The two great moments of John Huddleston’s life have made the latter half of it stand out in high relief, while his earlier days have always been lost in obscurity. Everyone knows that he was instrumental in saving the life of Charles II after the battle of Worcester, and that he reconciled the dying King to the Faith; but concerning his childhood, College days and early priestly life the old biographers have little to say. New evidence which has come to light about his youth, and inaccuracies which are common even in the well-documented history of his dealings with the King, make it worth while to try to rewrite the story of his life.

The struggle of the English Catholics during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I to achieve toleration has already proved itself a challenging feature of Renaissance culture. It is surprising, therefore, that few of the personalities in this conflict have been studied in detail, especially the Catholic leaders who facilitated rather than resisted the submission of the Catholic population to the government. Perhaps a study of these men, who were subject to correction by the forces at either extreme, would lend to our comprehension of the period a degree of objectivity not to be found among the deluge of partisan accounts. At least their careers can complement, as biography always does history, the existing surveys (1), giving them continuity and human significance.

In an article contributed to “The Month” for November 1951 the present writer expressed doubt about the genuineness of the confessions which Henry Walpole is said to have written during his imprisonment in the Tower in 1594. These enigmatical confessions, which are in the Public Record Office, were published by Father Pollen in volume V of the Catholic Record Society Publication. In the article in “The Month” the present writer based his argument on the government’s failure to use such compromising confessions, on the absence in Walpole”s subsequent conduct and correspondence of any sign of such a moral collapse as these pages represent, and lastly on Walpole's apparent admission in the confessions that he translated and augmented “Philopater”, a remark so fantastic that Walpole could not have made it. For the development of these arguments I must refer my readers to the pages of “The Month”. What is here aimed at is to show that the book which Walpole really did “translate and augment” is the anonymous work, entitled “News from Spayne and Holland”.

The poem here printed shows that this martyr was born, not in Lancashire as has been generally thought, but in the Isle of Man. It occurs onp. 145 of a MS. book known as “The Great Hodge Podge” which has always been in the possession of the Blurdell family of Crosby Co. Lanc.

It is probably in the handwriting of William Blundell of Crosby who was born i n 1560, i n the same year, that i S, as Anaerton. Blundell was consequently twenty six years old when Anderton was executed in the Isle of Wight in 1586. He died in 1630.