and martyrdom. From his ‘Paradoxes’ to his last sermon this theme runs through his prose, and it is no less a constant preoccupation of his verse. That the Jacobeans in their melancholy were obsessed with death has often been observed; but Donne's obsession was a special one, a quintessence of Jacobean melancholy, distilled in him by a special circumstance of his life: he had been born a Catholic. Donne's personal rebellion against the trend of religion in his society was a lifelong struggle within him, though the seed of his rebelliousness grew in his words and deeds to be a trifling thing. This seed had been nurtured by his mother, who lived all her long life a stubborn Catholic, almost outliving her apostate son. She reared him to be a soldier for the Old Faith, bringing him into association with hunted and martyred priests, as if by their example he might learn to savour death. Somehow, this strange education led Donne not into the path of righteous fidelity, but to a bemused fascination with death by self-murder, a cavalier irony that is one of the hallmarks of his style.

The register of the Hill Chapel, Goosnargh, Lancashire, from 1777 to 1856 was published in C.R.S. 31, with historical notes by the Rev. R. L. Smith. Amongst the Hill Chapel papers deposited at the Lancashire Record Office in May 1956 by the Rev. A. Richardson are two foolscap sheets recording baptisms between 1770 (when the chapel was founded) and 1777.

In the summer of 1597, Philip II authorized the printing of a proclamation in English to be used in the event of a landing of his forces in England. This hitherto unpublished document has survived through a Spanish version prepared for his son, Philip III, a short time after his father's death. This was the only English proclamation that received Philip's official approval during his long naval war with England. Yet why was it prepared at all, when his priorities by 1597 were elsewhere, and even these were in jeopardy? His Council of War had made him aware of the loss of important advantages in France and the Low Countries, where the maintenance of his land forces was threatened by another bankruptcy. With reports of sporadic mutinies of garrisons arriving in Madrid, a naval expedition had to be conceived within the framework of restricted resources. This precise situation provides a fundamental insight into the proclamation. Upon examination, it is an appeal for local support from every quarter. In effect, the Spanish Armada of 1597 needed an insurrection in order to succeed. Since a large military commitment was unfeasible, the rhetoric of the proclamation had to by-pass religious differences and not solicit simply a Catholic loyalty.

‘In this embassy’, Antonio Foscarini reported to the Doge in Venice in 1611 from London, ‘there has always been an Englishman as interpreter, a Catholic, who has regularly attended the church without anyone hindering him. The same goes on in the French and Spanish embassies, to his Majesty's entire satisfaction.’ Little is known about this type of employment, aside from James's atypical toleration of an Englishman's public non-conformity. It can be of interest to see what sort of Englishman could be selected by a foreign power to serve in its embassy in seventeenth-century London. There can be more curiosity to learn what type of work he could in fact be called upon to do. Fortunately, sufficient evidence has survived in the case of at least one Englishman of clear recusant connections, Francis Fowler II, to make an attempt. Curiously, in preparing this study an unexpected problem emerged in the discovery of another Englishman of an identical name who lived in Madrid with some of the same duties to perform. This surprising career of a Francis Fowler I is also described here. From this pair of biographies it is hoped that fresh clues have been found about the family of the distinguished printer of early recusant books, John Fowler.

Anthony Tyrrell, born in 1552 of an Essex family, was ordained priest in Rome about 1580 and returned to England soon afterwards. In April 1581, he was imprisoned in the Gatehouse prison in London, but he soon escaped and went back to the Continent. He came to England again at the end of 1584, and was imprisoned again, in the Counter prison, Wood Street, London, in July 1586. He now made many disclosures regarding Catholics, and in September he was moved to the Clink prison in order that he might have more scope to act as an informer amongst the many Catholics confined there. Shortly afterwards he was released. He continued for a while to act outwardly as a Catholic, while in reality being a spy for the Government; then he openly announced his conversion to Protestantism. Soon, however, he repented of his behaviour, fled to the Continent once more, and wrote his ‘lamentable confession’, as he called it, exposing in detail the duplicity of his former life.

Lord William Howard is surely the least known of the fourth Duke of Norfolk's three sons. Although a Catholic, he was not a martyr like his half-brother Philip. Unlike his elder brother Thomas, first Earl of Suffolk, he had no spectacular public career. But because he was not a martyr, he was a more typical Catholic layman than his half-brother; because he lacked high public office and never sought the position of a courtier, but spent his time managing his estates and participating, though as a Catholic unofficially, in local government, he was more typical of landowners of the period than his brother Thomas. Between the two extremes of martyrdom and hypocrisy were the great majority of English Catholics; between these two extremes we can place Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle, Cumberland. In this paper I should like to consider Lord William's Catholicism in three contexts: his own position; in relation to other Catholics through the marriages he arranged for his children; in the attempts he made to protect individual Catholics.