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Some Notes on the Recusant Rolls of the Exchequer 1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
Recusancy was the Elizabethan term for the refusal (Lat. recusare) to attend, in one's “parish church, chapel or usual place of common prayer”, the Edwardian services of the Church of England as established by the Act of Uniformity in 1559 (1 Eliz., cap. 2). Among the penalties prescribed by this same Act was a fine of 12d., to be levied by the churchwardens for every Sunday or festival on which a person omitted attendance. These forfeitures were allocated not to the Crown but “to the use of the poor of the parish”; consequently the Exchequer rolls, being concerned only with the revenue of the Crown, bear no record of them.
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References
1. With special reference to the period 1592-1611: the writer disclaims intimate knowledge of the rolls beyond this date. The present preliminary survey contains the substance of a talk given on 19th March 1957 at 114 Mount Street, W.t, under the aegis of the Catholic Record Society.
2. Clauses 5, 9 and 11 (Statutes at Large: ed. 1786;. Other clauses of this statute prescribed fines for the saying and hearing of Mass, and the death penalty for reconciling or being reconciled to the Catholic Church.
3. P.R.O.: E. 372/426.
4. I.e. until 1691, when the last conviction for recusancy was enrolled at the Exchequer. Changes in the interpretation and application of this statute, introduced by later decrees, are of course reflected in the rolls throughout the period, e.g. the extension, after 1629, of the system of allowing recusants to compound for leases of the seized portions of their lands (E. 377/42 seq.). In the early years of the Interregnum the existing recusant rents were collected, but, the indictment for recusancy having (for obvious reasons) been discontinued, no new estreats appear. In 1656, however, the penalties of recusancy were applied to persons certified as refusing to take the revised Oath of Abjuration. Their names were entered upon the Recusant Rolls, and the old Exchequer procedure recommenced in their regard. 4a. Statute 1 Jac. I, cap. 4: “An Act for the due execution of the statutes against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, Recusants etc” (clause 5).
5. It was thought to afford the rich too easy a means of escape. This attitude is officially exemplified in the statute 3 Jac. I, cap. 4, clause 11 ( 1606), by which the King was entitled to refuse the payment of the £20 fine and enforce the seizure of lands. It is noteworthy that as a result of the statute of 1586 the revenue from recusant forfeitures was trebled within two years: cf. F.C. Dietz, The Exchequer in Elizabeth's reign (Smith College Studies in History, VIII, No. 2).
6. E. 372/426-436.
6a. To what extent this principle was actually adhered to can be determined only by a parallel examination of the Pipe Rolls throughout the period—a task which still remains to be undertaken. Exceptions to the rule have in fact been noticed in the Pipe Rolls of the Interregnum. For instance, the roll of 1552 has an entry (under Bucks)regarding the discharge of the Yorkshire recusants Anthony and Thomas Meynell of North Kilvington. Fines involving recusants but relating to other offences connected with religion and penalised by later statutes, e.g. for keeping Catholic servants and for refusal to receive the sacrament (3 James I, c. 4), also occur in the Recusant Rolls —but so rarely as to suggest that the Pipe Rolls were regarded as the more suitable repository for their enrolment. This may well prove to be true also in the case of forfeited recusant bonds taken before the High Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, which never appear in the Recusant Rolls (some original loose estreats of the last-named forfeitures will be found at P.R.O., in K.R. bundles E. 135/12/1-8).
7. E. 377/1-81. An extra one (E. 377/82) consists of a few undated rotulets of various periods, later strung together. E. 377/57 is also a reconstructed roll relating to Essex only.
8. The three fragmentary rolls of this reign up to 1673 can muster only ten rotulets among them. They are dated 1660, 1663/1668 and 1669.
9. No rolls are extant for the years 1648, 1650, 1652, 1653 and 1659.
10. Abbreviation of firma (farm). Seized recusant rents were included in the royal “farm of the county”.
11. E. 363/9.
12. (Expanded) oneratur, nisi (habeat sufficientem exonerationem) — implying a charge upon the sheriff to levy the debt, unless he can produce sufficient evidence for his discharge. Cf. Giuseppi, M.S., Guide to the Public Records, I, 135.Google Scholar
13. A sum equal to at least £5000 in modern currency. Only thirteen persons out of the whole of England and Wales were paying this fine in 1594. The number never exceeded seventeen.
14. E.g. C.R.S. XXXIV, Introd., pp. XLII-XLIV.
15. The proceedings outlined above are often described in detail in the L.T.R. Memoranda Rolls, to which the Recusant Rolls make frequent reference (e.g. note 17 and text).
16. E.g. Yorkshire and Lancashire, at the end of Elizabeth's reign and after the year 1605.
17. L.T.R. Memoranda Roll: E. 368/456, rot. 11v.
18. Some of the above 32 persons, however, were not so fortunate at a later inquiry.
18a. Thus an estreated conviction may often be the only type of reference to a recusant discoverable in the rolls. Nevertheless, since it was not uncommon for offenders to be repeatedly convicted and enrolled before their property was seized, one ought to be careful not to abandon too soon the search for evidence of this later development. It sometimes occurred many years after the first conviction was certified to the Exchequer.
19. Quamdiu in manibus regis remanere contigerint. Occasionally these leases were made out for a term of years.
20. Cf. also Dietz, F.C., English Public Finance (1932), I, 87,Google Scholar n. (4). The facts regarding Felton were kindly given to me by Mr John Paul.
21. These lessee farmers must be distinguished from the courtiers to whom Elizabeth and James I made outright grants of the Crown's claims to recusancy dues, particularly in the period 1606 — 1611 (thus seriously diminshing the revenue): cf. P.R.O., S.P. 14/80/69; B.M., Add. 34765, and Brian Magee, The English Recusants, pp. 66 seq.
22. Not all assessed values, however, were paltry. A striking case is that of the recusant widow Jane Bowes of Humberstone, Leics., on whose death in 1598 the Exchequer claimed, apparently from the legatees of her will, no less than £1180 — the estimated value of her livestock, household furniture and personal clothing bequeathed to them: (E. 377/8, Res’ Leic’).
23. John, Morris S.J., Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers (1877), Series III, pp. 8–59,Google Scholar quotes comments by a contemporary recusant on the prevalence of fraud connected with the execution of these laws.
24. Cf. The Medieval Shire House, an essay by Miss Mills, M.H. in Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson (1957), pp. 254 Google Scholar seq.
25. Series E. 368. Occasionally the authority quoted is the L.T.R. Books of Orders and Decrees, of which unfortunately the earliest survival is dated 1685.
26. These references follow a regular formula. A typical example may be seen on page 28 of C.R.S., Vol. XVIII (in the entry relating to the lands of Nicholas Langford), beginning Sed non debent summoneri … and ending Et quieti sunt. It will be observed that the number of the particular rotulet of the Memoranda Roll on which the case is to be found is invariably omitted. This, however, may be ascertained from a contemporary index to the rolls, also preserved at P.R.O.
27. Cf. Jacob, Law Dictionary, under “Ouster le main”.
28. The holding of conventicles by Protestant separatists as a substitute for attendance at church was declared unlawful and punished by imprisonment or exile by the statute 35 Eliz., cap. 1 (1593). This Act, incidentally, never calls the offenders “recusants”, but “seditious sectaries and disloyal persons”. After the Restoration Protestant Dissenters were normally prosecuted under the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1670.
29. Their failure to certify convictions to the Exchequer was common even after this date, as is proved by a comparison of the original indictments in the London sessions files, temp. James I, with the contemporary London estreats in the Recusant Rolls.
29a. Cf. Magee, op. cit., chap. VI.
30. With a view to rendering this material accessible to students, the Catholic Record Society plans to publish English abstracts of the 2nd and subsequent Recusant Rolls, and so continue the series begun by Miss Calthrop in a more readily intelligible form. The work is at present in preparation.
31. Comprising all the judges of the three Superior Courts of Common Law, with (occasionally) the Lord Chancellor.
32. Preserved among the papers of Sir Arthur Ingram in the Archives Department of Leeds City Library (Temple Newsam MSS: Bundle TN/PO.L/III, “Council of the North, 1613-1638, and undated petitions”). Ingram, the builder of Temple Newsam Hall (ob. 1642: see D.N.B.), was a secretary to the Council of the North from 1612 and Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1620, in both of which offices (especially the latter) he would have had dealings with recusancy. I am indebted to Fr. Hugh Aveling O.S.B. for calling my attention to these papers.
33. The Statute 3 Jac. I, cap. 4 is referred to in each.
34. Cf. the reference at the end of document B to Sir George Radcliffe (see D.N.B.), who became King*s Attorney in 1628 when his master, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was appointed President of the Council of the North. Radcliffe left for Ireland in 1633.
35. They are not among the early printed Law Reports in B.M. Giuseppi (op. cit, I, p. 76) says that no minute or rule books of the Clerk of this particular court have seemingly been preserved.
36. Quite clearly, however, it is not a complete collection of such resolutions (see endorsement to document A: ”First part of the resolutions. …”),
37. Cf. Statute 3 Jac. I, cap. 4 (1606), “An Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants”, clauses 4 and 16 (Statutes at Large).
38. Cf. Statute 23 Eliz., cap. I, clause 10.
39. Statute 35 Eliz., cap. I (1593).
40. A traverse was a formal denial of fact, usually resulting in a trial of the case on a plea of not guilty.
41. The circumstances here described are not covered by the Statute 28 Eliz., cap.6, clause 5. For procedure in recusancy convictions, see C.R.S., Vol. 34, loc. cit.
42. Cf. Statute 3 Jac. I, cap. 4, clause 40.13. A new ruling on both these statutes.
44. Interpreting Statute 3 Jac. I, cap. 4, clause IL.
45. I.e. against those who pay the fine of £20 a month.
46. According to this obscurely-phrased memorandum the judges‘ ruling would appear to be that no recusant, after conviction, may dispose of his property under any circumstances, and that the previous acknowledgement of the claim to do so (implied in Statute 3 Jac. 1, cap. 4, clause 11) in the case of a recusant who has been paying the fine of £20 a month, is now withdrawn by reason of the King's right, expressed in that same clause, to refuse the fine and seize the lands.
47. Cf. Statute I Jac. I, cap. 4, clause 2.