¹ For an overview of this literature as regards Rome, see Frank, Thomas, ‘Elizabethan travellers in Rome’, in Praz, Mario (ed.), English Miscellany: A Symposium of History Literature and the Arts, 4 (Rome, 1953), 95–132Google Scholar, reference to Piers at 127. See also Chaney, Edward, ‘“Quo vadis?” Travel as education and the impact of Italy in the sixteenth century’, in Chaney, Edward, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Relations since the Renaissance (London, 1998), 58–101Google Scholar; on the Elizabethan era, see 72–86.

² In 1581, the English priest Gregory Martin composed a description of Rome, devotional and apologetic in tone, based on his stay there in 1576–1578; treating of churches, relics, and processions, followed by religious houses, colleges, and hospices; the text remained unpublished until 1969, Martin, Gregory, Roma Sancta (1581): Now First Edited from the Manuscript, ed. Parks, George Bruner (Rome, 1969)Google Scholar; Gregory Martin (?1542–1582), ODNB.

³ For a discussion of this genre, together with a guide to the secondary literature, see Murray, Molly, ‘“Now I ame a Catholique”: William Alabaster and the early modern conversion narrative’, in Corthell, Ronald et al. (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), 189–215Google Scholar.

⁴ Munday, Anthony, The English Roman Life, ed. Ayres, Philip (1582; 1590; citations from Oxford, 1980), 22, 44, 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anthony Munday (1560–1633), ODNB; for a reading of this work in terms of the situation of Catholics in England, see Hamilton, Donna, Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560–1633 (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2005), 47–51Google Scholar; ‘A discourse of HP his travelles written by him selfe’ (Bodleian, Rawlinson MS D. 83) [henceforth ‘Discourse'], 118–119; for William Allen's rebuttal of this negative representation of the exiles, see Mark Netzloff, ‘The English colleges and the English nation: Allen, Persons, Verstegen, and diasporic nationalism’, in Corthell et al., Catholic Culture, 240–244.

⁵ Henry Piers (1567–1623) is to be distinguished from his near-contemporary namesake, Henry Piers (Pierse) (d.1638), who served as secretary to Lord Deputy Chichester, and was granted lands in Co. Cavan under the Ulster Plantation, Henry Piers, DIB, sub nomine; a descendant of the Tristernagh family, yet another Henry Piers, wrote ‘A chorographical description of the county of Westmeath’ in 1682, published in Vallancey, Charles, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis (Dublin, 1786), 1–126Google Scholar.

⁶ Petition of William Piers to Queen Elizabeth, n.d. [c. July 1574], Cal. S.P. Ire., 1571–1575, 627–628; William Piers acquired a lease of the property in 1562, Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R., Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (London, 1970), 196–197Google Scholar.

⁷ There is a reference to one ‘Henry Peers’ who at Easter 1585 matriculated from Jesus College, Cambridge; while the author was about 17 by that date, and had spent some time in England as a young man, it is not possible to link this reference with certitude to the subject, Venn, John and Venn, J.A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part I, Vol. III (Cambridge, 1924), 328Google Scholar.

⁸ Christopher Nugent, 14th Baron Delvin (1544–1602), DIB; on Delvin's Irish grammar, see Casey, Denis, The Nugents of Westmeath and Queen Elizabeth's Irish Primer (Dublin, 2016)Google Scholar.

⁹ On the political and literary worlds of the Nugent family in the late 16th century, linked via the Fitzgeralds to a kin network in England, see the biography of William Nugent (1550–1625), brother of Christopher Nugent, 14th Baron Delvin, Iske, Basil, The Green Cockatrice (Meath, 1978)Google Scholar; on the family's bilingualism, see Carey, Vincent, ‘“Neither good English nor good Irish”: Bi-lingualism and identity formation in sixteenth-century Ireland’, in Morgan, H. (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), 45–61Google Scholar.

¹⁰ ‘Discourse’, 72–73.

¹¹ ‘Discourse’, 25; madrigals were sung by four voices, each voice reading from the part-book, in a domestic setting, Einstein, Alfred, The Italian Madrigal (Princeton, NJ, 1949), 244–245Google Scholar.

¹² John Dowland to Robert Cecil, 10 Nov 1595, from Nuremberg, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of … Marquess of Salisbury, 24 vols (London, 1883–1976), V, 447Google Scholar.

¹³ Their landed neighbours in the mid 1590s in the barony of Moygoish, Co. Westmeath, included the Tuite, Nangle, and FitzGerald families, Anglo-Norman names, ‘A perambulation of Leinster, Meath and Louth, of which consist the English Pale’ [1596], Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts, 6 vols (London, 1867–1873), III, 188–196, at 192Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Hickey, Elizabeth, ‘Some notes on Kilbixy, Tristernagh and Templecross and the family of Piers who lived in the abbey of Tristernagh in Westmeath’, Ríocht na Midhe 7 (1980–1981), 52–76Google Scholar.

¹⁵ ‘Discourse’, 199.

¹⁶ ‘Fiants Ireland, Elizabeth’, No. 5431 (1 July 1590), Sixteenth Report of Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland (Dublin, 1884)Google Scholar, Appendix, 120.

¹⁷ ‘The Pilgrim-Book of the English College’, in Henry, Foley SJ (ed.), Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, Vol. VI (London, 1880)Google Scholar [henceforth Foley, Records, VI], 567–568 (gives 19 names for 1595). This designation rendered him eligible for admission, which the college statutes specified was reserved to those of English parentage.

¹⁸ ‘Discourse’, 2, 4, 13.

¹⁹ ‘Discourse’, 31.

²⁰ One of his tracts, c.1594, is reproduced in Heffernan, David (ed.), ‘Reform’ Treatises on Tudor Ireland (Dublin, 2016), 323–325Google Scholar.

²¹ Thomas Jones became archbishop of Dublin and lord chancellor of Ireland in Nov. 1605, DIB.

²² The Loftus connection included the military families of Bagenal, Colley, and Warren, together with the Usshers, a prominent Dublin family, Adam Loftus (1533/4–1605), DIB.

²³ ‘Discourse’, 210–211; on the attack on the home of one midland settler family at this time, see Cuarta, B. Mac (ed.) ‘Sir John Moore's Inventory, Croghan, King's County, 1636’, Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society 19 (2000–2001), 206–217Google Scholar.

²⁴ Proclamation against unlicensed preachers in London, 26 Mar. 1589, Steele, Robert, A Bibliography of Royal Proclamations of the Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns … 1485–1714, 2 vols (Oxford, 1910), I, 89Google Scholar; on how laity engaged with preaching, see Hunt, Arnold, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640 (Cambridge, 2010)Google Scholar, especially ch. 2, ‘The art of hearing'. On situating contemporary theological disagreement, especially on predestination, in a preaching context, see ibid. 342–372.

²⁵ In 1607–1608, Thomas Jones was attempting to win control of the Tristernagh properties, having ensured that the couple's eight children were being brought up in his own house, Archbishop Jones to Salisbury, 1 June 1607; same to same, 24 Feb. 1608, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1606–8, 155, 425; on 5 Dec. 1608 Jones acquired a royal grant of the priory, Erck, J. (ed.), A Repertory of the Inrolments on the Patent Rolls of Chancery in Ireland (Dublin, 1852) I, Part II, 513Google Scholar; the subsequent legal title is unclear, but Tristernagh remained in the possession of the Piers family.

²⁶ Edwards, David, ‘A haven of popery: English Catholic migration to Ireland in the age of plantations’, in Ford, A. and McCafferty, J. (eds), The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2005), 95–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ On the Jans household as recusant centre, see Thomas [Jones], bishop of Meath, to Sir Robert Cecil, 23 Oct. 1599, Calendar of the Manuscripts of … Marquess of Salisbury, IX, 375–376; James Jans (d.1610), Dublin alderman from 1588, ‘Prosopography of aldermen, 1550–1620’, in Lennon, Colm, The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation (Dublin, 1989), 258Google Scholar.

²⁸ ‘Discourse’, 3; lord deputy and council to Privy Council, 24 Feb. 1603, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1601–3, 569; in May 1606 Jans was one of three Dublin aldermen fined for their recusancy in the court of castle chamber, Crawford, Jon, A Star Chamber Court in Ireland: The Court of Castle Chamber, 1571–1641 (Dublin, 2005), 488–489Google Scholar.

²⁹ After the death of Thomas Jans, Mary Piers married firstly Gilbert Gardener, and then one Lannen, ‘Memoirs of the family of Sir Henry Piers of Tristernagh in the County of Westmeath’, National Library of Ireland, MS 2563.

³⁰ Piers, ‘A chorographical description of the county of Westmeath’, in Vallancey, Collectanea, 68–69.

³¹ Among those who provided recommendations for English recusants travelling to Ireland in the mid 1590s were Henry Garnet SJ (‘Father Whalley’), superior (leader) of the Jesuit mission, and George Blackwell, archpriest, Cal. S.P. Dom., 1595–1597, 14.

³² Piers's services to refugee Catholics were noted by Cardinal Sega: report on visitation of English College, Rome, 1596, in Foley, Records, VI, 45.

³³ John Dracot (or Draycott) was one of the leading Staffordshire Catholics; the family featured repeatedly in government anti-recusant measures from the mid 1570s onwards, and in 1601 both John and his son Philip were suspected of harbouring priests, Trimble, William R., The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, MA, 1964), 76–80, 139, 144, 159, 172Google Scholar; for the late 1580s, see McCann, Timothy (ed.), Recusants in the Exchequer Pipe Rolls 1581–1592, Catholic Record Society, 71 (1986), 53Google Scholar; for the 1590s, see Calthrop, M.M.C. (ed.), Recusant Roll No 1, 1592–3, Catholic Record Society, 18 (1916), 301–8Google Scholar; and Bowler, Hugh (ed.), Recusant Roll No. 3 (1594–1595) and Recusant Roll No. 4 (1595–1596), Catholic Record Society, 61 (1970)Google Scholar, index, sub nomine; Anthony Draycote, an archdeacon who had been deprived by 1560, when he was imprisoned, was also of this connection, Gillow, Joseph, A Literary and Biographical History, or, Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, 5 vols (London and New York, 1885–87), II, 105Google Scholar.

³⁴ Holt, Geoffrey (ed.), St Omers and Bruges Colleges, 1593–1773: A Biographical Dictionary, Catholic Record Society, 69 (1979), 89Google Scholar.

³⁵ In 1595, before his departure, in the case of several townlands in Co. Westmeath, Henry Piers sold the tithes in corn for that year's harvest (‘forty couples of tithe corn’) to Alderman James Jans, presumably in view of financing his continental journey, Chancery pleadings, National Archives of Ireland, I, 166.

³⁶ Under a proclamation of 1581 against seminary education, it was illegal to travel abroad without special licence, Steele, Bibliography of Royal Proclamations, I, 81; for Piers and Draycott, no record survives of any licence to travel sought or issued, for the registers of the Privy Council are not extant for the period 26 Aug. 1593–1 Oct. 1595, Dasent, J.R., Acts of the Privy Council of England, ns, 46 vols (London, 1890–1964), XXIV [1592–1593]Google Scholar, preface; for another account of a journey by English seminarians, see Martin Murphy (ed.), ‘William Atkins, A Relation of the Journey from St Omers to Seville, 1622’, in Royal Historical Society, Camden 5th ser., Miscellany XXXII (London, 1994), 191–288.

³⁷ In the mid 1590s a messuage in Sedsall, in Derbyshire, was among the properties of Philip Draycott, of Cheadle, Staffordshire; Sedsall is located on the River Dove, on the border with Staffordshire, about a mile south of Rocester; this holding was occupied by Philip Draycott, son of George Draycott, gentleman, Bowler, Recusant Roll, 40, 43.

³⁸ On the discovery by officials of English recusant schoolboys travelling to the Continent via Ireland in the 1590s, see Edwards, ‘A haven of popery’, 95–96; Piers and Draycott, faced with questioning on their religion from an innkeeper in Jena, ‘because he was no magistrate we refused to answeare directly to any of his questions’, ‘Discourse’, 15–16.

³⁹ Reflecting on bonds forged during their travel together and strengthened by both adhering to the loyal minority in the English College disturbances, Piers referred to Draycott's ‘offices of gratitude and faithfulness towards myself’, ‘Discourse’, 163.

⁴⁰ On the transition from medieval hospice to Tridentine seminary, see Anthony Kenny, ‘From hospice to college’, in ‘The English Hospice in Rome’, The Venerabile Sexcentenary Issue (May 1962), 218–273.

⁴¹ On the considerable numbers of Elizabethan Englishmen who studied at Padua, see Woolfson, Jonathon, Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485–1603 (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the place of travel in shaping English Catholic identity in the Elizabethan era, see the perceptive essay by Netzloff, ‘The English colleges and the English nation’, 236–259.

⁴² On English visitors to Rome in the later 16th century, see Frank, ‘Elizabethan travellers in Rome’, 95–132; for a succinct overview of society and infrastructure in 16th-century Rome, see Girouard, Mark, Cities and People: A Social and Architectural History (New Haven, CT, and London, 1985), 115–136Google Scholar.

⁴³ In 1616, Francis Lea, of Yorkshire, was not admitted as a pilgrim, but received food and alms; similarly in 1626, Patrick Swetman of Northamptonshire, ‘being unknown’ was not admitted, but received alms, Foley, Records, VI, 595, 603.

⁴⁴ Richard Coolinge SJ (1562–1618), ‘Cowlinus’, served as English-language confessor in the ‘Collegio Penitentiariorum’ at St Peter's, 1593–1596, and lived in the English College. McCoog, Thomas (ed.), Monumenta Angliae: English and Welsh Jesuits, 3 vols (Rome, 1992–2000), I, 99–100; II, 277–278Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ On tensions between English and Irish Catholic exiles on the Continent in the late 16th century, see Highley, Christopher, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008), 119–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ This grouping inspired a tract, published in Rome in 1596, recounting the Irish military victories in 1595, highlighting Tyrone's defeat of Sir John Norris, south of Armagh, in September; the confederate army was always referred to as the ‘Catholic League’, Relatione della Guerra d'Hibernia, tra la Lega de'Catholici di quel regno, e l'asserta Reina d'Inghilterra. Dove s'intende i progressi maravigliosi fatti da essa Lega contro gli heretici, Dal principio dell'anno presente 1595. Che presero l'armi, fino al mese d'Ottobre. Et particolarmente una segnalata vittoria, ottenuta dal Conde di Tyron Generale di detta Lega, contro Giovan Noris Generale d'Inghilterra. A di 19 di Settembre (Roma, 1596); the tract is listed in Hyde, Douglas and O'Donoghue, D.J. (eds), Catalogue of the Books and Manuscripts … of Sir John Gilbert (Dublin, 1918), 687Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ ‘Discourse’, 68; Girolamo Mattei (1547–1603), created cardinal 1586. Miranda, The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1586.htm, accessed 29 Jan. 2018. It has not been possible to locate this church with certainty; the Mattei family had a cluster of palaces in the Rione Angelo, and there, in the early 17th century, the cardinal's brother constructed the building known as Palazzo Mattei del Giove; the informal hospice probably formed part of the prelate's extended household, for the average size of a cardinal's household was about 150 people (significantly more in the case of cardinals from richer families), see chapter on 16th-century Rome in Girouard, Cities and People, 115–136.

⁴⁸ Both of Armagh diocese; these two are the only Irish ordinations listed for 1595; fourteen Irishmen were ordained at Rome between 1572 and 1595, Fenning, Hugh, ‘Irishmen ordained at Rome, 1572–1697’, Archivium Hibernicum 59 (2005), 7–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ As constable of Carrickfergus castle, William Piers sent the head of Shane O'Neill (c.1530–1567), the turbulent Gaelic leader, to the crown authorities in Dublin; later, from his base in Tristernagh, William participated in parleys with the Ulster confederates in autumn 1594, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–1596, 280, William Piers (d.1603), DIB; Shane O'Neill (c.1530–1567), DIB.

⁵⁰ On aliens’ experience of the Roman Inquisition at the turn of the 16th century, see Fosi, Irene, ‘Conversion and autobiography: Telling tales before the Roman Inquisition’, Journal of Early Modern History, 17 (2013), 437–456CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Irishmen before the Spanish Inquisition, see O'Connor, Thomas, Irish Voices from the Spanish Inquisition: Migrants, Converts and Brokers in Early Modern Iberia (Basingstoke, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in Aug. 1600, some forty ‘English, Scotch, Genevese and Germans’ were brought in procession to St Peter's and publicly recanted their heresy, von Klarwill, Victor (ed.), The Fugger News-Letters, Second Series (1568–1605) (London, 1926), 326Google Scholar.

⁵¹ There is no mention of Henry Piers in the records of the Roman Inquisition which are conserved in Trinity College Dublin (MSS 1224–1230). Sentences and abjurations arising from appearances there, including cases of heresy (‘proposizioni eretiche’), have survived from 1564 to 1582. References to Englishmen and Scotsmen begin in 1582. Entries covering the years 1583 to 1602 are not extant. There are volumes for 1603, 1607, and 1615, each of which contain references to English and Scottish examinees. See Abbott, T.K., Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College Dublin (Dublin and London, 1900), 243 et seqGoogle Scholar.

⁵² For a short biography of Haddock, see Foley, Records, VI, 130–131; his will (undated, but written shortly before his death in Rome in 1605), Archivum Venerabilis Collegii Anglorum de Urbe (AVCAU), Chronologia Monumentorum ab ann. 1589 ad 1605, vol. vi, 341; he became doctor of divinity from the Roman university (Sapienza).

⁵³ For Haddock's account of these events, see Haddock to Dr William Allen, from Rome, 9 Mar. 1579, printed in Tierney, M.A., Dodd's Church History of England, II (London, 1839), cccl–ccclxiGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ ‘Richard Haydock DD’, in Gillow, A Literary and Biographical History, III, 221–226.

⁵⁵ Both quotations, Persons to Martin De Idiaquez, [summer] 1596, Cal. S.P. Spanish, 1587–1603, 628–633.

⁵⁶ On his travels in 1602–1603, see Anstruther, Godfrey, The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales 1558–1850, 4 vols (Ware, 1969–), I, 159–160Google Scholar; the translation of the Bellarmine catechism is entitled, An ample declaration of the Christian doctrine: Composed in Italian by the renowned cardinal: Card. Bellarmin etc. Translated into English by Richard Hadock, Doctor of Divinitie (Douai, 1604); several other editions of the translation were published up to 1624.

⁵⁷ On the summary procedure arising from a spontaneous appearance before the Inquisition at this time, see Fosi, ‘Conversion and autobiography’; Black, Christopher, The Italian Inquisition (New Haven, CT, and London, 2009), 60–63Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Trinity College Dublin, MS 1229, fos 198r–200v.

⁵⁹ Cardinal Domenico Pinelli (1541–1611); he was involved in the process against Giordano Bruno in 1600, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/domenico-pinelli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/, accessed 20 Jan. 2018.

⁶⁰ ‘Discourse’, 31–32; Pinelli was referring to the lives of the medieval English saints.

⁶¹ ‘Discourse’, 32; Cardinal Enrico Caetani (1550–1599), Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/enrico-caetani_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/, accessed 20 Jan. 2018.

⁶² Examples of men admitted as convictor: John Jackson, admitted for one year, from July 1603, Foley, Records, VI, 577; William Alabaster, arrived 23 Jan. 1609, ibid. 585; four noblemen admitted ‘for sake of conversion’, c. Jan. 1630, ibid. 606; Francis Slingsby and Mr Sprewley, his friend, 2 Feb. 1639, ibid. 618.

⁶³ In Nov. 1628, Gerard Birmingham stayed several days; one Mr Morris was given alms in Oct. 1629; both were born in Ireland of English parents, Foley, Records, VI, 604–605.

⁶⁴ Foley, Records, VI, 45.

⁶⁵ Foley, Records, VI, 567; Draycott subsequently left the English College and entered the Jesuit novitiate in Rome on 12 Apr. 1598, and died there on 14 Aug. of the same year, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rom. 172, fo.25r; Historia Societatis, vol. 42, fo.11r.

⁶⁶ Report (in English translation) on the English College in Rome, by Cardinal Philip Sega, Mar. 1596, in Foley, Records, VI, 1–66, at 48, 62–63, 65.

⁶⁷ ‘Discourse’, 116; Sega report, Foley, Records, VI, 63.

⁶⁸ ‘The Rulles of the Colleadges’, in ‘Discourse’, 111–118; for an English Catholic account of life in the college in c.1579, see Martin, Roma Sancta, 109–114.

⁶⁹ ‘Discourse’, 133.

⁷⁰ Foley, Records, VI, 46.

⁷¹ Foley, Records, VI, 41–42; during carnival 1596 the college guests included Richard Haddock and Gabriel Allen (brother of the late cardinal).

⁷² Foley, Records, VI, 65.

⁷³ ‘Discourse’, 117.

⁷⁴ On the Welsh use of early medieval historic claims in this late 16th-century dispute with the English in Rome, see Nice, Jason, ‘Being “British” in Rome: The Welsh at the English College, 1578–1584’, The Catholic Historical Review, 92 (2006), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁵ Foley, Records, VI, 11, 36; for a defence of Owen Lewis against the critical assessment contained in Cardinal Sega's visitation report from 1596, see Godfrey Anstruther, ‘Owen Lewis’, in ‘The English Hospice in Rome’, 272–294.

⁷⁶ Cardinal Filippo Sega (1537–1596), Miranda, The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1591-ii.htm, accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

⁷⁷ Sega listened to the students’ complaints and requests; he received individual signed written statements of grievance (‘lengthy and rambling memorials’) from the 37 who formed the opposition (Foley, Records, VI, 18–19); he summarized their complaints, and received written replies to these from the college's Jesuits; he also received written observations from those loyal to the administration; his report, addressed to Clement VIII, was concluded on 15 Mar. 1596, Foley, Records, VI, 1–66; this report provides contemporary details on college life during Piers's sojourn.

⁷⁸ ‘Discourse’, 34.

⁷⁹ For a detailed account of the 1594–1597 dispute in the English College in Rome, see McCoog, Thomas, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589–1597 (Farnham, Surrey, and Rome, 2012), 259–272Google Scholar; the role of Edmund Harewood SJ, the college's minister, in relation to the students, features in Pritchard, Arnold, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (London, 1979), 102–119Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Cardinal Sega named ten students ‘who have remained dutiful’, and thirty-seven who opposed the administration, Foley, Records, VI, 3.

⁸¹ Foley, Records, VI, 28.

⁸² Sega referred to ‘a wholescale neglect of discipline and subversion of order’, Foley, Records, VI, 30.

⁸³ Foley, Records, VI, 44.

⁸⁴ Sega summarized their objection to Piers's admission: ‘Despite the objections of all the students, an ignorant Irishman, who moreover has been married, was admitted in violation of the College statutes’, Foley, Records, VI, 23.

⁸⁵ ‘No Irishman whatever should be received into the College’, Foley, Records, VI, 27.

⁸⁶ Foley, Records, VI, 29–30.

⁸⁷ ‘Discourse’, 193.

⁸⁸ ‘Discourse’, 32.

⁸⁹ This summary of Persons's involvement in the resolution of the disturbance draws on the account given in McCoog, The Society of Jesus, 356–65; the articles of agreement, dated 15 May 1597, are given in Law, Thomas Graves (ed.), The Archpriest Controversy: Documents relating to the Dissensions of the Roman Catholic Clergy, 1597–1602, Camden Society, ns, 2 vols, 56, 58 (London, 1896, 1898), I, 16–17Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ ‘Discourse’, 35–36; on the conflict between the Appellants and the Jesuits, see McCoog, The Society of Jesus.

⁹¹ On Reginald Bates, see footnote, ‘Discourse’, 193.

⁹² ‘Discourse’, 163, 193.

⁹³ ‘and as it was thought certaine Jewes wch because they were passing into Spayne went disguised for that they are prohibited to resort thither’, ‘Discourse’, 195.

⁹⁴ A Jesuit college was established in Madrid in 1560, Koch, L., Jesuiten-Lexikon (Paderborn, 1934), 1139Google Scholar; for the career of Joseph Creswell (1556–1623) in Spain, see Loomie, A.J., The Spanish Elizabethans: The English Exiles at the Court of Philip II (New York, 1963), 182–229Google Scholar; Thomas Fitzherbert (1552–1640), ODNB.

⁹⁵ For brief information on students admitted 1589–1598, see Henson, Edwin (ed.), Registers of the English College at Valladolid 1589–1862, Catholic Record Society, 30 (1930), 1–49Google Scholar; on the college in the 1590s, see Williams, M.E., St Alban's College, Valladolid: Four Centuries of English Catholic Presence in Spain (London and New York, 1986), 9–22Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ See appendix, ‘Irish students in Valladolid (1588–1661)’, in Schüller, Karin, Die Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Irland im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Diplomatie, Handel und die soziale Integration katholischer Exulanten (Münster, 1999), 244–245Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ ‘Discourse’, 199; ‘Bernard O Ferail’ was described as sacerdotem theologum at Valladolid in 1601 for ‘seven continuous years’; he studied letters at the University of Valladolid where he spent a further four years studying theology, Hazard, Benjamin, Faith and Patronage: The Political Career of Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, 1560–1629 (Dublin, 2010), 172–173Google Scholar; from the details above O'Farrell died c.1602–1604.

⁹⁸ Elizabeth Hickey, ‘Some notes on Kilbixy, Tristernagh and Templecross, and the family of Piers’, 62.

⁹⁹ Williams, St Alban's College Valladolid, 21, 26.

¹⁰⁰ On the early history of the Seville college, see Murphy, Martin, St Gregory's College, Seville, 1592–1767, Catholic Record Society, 73 (1992), 1–25Google Scholar, and Murphy, Martin, Ingleses de Sevilla: El Colegio de San Gregorio, 1592–1767 (Sevilla, 2012), 5–46Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ ‘Discourse’, 205; for a short biography of Richard Walpole SJ (1564–1607), see Foley, Henry, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (London, 1883), VII, 809–810; in 1597–1598Google Scholar he was serving as prefect of studies at the English College in Seville.

¹⁰² Murphy, St Gregory's College, Seville, 8.

¹⁰³ Murphy, St Gregory's College, Seville, 15; for an internal Jesuit view on the college's foundation and early years to 1595, see McCoog, The Society of Jesus, 113–116, 213–215.

¹⁰⁴ Rodrigo de Castro Osorio (1523–1600) became archbishop of Seville in 1581, and was created cardinal in 1583; supporter of Robert Persons SJ in establishing the English College in Seville. Miranda, The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1583.htm#Castro, accessed 20 Nov. 2017.

¹⁰⁵ Jesuit annual letter, Provincia Baetica, for 1598, extract given in Murphy, St Gregory's College, Seville, 124.

¹⁰⁶ The Confraternity of St George, comprising English merchants trading in Seville, had been established in 1517; for an account of this residence in the 16th century, see Williams, St Alban's College Valladolid, 269–270.

¹⁰⁷ ‘Discourse’, 215; this Cripes may be identified with Edward Crisp, a pensioner in Stanley's regiment in 1589, who by 1604 had served in the army and navy, Loomie, The Spanish Elizabethans, 164, 247.

¹⁰⁸ On John Fletcher, see note, ‘Discourse’, 215.

¹⁰⁹ On the 70 English sailors captured in 1590, and lodged in Seville, who converted to Catholicism due to the ministry of Robert Persons SJ, see Albert Loomie, ‘Religion and Elizabethan commerce with Spain’, repr. in Loomie, A., Spain and the Early Stuarts, 1585–1655 (Aldershot, 1996), 36Google Scholar.

¹¹⁰ For a brief overview of the presence of Irish merchants in the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 16th century, see O'Connor, Irish Voices from the Spanish Inquisition, 34–38; for a statistical analysis of Irish trade with the Iberian peninsula during the Anglo-Spanish war (1585–1604), see Schüller, Die Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Irland, 75–92.

¹¹¹ On the Inquisition's treatment of English merchants and sailors in the Andalucian ports during the Anglo-Spanish War, see Albert Loomie, ‘Religion and Elizabethan commerce with Spain’; on the religious context in 16th-century Seville, see Murphy, St Gregory's College, Seville, 1–11.

¹¹² Croft, Pauline, ‘Trading with the enemy 1585–1604’, Historical Journal, 32 (1989), 286Google Scholar.

¹¹³ Croft, ‘Trading with the enemy’, 287; Valentine Blake (1560–c.1634), a merchant trading with Spain and Portugal, was reputed to be the richest man in Galway in 1592, DIB; after his imprisonment Blake left Spain on 21 Apr. 1599, and reached Galway on 10 May of the same year, Blake to Sir Conyers Clifford, 12 May 1599, TNA, SP 63/205/58; in 1611 he was elected mayor of Galway, but was deposed that year for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, O'Sullivan, M.D., Old Galway (Cambridge, 1942, repr. Galway, 1983), 18Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ Schüller, Karin, ‘Special conditions of the Irish-Iberian trade during the Spanish-English war (1585–1604)’, in Hernán, Enrique García et al. (eds), Irlanda y la Monarquía Hispánica: Kinsale 1601–2001 (Madrid, 2002), 464–468Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Schüller, Die Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Irland, 231.

¹¹⁶ ‘Discourse’, 202; on the various waves of Irish migration to the Iberian peninsula to the mid 17th century, see Schüller, Karin, ‘Irish migrant networks and rivalries in Spain, 1575–1659’, in O'Connor, T. and Lyons, M.A. (eds), Irish Migrants in Europe after Kinsale, 1602–1820 (Dublin, 2003), 88–103Google Scholar.

¹¹⁷ Loomie, The Spanish Elizabethans, 28; on the career of Joseph Creswell SJ (1556–1623) in Spain from 1592 to 1614, ibid. 182–229.

¹¹⁸ ‘Discourse’, 205.

¹¹⁹ ‘Discourse’, 213.

¹²⁰ Richard Hawkins (c.1560–1622), ODNB; while in prison in Seville, Hawkins converted to the Catholic Church, thanks to Fr Walpole, who also gave him 200 crowns, ‘Discourse’, 210.

¹²¹ ‘Discourse’, 215; in the late 16th century, Seville Inquisition officials regularly boarded ships to search for heretical books, O'Connor, Irish Voices from the Spanish Inquisition, 29–31.

¹²² Travelling from Donegal, Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, together with other exiled Ulster lords, arrived in Rome in Apr. 1608, and visited Loreto; for an outline of Tadhg Ó Cianáin's account (in Irish) of their journey, see Muraíle, N. Ó, ‘An insider's view: Tadhg Ó Cianáin as eyewitness to the exile of Ulster's lords, 1607–8’, Gillespie, R. and hUiginn, R. Ó (eds), Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing and Learning (Dublin, 2013), 44–62Google Scholar.

¹²³ An English Catholic translation of the New Testament was published in Reims in 1582, in 1 vol. with extensive commentary and notes; the Old Testament in English was published in 2 vols in Douai, 1609–1610; the translations were from the Vulgate, Latin, Cross, F.L. and Livingstone, E.A. (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford, 1997), 504Google Scholar.

¹²⁴ For example, of two students accepted into the Irish College, Salamanca in 1606, one brought four books (unspecified) while the other brought a breviary, Karin Schüller, Die Beziehungen zwischen Spanien und Irland, 154.

¹²⁵ ‘Discourse’, 162.

¹²⁶ Rossetti, Sergio, Rome: A Bibliography from the Invention of Printing through 1899, I: The Guide Books (Florence, 2000), 49–51Google Scholar; I was able to consult the 1588 copy of Francini conserved in Special Collections, Christ Church Library, Oxford; for an early 17th-century Irish account of Rome in the context of contemporary publications, see M. Mac Craith, ‘An Irishman's diary: Aspects of Tadhg Ó Cianáin's Rome’, in Gillespie and Ó hUiginn, Irish Europe, 1600–1650, 63–84.

¹²⁷ Originally published in Venice in 1554.

¹²⁸ ‘Discourse’, 38–73.

¹²⁹ ‘Discourse’, 67–73.

¹³⁰ Le Cose Maravigliose, 5–71.

¹³¹ Regarding the basilica of St John Lateran (‘San Giovanni Laterano’), in one sentence Francini refers to ‘heretics’, and in the next he notes that Pope Nicholas IV refurbished the building (Le Cose Maravigliose, 5). Piers conflates these details, and refers to ‘the nicholayetane heretickes’, ‘Discourse’, 38.

¹³² ‘Discourse’, 100–120.

¹³³ The author's introduction was dated 30 Sept. 1603; the book comprises 1152 pages, plus appendices; there were six editions in the course of the 17th century; Richard Knolles (late 1540s–1610), ODNB.

¹³⁴ This section comprises pp. 827–916 of the book; Lepanto is treated on pp. 870–884.

¹³⁵ Notable deviations from Knolles's publication will be indicated in the footnotes of the ‘Discourse’ text.

¹³⁶ Piers refers (‘Discourse’, 131) to Scanderbeg (1405–1468), and ‘Captain Huniades’, otherwise Janos Hunyadi (c.1387–1456): both names receive extensive entries in the index of the Knolles volume.

¹³⁷ Orazio Torsellino (Torsellini) (1544–1599), Diccionario Histórico de la Compañía de Jésus.

¹³⁸ Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, I, 159–160.

¹³⁹ ‘Discourse’, 3.

¹⁴⁰ Sir James Ware (1594–1666), antiquarian and collector of MSS, DIB.

¹⁴¹ Confirming this authorial procedure, at the conclusion of the section, with reference to indulgences Piers inserts the observation ‘as in particular hath beene mentioned’ (p. 74).

¹⁴² ‘Sigillum Univ. Oxon. Diplomati Ric: Rawlinson Pro gradu Doctoris Legum Appensum’ [Woodcut of seal].

¹⁴³ The antiquarian's brother John Ware married Elizabeth Piers, daughter of Henry Piers; his sister Martha Ware married Sir William Piers (d.1638), son and heir of Henry, TCD MS 1216, fo.29r–v; see also National Library Ireland, Genealogical Office, MS 68, fo.56; the antiquarian's younger son Robert married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Piers and his wife Martha Ware, ‘Memoirs of family of Sir Henry Piers of Tristernagh’ [1748], National Library of Ireland, MS 2563.

¹⁴⁴ In this catalogue the Piers memoir is indicated thus: ‘XXIV. Itinerarium Henrici Peirs nuper de Tristernagh Armigeri, inceptum anno Dom. 1595. in fol.’, given in O'Sullivan, William, ‘A finding list of Sir James Ware's manuscripts’, Proceedings Royal Irish Academy, 97, Section C (1997), 90Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁵ For the destruction of the Tristernagh properties, see deposition of Dame Martha Peirce, 22 Dec. 1642, Trinity College Dublin, MS 817, fo.26; on the burning of books and papers in 1641, see Cuarta, B. Mac, ‘Religious violence against settlers in south Ulster, 1641–2’, in Edwards, D., Lenihan, P., and Tait, C. (eds), Age of Atrocity: Violence and Political Conflict in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2007), 154–75Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ Entitled ‘A coppie of the register of the lands tythes and other commodities belonging to the priorie of Tristernagh taken out of the original and written in the yeare 1618’, this text is located in Oxford, Bodleian, MS Rawl. B 504; it was listed by Ware in his 1648 catalogue, O'Sullivan, ‘A Finding List’, 88; on the provenance of the medieval register, see Clarke, M.V. (ed.), Register of the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Tristernagh (Dublin, 1941), vii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴⁷ For the provenance of the Ware MSS in the 17th century (including the present text), see O'Sullivan, ‘A finding list’; Rawlinson paid 5 shillings for the Piers travel memoir: see Rawlinson's copy (with prices for items purchased) of the auction catalogue, Mar. 1747; for the sale of the Chandos library, see Oxford, Bodleian, Mus Bibl. III 8o, 44; the Piers memoir is listed in Gulielmus Macray, Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae Partis Quintae Fasciculus Tertius … Ricardi Rawlinson (Oxford, 1893), column 45; Macray identifies Ware's handwriting in the note on the MS's title page.

¹⁴⁸ The transcript, handwritten in ink, consists of 75 loose leaves, and ends abruptly in mid-sentence; on the reverse of p. 72 there is an address and postage stamp, bearing postal frank ‘Oxford MY 20 91’, with address as follows ‘J.T. Gilbert Esq Villa Nova, Blackrock, Dublin’; the transcript has as reference, Dublin City Library, Pearse Street, Gilbert MSS, MS 177 (Box 11); there is no reference to Henry Piers in Douglas Hyde and D.J. O'Donoghue (eds), Catalogue.

¹⁴⁹ Gilbert declared this intention in the course of his short entry on Henry Piers, in Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney (eds), The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, Vol. XV (London, 1885–1900)Google Scholar; on Gilbert's habit of engaging with many contemporaneous projects, see Gilbert, Rosa Mulholland, Life of Sir John T. Gilbert (London, 1905), 36Google Scholar; on Gilbert's contribution to Irish historical studies, see Barnard, Toby, ‘Sir John Gilbert and Irish historiography’, in Clark, Mary et al. (eds), Sir John T. Gilbert 1829–1898: Historian, Archivist and Librarian (Dublin, 1999), 92–110Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁰ Thomas Frank (ed.), ‘An edition of A discourse of HP his travelles (MS Rawlinson D. 83), with an introduction on English travellers in Rome during the age of Elizabeth’, unpublished BLitt thesis, University of Oxford, 1954; for an obituary of Thomas Frank (including list of publications), see Koerner, E.F.K., ‘Thomas Frank: Obituary’, in Stein, D. and Sornicola, R. (eds), The Virtues of Language: History in Language, Linguistics and Tests: Papers in Memory of Thomas Frank (Amsterdam, 1998), 3–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.