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Recusancy and Declining Gentry Fortunes: Evidence Relating to the Forsetts Of Lincolnshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Dennis R. Mills
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Extract

Almost a century ago Calthrop recognized that there were important recusants in some Lincolnshire county families. Interest has been revived recently by Martin and Finnis in an article on the Tyrwhitts of Kettleby, and more specifically on Goddard Tyrwhitt, who became a martyr in 1580 (see fig. 1 for location maps). Whilst the Tyrwhitts were at the top of the gentry hierarchy, the Forsetts of Bilsby near Alford, were practically at the bottom, so presenting some social contrasts with the former family. The Forsetts were newcomers to the county sometime in the mid- to late-fifteenth century and were minor manorial lords at Bilsby in the east Lincolnshire Marsh from the time their documentation begins with John Forsett in 1482 down to about 1600.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , May 2005 , pp. 321 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2005

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References

1 This paragraph based on Calthrop, M. M. C., ‘Ecclesiastical history’, in Page, W., ed., Victoria History of the County of Lincoln, vol. 2 (1906), pp. 56–57 Google Scholar; Martin, P. and Finnis, J., ‘Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Part I: Goddard Tyrwhitt, Martyr, 1580’, Recusant History, vol. 26, no. 2 (2002), pp. 301–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Part II ‘Tyrwhitt of Kettleby: Robert Tyrwhitt, A Main Benefactor of Fr. John Gerard, S.J., 1600–1605’ in Recusant History, vol. 26, no. 4 (2003), pp. 556–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; LAO, MM1/4 (1482); Pevsner, N. and Harris, J., The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (Harmondsworth, second edn., 1989). p. 146 Google Scholar; Lincolnshire Sites and Monuments Record; and Dudding, R. C., History of the Manor and Parish of Saleby with Thoresthorpe (Horncastle, 1922), p. 169 Google Scholar, quoting charters of 10 February, 17 Henry II and 10 July, 17 Henry II (1501). The identification of the Forsett manor house site is quite difficult, because of confusion between houses currently known as the Manor House, Moat House, Bilsby House and Bilsby Hall, but the balance of field and documentary evidence and assertion appears to favour Moat House. See also Dudding, R. C., ‘Abstract of title to an estate at Bilsby’, Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, vol. 20 (1928-29), pp. 113–21Google Scholar, for remarks on pp. 113 and 121; and White, W., Directory of Lincolnshire (Sheffield, 1892), p. 155 Google Scholar.

2 Ward, A., The Lincolnshire Rising 1536 (Nottingham, 1986)Google Scholar, passim; Letters and Papers, Domestic and Foreign of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S., Gairdner, J. and Brodie, R. H. (London, 1862-1910), vol. 11, 1536, items 539, 672, 722, 828, 842, 853, 854, 967, 973 and 975Google Scholar; LAO, 3Anc 8/1/3 and Cragg 3/59.

3 Edward Forsett was a member of several commissions of the peace and like bodies between 1538 and 1545—Letters and Papers, vol. 13, 1538, p. 567; vol. 14, 1539, part 1, p. 534; vol. 16, 1540–1541, item 1395 and grants 107 (7) and 305 (67); and vol.20, 1545, grant 622. For the return of the family to the county see Mills, D. R., ‘The Fawssetts of Lincolnshire and the development of the medical profession’, in Sturman, C., ed., Lincolnshire People and Places: essays in memory of Terence R Leach (Lincoln, 1996), pp. 162–67 Google Scholar.

4 Pedigrees, pp. 365–66, quoting Harleian MSS. 760, 1550, 6113. I have used the annotated copy in Lincoln Central Library. Some additional information has come from two different copies of the family tree drawn up in the middle of the nineteenth century—my thanks to Mrs Peggotty Graham and John Fawsett for making this material available to me. Where possible, I have checked these sources against the registers for Bilsby and for Saleby, the latter parish including the hamlet of Thoresthorpe. The Harleian pedigree of the Forsetts starts with John Forsett, alive 1482–1501, but Dudding stated, without giving a source, that he was probably the son of William Forsett, who succeeded to William Bavent’s property at Bilsby about the beginning of the fifteenth century—’Abstract of title’, p. 113.

5 Gunn, S. J., Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk c.1484–1545 (1988), p. 157.Google Scholar

6 Maddison, A. R., ‘Inheritors in co. Lincoln 1550–1560’, Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, vol. 10 (1909), pp. 56–62 Google Scholar. The Forsetts do not appear in a collection of pedigrees published in Metcalfe, W. C. ed., The Visitation of the County of Lincoln in 1562–1564 (Lincoln, 1881 Google Scholar): this may indicate that their decline had already begun.

7 LAO, Inv 64/195 and AD AC 2B/149 (the administration of the will).

8 Pedigrees, p. 365, states by the side of Thomas’s name: ‘aet. 8 years and 9 months and 15 days, 6 Oct. 1559’.

9 Maddison, A. R., ‘Lincolnshire gentry during the sixteenth century’, Lincolnshire Archaeological and Architectural Society Reports and Papers, vol. 22 (1893), pp. 174–222 Google Scholar, see pp. 176 and 215; Page, Victoria History, p. 272.

10 Hodgett, G. A. J., Tudor Lincolnshire, History of Lincolnshire, vol. 6 (Lincoln, 1975), pp. 180–81 Google Scholar.

11 Pedigrees, pp. 134—36.

12 Papists, pp. 65–67, 102, 104, 176–86, 191–99. Tyrwhitt died in 1591—ex info. Prof J Finnis.

13 Papists, pp. 253–56, 271–75; Foster, C. W., ed., The State of the Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I as illustrated by documents relating to the Diocese of Lincoln, Lincoln Record Society, vol. 23 (1926), pp. xli, lxxxiii-xcviGoogle Scholar. See also Calthrop, ‘Ecclesiastical history’, p. 57; Hodgett, Tudor Lincolnshire, pp. 180–84. Martin and Finnis, Recusant History, vol. 26, no. 4, 2003, pp. 556–69.

14 Trappes-Lomax, T. B., ‘The owners of Irnham Hall, co. Lincoln, and their contribution to the survival of Catholicism in the county’, Lincolnshire Archaeological and Architectural Society Reports and Papers, new series, vol. 9, part 2 (1962), pp. 164–77 Google Scholar, see p. 166; Pedigrees, p. 136. The fines quoted by Trappes-Lomax suggest that his offer to pay £20 yearly in 1586 to be discharged all the penalties of recusancy was either refused or rescinded (CSP Domestic 1581–90, p. 324).

15 This description of Persons is suggested by Professor Finnis. FatherEdwards, Francis’s life of Persons is: Robert Persons: The Biography of an Elizabethan Jesuit 1546–1610 (St. Louis, Institute of Jesuit Resources, 1995)Google Scholar.

16 Foster, State of the Church, p. xciii; and Pedigrees, p. 136.

17 Dudding, ‘Abstract of title’, p. 114; however, he gave no source for this assertion, the abstract of which he wrote only commencing in 1705.

18 La Rocca, J. J., ed., Jacobean Recusant Rolls for Middlesex: an abstract in English, Catholic Record Society Series, vol. 76 (1997), pp. 106, 138Google Scholar; the mis-spellings of the surname seen here are common place. I owe this reference to the kindness of Michael Hodgetts.

19 Kennedy, J., Isle of Devils: Bermuda under the Somers Island Company, 1609–1685 (1970), especially pp. 165–67Google Scholar; Tucker, T., Bermuda: to-day and yesterday, (1975), pp. 40 Google Scholar, 57, 59, 68. Ives, V. A., ed., The Rich Papers: letters from Bermuda 1615–1646, eye-witness accounts sent by early colonists to Sir Nathaniel Rich (Bermuda National Trust and University of Toronto Press, 1984), pp. 243 and 364Google Scholar do not mention Richard, but confirm that a Mr John Forsithe (Faucett) held one share of 25 acres in Warwick tribe (parish) at the time of censuses of 1622. Both of these ‘mis-spellings’ occur in English sources. This John may have been the younger son of Thomas Forsett of Bilsby; he may never have visited Bermuda.

20 Papists, pp. 277–81; Pugh, R. B., ed., Victoria History of the County of Cambridge, vol. 4 (Oxford, 1953), pp. 252–53Google Scholar; Mills, ‘The Fawssetts of Lincolnshire’.