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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
There is preserved in the Leicestershire Record Office the correspondence of the Nevills of Holt, one of the most important recusant families of that county. For many years their home was the headquarters of the Jesuit mission in Leicestershire and the East Midlands. At the beginning of the 18th century, the financial position of the head of the family, Sir Henry Nevill, was desperate, for the family had never recovered from the fines imposed on it during the Civil War. To improve the state of his finances, Sir Henry had arranged the marriage of his heiress, Mary Nevill, to a Florentine banker, Count Migliorucci.
1. Leicestershire Record Office DE/220. Where quoted, the letters are given with the original spelling and punctuation.
2. Foley vol.ii p.275.
3. Nichols, History of Leicestershire vol.ii p.726.Google Scholar
4. Nichols vol.ii p.718.
5. Rector of St. Omers 1721 and Provincial of the English Province 1725-31.
6. Nichols voLii p.719.
7. Fr. John Chamberlain was Superior of the Watten Noviciate and Preparatory School cf. Chadwick, St. Omers to Stonyhurst, p.330.
8. Foley viii p.881.
9. For the English Blue Nuns, see CRS. vol.VIII.
10. i.e. Frances.
11. i.e. William, the fourth son of Cosmas Nevill.
12. Cf. Chadwick, , St. Omers to Stonyhurst, p.76 Google Scholar: “It is evident that at St. Omers as elsewhere the piece de resistance in the curriculum was Latin.”
13. Fr. Thomas Gerard S.J. (Foley, vol.vii p.297). It was usual at this time to give the title of Mr. to both secular and religious priests.
14. William would be eleven when he wrote this letter.
15. J. Poyntz to Cosmas Nevill estimates that 266 livres = £11-18-2d. i.e. 1 livre = roughly 10½d.
16. According to Miss Leys, M. D. R., Catholics in England, 1559-1829, A social history,, p.168,Google Scholar fees in a good school for girls were about £100 a year. In my calculations, I have not accounted for school dress and other extras such as holiday money, but to my mind £100 a year seems rather a high figure.
17. St. Omers to Stonyhurst, p.157.
18. Rector of St. Omers 1752-59.
19. Fr. J. Darell to Cosmas Nevill, April 10th 1763.
20. Wife of the Genoese ambassador in London, whose two boys were also at St. Omers.
21. Mme. Gastaldi left St. Omers on April 10th and Cosmas Junior wrote his next letter in July. The first letter Cosmas wrote is still extant.
22. The Countess's letter is dated June 8th, 1760, so peace did not come for nearly another three years.
23. Foley, vol. v. p.881.
24. Lady Webb, wife of Sir Thomas Webb, of Odstock, Wilts, was living in prance at this time. (Chadwick, op.cit. p.289).
25. Cosmas Nevill's financial agent in London.
26. It might be added that this passage occurs in the letter in which Cosmas informed his father of his desire to become a priest.
27. Unfortunately, Frances died at the age of 22 and Anne was dead by 1791.