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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The manor house of Horton Court, about three miles from Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, was a focus of Catholicism when occupied in the eighteenth century by a recusant branch of the Paston family. The present writer's interest in its past has recently been kindled by the discovery that its library, whose catalogue survives, though the books have long been dispersed, contains many books by, or closely associated with, English Catholics of the penal times. One of the collections that went from it had probably been put together by Dr Edward Paston, a distinguished President of the English College at Douai, who died in 1714.
1 The manor house is described in Verey, The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire, the Cotswolds (1970); Hodges, E., Some Ancient English Homes (1895);Google Scholar Little, B., ‘Historic Horton in Focus’, Catholic Herald, 21 July, 1958;Google Scholar and in the National Trust's brochure Horton Court (1955).
2 GRO D 5563/1.
3 It is mentioned in the context of contemporary domestic architecture in Wood, M., The English Medieval House. (1965) pp. 122–3.Google Scholar
4 Worthies of England, ed. Nichols, J. (1811) vol 2, p. 132.Google Scholar Some of Fuller's claims are challenged in the Dictionary of National Biography's article on Clement Paston, though the reservations there about his role as a naval commander have been dispelled by state papers subsequently calendared (refs 6 and 7 infra).
5 By Francis Sandford, the compiler in 1674 of a MS genealogy of the Paston family published by Worship, F., NA (1855), vol. 4, p. 1.Google Scholar
6 Letters and Papers Hen. VIII, vol. 21, entry 939.
7 Ibidem vol. 22, entry 58.
8 ‘The Expedition into Scotland of the most worthily fortunate Prince Edward Duke of Somerset, uncle unto our most noble Sovereign Lord Edward the VI… set out by way of Diary by W. Patten’: Pollard, Tudor Tracts, (1903).
9 The early history of Horton manor is given in Langston, J. N., ‘The Pastons of Horton’ Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1958), vol. 77, p. 97.Google Scholar
10 Wainwright, J. B., ‘Two lists of influential persons apparently prepared in the interests of Mary Queen of Scots, 1574 and 1582’, CRS (1913), vol. 13, p. 86.Google Scholar
11 Recusant Roll no 1 (1592–93) Exchequer Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer Pipe Office Series ed. Calthrop, M. M. C., CRS (1916), vol. 18;Google Scholar Recusant Roll no 2, (1593–94) ed. H. Bowler, CRS (1965), vol. 57; Recusant Roll no 3 (1594–1595) and Recusant Roll no 4 (1595–96) ed. Bowler, H., CRS (1970), vol. 61;Google Scholar Recusants in Exchequer Pipe Rolls 1581–92 compiled by Bowler, ed. McCann, CRS (1986), vol. 71.
12 Hassell Smith, A., County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603 (1974) esp. p. 226.Google Scholar
13 Strype, J., Annals of the Reformation and the Establishment of Religion and various other occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's happy reign (1824 ed.), vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 459.Google Scholar
14 Williams, N. A., ‘The Risings in Norfolk 1569 and 1570’, NA (1961), vol. 32, p. 73;Google Scholar Mason, R. H., History of Norfolk (1884) pp. 157–9.Google Scholar
15 SP 12/73, no. 28; Clement Paston to Sir W. Cecil.
16 Where he was the custodian of at least some of the Paston letters: Rix, S. W., ‘Cursory notes of the Rev. Francis Blomefield’, NA, (1849), vol. 2, p. 201.Google Scholar
17 As is stated in Clement Paston's will, PRO PROB 11/91/27 & 28. (In it he is styled Clement Paston Esq. He was not knighted at Musselburgh as has sometimes been stated).
18 PRO PROB 11/157/43.
19 The date on a gatehouse recorded by Blomefield, vol. 8, p. 330.
20 Sir Spelman, H., Icenia, sive Norfolciae descriptio topographica: The English works of Sir Henry Spelman, Kt. ed. Gibson (2nd edition, 1727), b. 146.Google Scholar
21 Jessopp, A., ‘The condition of the Archdeaconry of Norwich in 1603’, NA, (1884), vol. 10, p. 1,Google Scholar (atp. 34).
22 The view of the editor of the ‘Compton census’, infra, ref. 114.
23 Chronicle of the Augustinian Canonesses of Louvain, ed. Hamilton, A. (1904–06), vol. 2, p. 101.Google Scholar Mary Berney was a nun at Louvain. She also tells the well-known story of the cat which drove a pursuivant's bloodhound from the vicinity of a priest's hiding-place. The original account does not say where these events took place, but Trappes-Lomax (NA (1958), vol. 32, p. 27) assigns them to Appleton, citing present-day topographical evidence.
24 Brett, E. P., Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society (1964), vol. 4, p. 51;Google Scholar the same author in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (1980), vol. 14, p. 289.Google Scholar
25 HMC 12th Report, Appendix, pt. 4, Rutland, vol. 1, p. 223.
26 HMC Salisbury, vol. 17, p. 249.
27 Ref. 17 supra.
28 Haughey, R. ‘Correspondence of Lady Katherine Paston 1603–1627’, Publications of the Norfolk Record Society (1941), vol. 14, esp. p. 137.Google Scholar
29 NRO MS 16198.
30 Langston (ref. 9, supra) and others confuse Edward with his son of the same name when discussing the succession to Horton.
31 GRO D 280/2.
32 Gloucester Reference Library, Gloucestershire Collection, Hockaday's Abstracts, vol. 247 (Horton).
33 Blomefield, vol. 8, p. 332. They were probably father and son. Robert Feilden was presented to Appleton in 1591 and was vicar until 1620 (J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses). The son of Roger Feilden, priest, of Horton, matriculated at Oxford in 1637 (J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses).
34 BL, Add. Charters 59726.
35 Thus in PRO, Index to administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for 1655, no. 125. Beck Hall was then temporarily the seat of the Bedingfeld family while Oxburgh was being restored after the ravages of the Civil War (‘The Bedingfield (sic.) Papers, 1646–1794’, CRS 1909, vol. 7, p. 16).
36 BL, Add. Charters 59727.
37 As reported to the Commissioners of Sequestrations by the local commissioner for Norfolk, referring to ‘William Paston of Appleton’: CCC p. 736; though no mention is made in the relevant Order Book (SP 20/1) of the Committee.
38 CCC, p. 87.
39 He died at Redhall in Staffordshire, described as ‘Mr. William Paston, a gentleman living in Norfolk’: SP 23/110 no. 102.
40 CCC, pp. 2817, 2818.
41 CCC, p. 440.
42 CCC, p. 2819.
43 He had arrived at Douai aged 10 in 1651: Douay College Diaries, Fourth Diary, 1641–47, and Fifth Diary, 1647–54, ed. Burton, E. H. and Williams, T. L., CRS, (1911), vol. 11, p. 512.Google Scholar
44 Douay College Diaries, Third Diary, 1598–1637 ed. Burton, E. H. and Williams, T. L., CRS, (1911), vol. 10, p. 231.Google Scholar
45 He left for Paris in 1626 (Third Diary, p. 248) and returned to Douai from England in 1631 (Third Diary, p. 289). He again returned as a guest in 1642 (Fourth and Fifth Diaries, p. 437, also Douai College Documents 1639–1794, ed. Harris, P. R., CRS, (1972), vol. 63, p. 9).Google Scholar He finally left for Brussels in 1644 (Fourth and Fifth Diaries p. 443). In 1642 he played a part in the entry of his nephew Charles Waldegrave into Lisbon College (Lisbon College Registers 1628–1813, ed. Sharratt, M., CRS (1991) vol. 72, p. 206).Google Scholar
46 Recusant books at St. Mary's College, Oscott, pt. I, ed. G. F. Pullen, catalogue no. 632. (v. infra.)
47 BL 3670.h.2 (v. infra). Information kindly given by Professor T. A. Birrell.
48 Ref. 43 supra.
49 HMC, 11th Report, Appendix 2, House of Lords 1678–1688 pt. 2, p. 102, no. 110.
50 Cambridge University Library, MS Dd 3 64.
51 PRO PROB 11/368/149.
52 NRO MS 4006.
53 HMC 13th Report Appendix, pt. 1, Portland, vol. 1, p. 398.
54 CCC, p. 2100.
55 Calendar of State Papers (Domestic) 1655, p. 368.
56 PRO PROB 11/245/129.
57 Calendar of State Papers (Domestic) 1639, p. 481.
58 Fourth and Fifth Douay Diaries, (ref 42, supra), p. 442.
59 History of the Rebellion, quoted by Davies, G., The Later Stuarts (1956) p. 210.Google Scholar
60 HMC 8th Report, pt. 1, sect. 1,119a, 153; Centre for Kentish Studies, Sackville of Knowle MSS E 261/5, where the MS petition is endorsed Stevens [vere Sir T. Stephens], vs. Paston.
61 BL 190g(13) no. 428.
62 20 Car. II, c. 5. It is mentioned in Tate, W. E., ‘Gloucestershire Enclosure Acts and Awards’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, (1943), vol. 64, p. 48.Google Scholar
63 Ref. 86 infra.
64 GRO D 5563/2. Mr. Paul Rutledge of the Norfolk Record Office has drawn my attention to a recently acquired document of 1664 setting out articles of agreement between William Paston of Appleton and the tenants of Horton relating to tithes (NRO: at March 1994 Pearson temp, deposit no. 6).
65 Ref. 31 supra.
66 Ref. 38 supra.
67 GRO D 333/T 25.
68 Ref. 67 supra.
69 House of Lords Record Office; Main papers 321 (C 28) (Gloucestershire); 321 (C 55) (Norfolk). These lists were prepared in connection with the aborted bill ‘for the disarming and removing of Papists’, which provided, inter alia, for the mass transportation of Catholics to distant localities. Gloucestershire Catholics were destined for Canterbury and Norfolk Catholics for Leeds. The Norfolk return included ‘Christopher Savory of Appleton, gent.’, suggesting that both Appleton and Horton were then occupied by tenants.
70 PRO PROB 11/363/63.
71 Williams, J. A. ‘The distribution of Catholic chaplaincies in the early eighteenth century’. RecusantHistory, (1973), vol. 12, no. 1, p. 42.Google Scholar
72 House of Lords Record Office: Main papers 2249 (c) (8). This is not entirely unambiguous evidence for John's presence at Horton in 1705, as the Bishop's list includes Catholic landowners living outside the diocese. However, in many, perhaps all, such instances this is explicitly stated to be so, and this is not the case with John Paston.
73 Blomefield, vol. 8, p. 330.
74 GRO Q/SO/4, Gloucester Quarter Sessions Order Book no. 4 (1714–1724).
75 Ref. 83 infra.
76 GRO Q/RNc/1, no. 123.
77 1 Geo. III St. 2, c. 55. In 1717 the Clerks of the Peace were required to send details of registered estates to the Forfeited Estates Commission set up after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 ‘to enquire after the estates of certain traitors and of Popish recusants’. John Paston's holdings in Gloucestershire are tabulated in detail in the Commission's papers PRO FEC 1/1159 (Gloucestershire) ff 51–63; also Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D 387.
78 Ref. 64 supra.
79 Hearne's Collections (ed. H. E. Salter, 1914), vol. IX, p. 219.
80 Ibidem, vol. IX, p. 269.
81 Bromholme was a Cluniac house near the village of Paston. Many early members of the Paston family were buried there.
82 Hearne's edition (1727) of Adam de Domerham's history of Glastonbury was published in two volumes. The first is a miscellany which in fact includes nothing of Adam. As well as the Bromholme charter (vol. 1, v, p. 58) it prints a fifteenth century document given by Calvert to Hearne (vol. 1, v, p. 56). Hearne's Collections include extracts of charters taken from ‘an old Pedigree of the family of Paston’ (ibidem, vol. IX, p. 237).
83 Hearne's Collections, vol. IX, p. 236 (for 15 Dec 1726): ‘Mr. Calvert told me that he hath an Uncle called Mr. Paston who is a very curious Gentleman. He is a Roman Catholick. He lives at Pauntley in Gloucestershire… Mr. Charles Hyde is chaplain to him, Mr. Paston's son married Mrs Courtney [sic] a Lady of Great Understanding and Virtue. They were married in 1725… The foresaid younger Mr. Paston lives at Horton, near Badminton in Gloucestershire.’
84 A term used by the eighteenth-century antiquarian Bigland, R.: Historical, monumental and genealogicalcollections relative to the county of Gloucester (ed. Firth, B., 1990) vol. 3, p. 754,Google Scholar which reflects the sharp contrast in the treatment of Catholic and Protestant dissent in early eighteenth-century Horton. An Anabaptist gingerbread-maker of Horton named Howell was sufficiently well established to make property deals with John Paston (BL Add. Charters 59739), yet in 1702 the parish register records that ‘the carcase of Thomas Howell was thrown into a stinking hole in his garden’.
85 Potter Cole, remarkable for being the incumbent at Hawkesbury (with one brief interval) from 1732 until his death in 1802 in his ninety-seventh year.
86 Gloucester Journal 24 June and 1 July 1765. Transcribed in a group of documents on Horton collected by F. C. Thomas of Bath in about 1948: Gloucester Reference Library, Gloucestershire Collection, 29368.
87 Recounted, with some measure of credulity, in H. H. L. Denny, The Manor of Hawkesbury and its owners, (1920).
88 Ref 32 supra
89 GRO GDR 284, p. 90.
90 Shaw, W. A., History of the English Church during the Civil War and under the Commonwealth (1900), vol. 2, p. 283.Google Scholar
91 Lambeth Palace Library, MS COMM 111/4, no. 267.
92 NRO S/cb 3/8. He also registered estates in Yorkshire (HMC 9th Report Appendix, pt. 1, p. 345).
93 NRO, Bradfer-Lawrence collection, ix(d) 2.
94 NRO, BUL 31/2 619x5.
95 GRO D 2930: MS diary (1745–1770) of John Osborne.
96 Bristol Record Office 07901/14: letter from John Paston to Richard Haines of Bristol.
97 Ref. 76 supra.
98 Ref. 92 supra.
99 Thus termed by Ward, W. R., English Land Tax in the eighteenth century (1953) at p. 33.Google Scholar
100 Gloucester Reference Library. Gloucester Collection, JX6.20 (1) and JX6.20 (2), respectively.
101 Throckmorton: ‘Tribune’ correspondence files, folder 3.
102 Sr Francis Agnes Onslow, Worcestershire Recusant (1979) no. 34, p. 14.
103 Williams, J. A., ‘Post-Reformation Catholicism in Bath, II, Registers’ CRS (1976), vol. 66, p. 45 Google Scholar (years 1772–74).
104 Williams, J. A., ‘Post-Reformation Catholicism in Bath, I’ CRS (1975), vol. 65, p. 1312 (1777).Google Scholar
105 Ref. 103 supra p. 182. (1772).
106 Throckmorton, Box 84.
107 Gentleman's Magazine. (1777) vol. 43, p. 254.Google Scholar
108 A nineteenth-century deed (GRO 1987/3) involving the family of the purchaser Thomas Brooke (v. infra) refers to articles of agreement between him and Clement and Mary Isabella Paston of 1782, and to an indenture between him and Mary Isabella of 1791. Documents related to the transaction were still in the hands of the Brooke family in 1918 (Brooke, G. E., Brooke of Horton in the Cotswolds (1918) p. 117).Google Scholar
109 Reed's statement was taken by Thomas (ref. 86 supra) from a notebook in the possession of Reed's great-nephew, who farmed at Horton. He said that the cost of the estate to the buyer could not have been £10,000, and that in his view it was at that time worth £90,000.
110 PRO PROB 11/1254/40.
111 However, according to P. Bliss, the first editor of Hearne (Reliquiae Hearniae, (1857), vol. 2, p. 618,Google Scholar footnote), the transaction was challenged in the courts by the heir-at-law Sir John Throckmorton, the grandson of William Paston, but the case collapsed on production of the will which ‘had been proved in some consistory court in the country, and erroneously sought for in the Prerogative Court in London only’. Bliss was born in Chipping Sodbury in 1787 and may have been recalling early impressions, which would have been recent when he wrote as the publication of most of his edition of Hearne was delayed for nearly fifty years. But he seems to have been mistaken. Clement's will was in fact proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PRO PROB 11/1169/409); no litigation involving a Throckmorton is recorded in the English Reports during the relevant period; and the journal kept by Sir John Throckmorton from 1782 to 1817 (Throckmorton, drawer 3) makes no reference to any such event. A copy of Clement's will is in the Throckmorton archives.
112 Catholic Registers of the City of Worcester, ed. Crisp, F. A. (1887).Google Scholar
113 The association of the Paston family with Appleton lasted some years longer. In a codicil to his will dated 1788 Clement left Appleton after his wife's death to ‘my kinsman Edward Paston of St. Omers in Flanders’. He was almost certainly the Edward Paston who sold the Paston house of Barningham Winter in Norfolk in 1756 when bankrupt and afterwards went to St. Omers. (Cozens-Hardy, B., NA (1961) vol. 32, p. 165).Google Scholar As he predeceased Clement's widow, Appleton was inherited by his son Edward, mentioned in an early nineteenth-century genealogy (Norris, A., NRO, Rye MS 4 vol. 2, pp. 887, 889)Google Scholar as ‘now of Appleton’. It was probably he of whom the Norfolk antiquary W. T. Spurdens wrote in 1853 (NRO MS 4578, no. 131) ‘I have seen and conversed (about 1814) with a Mr. Paston of Appleton, who removed afterwards to Snettisham, who had an only child, since married but to whom I know not. He was a Catholic and his daughter married a Catholic. He told me that he was then in possession of the cup mentioned in the inscription on Clement Paston's monument at Oxnead’. Edward Paston's daughter Margaret-Anne married Sir Henry Bedingfeld, who in 1830 took the name Paston-Bedingfeld.
114 (E.) Whiteman, A., The Compton census of 1676 (1986).Google Scholar
115 Ref. 72 supra.
116 Advice kindly given by Michael Hodgetts.
117 Anstruther, G.. The seminary priests: a dictionary of the secular clergy of England and Wales 1558–1850:, vol. 4 (1977).Google Scholar
118 GRO GDR 285B(1), 397 and 381A respectively. There is some doubt about the complete independence of these surveys.
119 Ref. 74 supra.
120 Franciscan Friary, Forest Gate, E7: Fr. Felix Engelfield's Register 1755–1758. It includes a letter from Horton dated 20 March 1757.1 am indebted to Fr. Lonsdale, Guardian, for access to the Forest Gate archives.
121 CRS Occasional Publication no. 2: Return of Papists, 1767: Dioceses of England and Wales except Chester ed. Worrall, E.. (1989).Google Scholar It recorded forty Catholics in the parish of Horton, four in Chipping Sodbury, two in Hawkesbury and one in Great Badminton.
122 The Gloucester diocesan return is entitled ‘List of parishes in the diocese of Gloucester which have Popish inhabitants and the number of Papists in each, from returns made to the Bishop of the Diocese by His Majesty's command, in the year of our Lord 1780’ (House of Lords Record Office Main Papers: HL Papist Returns 5 March 1781 ff. 370, 371).
123 e.g. by Lesourd, J. A., Sociologie du catholicisme anglais 1767–1851 (1981).Google Scholar
124 21 Catholics in Horton parish, 11 in Chipping Sodbury.
125 Downside MSS: P. A. Allanson, Benedictine Biographies, vol. 2, p. 101.1 am indebted to Fr. Philip Jebb, Archivist, for access to the Downside archives.
126 Downside MS 252: History of the Acton Burnell and Bath missions, p. 61.
127 Ref. 103 supra
128 Clifton Diocesan Archives, correspondence 1792–93, MS no. 104.1 am indebted to Dr. J. A. Harding, Archivist, for access to the Clifton archives.
129 Ref. 126 supra.
130 Downside MS 250: Fr. Birdsall's diary.
131 Oliver, G.: Collections illustrating the history of the Catholic religion in the counties of Cornwall, Devon,Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire (1857) p. 116.Google Scholar
132 Downside MS 83 and 85. The donor was probably related to the Whimbow family.
133 Ref. 126 supra.
134 Ref. 131 supra.
135 Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club (1877) vol. 3, p. 374.Google Scholar
136 E. Hodges, ref. 1 supra.
137 Barton, R.. Journal of the Gloucestershire and North Avon Catholic History Society, (1989) vol. 12, p. 7.Google Scholar
138 Information kindly given by Sir Edward Warner KCMG.
139 1785–1850. MD. Edinburgh, FRS. The originator of Prout's hypothesis of importance to the development of nineteenth-century chemistry.
140 PRO PROB 11/542/199.
141 PRO PROB 11/686/255.
142 This and the previous paragraph were kindly provided by Mr. Antony Allison. I am indebted to him for his guidance on all matters of Catholic bibliography.
143 PRO PROB 11/1169/409.
144 Ref. 110 supra.
145 With his better-known elder brother Sir John Throckmorton he figures, as George Courtenay, in an MS list of the original members of the Cisalphine Club (Throckmorton. ‘The Gate Box’, folder 11), but unlike his brother he does not appear to have played an important part in the events of the time.
146 I am indebted to Sr. Francis Agnes Onslow OSC for drawing my attention to these volumes and for making the Paston bookplate available.
147 Four other volumes have also been located which once belonged to members of the Paston family but whose titles do not appear in the Horton Court catalogue: i) Palladius divi Evagrii discipuli Lausiaca quaedicitur Historia et Theodoreti historia (Paris, 1555), (ref. 46 supra); ii) St. Ambrose, Opera, (Basle, 1527), (ref. 47 supra); iii) Downside Abbey: Francois de Sales, A treatise on the love of God, tr. Miles Pinckney (Doway, eighteenth edition, 1630). Inscribed ‘ex libris Mariae Paston’, possibly Mary, née Courtenay, the wife of William Paston d. 1769; iv) Bodleian Library Douce 1.9 Some reflections upon the prerogatives,power and protection of St. Joseph… (London, 1710). Inscribed ‘Jane Paston 1712’, possibly the daughter of John Paston, who in her youth from 1707 to 1711 was at the Benedictine convent at Cambrai (CRS (1913) vol. 13, p. 62).