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The Marriages of Catholic Recusants, 1559–1642

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Dom Hugh Aveling
Dom Hugh Aveling
Affiliation:
Ampleforth Abbey, York
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Extract

This article is a very tentative effort to analyse material on the clandestine marriages of Catholic recusants from the York ecclesiastical archives. We shall endeavour to discover how these marriages were conducted and how the parties were treated by the Anglican ecclesiastical authorities.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , April 1963 , pp. 68 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

page 68 note 1 This article is based on the following archives in the Borthwick Institute, York—High Commission Act Books 1561–1642 (referred to below as ΥHC); Chancery Court Books 1570–1640 (reference ΥCC); Archiepiscopal Visitation Books 1561–1640 (reference R.VI/A or B.); Archdeacons’ Visitation Books (a few odd volumes are extant before 1642—reference ΥAV); Cause Papers 1559–1642 (reference R.VII/G and H; and R.As.) I have not yet worked through the vast spaces of the Consistory Court Books.

page 69 note 1 Joyce, G. H., Christian Marriage, London 1936Google Scholar, passim.

page 69 note 2 Holdsworth, W. S., History of English Law, London 1903Google Scholar, passim; Swinburne, Henry, A Treatise of Spousals, London 1686.Google Scholar

page 69 note 3 Ibid.

page 70 note 1 Clergy Review, New Series, XVI (1939), 125 ff.; ‘Short-Tide List of English Catholic Books 1559–1642’ in Biographical Studies (1956).Google Scholar

page 70 note 2 Thus the Missale Parvum pro Sacerdotibus in Anglia Scotia et Ibernia itinerantibus (? Douai 1626) gives the vernacular words of the marriage vows ‘ex Sarum Manual’.

page 70 note 3 It seems likely that this was Fr. Thomas Southwell (alias vere Bacon) S.J., Professor of Theology at Liège, died 1637, author of theological treatises. (Foley, Records of the English Province S.J., London 1882, Collectanea, ii. 27).

page 71 note 1 Knox, T. F., First and Second Douai Diaries, London 1882, 129.Google Scholar

page 71 note 2 R.VI/A.3a., fol. 212.

page 72 note 1 ΥHC, 1561–4, passim. The cause papers of the case are R.VII/G.863. The only other similar case I have found is R.VI/A.18, 1615, Thomas Beckwith, gent, of Fetherston, a recusant accused of having married his dead first wife's sister. He pleaded—apparently successfully—non-consummation of the first marriage.

page 72 note 2 P.R.O. SP.12/240 (1591).

page 72 note 3 P.R.O. SP.12/165 (undated). But see C.E.G. Complete Peerage under ‘Mulgrave’.

page 73 note 1 Archdeaconry of Richmond, Cause Papers (uncalendared), Leeds City Library, Archives Dept.

page 73 note 2 R.VI/A.4, fol 43V; P.R.O. SP.12/201 (examination of Lancelot Blackburne, priest, 1587).

page 73 note 3 R.VII/G.3291; Biographical Studies, iii (ii), 75.

page 73 note 4 Meynell MSS. and Transcripts, Ampleforth Abbey Library.

page 74 note 1 P.R.O. SP.12/175 (information undated—c. 1585–90).

page 74 note 2 ΥHC, 1561–4, fol. 113 (Conyers); Ibid., 1572–4, passim (Measom).

page 74 note 3 Ibid., 1585–91, fol. 153v (Cresswell); fols. 227, 246 (Consett); fol. 367 (Ovington); fol. 374 (Danby). Ibid., 1591–5, fol. 21 (Morton); fol. 34 (Dutton); fol. 149v (Readshaw); fol. 183 (Hodgson); fol. 263 (Foxton); fol. 295 (Tankard); fol. 321 (Burdon). Ibid., 1599–1603, fol. 51v (Babthorpe); fol. 66v (Allanby); fol. 239v (Thorpe); fol 247 (Warwick).

page 76 note 1 ΥCC, 1599–1606, fols. 180, 183v, 188v.

page 77 note 1 Ibid., fols. 96 ff. Towes occurs in ΥHC, 1591–4, passim. For the Bellasis family see Biographical Studies, iii (ii), 69 ff.

page 77 note 2 ΥCC, 1595–7. fol. 206v; fol. 245; ΥHC, 1596–9, fol. 213.

page 77 note 3 Unfortunately the ΥHC Act Book 1603–7 is no longer extant. Ibid., 1607–12, fols. 24v, 43, 64v, 65, 81, 89v, 126v, 140, 143v, etc. Note the case of Nathaniel Smith, a Masham recusant, married secretly in the church porch there by a priest (fol. 24v).

page 77 note 4 R. VII/H.136. But the case seems to have been remembered in 1608 when Cholmeley was before the High Commissioners for his recusancy: ΥHC, 1607–12, fol. 140.

page 78 note 1 Ibid., fol 64v.

page 78 note 2 ΥHC, 1607–12, fols. 43, 89v; ΥCC, 1606–10, fol. 80; R.VII/H.383. According to the letters of orders produced in court then, Ile was ordained by Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham, to the subdiaconate on 17 December 1558, the diaconate on 18 February 1558/9, the priesthood on 11 March following, all at the manor house of Auckland. Tunstall's Register (Surtees Society, clxi) gives his ordination as acolyte 5 March 1557/8, the subdiaconate as above, but nothing more concerning him—although it notes ordinations on 25 March 1558/9 and 20 May following, and does not record the ordinations of 18 February and 11 March 1558/9. Ile was ordained to the title of a pension from the (afterwards recusant) Smith family of Eshe, Co. Durham.

page 78 note 3 Meynell MSS. and Transcripts, Ampleforth Abbey Library.

page 79 note 1 P.R.O. SP.12/248 (Walpole); Purvis, J. S., Tudor Parish Documents of the Diocese of York, Cambridge 1948, 109 ff.; ΥHC, 1607–12, fol. 230 (Ile gaoled—though Thomas Meynell said he died at Hutton Bonvile, Meynell MSS., cit.). See Cartwright, the Puritan leader, on the necessity of removing Marian priests from benefices, in Works of Whitgift, ed. Parker Society, London 1852, i. 317.Google Scholar

page 79 note 2 ΥCC, 1606–10, fols. 97v ff.

page 80 note 1 Ibid., fol. 244v. R.VI/B.3 fol. 75v gives what may be another case of the successful use of Meynell's ‘course’, carried over to ΥCC, 1606–10, fols. 201v, 210—Henry Oglethorpe of Beale Esq. and Ellen Percy clandestinely married without banns or licence; both recusants. The marriage was declared valid, but both were fined 20s. to the poor and ordered to make penitential declarations in church. Apparently the question of the minister was not raised. Unfortunately there is a gap in the Chancery Court records from June 1611 to June 1613.

page 80 note 2 ΥCC, 1613–18, fols. 76v ff. This must be the Henry Stapper, apparently an Oxford graduate in 1557 (J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses), harboured as a runagate popish priest at Kettlewell in Craven in 1580–1 (Borthwick Institute, R.H/10), listed in January 1592/3 by the earl of Huntingdon as ‘Sr Henrie Staphard als slack herrie’, one of six Marian priests known to be operating with seminary priests in the North-East (P.R.O. SP. 15/32); apprehended in Richmondshire c. 1593–5 (Morris, J., Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, London 1877, 3rd Series, 145); appears in a Catholic ‘directory’ of priests in England as still in Yorkshire in 1609 (Westminster Archives, Old Brotherhood MSS., i, 26). He was very probably the last survivor of the Marian priests who adhered to the Roman Church and worked pastorally in Yorkshire—a more numerous group than has generally been realised. I have noted references to some 150, of whom many were never originally more than curates or stipendiary priests, and others wanderers from different dioceses.Google Scholar

page 80 note 3 ΥCC, 1627–9 (unpaginated).

page 81 note 1 Sheffield Central Library, Strafford Correspondence, v, fol. 13, Wentworth to Secretary Coke, 28 August 1633; Ibid., iii, fols. 22 ff., Wentworth to Lord Cottington 22 October 1633; fols. 98 ff., Wentworth to Lord Portland, 23 June 1634. Wentworth complained that the leases under the Great Seal granted to recusant compounders did not give them, in strict law, a dispensation from prosecution for clandestine marriages but insisted that, once prosecuted, they must be spared molestation.

page 81 note 2 ΥHC, 1626–31, fol. 213; 1631–4, fol. 39v.

page 81 note 3 ΥCC, 1633–5, fols. 24v, 29v.

page 82 note 1 R.VII/H.2168, 2184 and ΥCC, 1635–8, fol. 292v and many subsequent entries up to the final decree in the Breaks case, 27 January 1637/8, fol. 395. Thomas Boldes (vere Lascelles), son of William Lascelles gent, of Brakenbrough, Yorks., of Douai College; ordained by Francois van den Burch, archbishop of Cambrai, in his palace chapel 31 May to minor orders, 1 June subdeacon, 2 June deacon, 3 June priest, in 1624; to the English mission in July 1625.

There are three other cases of the marriages of Catholics in ΥCC before the Civil War—that of Francis Hungate of Saxton gent., January 1634 (ΥCC, 1632–5, fol. 340; he confessed marriage without banns or licence, performed in Wetherby chapel before witnesses named, but made no mention of the minister. The record merely notes that he submitted, was excommunicated, at once absolved and the case finally dismissed, without any reference to the minister at all); of John Savile of Copley and Ann Palmes of Naburn, 19 December 1638 (Ibid., 1638–40, fol 34; confessed married clandestinely in the church of St. Mary Bishophill junior, York, on a Sunday by Henry Mase, clerk. According to the unusually brief record, they were at once absolved and dismissed from further molestation. It is just possible that this may have been a clandestine marriage before an Anglican minister. The bride came of a very strongly Catholic family and her child was a Catholic); George Thwaites of Marston gent., 25 November 1639 (Ibid., fol. 68—confessed a clandestine marriage before witnesses and ‘per ministerium Legitimi Presbiteri’, without mention of place. The parties were excommunicated, but there seems to be no further record of the case).

page 82 note 2 ΥCC, 1623–6, fols. 406v ff.; Camden Society, New Series, xxxix, 51–6, 57; Foster, J., ?orkshire Families, London 1874, passim.Google Scholar

page 83 note 1 R.VI/A.21, 1627; ΥCC 1623–6, fol. 413v. His brother Thomas was accused of the same offence but not charged. Marmaduke confessed and did his penance.

page 83 note 2 The case came into all three courts in turn, but the sentence is in R. VI/A. 20.

page 83 note 3 ΥCC, 1633–5, fols. 16v, 34v, 135, 149v, 153v, 155v. Compare the black sheep of the (mainly Catholic) Vavasour family of Spaldington and Willitoft, East Riding. Sir John Vavasour knt. was not a Catholic, and in court repeatedly for adultery and marital disputes (ΥCC, passim). Peter Vavasour of Willitoft, whose wife was a recusant, was prosecuted in 1637 for adultery and outrageous blasphemy and denying the resurrection of the body—R.VII/H.2199. See also the mysterious case of Samuel Ballard Esq. and his pretended wife, Lady Mary Reresby, for a clandestine marriage by a popish priest—both of Mexborough and recusants. Ballard denied the charge, said they were married by an Anglican minister and offered to conform. The outcome of the case is not given. Lady Mary was, and remained, a recusant: R.VI/B.4 fol. 233v.

page 83 note 4 Vatican, Barberini MS., xxxi, 69.