At the end of the Harleyford conference Southwell rode back to London, to Lord Vaux's house at Hackney, and Garnet moved on to either Harrowden or Shoby. Weston himself says simply that he gave them ‘the names of Catholic houses where they might go and make their residence, and arranged for reliable guides to take them there': phrases which imply two important feats of organisation. There had been a number of young Catholics who acted as guides and escorts to the priests since at least the middle of 1580, led first by George Gilbert and then in 1585-6 by Lord Vaux's son Henry. But it is clear from an Italian memorandum written by Gilbert not long before his death in 1583 that the early seminary priests were itinerant and did not ‘make their residence’ in any one house. This is confirmed by a letter to Agazzari written by a priest (probably Persons himself) in August 1581, in which it is said that priests rarely stayed more than a night in one house, ‘ne longiori morapericulum creetur’. That explains why, although Gilbert advises priests to avoid discovery by changes of name, address, clothes and horses, he nowhere mentions priest-holes. It is significant that he says it will be necessary (sarà necessario) for priests to be distributed in various places, and for each one of them to stay in a gentleman's house (ogni uno stia nella casa di qualche gentilhomo), with responsibility for the household and for ‘a certain circuit around’ (un certo circuito intorno); as if this was not yet normal practice. He also suggests that the priest should pass as a relative, friend or steward of the owner, or that he should hold some honourable sinecure which will not interfere with his priestly work. As is well known, St John Payne had been doing this at Ingatestone as early as 1577, but most priests in the early 1580's seem to have been constantly on the move, at a heavy cost to their physical and psychological stamina. For them to ‘make their residence’ in a particular manor-house was a consequence of the Harleyford conference, and meant planning, direction—and priest-holes.

The second instalment of Lord Ripon's diary covers the period from March to September 1879, months when he was rapidly recovering his influence within the top levels of the Liberal leadership. With the Afghan war drawing to what appeared to be a successful conclusion, Ripon continued to serve as a valuable adviser to the party leaders on what Liberal policy should be toward post-war Afghanistan. The outbreak of yet another colonial conflict, this time in South Africa, the so-called Zulu war, deeply offended Ripon's sense of justice. But he possessed neither the interest nor the expertise in this area that he had in Afghanistan, and as a result his influence on Liberal policy on this question was negligible. Like most of his fellow-Liberals, Ripon believed that the British High Commissioner in South Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, the man responsible for initiating this war, should be recalled and censured. But otherwise Ripon had little to add in a constructive vein to a solution of British problems in South Africa. His diary contains none of the penetrating observations on the Zulu conflict that characterized his analysis of the Afghan war.

Unlike the Northern and South-Western counties, Kent has not attracted much recusant study, largely because there was nothing like the same degree of loyalty to the old religion as there was in those parts. Kent's proximity to the seat of government, the general absence of wealthy Catholic landowners, and especially the well-used ways to the Kent coast—all proved deterrents to overt ‘papistry’. The immediate danger of official disapproval appears to have been a greater reason for the comparative lack of recusancy than the alleged fact that the Marian persecution had caused a hatred of Catholicism in the shire of Kent. Whether or not the old religion was to flourish in the village communities depended, in Kent as elsewhere, on the encouragement of the local landed gentry.

None of the priest-holes described in the last article show the ingenuity which indicates the craftsmanship of St Nicholas Owen. The earliest dateable examples of his work are in East Anglia, at Oxburgh (c. 1589), Braddocks (1592) and Sawston (1593?). All of these are in remarkably good trim, and all can be documented from Gerard's Autobiography. But since I have already discussed these three houses elsewhere, I shall deal with them fairly briefly here, and then consider in more detail two houses in the west Midlands, Baddesley Clinton and Hindlip, where the hides can be dated to the same five years. The advantage of this procedure is that the well-authenticated examples from East Anglia can furnish a context for the discussion of Baddesley Clinton (where the identification is disputed) and Hindlip (where the house was demolished in 1814 and must be reconstructed from surviving documents).

The register of the Hill Chapel, Goosnargh, Lancashire, from 1777 to 1856 was published in C.R.S. 31, with historical notes by the Rev. R. L. Smith. Amongst the Hill Chapel papers deposited at the Lancashire Record Office in May 1956 by the Rev. A. Richardson are two foolscap sheets recording baptisms between 1770 (when the chapel was founded) and 1777.

In the summer of 1597, Philip II authorized the printing of a proclamation in English to be used in the event of a landing of his forces in England. This hitherto unpublished document has survived through a Spanish version prepared for his son, Philip III, a short time after his father's death. This was the only English proclamation that received Philip's official approval during his long naval war with England. Yet why was it prepared at all, when his priorities by 1597 were elsewhere, and even these were in jeopardy? His Council of War had made him aware of the loss of important advantages in France and the Low Countries, where the maintenance of his land forces was threatened by another bankruptcy. With reports of sporadic mutinies of garrisons arriving in Madrid, a naval expedition had to be conceived within the framework of restricted resources. This precise situation provides a fundamental insight into the proclamation. Upon examination, it is an appeal for local support from every quarter. In effect, the Spanish Armada of 1597 needed an insurrection in order to succeed. Since a large military commitment was unfeasible, the rhetoric of the proclamation had to by-pass religious differences and not solicit simply a Catholic loyalty.

Lord William Howard is surely the least known of the fourth Duke of Norfolk's three sons. Although a Catholic, he was not a martyr like his half-brother Philip. Unlike his elder brother Thomas, first Earl of Suffolk, he had no spectacular public career. But because he was not a martyr, he was a more typical Catholic layman than his half-brother; because he lacked high public office and never sought the position of a courtier, but spent his time managing his estates and participating, though as a Catholic unofficially, in local government, he was more typical of landowners of the period than his brother Thomas. Between the two extremes of martyrdom and hypocrisy were the great majority of English Catholics; between these two extremes we can place Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle, Cumberland. In this paper I should like to consider Lord William's Catholicism in three contexts: his own position; in relation to other Catholics through the marriages he arranged for his children; in the attempts he made to protect individual Catholics.