Lancashire Clergy in 1639. A Recently Discovered List Among the Towneley Papers

Extract

In 1639 Charles I was faced with rebellion in Scotland. On 16th January he summoned the peers to attend him at York by 1st April, with such forces of horse as their birth and honour required. Meanwhile his Catholic consort, Henrietta Maria, appealed to the leading priests in England to organize a nation-wide collection from Catholics in order to help finance the expedition and to make manifest the loyalty of the Catholic body. The superiors of the Catholic clergy, secular and regular, gave their support to the scheme, and a long list of “Advices and Motives” was drawn up, urging Catholics to subscribe. I have summarised this elsewhere. Copies of the “Advices and Motives” were sent to the clergy in various parts of the country, together with a circular letter, dated 4th April, 1639, bearing the signatures of the five superiors, Anthony Champney signing for the seculars, William Price for the Benedictines, Thomas Dade [Middleton, alias Dade] for the Dominicans, Francis Davenport for the Franciscans, and Henry More for the Jesuits. In the circular letter the superiors state that although the “Advices” are directed only to lay gentlemen, “yet we desire you (and we have answered for you) that you will employ yourself and all those that depend on you, sincerely to solicit and dispose all their minds, whom you have relation unto, as powerfully as you can, to contribute cheerfully and bountifully upon this occasion; which, as it is the first that ever we laboured in of this kind, so we hope in God it will be the last”.