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15. George Salvin (Birkhead) to Thomas More (25 June 1611) (AAW A X, no. 76, pp. 201–2.)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
Extract
My Rev Sr I have received your two last of the xi of may and all the rest that came before. I wrote as much in comm. of mr pett as I could. I thought in that letter or rather petition there neded no Complementes, not three daies before I had sent one sufficiently furnished with them. I thanke yow for laboring that those odiouse thinges be not sent to me. for it wold overthrow me quite, in my opinion there need no ordinarie processe in that matter, which is so evident and notorious. mr black, bookes are sufficient testimonies of his error, and now your frend mr Sheldon hath published a worse, and one mr Roger widderington a laick, one more perillous then them both. do yow not therfor think it tyme for S Peter to draw his sword by any means of Justice he can? the quarrell in the north is almost appeased, but such relations as yow speake of will sturre up the coales againe. mr Troll and all his fellowes at the first did but onely relate unto mr Sam superior what offence was given in the countrie.
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References
417 Birkhead's commendation of Robert Pett was contained in his letter to Cardinal Edward Farnese of 14 June 1611, AAW A X, no. 72.
418 See Letter a.
419 Sheldon, Richard, Certaine General Reasons, proving the Lawfulnesse of the Oath of Allegiance (1611)Google Scholar; Roland (Thomas) Preston OSB, Apologia Cardinalis Bellarmini pro Iure Principum (1611)Google Scholar. For Preston's use of the name of the Northumberland gentleman Roger Widdrington (to whom he was related by marriage) as a pseudonym, see Forster, A.M.C., ‘The Real Roger Widdrington’, RH 11 (1971–1972), 196–205Google Scholar; Lunn, EB, 41.Google Scholar
420 Cuthbert Trollop.
421 Samuel (Bartholomew) Kennett OSB.
422 Cuthbert Trollop took a firm line against the oath of allegiance. He attacked the lax John Clinch, the chaplain of Roger Widdrington, see Letter, 33Google Scholar, and also John Mush, who had been appointed by Birkhead to resolve the quarrel over the oath between OSB and the secular priests in the North, see AAW A XI, no. 139; Letter 18. Trollop and other seculars said that Kennett's penitents, including Sir John Claxton, took the oath ‘soome privative before the Bishop, soome publiqlye’; and so did John (Thomas) Hutton OSB's penitents. (Hutton belonged to the Spanish congregation of OSB.) One of Button's penitents told Trollop that it was wrong to condemn those who took the oath as guilty of mortal sin, AAW A X, no. 130. The secular priest Cuthbert Crayford was equally vehement against the oath and Benedictine laxity therein, AAW A XI, no. 3. On 14 October 1611 Birkhead again told More that ‘I have in some sort staied my brethern of the north in ther quarrel against mr Samuel the bened. and mr Mush Mr Trollope and mr [William] Ogle the especial agentes therm, rest well contented therewith’. But Crayford was not satisfied and wanted to carry his grievance to Rome. Crayford accused Birkhead of being affected to OSB while Birkhead retorted that SJ had a hold over Crayford, AAW A X, no. 133 (p. 383). Richard Smith later said he heard Crayford ‘wholy depended on mr [Richard] Holtby [SJ]’, and promised More to do his best to thwart his purpose if he showed his face in Paris, AAW A XI, no. 20 (p. 51). Crayford had been named in the appellant controversy polemic as a supporter of George Blackwell, Persons, Briefe Apologie, fo. 106v; Aveling, J.C.H., Northern Catholics (1966), 168Google Scholar. He was referred to in the North, by Protestants, in the late 1590s as the ‘Busshopp’ of Grosmont Abbey, the house belonging to the Cholmley family which was used by the northern priests in the mission largely organised by Holtby, PRO, SP 12/170/120, fo. 201r.
423 i.e. OSB, on whom the seculars still relied for carriage of their letters.
424 Robert Jones SJ wrote an account of Cadwallader's martyrdom (AAW A DC, no. 74). In it Cadwallader is tacitly enlisted as a favourer of SJ because he had been visited in prison by a Jesuit before his death and because he had come to some arrangement with SJ concerning the disposal of his books. Birkhead said that, on the contrary, Cadwallader had been visited by one Vaughan alias Grisold, AAW A X no. 3, either George or Roger Grisold (Warwickshire secular priests) or, more probably, Lewis Vaughan. See Letter, 16Google Scholar (Edward Bennett's version of the story). John Jackson also narrated these events, AAW A IX, no. 125. John Gennings OFM, who worked in both Sussex and Wales, said that Cadwallader had often complained to him of SJ's ‘unkyndnes’. As for his books, Cadwallader had sold them for £10 when he was arrested, on condition they should be returned if he were released, AAW A IX, no. 84 (p. 281); Allison, ‘Franciscan Books', 16. William Bishop said Cadwallader had given them to someone who was not a Jesuit, AAW A X, no. 45. In early 1612 Thomas More was still collecting affidavits to show that Cadwallader had not been abandoned by his brethren. Cadwallader's last letters were being collated as conclusive proof of this, AAW A XI, nos 22, 23.
425 Anthony Maria Browne, second Viscount Montague.
426 Richard Broughton had written in mid-April 1611 that the king had recently spoken sharply to bishops and the privy council against noblemen and noblewomen harbouring priests who were a threat to his life, AAW A X, no. 36. William Bishop noted on 29 May 1611 that a high commission pursuivant had been to Cowdray to arrest a specific priest, though ‘having a nescio hominem, [he] departed with a fly in his eare’, AAW A X, no. 48 (p. 119). The next day Birkhead wrote that, through Archbishop Abbot's malice, Viscount Montague had been commanded to appear before the privy council but he fell into a ‘tertian fever, which shreudly handled him for eyght or nyne fittes as they say’, and so he could not travel. Friends tried to secure a deal by which he would not be confronted with the oam, AAW A X, no. 51 (p. 125); cf. CSPD 1611–18, 32.Google Scholar
427 On 14 June 1611 Birkhead had written to More that Montague had been interrogated by the privy council ‘and at the first protested his fidelitie to his Maiestie in most effectuall wordes and manner, but desyred to be excused touchinge the oath quia multa continet contra fidem’. Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (who, a Jesuit newsletter writer noted, intervened on behalf of Thomas Strange SJ when he was questioned about the deposing power, Foley VII, 1025) then spoke on Montague's ‘behalfe how loial he had shewed himself, adding that perhaps in tyme more might be obteined of him’; but Montague said ‘that by godes grace he wold ever be the same man that now he is, and requested them to have no other conceit of him. And when my Lord Zouch asked whether he had refused the oath, my lord with a loude voice said yes my lord I do refuse it’, AAW A X, no. 73 (p. 193). After refusing the oath, Montague was sent first to Dorset House and then to the Fleet prison, AAW A X, no. 87. A composition of £6,000 was levied on him in place of the full penalty for praemunire; it was promised that he would not be offered the oath again, CSPD 1611–18, 51Google Scholar; PRO, SO 3/5 June 1611. (For the arrangements which Montague made to pay the £6,000, see Dibben, A.A., The Cowdray Archives (2 vols, Chichester, 1960)Google Scholar, I, p. xi n. 1.)
428 George Abbot.
429 For the escape of Arabella Stuart and William Seymour, grandson of Edward Seymour, second Earl of Hertford, see Larkin and Hughes, 266 n. 2. Robert Pett reported that Seymour left the Tower using ‘a false haire and beard in a docter of physikes habit’, AAW A X, no. 77 (p. 203). Seymour converted to Catholicism when he got abroad, as William Trumbull feared that he might. He was reconciled to the Church of Rome by Anthony Hoskins SJ. The conversion, however, was delayed and kept secret so as to avoid scandal, Downshire MSS III, 90–1; Fitzgibbon, B., ‘The Conversion of William Seymour, Duke of Somerset (1588–1660)’, Biographical Studies 1 (1951–1952), 117–19Google Scholar; Belvederi, , 231.Google Scholar
430 In May the Danes had declared war against Charles IX of Sweden, alleging breaches of the Treaty of Stettin. Birkhead here, it seems, refers to the siege of Kalmar, CSPV 1610–13, 155, 168–9, 175.Google Scholar
431 John Baptist Vives. Thomas More resided with him in Rome at Vives's house in the ‘rue de popolo’. For a possible identification of Vives, see von Pastor, L.F., The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (40 vols, 1891–1953), XXV, 369–70, XXVI, 84–5.Google Scholar
432 Birkhead had written to Cardinal Edward Farnese (from whom he had recently received two letters, AAW A X, no. 64) on 14 June 1611 (AAW A X, no. 72, enclosed with his letter to More of the same date, AAW A X, no. 73) inter alia narrating Viscount Montague's troubles.
433 More had presumably suggested that he should return to assist with the bishops' suit.