Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
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.
1. Surtees Society, vol.142, p.3.
2. Thomas Jenison had two brothers, who settled in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne: one founded a Catholic, the other a Protestant family. None of these are included in the present study, which deals with Walworth only.
3. S.P. Dom.Eliz. 199/73.
4. C.R.S.II, 225, 230.
5. Dom. Eliz.-Jas.I add. (1580-1625) 32/15 ii.
6. Father of B. Ralph Corby.
7. C.R.S. V, 251.
8. Dom. Jas.I 19/26.
9. ibid. 31/16.
10. C.R.S. XXXIV, 33.
11. E.377/41 Ebor.
12. C.R.S. XXXIV, 60 et seq. 383 et seq.
13. Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, pp. 151, 154. Camm, Nine Martyr Monks, p. 153 f.n.
14. Foley, Records, V, 632, 633: VII, 400, 401.
15. Compositions for Recusancy, Ushaw MSS. p.86.
16. Sharp MSS. 110 (The Prior's Kitchen, the College, Durham).
17. Foley, op. cit. VI, 182.
18. E.377/9.
19. C.R.S. II, 286.
20. Dom. Eliz. 251/14, quoted in Foley, V, 471.
21. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, (1924 ed.) p.251.
22. Cal. Acts of Privy Council (1617-19), pp. 398, 471.
23. ibid. (1619-1621), pp. 204, 243.
24. ibid. (1621-1623), p.113.
25. Dom. Jas.I, 127/97.
26. Cal. Acts of Privy Council, (1621-1623), p. 135.
27. Surtees Society, vol.142, p.223.
28. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, p.429: (but the Margaret of Boughton may have been Margaret daughter of Thomas Jenison and Mary Goderick, whose home was at Irchester, Northants.)
29. C.R.S. V, 70.
30. Foley, V, 634.
31. Sharp MSS. (The Prior's Kitchen, the College, Durham).
32. ibid.
33. Foley, V, 633: VI, 334: C.R.S. XL, 8.
34. ibid. III, 117 f.n. VII, 399.
35. ibid. III, 118.
36. Surtees Soc. vol. 111, p. 141.
37. For the recusancy of her family cf. Biog. Studies, II, 142.
38. Foley, VI, 375.
39. ibid. VI, 338.
40. ibid. V, 635: VII, 400.
41. ibid. V, 634, VII, 401: C.R.S. XXVIII, 170.
42. John, Genings: Life and Death of Edmund Genings (1887 ed.) p.6.Google Scholar
43. Foley, V, 614 et seq. VII, 401.
44. ibid. VII, 400, 402.
45. With reference to the division among the Catholics over the question of the oath of Allegiance, see letter of Fr. Ralph Jenison, Foley, V, 635.
46. C.R.S. XL, 88: XLVII, 130 f.n.
47. ibid. XLVII, 287 et seq.
48. Sharp MSS. 79.
49. Foley, VII, 402.
50. ibid. VII, 400: V, 636.
51. Sharp MSS. 110.
52. C.R.S. XIII, 55.
53. Knox, Douay Diaries, 86: C.R.S. XXVIII, 15.
54. Birt, Obit Book of English O.S.B., 225.
55. C.R.S. VIII, 375.
56. Knox, op. cit. 79.
57. Foley, VII, 399.
58. ibid.
59. ibid, and Kirk, Biographies, 137.