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Sir Alexander Colepeper of Bedgebury
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
The Colepepers were a prolific and moderately distinguished family that had been settled in Kent and Sussex since the thirteenth century. The name is spelt variously as Colepeper, Colepepyr, Culpeper and Culpepper, but as Sir Alexander, the subject of this essay, signed his name ‘Colepeper’ or ‘Colepepyr’ and used the first spelling in his record of his troubles, the first spelling has been adopted.
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References
Notes
1 For the family generally, see Attree, F. W. T. and Booker, J. H. L. ‘The Sussex Colepepers’ in Sussex Arch. Coll., 47 (1904), pp. 47–81,Google Scholar and ‘the Sussex Colepepers. Part II’, in Sussex Arch. Coll. 48 (1905), pp. 65–98;Google Scholar Aymer, Vallance ‘Hollingbourne Manor and the Culpepers’ in Archaeologia Cantiana, 49 (1938), pp. 189–194;Google Scholar Lloyd Prichard, M. F. ‘The significant background of the Stuart Culpepers’ in Notes & Queries, 205 (n.s. 7, 1960), pp. 408–416;Google Scholar Hasted, E. The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (4 vols., Canterbury, 1778–99), 3, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar
2 Camden, W. Remaines of a greater work conserning Britaine (6th imp., 1637), p. 219.Google Scholar
3 cf. Lloyd Prichard, M. F. ‘The significant background of the Stuart Culpepers’ in Notes & Queries, 205 (n.s. 7, 1960), p. 410.Google Scholar There was a blast furnace on the Bedgebury estate; see Charles, S. Cattell ‘An evaluation of the Loseley list of ironworks within the Weald in the year 1588’ in Archaeologia Cantiana, 86 (1971), pp. 89–91.Google Scholar
4 See the pedigree printed between pp. 72 & 73 of vol. 48 of Sussex Arch. Coll.
5 The Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521-1889, ed. Foster, J. (London, 1889), p. 23.Google Scholar His career in the Inn is unknown; the earliest extant Pension Book of Gray's Inn begins on 9 May 1569.
6 The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of two years of Queen Mary, ed. Nichols, J. G. (Camden Soc., vol. 48, 1850). pp. 54, 71.Google Scholar ‘Note, that the xxvth of January [1554] the counsell was certyfyed that ther was uppe in Kent sir Thomas Wyat, mr. Cullpepper, the lorde Cobham …’ (ibid., p. 36).
7 See the pedigree printed between pp. 72 & 73 of vol. 48 of Sussex Arch. Coll.
8 cf. de, G. Parmiter, C. ‘The Imprisonment of Papists in private castles’, in R.H., 19, pp. 16–38.Google Scholar
9 Colepeper, ff. 127-135v. The MS is divided into sections, each of which is devoted to a single period of imprisonment. Each section commences with a list of his fellow prisoners, with their respective ranks, and against each name is drawn an armorial shield. Some of the shields are blank, presumably because Colepeper was ignorant of the appropriate arms. The arrangement is interesting as showing the importance which Colepeper attached to rank and the bearing of arms. The first part of the MS was printed by Christopher, Buckingham in Kent Recusant History, no. 1 (1979), pp. 20–24.Google Scholar
10 For those instructions, see Cardwell, E. Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England (2 vols., Oxford, 1839–44), 1, p. 89.Google Scholar
11 For those orders, see Frere, W. H. ed., Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation (3 vols., Alcuin Club Collections, nos., xiv-xvi, 1910), 3, pp. 108–110.Google Scholar
12 Colepeper, f. 128.
13 In the course of an interrogation of Colepeper and his wife, which took place about March 1581, they were asked how long they had absented themselves from church: ‘we answered about sixteen years.’ See Colepeper, f. 129 (written in margin).
14 Colepeper, ff. 128, 128v. Colepeper's mother, Elizabeth Hawte, was the daughter of Sir William Hawte by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Guildford. Thomas Guildford lived at Hempstead Place in the parish of Benenden, some 7 or 8 miles from Bedgebury. His will (P.C.C. 32 Pyckering) shows that he was a Protestant, but his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Shelley of Michelgrove, Sussex, appears in the Recusant Rolls.
15 Colepeper, f. 128v. Archbishop Parker died on 17 May 1575 and was succeeded by Edmund Grindal.
16 See licence to alienate dated 4 Oct. 1567 (C.P.R., 1566-69, p. 75, no. 499).
17 See grant dated 27 Jan. 1569 (C.P.R., 1566-69, p. 389, no. 2287).
18 Archb. Parker to Sir W. Cecil, 26 May 1570 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/69/17).
19 13 Eliz. I, c. 16.
20 C.P.R., 1572-75, p. 350, no. 1990, and p. 480, no. 2938.
21 John, Nichols The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., London, 1788–1805), 1, pp. 31–2;Google Scholar 2, p. 8; 3, p. 41. And see Shaw, W. R. The knights of England (2 vols., London, 1906), 2, p. 75.Google Scholar
22 Colepeper, f. 128v. Crooke had been parish priest at Rogate in Sussex, not far from Cowdray. He had been presented to that living by the crown on 24 May 1554 and admitted a month later. After Elizabeth's accession he was deprived and Thomas Blewett was presented by the crown on 4 May 1560. Crooke probably came to Colepeper through the latter's connection with Lord Montague who lived at Cowdray. See Field, C. W. The Province of Canterbury and the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion (privately printed, 1972), pp. 64, 65.Google Scholar
23 Mary Colepeper's sister, Margaret, married Henry Clifford, second earl of Cumberland, who died in Jan. 1570.
24 Colepeper, f. 128v. Crooke's subsequent career is obscure; he is last mentioned in the 1577 returnof recusants (C.R.S. 22, p. 11) where he is included as a recusant ‘by record’.
25 Colepeper, f. 128v.
26 P.R.O., S.P. 12/117/5i (printed in C.R.S. 22, p. 10).
27 Thomas Godwyn, D.D., was dean of Canterbury from 1567 to 1584 when he became bishop of Bath and Wells.
28 Colepeper, ff. 128v, 129. In a letter dayed 17 Nov. 1580 to the Rector of the English College in Rome (Fr. Alfonso Agazzari, S.J.), Fr. Robert Persons, S.J., mentioned the arrests and named the'chief of them’, among whom was Alexander Colepeper; see Hicks, L. Letters and Memorials of Father Robert Persons, S.J., C.R.S. 29, pp. 50, 58.Google Scholar cf. Peter, Clark ‘The Ecclesiastical Commissionat Canterbury: 1572-1603’ in Archaeologia Cantiana, 89 (1974), p. 186.Google Scholar
29 In 1581 Whit Sunday fell on 14 May. Sir Thomas Scott, of Scot's Hall, Kent, was an important figure in the county. He was knighted in 1571 and was high sheriff of Kent in 1576; he was knight of the shire in the parliaments of 1571 and 1586, and he led the Kentish force to oppose the Spanish Armada. He died in 1594. See D.N.B.
30 Colepeper, f. 129.
31 P.R.O., S.P. 12/142/33 (f. 133).
32 For the various levies for lances and light horses made upon recusants in the fifteen-eighties, see Trimble, W. R. The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 178–195.Google Scholar
33 The existing catalogue of recusants assessed in the levy of 1585 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/183/15) coversonly eleven dioceses; Canterbury is not included. The assessment is, however, referred to in Cobham'sletter to Walsingham dated 28 Aug. 1585 cited in note 35. William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham(1527-97) succeeded to the title in 1558. He was appointed lord lieutenant of Kent and Warden of the Cinque Ports on 3 July 1585. He died on 6 March 1597.
34 Thomas Fane was a notable figure in the Kent lieutenancy. He was one of the commissionersappointed for disarming recusants in Kent; the others were Sir Henry Cobham (brother of Lord Cobham), Sir Thomas Scott, Sir James Hales, Sir George Hart and Sir Thomas Sondes; see S.R.O., D 593/S/4/11/I4 (Leveson papers).
35 Lord Cobham to Sir Francis Walsingham, 28 Aug. 1585 (P.R.O, S.P. 12/181/69). cf. McGurk, J. J. N. ‘Lieutenancy and Catholic Recusants in Elizabethan Kent’ in R.H. 12 (1973–4), at pp. 158–9.Google Scholar
36 Sir Michael Sondes to Privy Council, 22 Oct. 1585 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/183/40 & 40i).
37 Sir Alexander Colepeper to Privy Council, 20 Feb. 1586 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/186/73). The council's letter to Colepeper is not, apparently, extant and the register of the council for the relevant period is missing; the date is given in Colepeper's letter. Colepeper said that he did not receive the council's letter until 18 Feb. 1586.
38 Copies of the council's letter are in P.R.O., S.P., 12/186/81, 82 & 83, and S.P. 46/34/33. cf. A.P.C., 14, p. 8. For the certificates of offers see P.R.O., S.P. 12/189/54 (see f. 145 for Colepeper).
39 Colepeper, f. 129. For William Gravet, see D.N.B., Cooper, C. H. & Cooper, T. Athenae Cantabrigienses (2 vols., Cambridge, 1858–61), 2, pp. 268, 550;Google Scholar John, Le Neve Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae,1541-1857, 1 (comp. J. M. Home, London, 1969), p. 64.Google Scholar Martin Marprelate accused him of drunkenness.
40 P.R.O., S.P. 12/208/40; Br. Lib., Lansd. MS 55, f. 163 (printed in C.R.S., 22, p. 120.
41 Lord Cobham to Sir Francis Walsingham, 2 Feb. 1588 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/208/50).
42 See, e.g., Parmiter, G. de C. ‘The imprisonment of papists in private castles’ in R.H., 19, pp. 16-38, at p. 28.Google Scholar
43 A.P.C., 16, pp. 38-9 (19 April 1588).
44 P.R.O., S.P. 12/211/22.
45 Colepeper, ff. 129v-130v. Richard Arkenstall was the nephew of Richard Cox, the bishop of Ely who had died on 22 July 1581. Thereafter the see remained vacant for nineteen years.
46 A.P.C, 16, p. 167.
47 Colepeper, f. 130v.
48 Andrew Perne (15197-1589) was famous for the readiness with which he adapted his theological opinions to suit those of his sovereign for the time being, so that he came to be known as ‘Old Andrew Turncoat’, ‘Andrew Ambo’, ‘Old Father Palinode’ and Judas. Edward VI made him a canon of Windsor in 1552; at Queen Mary's request he was elected Master of Peterhouse in 1554, and she gave him the deanery of Ely in 1557, all of which offices he retained under Elizabeth. He had been chancellor of Cambridge University in 1551, 1556, 1559, 1574 and 1580. See D.N.B.
49 A.P.C., 16, p. 312.
50 Colepeper, ff. 130v, 131. cf. Strype, J. Life of John Whitgift (3 vols., Oxford, 1822), 1, pp. 527–530.Google Scholar
51 A.P.C., 16, p. 370. Two of the prisoners had already been released upon bonds: Edward Rookwoodin October to appear before the council, and Sir Thomas Tresham on account of ill-health; see A.P.C., 16, pp. 324, 362.
52 A.P.C, 16, p. 382.
53 Colepeper, f. 131.
54 Colepeper, f. 131.
55 A.P.C., 18, p. 383; Colepeper, f. 131. The four others were Nicholas Scrope, Michael Hare, John Gay and Gervase Pierpoint.
56 A.P.C., 18, p. 239. ‘Fine and recovery’ was a method by which land was conveyed by one personto another; it involved a fictitious action which was compromised by the payment of a fine.
57 A.P.C., 18, pp. 406, 407.
58 Broughton, a few miles from Banbury, was built in the early 14th cent, as a moated and fortified manor house; a licence to crenellate was granted in 1406 when the fortified walls were built, and between 1554 and 1559 Richard Fiennes and his father carried out important alterations. The house is now known as Broughton Castle. See V.C.H. Oxen., 9, pp. 89-91; 10, p. 40; Sherwood, J. & Pevsner, N. The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire (London, 1974), pp. 492–8.Google Scholar
59 A.P.C., 18, pp. 414-5.
60 A.P.C, 18, pp. 415-7.
61 Those to be sent to Broughton were Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, Sir William Catesby, Sir Alexander Colepeper, William Browne, John Talbot of Grafton, William Tyrwhitt, Thomas Throckmorton, Ferdinando Paris, John Thimelby, Edward Sulyard, John Towneley, Samuel Loane, Gervase Pierpoint and John Gage. See Colepeper, f. 131v, 132.
62 Colepeper, f. 132v. The council's letter of 13 March 1590 had named sixteen recusants to be imprisoned at Banbury or Broughton, of whom six had previously been at Ely, but Colepeper's list of those imprisoned with him at Broughton contains only fourteen names, Thomas Newdigate and Henry Drury being omitted; cf. note 61.
63 Examples of those letters may be found in P.R.O., S.P. 12/193/68, 12/202/50, 12/241/120, 12/243/33, 12/264/146; H.M.C., Salisbury, 3, pp. 185, 251, 324, 330; 7, pp. 309, 347, 383; 11, p. 469;14, pp. 191, 196, 209.
64 Richard Fiennes to Sir Robert Cecil, 12 Aug. 1597 (H.M.C., Salisbury, 1, p. 347). The puritan vicar of Banbury, Thomas Brasbridge, also objected to the presence of recusants at Broughton (Thomas Brasbridge to Lord Burghley, 23 June 1590, Br. Lib., Lansd. MS 64, art. 13, printed in Alfred, Beesley The History of Banbury, London, 1841, pp. 243–4).Google Scholar
65 Colepeper, f. 132v.
66 A.P.C., 19, pp. 11, 12.
67 Richard Fiennes to Lord Burghley, 2 April 1592 (P.R.O., S.P. 12/241/120). Fienne's second wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Codingham and widow of William Paulet. His mother came of a Catholic family; she was Ursula, daughter of Richard Fermor of Easton Neston, Northants. See G. E. C., Complete Peerage (ed. Gibbs, V. 13 vols., London, 1910–1949), 11, pp. 484, 485.Google Scholar
68 A.P.C, 19, pp. 11, 12.
69 A.P.C, 19, p. 62.
70 Colepeper, f. 132v.
71 E.g., A.P.C., 19, pp. 102-03, 159, 167, 194, 318, 360. cf. Parmiter, G. de C. ‘The imprisonment of papists in private castles’, in R.H., 19, pp. 16–38.Google Scholar
72 A.P.C., 19, p. 366; Colepeper, f. 232v.
73 A.P.C, 20, pp. 17, 18.
74 A.P.C., 20, p. 16; Colepeper, ff. 132v, 133.
75 Colepeper, ff. 132v, 133; A.P.C., 20, p. 62.
76 Colepeper, f. 133. In Whatmore, L. E. Recusancy in Kent: Studies and Documents (privately printed, 1973), pp. 7, 24,Google Scholar Sir Alexander is said to have been fined £360 in 1590 for recusancy. His name, however, does not appear in Bowler, H. Recusants in the Exchequer Pipe Rolls, 1581-1592, C.R.S., vol. 71.Google Scholar
77 Colepeper, f. 133. The original bond in £2,000, signed ‘Allixander Colepeper’, and dated 1 May 1591, is in Lambeth Palace Library, Cartae Misc., IV/40.
78 A.P.C., 21, p. 415; Colepeper, f. 133. The bond was for 1,000 marks. The sheriff of Kent was Thomas Willoughby of Bore Place in Chiddington; see Philipot, J. Villare Cantium (London, 1659), p. 33.Google Scholar
79 The proclamation was dated 18 Oct. 1591, but was not promulgated until Nov. The text is printedin T.R.P., 2, pp. 86-93; Bald, R. C. ed., An Humble Supplication to Her Maiestie by Robert Southwell (Cambridge, 1953), App. I.Google Scholar
80 Privy Council to Lord Cobham and others, Whitehall, 19 Dec. 1591 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/6/15).
81 The commission for Kent, under the great seal, dated 14 Jan. 1592, is in S.R.O., D 593/S/3/16. There was annexed to the commission (and to all county commissions) a printed set of instructions, ‘Articles annexed to the commission for a further instruction to the Commissioners how to proceedin the execution thereof’ (printed in T.R.P., 3, pp. 93-5; it is not a royal proclamation). See also Roger, B. Manning ‘Elizabethan Recusancy Commissions’ in Historical Journal, 15 (1972), pp. 23–36.Google Scholar The bishop of Rochester was John Young, and the bishop of Dover was Richard Rogers.
82 A note of what was agreed at that meeting is in S.R.O., D 593/S/4/6/12.
83 S.R.O., D 593/S/5/4/6/13. Sir Alexander stated that he was summoned to Maidstone (several milesfrom Hailing) before Sir John Leveson, Sir Thomas Fevell [?], and William Lambard (Colepeper, f. 133), due, perhaps, to lapse of memory. Sir John Leveson was one of the deputy lieutenants for Kent and his jurisdiction comprised the lathes of Aylesford and Sutton-at-Hone, that is, the eastern part of the county. For administrative purposes Kent was divided into five lathes. For the two lathes of Aylesford and Sutton-at-Hone, see Youngs, F. A. Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, vol. 1 (London, 1979), pp. 256, 631–3.Google Scholar
84 Colepeper, f. 133. The questions correspond roughly to those recommended in the printed instruc-tions annexed to the commission; cf. T.R.P., 3, p. 94. Also summoned on that occasion was Thomas Wotton of Addington; on 22 March 1592 Burghley wrote to Leveson and Lambard ordering themnot to proceed against Wotton as there were hopes of his conformity (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/6/14).
85 A.P.C, 22, p. 376.
86 H.M.C., Salisbury, 4, p. 264.
87 A.P.C., 23, pp. 40-42.
88 Copies of the letter are in S.R.O., D 593/S/4/22/40, and D 593/S/4/34/iii.
89 Lord Cobham to Sir J. Leveson, 26 July 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/34/iv.
90 Sir J. Leveson to Lord Cobham, 3 Aug. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/22/43); Leveson to Cobham, 10Aug. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/22/p. 44); Cobham to Leveson, 14 Aug. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/22/44).
91 See note 84.
92 Sir J. Leveson to Lord Cobham, 11 Sept. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/22/48); the letter is Leveson'sreport of proceedings in disarming recusants. Bedgebury and Glassenbury were adjoining estates.
93 A.P.C., 23, pp. 106-110. Colepeper gives the christian name of Medley as William, instead of Thomas as in the letter of the privy council; see Colepeper, ff. 133v, 134.
94 Bishop of Rochester to Lord Cobham, 21 Aug. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/20/20).
95 Lord Cobham to Sir J. Leveson, 24 Aug. 1592 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/34/vi; and cf. D 593/S/4/34/vii).
96 See S.R.O., D 593/S/4/6/18 (minutes of meeting at Rochester), and D 593/S/4/34/i (minutes of meeting at Canterbury).
97 Colepeper, f. 134. Colepeper's bond (signed ‘Allixander Colepepyr’) is in Lambeth Palace Library,Cartae Misc. IV/151.
98 Colepeper, f. 134.
99 A.P.C., 24, pp. 12, 13.
100 Lord Cobham to Sir J. Leveson, 14 Jan. 1593 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/34/i); Leveson to Cobham, 16Jan. 1593 (S.R.O., D 593/S/4/34/H).
101 Colepeper, f. 124 (where Colepeper sets out the text of the council's letter). The bond, dated 6 Oct. 1593 and signed ‘Allexander Colepepyr’, is in Lambeth Palace Library, Cartae Misc. IV/28. The condition of the bond required Colepeper not to go abroad without licence, to be of good behaviour towards the queen and the state, and to appear, on ten days’ notice, before the council or the archbishop of Canterbury.
102 Colepeper, f. 135v. The bond, dated 9 March 1594 and signed ‘Allixander Colepepyr’, is in Lambeth Palace Library, Cartae Misc. IV64.
103 Colepeper, f. 135v.
104 Colepeper, f. 135v.
105 Kent Archives Office, QM/5 B 75.
106 Colepeper, f. 135v. In 1596 Easter Day fell on 2 May. Colepeper's account of his release from Sir John Higham's house concludes his relation of his troubles.
107 A.P.C., 26, pp. 322-3, 327.
108 A.P.C, 26, pp. 363-4.
109 E.G., A.P.C., 26, pp. 362, 372-3.
110 A.P.C., 26, p. 373 (19 Dec. 1596).
111 See Beales, A. C. F. ‘A biographical catalogue of Catholic schoolmasters in England’, in R.H., 7, at p. 279,Google Scholar citing Lambeth Palace Library, Hussey MSS, vol. 45 (1593-1604), f. 146.
112 A.P.C., 29, pp. 116-8, at p. 118 (31 Aug. 1598).
113 See the pedigree printed between pp. 72 & 73 of vol. 48 of Sussex Arch. Coll. Inq. p.m. (P.R.O., C 142/262/108). For Epiphanius Evesham see Morgan, F. C. ‘Two Hereford sixteenth-century sculp-tors, John Gildon and Epiphanius Evesham’ in Trans. Woolhope Nat. F. Club for 1933-35, pt. 3(1938), pp. 111–118.Google Scholar
114 See the pedigree printed between pp. 72 & 73 of vol. 48 of Sussex Arch. Coll. Sir Roger Martin was a mercer; he was a member of the Court of Aldermen and was lord mayor of London in 1567-8 (see Foster, F. F. The Politics of Stability, London, 1977, pp. 129, 164).Google Scholar