English Roman "and committed to the next-of-kin that is not to benefit by "them;" and for the other, that statute laws "should be made " against meeting with Scots, marrying with them, entertaining them into service, demising of lands and tenements unto them,” and so forth. In this same letter the Bishop calls attention to the fact (p. 453) that marriages made after divorce for adultery (the former husband and wife still living)—“ marriages hardly warrantable by the word of God and precedents of the primitive church "-were growing "over-usual," and expresses the opinion that it was a great blemish in the Reformed church that marriage without consent of parents (or others loco parentum) was not "more deeply chastised" than it was. The views of the Bishop of Durham regarding recusants were not singular, for, indeed, in the year 1597 adherents of the Roman Catholic Religion -"Jesuits, seminaries, and others that "are their consorts "-were, it may be said, in the opinion of a very great number of Englishmen, "traitorous and disloyal as a matter of course. Bearing in mind this prevalent idea, but before accepting its universal justice, there are at least three letters in this collection which should be studied. The first is that of an Englishman (p. 34) who is a firm believer in the ultimate triumph of Spain in spite of the past successes of the "weaker nation," as he considered England to be, since "things perforce must come to their natural course." He affirms that, although obliged for conscience' sake to leave the kingdom many years before, and to become subject of another commonwealth, he had not lost the love of his country, nor the affection and respect to the Queen to which nature and religion bound him. Of the second (p. 86), Harry Constable, the poet, then es!ablished in Paris, who claims the character of " a true Englishman and an honest man," is the writer, and it also bears directly on this question. He had written to Rome to dissuade the Pope from giving credit to those who would have English Catholics favour the King of Spain's designs against the Queen, and he maintains that th's was the desire of most of his Catholic countrymen at Rome. And the endeavours of himself and others to persuade the Catholic recusants to disavow the aid of the King of Spain, who was making their necessities the pretext for his cause, would, he hoped, induce the Queen and her 66 advisers to distinguish between the Catholics who merely desired the "peaceable enjoyment of their conscience," and such as desired the subversion of the existing state, a result which would make for the quietness of Stite and Church and the peace of Christendom, and issue in the union of religion, "now only hindered by want of due enquiry and too much party passion." But still more emphatic in their loyalty are the sentiments (p. 363) of another writer, a Catholic from infancy, but "never an enemy of his country"; forced, indeed, to abandon the realm by reason of his recusancy, but never, as he piously thanks God, a conspirator against Her Majesty or his country. That there was a party among the English Catholics abroad harbouring sentiments different from his own, the faction, viz., of Parsons and Holt, "a most monstrous wicked man," whose "course tended to the ruin of England, overthrow of the monarchy, destruction of the nobility, and the bringing the "country into perpetual bondage of the Spaniards," he did not deny, but he himself was, he avowed, prepared to stake his life in defence of Queen and country against any foreign invader. One thing, however, he would not do, return without liberty of conscience. Nor in this was he singular. He professed that he could persuade the Earl of Westmorland to withdraw from the King of Spain if the Queen would but promise him some honourable means of maintenance. England, as it seemed to him, " stood in most dangerous terms to be a spoil to all the world." "Would "to God, therefore," he exclaims, "that Her Majesty would grant toleration of religion, whereby men's minds would be appeased and join all in one for the defence of our country. "We see what safety it hath been to France, how peaceable the kingdom of Polonia is where no man's conscience is forced, "how the Germans live being contrary in religion, without giving offence one to another. Why might we not do the like in England, seeing every man must answer for his own "soul at the Latter Day, and that religion is the gift of God" and cannot be beaten into a man's head with a hammer.” 66 Whether such excellent sentiments as these-excellent in modern ears, at any rate-prevailed largely among English Catholics then, or not, no opportunity was lost in England of laying hands upon priests. So Waad reports (p. 33) a capture of this nature, "by means of a notable fellow of late that I have "retained who hath discovered divers matters to me." 100%. of money in a bag which Waad suggested might be usefully employed to relieve the "party that informeth," was also part, and a valuable part, of the prize thus secured. But although the person captured was by his own confession a "seminary," Lord Dunsany promptly (p. 33) claimed the man as his servant and the money as his own. And when a fortnight later he discovered that, though Mr. Waad "used him courteously and promised him "friendly," neither man nor money was released, he emphatically protests against the suggestion that "the money was a " collection for the relief of the seminaries and such cattle;" and, as for its bearer, he was "by education a bad cook, and is in "condition very plain and simple, and being now forty years old, could never write nor read, until of late he learned to scrape a few letters to keep his accounts." Further information about this simple fellow, harmless, save for his cooking, these papers do not give. What amount of truth there might be in the statements such as were made (p. 95), that there were priests who had vowed the death of the Lord Treasurer in order to bring about the "merry days in England and Ireland" that would follow when he was gone, and that Cardinal Allen had an Italian which served him very skilful in poisons, is a matter of conjecture, but that such statements were received in all seriousness by such responsible men as Flemyng, the Solicitor General, Francis Bacon, and Waad is beyond all doubt. It was in the north of England that the crusade against professors of the Roman Catholic religion was carried on most actively. In March, Joseph Constable," whose standing out was a great emboldening of other subjects in the errors of Popery, "and in their disloyalty to converse with seminaries" (p. 105), and who had hitherto escaped capture, was taken in his house at Kirkby Knowle, a house that "by reason of the vaults "and secret passages, both above and beneath the ground, is so cunningly contrived that it is a hard matter by a search to "find out all the receptacles," and which was therefore "accounted as safe a place for any seminaries or other traitor te "lurk in as if he were at Rheims or Rome." Later in the year the Bishop of Carlisle writes (p. 298), at the same time entreating secrecy as to the contents of his letter, in order to commend to Cecil's favour one Thomas Lancaster, the only man he could trust to discover the Jesuits and seminaries lurking in his diocese, and by whose means the bishop had secured the apprehension of Christopher Robinson, "our late condemned "seminary, whose execution hath terrified a great sort of our "obstinate recusants." This Lancaster was also the one individual who could, if he would, effect the capture of another important member of the body, "one Richard Dudley," termed by the aforesaid Robinson and other his associates the "angel of that profession." This Dudley was the heir of Edmund Dudley, Esquire, whose grandfather, old Richard Dudley, being a good Protestant, did in his lifetime so detest his grandchild's obstinacy that he disinherited him of all his lands and conveyed them to his second brother. From Hull, on the other side of England, came to Cecil-always the correspondent to whom communications of this sort are addressed-information as to a place twelve miles distant, called Twigmore, which, with four or five houses adjoining, was said to harbour a number of Jesuits and seminaries, "one of the worst places in Her Majesty's dominions, " used like a Popish college, for traitors that use the north parts." "Joining upon Humber," it, like Kirkby Knowle, was said to be a resort eminently fitted for concealment, having great woods, caves and vaults thereunto belonging." This was the chief abiding place of the "fraternity," a fraternity great, and possessing in Twigmore a habitation strong with men, guns, and weapons. Here Davie Engleby, alias Jefford, "a common runner beyond seas to conspire treasons," notorious as a recusant and common receiver of seminaries (p. 105), close companion, too, of the Joseph Constable referred to above, was said often to be, and here or in its neighbourhood, it was hoped to run him to earth, as had been done in the case of Warcop, a most dangerous person," who had been "of counsel" with Engleby (p. 300). In connexion with the subject now under consideration may be mentioned the letters of George Chamberlayne, breathing quite a different tone according as they were addressed to Cecil or to intimate friends; the capture at Bergen (p. 484) of a priest on his way to England, whose "face and fashion" Dearth of corn. betrayed him, notwithstanding his disguise of "red breeches and yellow stockings," and the appearances, few in number, in these pages of the name of Thomas Alabaster, chaplain of the Earl of Essex, a convert by the means of Father Wright, a "proud insolent priest" according to the Archbishop of Canterbury (p. 395), whose convert had in his turn perverted his father, mother, and sister" (p. 394). In the first month in the year (p. 3), and also in the last (p. 526), correspondents from the eastern counties of England call attention to the serious circumstance of the want of corn in the country. The dearth was not confined to the castern counties, but extended to London and the south and west, and indeed to every part of the realm. At Ipswich the merchants begged for a license to import corn free of duty, a privilege which they understood that London had obtained, promising on that condition to sell it under market rates. A Venetian ship laden with corn having put into Portsmouth in February, its cargo was immediately seized. Payment for it was, it is true, made, but at the rate of 38. 8d. the bushel, which the Lord Admiral considered below its value, estimated by him at 5s. the bushel. He was anxious that the true cause of the embargo-the want throughout the realm-should be made evident to the Queen's good friends, the Venetians. Of this unexpected godsend he proposed that Ireland should have a good quantity, and the country about Portsmouth some part, if they would give 58. the bushel for it, and, if possible, that a portion should also be spared to Somersetshire. In March, Southampton, by the mouth of its mayor, petitioned the Privy Council for 500 quarters to relieve their "miserable dearth." These five last market days," the mayor assures the Council, "in our town there hath not been in any one above one quarter of meal at the most, and in some but half a quarter, and in other some none at all for relief of our dis"tressed inhabitants, whereby a miserable want is grown " amongst us, and a cruel famine is to be feared if some supply "of corn is not granted." A certain quantity of the corn brought according to contract into the port of London, being declared by the wardens of the Bakers not to be sweet nor serviceable, the shippers petitioned (p. 102) to be allowed to carry it further afield to some port in Devonshire, where, pre |