Thomas Bourchier, the Franciscan martyrologist, writing of the Venerable Thomas Belchiam (d. 3 August 1537) gives the following curious fragment of information: after Belchiam’s death, he says, a congenital idiot named William Sommer went running about the court shouting “The simplicity of one mendicant breaks the pride of the King” (1). In view of Bourchier’s general unsatisfactoriness as a historian one is disposed fo regard with suspicion any of his statements which cannot be corroborated, buk in this instance there i s good reason to believe that his information i s correct, or at least founded on fact.

There is a notice of William Mawhood (1724–1797) in Gillow (IV. 543–4); this was included presumably because of his diary notebooks (1764–1790), which contain valuable information relating to the history of Catholicism in England during the period of the Gordon Riots. The Catholic Record Society has in preparation for issue to its members an edition of the diary covering all those matters of Catholic interest to which it refers. The editorial work on this has necessitated a study of the Mawhood family. The following pages summarise the results of that research as far as it has gone. There are a number of errors in Gillow’s account to be corrected.

The poem here printed shows that this martyr was born, not in Lancashire as has been generally thought, but in the Isle of Man. It occurs onp. 145 of a MS. book known as “The Great Hodge Podge” which has always been in the possession of the Blurdell family of Crosby Co. Lanc.

It is probably in the handwriting of William Blundell of Crosby who was born i n 1560, i n the same year, that i S, as Anaerton. Blundell was consequently twenty six years old when Anderton was executed in the Isle of Wight in 1586. He died in 1630.

In his biography of Bishop Challoner (vol.II. p.272), Canon Burton states that the Bishop died at 25 Gloucester Street (now Old Gloucester Street, Queen Square, Holborn). He does not give his authority, and it may have been an oral tradition. J. P. de Castro, in his Gordon Riots (1926) p.45, makes the same statement, probably on Burton's authority.

The original home of the family was at Englefield House (1) in the parish of Englefield, five and a half miles South-West of Reading. It had been in the family’s possession from at least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. When Elizabeth came to the throne it was the property of Sir Francis Englefield (2) who left the country, never to return, in April 1559, having settled Englefield on his brother John. John died in 1567 and was succeeded by his son Sir Francis Englefield, 1st Baronet, who survived to 1631, though his ownership of Englefield ceased in 1586 on its forfeiture to the Crown. This was the culminating act in a long dispute with the Crown which had begun with its sequestration in 1563.

During the second half of the eighteenth century there were a number of Catholic Musicians, both amateur and professional, who formed a friendly group of composers and performers. They met in each other's houses for concerts, and they joined together to raise the standard of music in the Embassy Chapels. They took an active part in such musical associations as the Madrigal Society, the Catch Club, and the Academy of Ancient Music. In this way they mixed with non-Catholics of like tastes.