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Chancery and Associated Records
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
Documents relating to Catholics comprise both material issuing from the administrative side of the Chancery and reports, certificates, etc., received by it, as well as information registered in it for record-purposes. The first group, embracing grants of recusants’ forfeitures, pardons and various commissions concerning papists and priests, stems chiefly from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; the second runs from the mid-seventeenth century into the eighteenth and the third (Chancery-enrolments of Catholics’ deeds and, especially, wills) is predominantly Hanoverian.
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References
Notes
1 For further Chancery material (P.R.O., C. 85: Significations of Excommunication) see supra, p. 362, and note 42 below.
2 Unlike Letters-Close (Brevia Clausa, closed and sealed-up) enrolled on the Close Rolls, for Catholic contents of which see above (pp. 362-3).
3 P.R.O. series C. 66; also C. 67 (a few Pardon Rolls of 1 Eliz. and 1 and 2 James I). See P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, 27; Cal. Patent Rolls: Elizabeth I (6 vols, the first of which includes a Pardon Roll). On pardons, see the cautionary note in Anstruther, 1, p. xx.
4 Elton, G. R., The Tudor Constitution (1982 edn), p. 117 Google Scholar. See also D. K. Rep. 2, pp. 26-46 (the summary on p. 26 largely repeated in Index Library, 4, p. v); Galbraith, V. H., Introduction to the Use of the Public Records (1952 edn), pp. 23-32, 57–59;Google Scholar Latham, R. E., ‘Letters Patent’, in The Amateur Historian, 1, pp. 47–51.Google Scholar
5 These can be consulted at the P.R.O. (series IND. 16772ff.) and are being reproduced, for James I’s reign, by the List and Index Society, which has also issued improved indexes of grantees from the middle of Elizabeth’s reign (vols 141 and 167, so far, to 36 Eliz.), continuations of which are accessible at the P.R.O. Many of the indexes, etc., listed in Guiseppi’s Guide to MSS. in the P.R.O., 1, pp. 34-37 (revised version in List and Index Soc., 166, pp. 35-41) are selective, as are most of the compilations of Patent and related matter in the B.L. Dept. of MSS.: Harleian MSS. 1012 (2-8), 3796 (sec. 25), 7188 (5), 7583; Hargrave MS. 377; Landsdowne MSS. 220, 222; Add. MSS. 9045, 34765. While mostly described as relating to ‘Grants’, these MSS., apart from the final item listed, contain very little of recusant interest, being concerned chiefly with awards of offices, commissions, licences, etc., and, occasionally, pardons and various other matters. In the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and similarly unrewarding, are Clarendon MSS., Dep. c. 392-412 (1640s and 1660s), Ashmolean MS. 1162 (‘Royal grants passed by Letters Patent, 1 and 2 James I’) and other material in the latter collection (from the Crown Office and Patent Office Docquet Books of Charles I, 1642-46) printed by the Record Commissioners in 1837 (ed. W. H. Black, two copies in P.R.O.). See, however, Black’s Catalogue of Ashmolean MSS., p. 1455, for grants of several recusants.
6 See Pugh, R. B., ‘The Patent Rolls of the Interregnum’, in B.I.H.R., 23, pp. 178–81.Google Scholar
7 On the above points, see Elton, England, 1200-1640, pp. 41-42; also, for relevant examples of nonenrolled patents, Manning, R. B., ‘Elizabethan Recusancy Commisions’ in The Historical Journal, 15, p. 31, note 39.Google Scholar
8 Christian(a) Churche of Great Yarmouth, in Patent Roll 39 Eliz. I (P.R.O., C. 66/1469, m. 37). The MS. index to the Patent Roll (P.R.O., IND. 16777, p. 17) gives only Mrs Church’s name, without further details. The pardon is printed in Rymer’s Foedera (2nd edn), 16, pp. 315-16. For this work, see note 15, below. Numerous pardons—some of persons whose names have Catholic associations—for participation in the Northern Rising of 1569 are recorded in Cals. Patent Rolls, 1569-72, 1572-75.
9 See examples in Manning, art. cit., p. 35; also infra., p. 403.
10 These and other commissions continue to be recorded in the Crown Office Docquet Books (P.R.O. series C. 231) after they had ceased to be entered on the Patent Rolls in the 1660s; e.g. during the ‘Popish Plot’ period (1678-81): commissions to Assize-judges and to J.P.s in numerous counties to tender the oaths to popish recusants—often named in the commissions, which may survive among local records or be reflected in them (P.R.O., C. 231/8, pp. 9-10, 19-38, passim).
11 P.R.O., S.P. 39.
12 P.R.O., S.P. 38 and 40 respectively. Other calendared items relating to grants include S.P. 14/35 and 37, both Oct. 1606; the former printed in Tierney-Dodd, 4, pp. lxxv-lxxvi, misdated 1605; the latter, very similar in content, headed ‘A note of such recusants as his Majesty hath granted liberty to his servants to make profit of by virtue of that power, which his Majesty hath, to extend two parts of their lands.’ S.P. 14/35 refers to this power, ‘given to his Majesty by the last statute’, i.e. 3 and 4 Jac. I, c. 4 (1606). See also, for other such lists, Tierney-Dodd, 4, pp. lxxvii-lxxix; C.R.S., 53, p. 154 (and ibid., pp. 157-86, passim, for petitions for awards of recusants’ forfeitures). It cannot be assumed that such recusants had been convicted; see supra, p. 361; also R.H., 8, pp. 15, 68 (note 18) and Derbys. Arch. Journal, 85, pp. 59-60, 67 (note 9)—both re SP. 14/43/95 and its Calendar entry.
13 P.R.O., S.P. 38/7/196 (3). For the father, see Crabb, G., ‘Robert de Grey, Recusant’, in Norfolk Archaeology, 9, pp. 282–328.Google Scholar
14 Cal. T.B., particularly for the second half of Charles II’s reign.
15 Vols 16-20 of second edition (1702-32) ed. R. Sanderson. These contain much Patent material, of Catholic relevance chiefly, but not solely, for Charles I’s reign and most of it ascertainable from other sources. Rymer is nevertheless useful and should be approached via the well-indexed Syllabus (in English) of ‘Rymer’s Foedera’ (ed. T. D. Hardy, 3 vols, 1869-85). Supplementary Rymer MSS. in the B.L. (Add. MSS. 4573-4630; 18911) have their own syllabus-cum-index in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Foedera, vols 17 and 9, respectively, and contain a few relevant items, significant chiefly as ‘leads’ to the originals (for examples, see Manning, art. cit., Appendix A).
16 Warrants for the Great Seal, series 2 (P.R.O., C. 82). Another collection, very incomplete, is P.R.O., P.S.O. 2 (Warrants for the Privy Seal, series 2) with (imperfect) indexes, IND. 16965, 16966.
17 Second series (P.R.O., E.403/2500-2511).
18 Appendix 2, p. 209 (John Blakeston); 211 (Thos. Yates). See also 4th Rep., App. 2, pp. 179-88, for the corresponding Pells’ Patent Books (P.R.O., E.403/2512-2557).
19 P.R.O., S.O. 3 (listed in P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, 43, pp. 143-4) and IND. 6744-6756, respectively. Also relevant are the Patent Office Docquet Books (P.R.O., C. 233) though these do not begin until 1617, after the heyday of recusancy-grants. For a Patent-grant to a Catholic of confiscated property and his rôle in restoring much of its value to its original owner, see Sprott, S. E. in R.H., 10, p. 100.Google Scholar
20 Index Library, 4, p. 105 (from Signet Office Docquet Book; the Privy Seal Docquet Book has ‘grant’). The latter is P.R.O., IND. 6745, Nov. 1609, entry no. 45.
21 P.R.O., IND. 6744 (Jan. 1602-03, final entry). See also R.H., 12, pp. 208-09.
22 P.R.O., S.O. 4 (Signet Office series); IND. 6783-5 (Privy Seal series, very incomplete).
23 Index Library, 4, omitting letters and passports (including those printed in its own Preface, pp. xiv-xv) save where the latter come under the heading of ‘licence’ as cited in note 29 below.
24 Ibid., pp. 44-55; this lists both, or all, names in an entry, i.e. those of the Catholic whose property was granted and of the grantee to whom it was assigned, whereas the original ‘catchword’ gives only the latter. It would have been helpful if Phillimore had adopted this practice throughout. Extracts from the Privy Seal Docquet Books, relating chiefly to the north of England and containing a few recusant items, are printed in Archaeologia Aeliana, n.s., 24, pp. 186-228.
25 Index Library, 4, pp. 30, 136: ‘Ap Owen, Thomas, pardon’; ‘Gray, pardon’ also p. xiv for full entries, the first mentioning Ap Owen’s wife and Hugh Lloyd, neither of them in the index because not named in the original side-headings in the Signet Office Docquet Books. These cases are also calendared in C.S.P.D., 1591-94, p. 474, and 1611-18, p. 260. For Robert Gray, see Anstruther, 1, pp. 135-6; also T. J. McCann in R.H., 12, p. 237.
26 P.R.O., IND. 6744 (May 1607, no. 50).
27 E.g. in B.L., Egerton MS. 2553 (a volume including copies of royal warrants, etc.), f. 73: order that the following be spared conviction for recusancy: Lord Stourton, Lord William Howard, Viscount Dunbar, Lord Gray, ‘My Ld. of Arundell and his wife’ (April 1629). See also infra., p. 421, note 102.
28 P.R.O., S.P. 16/141/2 (Charles I’s remark to Attorney-General Heath that Lord Stourton ‘in truth goes to church’) calendared in C.S.P.D., 1628-29, p. 522. This and the document cited in the preceding footnote are quoted, re Lord Stourton only, in C.B.J., Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton, History of the Noble House of Stourton (1889), p. 452.
29 Sometimes under the heading ‘licence’: see Index Library, 4, pp. 74, 79, 80 (Lord Arundell of Wardour, Francis Tresham, Lord Vaux, all 1605); also Edwards, F., The Gunpowder Plot: the Narrative of Oswald Tesimond, alias Greenway (1973), p. 77,Google Scholar note, citing Signet Office Docquet Book, wherein entries regarding such permits—not, of course, limited to Catholics—may state the reason for going abroad, the period of absence, the number of servants and horses and the amount of money taken.
30 B.L., Add. MS. 34765. For Essex entries, see Davidson, A., ‘Persecution or Protection’, in Essex Recusant, 11, pp. 42–51.Google Scholar
31 Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, p. 215.
32 B.L., Add. MS. 34765, f. 30: grant to Henry Martin and Augustus Griggs, 28 Feb. 1609.
33 For documentation, see C.R.S., 65, pp. 28-29, notes 120, 121.
34 For Recusant and Memoranda Rolls and King’s Bench records, see sections 3, 4 and 1.
35 The two quotations are, respectively, from Manning, R. B., ‘Catholics and Local Office Holding in Elizabethan Sussex’ (B.I.H.R., 35, p. 47)Google Scholar and Surrey Arch. Coll., 54, p. 95; also pedigree facing p. 102 for the relationship between Saunder and Nicholas Sander (author of The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, etc.). See also Hyland, A Century of Persecution, passim.
36 C.R.S., 56, p. xxxi.
37 P.R.O., S.P. 36/84/200, printed in R.H., 16, pp. 217-18.
38 For contents, see List and Index Soc., 25.
39 P.R.O., C. 214.
40 P.R.O., C. 203/6.
41 By virtue of ‘constructive recusancy’ for which see supra, p. 339.
42 These documents are in P.R.O. class C. 85 (not C. 28, as mentioned in C.R.S., 60, p. 144) with cardindex of names and dates, mainly medieval but some Elizabethan and a few seventeenth century. Further significavits are in P.R.O. CHES. 38/25/4-6 (1663-90) and C. 207/1-3 (Geo. II and III, to 1769, only). See also Haigh, C., Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (1975), p. 236 Google Scholar and infra., pp. 430, 438, note 59.
43 P.R.O., C. 203/4. For Warwicks. and Worcs. lists, see Worcestershire Recusant, 26, pp. 13-20; for Monmouthshire names, C.R.S., 27, Addendum, pp. 224-35. Mr Magee (English Recusants, pp. 136-49) cites these certificates and extracts the names of Catholic knights and baronets from them, misdating them 1650—perhaps following Guiseppi, Guide to MSS. in the P.R.O., 1, p. 19.
44 Owermoigne.
45 See infra., pp. 393-4. These Chancery lists (C. 203/4) appear to duplicate the first 186 pages of S.P. 23/261, subsequent pages of which contain similarly arranged lists of delinquents. Chancery certificates of delinquents are C. 203/2 and 3.
46 E.g. in Hull City Record Office: D. 863 B and C (July and Sept. 1658).
47 P.R.O., C. 205/19/1-4, 7-21. See List and Index Soc., 25, pp. 66-71 for summary; also the detailed study by Hopkins, P. A. in R.H., 15, pp. 265–82,Google Scholar exposing the unreliability of much of the testimony about ‘superstitious lands’.
48 E.g. P.R.O. class T.1 and other Treasury documents (calendared respectively in Cal. Treas. Papers and Cal. T.B.); E.133, E.134, E.178 (Exchequer court; see infra., p. 382); CRES. 2/1695, 1696 (Crown Estates Commissioners: two blue folders labelled ‘Estates Given to Popish and Superstitious Uses’, containing material so described relating to James II’s reign, plus other papers on eighteenth-century Catholic properties, legal opinions, etc.); F.E.C. 1 and 2, passim, detailed in P.R.O. Handbook, no. 12, Records of the ForfeitedEstates Commission (1968), covering not only properties given to ‘superstitious uses’ but other material discussed infra., pp. 385-6. For printed extracts, see Estcourt and Payne, Appendix 1, passim; Payne, J. O., Records of the English Catholics of 1715 (1889), pp. 83–158Google Scholar, passim;, Gillow, J., The Haydock Papers (1888), pp. 232–4;Google Scholar C.R.S., 2, pp. 299-303 (identified as P.R.O., F.E.C. 1/791 by Dr Hopkins, art. cit., p. 280, note 10).
49 3 Geo. I, c. 18.
50 P.R.O., C. 54.
51 P.R.O., C. 43, listed in P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, 4, pp. 60-65.,
52 New series, 1, p. 267; 2, pp. 59-60, 279-82 (Close Rolls); 3, pp. 122-3, 185-7, 220-2 (Recovery Rolls, to 1768 only). These data are reproduced, with some corrections, in ‘Guide to Wills, Administrations, etc., preserved in the Public Record Office’ (typescript at P.R.O.) and in a printed version of this guide (Baltimore, U.S.A., 1968). To the P.R.O. copy of the latter, the will of Michael Blount of Mapledurham, Oxon. (C. 54/5633/5), is added in pencil, while to the former a note is appended to the effect that further wills are to be found in Recovery Rolls later than those up to 1768 (Roll 742) included in the above lists.
53 Estcourt and Payne, passim: some three dozen additional enrolments.
54 These are not therefore peculiarly Catholic sources, though arguably of particular Catholic significance during the Interregnum as a result of the especially severe attitude to their properties. Not all sales of forfeited properties were, however, enrolled—’nor are the enrolments in the Close Rolls of much help in distinguishing between real purchasers and trustees’ (R. Meredith in R.H., 8, pp. 49, 73, note 125).
55 See infra., p. 414.
56 A. J. Camp, Wills and their Whereabouts; J. S. W. Gibson, Wills and Where to Find Them (both 1974).
57 Payne, op. cit., pp. iii-v, 1-81. J. J. Howard, et ah, Genealogical Collections illustrating the History of the Roman Catholic Families of England (1887: four parts, paginated consecutively) contains numerous wills and many priests’ wills are cited in Anstruther, passim. Elizabethan wills from Hull and York are illuminatingly contrasted by Dr Cross, Claire in Studies in Church History, 16 (ed. D. Baker, 1979), pp. 274–8.Google Scholar
58 For an example from another source, see, however, Payne, op. cit., pp. 111-13 (will of Catherine Winford); also pp. 130-1 (Sir Henry Fletcher).
59 E.g. that of Mary Stapleton, cited ibid., p. 80.
60 Ibid., p. 20 (will of Edmund Adys).
61 P.R.O., PROB. 11/339/77 (will of William Knipe of Semley, Wilts., 1672). See also my article on this family, citing other wills: ‘The Decline of a Recusant Family’ in Wilts. Arch. Magazine, 59, pp. 170-80.
62 E.g. ‘Mr William Bannister, cousin-german to my said dear wife’ (P.R.O., PROB. 11/581/177: will of Francis Carne of Bath, 1719/20, printed in C.R.S., 65, pp. 100-01; also p. 54 for Dom William Banester, O.S.B.).
63 Brown, F. (ed.), Abstracts of Somersetshire Wills, 3rd series (1889), p. 49.Google Scholar For further documentation, see C.R.S., 65, p. 2, note 3.
64 The absence of such hallmarks as invocations of the saints, etc., need not, of course, mean that the testator was not a committed Catholic: see note by J. C. Cox on Sir Miles Stapleton in The Ancestor, 2, p. 19; also S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare, William, A Compact Documentary Life (1977), p. 59;Google Scholar Attreed, L. C. in The Sixteenth Century Journal, 13 (Kirkville, Missouri, 1982), pp. 37–66.Google Scholar