THE SUPPRESSION of the Society of Jesus by Clement XIV in 1773 brought an abrupt end to Jesuit activity in many parts of the world. However, after 1773 many ex-Jesuits of the former English Province stationed in England, Wales, Maryland and Pennsylvania continued their work as chaplains and missionaries. On the continent the English ex-Jesuits, having been obliged to transfer their college from Saint-Omer first to Bruges and later to Liège, were protected by the prince bishop of the latter city in their work of educating boys. Even after the college's final migration to Stonyhurst in 1794 as a result of the upheaval of the French Revolution, the English ex-Jesuits continued operating without total loss of their pre-Suppression way of life.’

THE CONSEQUENCE of the Cisapline attempt to ‘grapple with the social and intellectual transformation of the modern world” and to bring about a ‘revision of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church” was the greater assimilation of English Catholics into contemporary society. Encouraged by a new sense of freedom, clergy and laity participated more actively in English public life’ and dismantled much of the closed élite community of the recusant period. This led to a brief phase in which both clergy and laity exercised their new-found freedoms, but which was dogged by disputes. Arguments raged between liberalism and authority, and between sectarian ideals and non-denominational activities. They were eventually resolved in a restoration, by 1850, of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church, in which the role of the laity was subject to the authority and guidance of the clergy.

THE HISTORY of Catholicism in Salisbury from Reformation times until the earlier years of the nineteenth century has been told in so far as it is known in the Victoria County History of Wiltshire, in the volume of the Catholic Record Society devoted to recusancy in that county and in an article in The Month: ‘John Peniston's Reminiscences’.’ As an introduction to what follows the information contained in these may be briefly summarized.

THE ROLE of the laity in the Church is a topic of great interest today. Since the second Vatican Council the part which the people could, and should, play in the Church has been discussed at length, and the shortage of priests has led to demands for the laity to become more actively involved in spiritual affairs. Some, however, still maintain that spiritual tasks must be left to the ordained, but would like to see the laity take a much more active role, as Catholics, in the secular sphere, representing and defending Catholic values in public life. In the light of the current debate, it is interesting to look at the role of the laity in the Catholic Church in Yorkshire during the last century. At that time, too, there was a shortage of priests, while the role of Catholics in public life did not always fulfil the desires of Church leaders.

FROM THE very interesting article by Canon Bamber, ‘The Secret Treasure of Chaigley’ (Recusant History, 17/4), it seems clear that the skull belonged to someone who had been publicly executed in the way suffered by the martyrs, who was not Philip Holden, nor one of the Lancashire Martyrs unless he be Bl. Miles Gerard, who was executed at Rochester. Might I suggest that the head is that of Dan George Lazenby, a monk of Jervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire? He was condemned to be executed at York in August 1535 for refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, the only one of his community at the time to stand firm, and he would have been hanged, drawn and quartered.

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

MARY WARD, foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (I.B.V.M.) and so indirectly of the Loreto nuns, was born in 1585 and died in 1645. In addition to some autobiographical writings in English and Italian, there are a significant number of Mary Ward's letters preserved. Early lives were written by Winefrid Wigmore in English (there is a seventeenth century manuscript of this in Loreto college, Manchester), by Pageti in Italian in 1662, by Bissel in Latin in 1667 or ‘68 and in German by Lohner in 1689. The Pageti and Lohner Mss. are in the Institute's archives at Nymphembourg, but in addition to these documentary sources the Institute possesses at Augsburg a remarkable collection of fifty large canvases called ‘The Painted Life’. As a series of paintings on the life of a single individual from this period these would seem to be almost unique. There is a short cycle by Rubens on Marie de’ Medici, and some baroque series on the lives on the saints in Roman churches. But there does not seem to be anything comparable to this ‘Painted Life’ from the seventeenth century. Some account of it will therefore be of interest both to the historian and the art critic and, since certain incidents in Mary Ward's life are alluded to in connection with the paintings, a brief outline-biography is provided by way of introduction.