In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Jenison, late Auditor to her Majesty in Ireland, purchased estates in the parishes of Heighington and Coniscliffe in the County Palatine of Durham, and built himself a magnificent new mansion at Walworth just to the north of the Tees. Here, in 1603, his widow entertained King James I as he was journeying southward. This lady, Elizabeth Jenison, was daughter to Edward Birch, Groom Porter to Henry VIII. From her will, made in 1605, we learn that three of her sons, William “the elder,” John and Michael, were, to her grief, Catholics, while William “the younger,” Thomas and Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Freville, adhered to the religion of their mother. Possibly the father had heen Catholic: certainly he was in sympathy with Catholics abroad, for when Lady Stanley was arrested in Ireland after the surrender of Daventer hy her husband in 1586, she was advised to get in touch with Mr Jenison the Auditor.

Very little attention has been given to the bibliography of the English Franciscans in penal times though their literary output was considerable in relation to their numbers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, as far as the English Province is concerned, Franciscan bibliography begins and ends with Luke Wadding in the seventeenth century. The elementary processes of collecting and sifting evidence have not been carried out, since Wadding’s time, and in the few later works of reference which mention individual Franciscan writings there is a great deal of confusion. I shall try, in the present study, to record what evidence there is concerning English books by members of the order between 1559 and 1640 and I shall add some notes on other books which have Franciscan associations. A number of English versions of Franciscan works in other languages were made during this period by Englishmen who were not themselves Franciscans. Some of them present bibliographical prob1ems which I cannot profess to answer, but it seems desirable that whatever evidence exists concerning them should he published.