A noteworthy feature of the Recusant Rolls is that they invariably cite authorities for their statements, most of the references being to another series of Exchequer records known as the Memoranda Rolls of the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer (2). The latter are the official record of the business of the Court of Exchequer (L.T.R. side) in each Law term, and provide a rich but largely unexplored field of inquiry for the student of recusant biography.

A typical product of his class and generation, courtier, poet and man of learning, Henry Constable appeared to be well on the way to a successful career at Elizabeth's court when he decided (to use the words of a contemporary account) to lose all his heritage in order to save his soul. Part of that heritage was a vigorous Protestant patriotism which manifested itself, in his early years. More patriotic than Protestant perhaps, though it was precisely his interest in religion which led him to make his heavy decision. As for his patriotism, it remained undimmed in his later years but emerged in the form of an idealistic allegiance to a greater cause. He spent the rest of his days, in exile for the most part, in a variety of undertakings which reveal a single-minded dedication to the conversion of his country.

Thomas Everard, born at Linstead, Suffolk, in 1560, was the son of a Catholic father and was probably brought up as a Catholic in England. As a comparatively young man he met Fr. John Gerard S.J. and under Fr. Gerard’s influence he went abroad to train for the priesthood. He was ordained priest in 1592 and joined the Society of Jesus in the following year. His subsequent career was similar to that of many another English Jesuit of the period. He was Minister for some years at St. Omers College and also at the nearby Jesuit house at Watten, and he later held the post of Socius to the Master of Novices in the Novitiate at Louvain. For a short period in 1605/06 he was in England on the mission, and again in 1617 he came over to his native country, only to be betrayed a year later into the hands of the priest-hunters and imprisoned. He was released from prison in 1620 and sent into exile, but once again he returned to England and continued to work on the mission in spite of further imprisonment and great hardship. He died in London in 1633 (1).

An original document of the early seventeenth century in the form of a letter, kept in the archives of the English College, Valladolid (1.), gives a remarkable description of the holy life and happy death of an unnamed Recusant peer, who died in England at seven o’ clock in the morning of 2 April 1630. The letter is dated by the writer the next day and is evidently an exchange between two priests, who had been intimate with the deceased and were well known to one another.

Between the years 1611 and 1620, a number of books supporting the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance were printed in London at the instigation of the English Government. The author's name on the title-pages of these books was given generally as “Roger Widdrington, an English Catholic”, sometimes simply as “Roger Widdrington”. Some of the books were in English, others were in Latin. Taken together, they represent what was probably the most learned and formidable defence of the Oath composed by any pen then active. At that time, the common opinion of those in a position to know, both in England and abroad, was that the name “Roger Widdrington” was a pseudonym which concealed the identity of the real author, the Benedictine priest, Thomas Preston. The modern accounts of his career given, for example, by Gillow (in his ‘Bibliographical Dictionary’) and by Thompson Cooper (in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’) accept this traditional identification.

Father Constantine was a notable member of the Capuchin Province of Paris at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Known as Polydore Morgan before joining the Capuchins, he was brought up a Catholic and having completed his studies on the Continent was ordained a secular priest. His identity has never been established with certainty for there were at least two contemporaries with the same name, but it is probable that he was one of the Morgans of Llantarnam in Monmouthshire. According to J.B. Wainewright (1), he was the nephew of Thomas Morgan, the agent of Mary, Queen of Scots, If this opinion be true, then Fr. Constantine, after his ordination in Rome, visited the English College at Rheims, where he arrived on May 12th, 1562; he left the College on the 28th of the same month, presumably with the intention of going to England; he returned to Rheims on November 2nd, 1582, and left the College again on March 22nd, 1585 (2). Fr. Gilbert, O.F.M. Cap., however, states that Fr. Constantine was the cousin of the agent Thomas Morgan (3). This cousin was a prisoner in the Gatehouse on July 29th, 1580; he was released from prison on August 8th, 1582. Marcellin de Pise (1594–1656), the Capucnin annalist, on whose account of Fr. Constantine we rely for much of what follows, after stating that the friar was of good family and was ordained a secular prieat, goea on to say that immediately after his ordination the young priest aet out for England before he had aaid hia firat Maas. On hia arrival, he adds, he waa arreated and oaat into priaon and it was as a prisoner that he celebrated hia first Mass (4). This must have been an unusual, if not unique, occurance even in those unsettled times.

So little has been published on this martyr (1) that it will be convenient to begin by referring to a recently discovered document which (although not having an Exchequer origin) throws some light on his family and helps us to understand, in particular:, the subsequent history of his wife's recusancy. This is a Chancery inquisition-post mortem. (2) drawn up at Leeds on 29 April, 1598 – within a month after his execution – by William Holmes, the Escheator for Yorkshire, its object being to ascertain the character of the estate held by him at the time of his death, and whether any legal obstacle lay in the way of the forfeiture, of the property to the Crown by reason of his attainder for felony.

Between the years 1611 and 1620, a number of books supporting the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance were printed in London at the instigation of the English Government. The author's name on the title-pages of these books was given generally as “Roger Widdrington, an English Catholic”, sometimes simply as “Roger Widdrington”. Some of the books were in English, others were in Latin. Taken together, they represent what was probably the most learned and formidable defence of the Oath composed by any pen then active. At that time, the common opinion of those in a position to know, both in England and abroad, was that the name “Roger Widdrington” was a pseudonym which concealed the identity of the real author, the Benedictine priest, Thomas Preston. The modern accounts of his career given, for example, by Gillow (in his ‘Bibliographical Dictionary’) and by Thompson Cooper (in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’) accept this traditional identification.

The distinction of putting into print the first book ever produced within the principality of Wales has recently been proved to belong to a group of Catholic outlaws operating in North Wales. Their book bears the date 1585 and though it was perhaps really printed in 1586 or early 1587, it antedates by over one hundred and thirty years the two ballads with which Isaac Carter inaugurated the modem press inside Wales at Trefhedyn in Cardiganshire in 1718 (1). The evidence for this press has gradually been pieced together over a number of years (2), but it is scattered in books and periodicals, and may here be brought together and compared with the bibliographical evidence of the book itself.

The verses set out below occupy pages 31 to 34 of an early mmusaript (Z 3.5.2) in Marsh's Library, Dublin, and are hem printed, for the firat tbe as far aa 9s known, by the Hnd pem%ssion of the Governors of the Library. The history of this manuscript is obscure.

Joseph Gillow in his “Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics” gives a notice of Giles Hussey, the Artist, and refers to other members of the family only en passant. Following, no doubt, Hutchins “History of Dorset” and Burke's “Landed Gentry”, he gives Elizabeth Hussey’s maiden name as Walcot and states that she was the daughter of Charles Walcot of Waloot, Salop. This statement has been repeated many times; but Charles Walcot had no daughter named Elizabeth. An attempt is made here to set out the genealogy of the Marnhull Husseys on the basis of memoranda written in 1740 by a grandson of the George Hussey who purchased Marnhull Manor in 1651. These memoranda appeared in “Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset,” Vol.xv, 1916–7, pp. 220–224 (cited here as N, & Q.).

Robert Sutton is a name that occurs quite often in sixteenth century records. It was borne by two of the English martyrs under Elizabeth I, the only two, among the three hundred and sixty martyrs at present officially listed, to bear identical names. One of these was a layman, a school-master, hanged at Clerkenwell in October 1588 for being reconciled to the Catholic faith (1). The other was a secular priest hanged, drawn and quartered at Stafford a year earlier (2). The present note concerns the priest, but since further contemporaries of these two martyrs also had the same name, others, too, will be mentioned in the course of investigating the early years of the Ven. Robert Sutton, the priest martyr of 1587.

Over 120 priests are named in William Mawhooa’ s Diary during the years 1764 to 1790. It has not proved possible to identify all of them, and one purpose of the following annotated list is to ask the help of readers in adding to the Information given, or, where no information is given, in suggesting possible identifications. It must be admitted that a surname and the date of its first use in the Diary do not constitute a promising clue; moreover Mawhood’a spelling is often phonetic. Such additional information will make the annotation of the forthcoming edition of the Diary more comprehensive.

The accounts that have appeared in various volumes of the Catholic Record Society by way of introduction to the registers of Catholic missions are obviously of some considerable value to the historian and indeed to all those – their number appears to be growing – who are interested to learn what they can of the records of their Catholic fore-fathers. It seems worth while therefore, when fresh information is available, to supplement such accounts, as far as may be possible. That this is f easible in the case of Major Richard Trappes-Lomax’s careful Introduction to the registers of Lea gram and Chipping (C.R.S. xxxvi: Lancashire Registers, VI) is mainly owing to the survival of two folio volumes of accounts kept by the steward of the Stonyhurst Shireburns in connection with their Lancashire estates. These volumes, evidently unknown to the editor, range from 1717 to 1749 and from 1754 to 1766; the second of these volumes brings us after a few pages to the transference of the Shireburn estates to the family of Weld of Lulworth. Besides other matters of interest the accounts include the payments, usually quarterly, of the missioners both at Stonyhurst and at Leagram Halls and it is here especially that can be f ound more precise dates of the comings and goings of successive missioners.

This handlist is compiled from the notes of the late Canon E.H. Burton, deposited after his death in the Westminster Archives. No attempt has been made to undertake the formidable task of checking Canon Burton’s references or of bringing them up to date. in some cases the sources which he used have been printed since he compiled his notes, e.g. The Valladolid Diary (C.R.S. Vol. 30), and Kirk's Biographies, 1909, One of the most valuable features of the list is that it contains references to the Archives of the English Chapter, which have generally been difficult of access. in cases where biographical notices have already been published, which appear to include all the material gathered by Canon Burton, and which are easily available, a mere reference is supplied to the published article. Instances of this procedure in the present instalment are the notices of John Abbot, and V. John Adams.