The newsletters which I have reproduced in this volume are retained in the archives of the archdiocese of Westminster. I am very grateful to Westminster Cathedral's new archivist, the Reverend Nicholas Schofield, and also to the former archivist, the Reverend Ian Dickie. They have both been extremely helpful in allowing me access to the collections in their charge. I am quite certain that, had it not been for the cathedral archivists’ readiness to provide regular assistance and advice, this project would have been quite impossible to contemplate.

The manuscripts published here are printed in full with routine openings and terminations, and with endorsements and annotations, usually, though not invariably, in the hand of the recipients of the letters. (In the letters received by Thomas Rant, however, many of the marginal annotations which he made on them are purely routine, and have not, therefore, been reproduced in the text of this volume.) The original spellings have been retained, except that modern usage is employed for u and v, and for i and j.1 Punctuation and capitalization have also been modernized. Most abbreviations have been expanded through the use of italics and square brackets. Interlineations are indicated by the use of brackets <thus>. Deletions (where the deleted word is still legible) are indicated thus. Other deletions and obliterations are noted in square brackets. Cross-references to other letters printed here are made by citing the number of the letter in italic type: for example, Letter 23. Underlining of words and passages of text in these letters has been preserved.

The newsletters which are reproduced in this volume are retained in the Westminster Diocesan Archives (in the A Series, volumes XVI–XIX; the B series, volumes 25–27, 47, and 48; and the OB series, volume I/i). They were penned by English Catholic clergymen and laymen during the first half of the 1620s. At this time, these writers, and indeed many others, expected that sweeping political changes would occur in the wake of the twists and turns of the Stuart court's dynastic marriage negotiations abroad. The present series of letters begins at the point when, in late 1621, with the parliament on the verge of dissolution, the English secular clergy dispatched an agent to Rome in order to persuade the papal curia that this was the right moment to appoint a bishop to exercise direct and local episcopal authority over English Catholics. The secular clergy's efforts to secure episcopal power for one of their number generated a stream of correspondence between them over the next few years. Their letters dealt both with their frenetic lobbying in Rome in order to secure their suit and also with the course of events in England and on the Continent as the Stuart court tried to construct a dynastic alliance which would supply a bride for Prince Charles.

We long to heare of your safe arrivall at Rome, which I hope we shall do ere th[ese] come to your handes. I will first tell you what letters I have already addres[sed] towards you, then what I have now to say. I sent you the nuncios letters to Card[inal] Lodovicy, the popes nephew, by the meanes of the Spanish ambassadors secretary. The packet was endorsed unto Padre Maestro at the Spanish amb[assador's] house in Rome. Afterward I sent you one of mine, with another out of England to Mr Franks, by Mr Wainmans means. It was addressed unto Monsignor Cursino, the agent in Rome, at Cursino House hard by St Lewes Church. Item, the nuncio himself being at Toulouse with the king did, upon the receit of that l[etter] which you sent him from our brethren in England, write a second letter unto Card[inal] Lodovicio in your favour, which he addressed unto the rector of the Engli[sh] college in Rome to be delivered unto you at your arrivall at Rome.