⁴⁶² i.e. to England.

⁴⁶³ AAW A X, nos 12, 17, 23, 52, 66, 67.

⁴⁶⁴ According to Birkhead, Smith left for France by 3 August 1611 (though Thomas Heath said it was on 6 August, AAW A X, no. 150). He should have left on 3 July, but he delayed in order to be present at the christening of Viscount Montague's daughter, AAW A X, nos 97, 99, 103; cf. AAW A X, no. 71.

⁴⁶⁵ In his next letter to More, Smith said that there were 115 signatures to the petition for a bishop, but there were many others which had not been obtained, AAW A X, no. 92. AAW A XI, no. 253, provisionally assigned, however, by A.F. Allison to 1612, contains 115 names of secular priests, each signifying his preference for choice of bishop, but lists twenty-four others who would indicate privately their nomination. On 30 May 1611 Birkhead was still hesitating to send the collected signatures, AAW A X, no. 50. On 6 July 1611 he told More he would be sending the names shortly, AAW A X, no. 84. On 17 July Birkhead wrote that he and Smith had finally sent the petition with the appended names, AAW A X, no. 93, though subsequent letters are somewhat ambiguous about whether they have been despatched or not, and in mid-November 1611 Birkhead was expecting his ‘great packets’ to have gone only as far as Paris, AAW A X, no. 146 (p. 411). Only by January 1612 did Birkhead expect the ‘great packetts’ to have arrived in Rome, AAW A XI, no. io (p. 23); More acknowledged their receipt in a letter to Birkhead of 21 January 1612 (NS), AAW A XI, no. 26. More confirmed in a letter of 29 February 1612 (NS) that the petition material had now all arrived safely, AAW A XI, no. 67.

⁴⁶⁶ St Alban's College, Valladolid.

⁴⁶⁷ See Letter 7. John Bavant, however, in his letter to Robert Persons SJ of 28 March 1610 claimed that underhand means were used to extract consent from the secular priests when Thomas More went canvassing in late 1609, CRS 41, 99. In July/August 1610 a Jesuit newsletter said that subscription was forced out of all who did not positively object, and that an indifferent survey would show that ‘the half of them would deny having had any such a thought’, Foley VII, 1018.

⁴⁶⁸ Thomas Heath.

⁴⁶⁹ Heath's first extant letter was sent to More on 25 April 1611, AAW A X, no. 39. In late 1612 Birkhead wrote they were no longer able to maintain Heath in London, and Birkhead was at his ‘wittes end how to receyve or send’ letters, AAW A XI, no. 228 (p. 657). Heath, however, had still not left London by the beginning of September 1613, and he was arrested in October 1613 carrying letters for Benjamin Norton, AAW A XII, no. 160; Letter 46.

⁴⁷⁰ John Jackson.

⁴⁷¹ John Almond alias Molinax, secular priest.

⁴⁷² Benjamin Norton.

⁴⁷³ Katherine and Mary Pole, Geoffrey Pole's two youngest sisters, Downshire MSS III, 124Google Scholar, and perhaps also at this time Constance, who was noted in 1613 by William Rayner and Anthony Champney as being in Paris, AAW A XII, nos 90, 103. Norton notified More on 24 June 1611 that he proposed to ‘accompany the gentlewomen to ther brother’, AAW A X, no. 74 (p. 195). Geoffrey Pole had gone to Caen in early June 1611 to see to their coming over, AAW A X, no. 63. With others (including Anne Bluet and Elizabeth Dacres) Pole's sisters were intending to enter OSB, AAW A X, no. 62. See Letter 23; Lunn, ‘English Cassinese’, 64. The negotiations for the (soon defeated) union between the OSB congregations included a project for ‘the erectinge of a monasterye of Women which shoulde bee of the Englishe congregation’, AAW A X, no. 74 (p. 195); Lunn, ‘English Cassinese’, 63–4; Lunn, EB, 97. Pole travelled to Paris with them in mid-August. After the project's failure, Mary Pole lived with Geoffrey Pole at Paris for seven years, returned to England and then went, with Mary Lambe, her cousin, to the Augustinian house in Louvain. She was professed in 1622, Hamilton, A. (ed.), The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica's in Louvain 1548–1623 (1904), 243–4Google Scholar. Katherine Pole returned to England in 1613, Letter 39.

⁴⁷¹ Presumably Richard Brenning, husband of Eleanor (Uvedale), and his son Anthony, Mott, fo. 62v. In late 1612 Anthony Brenning appeared before the exchequer court as the son and heir of Richard Brenning (of Hambledon), and, by virtue of the 1604 recusancy statute's provision for conforming heirs, claimed discharge of recusancy forfeitures levied on his deceased father's property, PRO, E 368/547, mem. 162a.

⁴⁷⁵ John Cotton, the second son of the recusant George Cotton of Warblington, Hampshire.

⁴⁷⁶ See Letter 15.

⁴⁷⁷ Lord William Howard of Naworth.

⁴⁷⁸ Birkhead wrote to More on 3 August 1611 that ‘those of greater worth, being winked at by some, can finde distinctions to take it by way of modification, yea some of them stick not to say, that no man of Consideration will refuse in that sence’, AAW A X, no. 97 (p. 273).

⁴⁷⁹ Preston, , Apologia Cardinalis Bellarmini.Google Scholar

⁴⁸⁰ Roger Widdrington.

⁴⁸¹ Oliver Almond, secular priest. Birkhead made him his assistant in Staffordshire in September 1612 in place of Ralph Stamford, though by June 1613 Birkhead had replaced him with Roger Suffield because Almond had been arrested and imprisoned, AAW A XI, no. 171, XII, no. 111. In late July 1613 William Bishop believed Almond's release could be purchased for a small sum of money, AAW A XII, no. 138. Anthony Champney notified More in November 1613 that Almond, Bishop and other secular priests were suspected of agreeing with Preston's opinions, AAW A XII, no. 205. (In June 1591 the priest John Cecil had informed Sir Robert Cecil that Almond was a loyalist, CSPD 1591–4, 53.)

⁴⁸² George Abbot.

⁴⁸³ Edward Collier, secular priest. Birkhead reported on 3 August 1611 that Collier had published a book in defence of the oath, AAW A X, no. 97. If so, it has not survived.

⁴⁸⁴ John Chrysostom Campbell.

⁴⁸⁵ Campbell was delivered through the agency of Louis Gallacio de l'Hospital, Marquis de Vitry, recently in England on diplomatic business, AAW A X, no. 98. In August 1611 Campbell went with Thomas Sackville to Douai to ensure that Thomas Worthington was not replaced as president of Douai College with the hated John Knatchbull alias Norton, a future Jesuit; thence Campbell went to Rome, AAW A X, no. 109. The seculars wanted Campbell to help persuade the Cassinese Benedictines, principally Robert (Anselm) Beech, that the appointment of a bishop in England would not be prejudicial to OSB's interests, AAW A X, no. 183.

⁴⁸⁶ Robert Gray OFM. See Letter 35.

⁴⁸⁷ Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury.

⁴⁸⁸ See Letter 16.

⁴⁸⁹ Robert Persons SJ. On 28 August 1812 (NS) Smith wrote to More thanking him for the letter in question, AAW A XI, no. 140. According to Christopher Greene SJ Thomas Owen SJ also used the alias ‘Mercante’, ARSI, Anglia 37, fo. 314v.

⁴⁹⁰ Robert (Anselm) Beech OSB.

⁴⁹¹ John Bavant.

⁴⁹² The foundation of the writers' college.

⁴⁹³ William Baldwin SJ.

⁴⁹⁴ Otto, son of Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. See CSPV 1610–13, 175.Google Scholar

⁴⁹⁵ Elizabeth Dacres.

⁴⁹⁶ Smith reported on 17 July 1611 that Elizabeth Dacres had got a licence ‘to goe over’, AAW A X, no. 92 (p. 261).

⁴⁹⁷ Edward Bennett.

⁴⁹⁸ Francis Hore and Anthony and Robert Dormer.

⁴⁹⁹ Samuel Harsnett.

⁵⁰⁰ Newsletters written in July and August informed More that sixty Catholics in Midhurst had been summoned to take the oath, thirty in Easebourne, and all the Catholics in Battle, AAW A X, no. no. According to Birkhead, in October a certificate of ninety refusers of the oath at Midhurst had been ‘given to his meiestie’, though they were all of the ‘poorer sort’, AAW A X, no. 136 (p. 390).

⁵⁰¹ William Wyborne, who died on 31 January 1612, PRO, E 368/545, mem. 122C.

⁵⁰² Cardinal Edward Farnese.

⁵⁰³ Nicholas Fitzherbert.

⁵⁰⁴ Christopher Isham.