The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes. Part I.

In the middle ages the Fairfaxes ranked amongst the minor landed gentry of Yorkshire. They seem to have risen to this status in the thirteenth century, partly by buying land out of the profits of trade in York, partly by successful marriages. But they remained of little importance until the later fifteenth century. They had, by then, produced no more than a series of bailiffs of York, a treasurer of York Minster and one knight of the shire. The head of the family was not normally a knight. The family property consisted of the two manors of Walton and Acaster Malbis and house property in York. But in the later fifteenth century and onwards the fortunes of the family were in the ascendant and they began a process of quite conscious social climbing. At the same time they began to increase considerably in numbers. The three main branches, with al1 their cadet lines, were fixed by the middle of the sixteenth century – the senior branch, Fairfax of Walton and Gilling, the second branch, Fairfax of Denton, Nunappleton, Bilhorough and Newton Kyme, the third branch, Fairfax of Steeton. It is very important for any attempt to assess the strength and nature of Catholicism in Yorkshire to try to understand the strong family – almost clan – unity of these pushing, rising families. While adherence to Catholicism could be primarily a personal choice in the face of family ties and property interests, the history of the Faith in Yorkshire was conditioned greatly at every point by the strength of those ties and interests. The minute genealogy and economic history of the gentry has therefore a very direct bearing on recusant history.

Franciscan Books In English, 1559–1640

Very little attention has been given to the bibliography of the English Franciscans in penal times though their literary output was considerable in relation to their numbers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, as far as the English Province is concerned, Franciscan bibliography begins and ends with Luke Wadding in the seventeenth century. The elementary processes of collecting and sifting evidence have not been carried out, since Wadding’s time, and in the few later works of reference which mention individual Franciscan writings there is a great deal of confusion. I shall try, in the present study, to record what evidence there is concerning English books by members of the order between 1559 and 1640 and I shall add some notes on other books which have Franciscan associations. A number of English versions of Franciscan works in other languages were made during this period by Englishmen who were not themselves Franciscans. Some of them present bibliographical prob1ems which I cannot profess to answer, but it seems desirable that whatever evidence exists concerning them should he published.

A Durham Family: Jenisons Of Walworth

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Jenison, late Auditor to her Majesty in Ireland, purchased estates in the parishes of Heighington and Coniscliffe in the County Palatine of Durham, and built himself a magnificent new mansion at Walworth just to the north of the Tees. Here, in 1603, his widow entertained King James I as he was journeying southward. This lady, Elizabeth Jenison, was daughter to Edward Birch, Groom Porter to Henry VIII. From her will, made in 1605, we learn that three of her sons, William “the elder,” John and Michael, were, to her grief, Catholics, while William “the younger,” Thomas and Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Freville, adhered to the religion of their mother. Possibly the father had heen Catholic: certainly he was in sympathy with Catholics abroad, for when Lady Stanley was arrested in Ireland after the surrender of Daventer hy her husband in 1586, she was advised to get in touch with Mr Jenison the Auditor.

The Venerable George Errington.

Foley (Records, vol. V, p.740) quotes a communication received from Lord Arundell, in which he attempts to present a pedigree of the Erringtons, but fails to show the connections of Ven. George Errington, merely stating that he “may fairly be treated as presumably a younger branch of the Erringtons of Errington.” The pedigree, as given, is not quite correct, and concerns mainly the Erringtons of Walwick Grange, with whom George Errington could only have been remotely connected.

The Period of Richard Stanyhurst's Chaplaincy to the Archduke Albert

Though during the last years of his life Richard Stanyhurst, best known to English literature for his early translation of Virgil's Aeneid, was one of the chaplains to the court of Albert and Isabel, the exact time of his appointment has not, so far as I can ascertain, been known. Two registers in the General archives at Brussels containing Albert's household accounts for the years 1612 to 1618 (Chamhre des Comptes 1837 and 1838), give us much more precise information on this subject. They not only record current salary payments from September 1612 onwards hut tell us retrospectively in 1618, the year of his death, that he assumed his duties as chaplain on 29 June 1607 and suggest that as late as 2 July 1618 he was alive hut his death was probably imminent.

The Venerable Thomas Pylcher

In the Sussex County Magazine of May 1942, the Reverend L.E. Whatmore gave an account of “Thomas Pilchard of Battle (1557-87),” Elizabethan martyr of Dorchester. There is no doubt that this martyr’s name was Thomas Pylcher, and that his alias of Pilchard was adopted to serve the west coun1ry area of his apostolate.