⁷³² Sir William Roper of Eltham, a grandson of Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague and a great-grandson of Sir Thomas More, had started paying recusancy fines in November 1600, CRS 57, p. lxxxiv. After another recusancy conviction in February 1605, PRO, E 368/555, mem. 253a, and resulting assessments of his property, he conformed in front of Archbishop Richard Bancroft at Lambeth on 17 November 1606, PRO, E 368/525, mm. 241a–3a. He presented his conformity certificate to the exchequer in 1607, and then again in November 1611. It is not clear when Sir William and Lady Roper first travelled to the Continent, but in July 1611 they went to Spa. Lady Roper returned briefly to England in October 1611 while Sir William was at Cambrai, AAW A X, nos 95, 140, 149. The Ropers were friendly with the English Benedictines of the Spanish congregation and John (Augustine) Bradshaw OSB sometimes carried letters for them, AAW A XI, nos 5, 16, 21. Sir William with his wife came back to England in June 1613, but returned almost immediately to the Continent and by October 1613 was in Cambrai again. However he must have returned to England again because he presented his 1606 conformity certificate to the exchequer once more in 1614. On the basis of his original conviction for recusancy he had been, on 24 September 1614, assessed on his landed estate, PRO E 368/555, mem. 253a; cf. La Rocca, J.J., ‘James I and his Catholic Subjects, 1606–1612: Some Financial Implications’, RH 18 (1987), 251–62, at p. 257Google Scholar. See also CRS 68, 89–90 (a Spanish account of Sir William Roper conforming in July 1617 to avoid a grant of his property, on account of his recusancy, to Sir John Ramsay, first Viscount Haddington). From the constant correspondence between Sir William and his son Thomas, who resided with More in Rome, it seems the Ropers were heavily involved in promoting the secular clergy's causes.

⁷³³ John (Augustine) Bradshaw OSB.

⁷³⁴ Either William or Francis Isham.

⁷³⁵ Fifth son of Lord William Howard of Naworth. See Grun, R.E., ‘A Note on William Howard, Author of a Patterne of Christian Loyaltie’, Catholic Historical Review 42 (1956–1957), 330–40Google Scholar. On 21 Juty 1612 (NS) Robert Pett wrote to More that William Howard had ‘bene sent for expresly from my Lord his father’. Roger Widdrington was the messenger sent for him. (Widdrington was a friend of Lord William Howard, and Howard's library may have supplied Roland (Thomas) Preston OSB, who used Widdrington's name as a pseudonym, with the books he needed for his tracts on the oath of allegiance, Lunn, , EB, 41–2Google Scholar; CSPD 1611–18, 347Google Scholar.) Pett said that ‘this hastie sendinge for him did proceade from a letter which I convaied for him into England’ which had signalled his intention of entering OSB. John (Augustine) Bradshaw had notified Pett of Howard's ‘forwardnes…to have bene a monke and with what expedition his father hath labored to prevent yt’, AAW A XI, no. 124 (p. 337). See also Letter 32.

⁷³⁶ On 14 September 1611 (NS) Champney had informed More that, on that day, there ‘parted from hence [Paris] 4 or 5 yonge gentlemen towardes Italy[.] they will not come so farr as you as yett but purpose to stay in Sienna the one of theme ys my lord wiliame his sonn’ (by whom Champney sent More ‘one of m^r witheringtonn his bookes’), AAW A X, no. 118 (p. 341).

⁷³⁷ William Howard had written to More on 26 May 1612 (NS), AAW A XI, no. 87.

⁷³⁸ John Mayney.

⁷³⁹ Thomas Roper, son of Sir William.

⁷⁴⁰ The conference at Douai which met in May 1612.

⁷⁴¹ Jerome Heath.

⁷⁴² AAW A XI, no. 81, written from Douai on 17 May 1612 (NS), printed in TD V, pp. cxii–xiii.

⁷⁴³ This is apparently John (Augustine) Bradshaw OSB's letter of 21 May 1612 (NS), AAW A XI, no. 85, narrating the proceedings of the conference held at Douai in this month.

⁷⁴⁴ The petitions are written out in AAW A XI, no. 78, printed in TD V, pp. cxiii–xiv. Champney's letter of 17 May 1612 (NS), AAW A XI, no. 81, enclosed copies (AAW A XI, nos 79 and 80) of them.

⁷⁴⁵ See Anderson, W.J., ‘William Thomson of Dundee, Friar Minor Conventual’, Innes Review 18 (1967), 99–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. When Thomson returned to Scotland from Rome in 1613 Thomas More prepared a commendatory letter for him, dated 19 April 1613 (NS), addressed to Birkhead. Thomson proposed to travel through England. More thought that, since Thomson was experienced in Roman politics, he might be of use to Birkhead, AAW A XII, no. 77.

⁷⁴⁶ See Browne, W.E., John Ogilvie (1925), 268, 270.Google Scholar

⁷⁴⁷ In March 1611 it was proposed that Christopher Isham's daughter should attend upon the wife of a new ambassador who was about to be appointed to go to England from the archduke Albert in Flanders, AAW A X, no. 20. She discharged herself from service in July 1611 (AAW A X, no. 87) and married, in early 1612, one Walter Minors of the ‘Inglish Companye’ at Rheinberg (North Rhine, Germany). This was a marriage which was against her father's wishes since he had intended that she should enter religion, AAW A XI, nos 5 (p. 13), 43, 59. She replied, through Robert Pett, in March 1612, that, sorry as she was to have offended, she could not ‘repent’ her choice because she had matched with ‘one whome she loveth’ and that his birth and good qualities made him suitable, AAW A XI, no. 33 (p. 83). She left for Rheinberg where her brother William (ordained in September 1602 at Valladolid) was also resident. On 18 March 1612 (NS) Pett wrote to More that he had assisted Walter Minors in clearing his name of rumours grounded ‘only upone the dislike which m:^r wm Isham toke of the mach betweene m:^r Minors and his sister’. Minors claimed to have paid her debts and ‘he is contented that’ any marriage portion ‘be soe imployed and disposed of as that he never have use…of any one peny therof’, AAW A XI, no. 43 (p. III). By March 1613 Isham snr's daughter had given birth to a son, something which still did not placate her father, AAW A XII, no. 50.

⁷⁴⁸ Ralph Minors.

⁷⁴⁹ Elizabeth, wife of Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester, and daughter of Francis Hastings, second Earl of Huntingdon. John Chamberlain noted on 23 July 1612 that the countess had gone to Spa, McClure, 372.

⁷⁵⁰ See Brennan, M.G., The Travel Diary (1611–1612) of an English Catholic Sir Charles Somerset (The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, Leeds, 1993), 7Google Scholar. Ralph Minors appears to be the steward mentioned by William Jones to William Trumbull in November 1612, Downshire MSS III, 415Google Scholar. Walter Minors wrote to Trumbull from Rheinberg on 2 December 1612 (NS) asking whether his brother Ralph had left a sum of money with Trumbull, , Downshire MSS III, 425Google Scholar. See also ibid., 445; Letter 6.

⁷⁵¹ Brennan, , Travel Diary, 13–15Google Scholar, pointing out that the identity of Sir Charles Somerset's travelling companion is problematic. He notes that Sir Dudley Carleton informed Chamberlain from Venice on 3 April 1612 that Somerset and ‘my Lord Arundel's son’ had left for England; cf. Lee, M., Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603–1624 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1972), 127Google Scholar. Brennan speculates that the reference is to a son of Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk, possibly his third son, Henry, who had been accompanying Somerset's eldest brother, Sir Thomas, at Paris in September 1610, and then travelled with his brother-in-law Lord Cranborne to Italy, and could have joined up with Sir Charles on a return journey. Yet Henry Howard had arrived back in London in February, McClure, 337. Edward Chaney suggests that ‘m:^r Arundel’ is Thomas Arundell, future second Baron Arundell of Wardour. In 1607 he had married Blanche, daughter of Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester. (I am very grateful to Edward Chaney for this information.) See also Letter 53.

⁷⁵² Not identified.

⁷⁵³ John Knatchbull.

⁷⁵⁴ Thomas Worthington.

⁷⁵⁵ Guido Bentivoglio.

⁷⁵⁶ John (Augustine) Bradshaw OSB reported on 21 May 1612 (NS) that the Jesuits, as also Knatchbull and Singleton, were furious at Worthington ‘because he goeth not those wayes which they would have him. he desireth exeedinglie to ridd them out of the College’, AAW A XI, no. 85 (p. 243).

⁷⁵⁷ Ambrose Spinola, Marquis of Benaffro, Duke of Santa Severino.

⁷⁵⁸ Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Bucquoi. See Downshire MSS III, 303, and passim.

⁷⁵⁹ In Hainaut, Belgium.

⁷⁶⁰ Downshire MSS III, 303.Google Scholar

⁷⁶¹ Carlo di Rossi, Mantuan ambassador to England, CSPV 1610–1613, 342, 359.Google Scholar

⁷⁶² On 21 May 1612 (NS), Bradshaw noted the arrest of the three Benedictines, ‘fr maurus de la Sagun [William (Maurus) Scott], fr Edwardo de Obarenes [Edward Ashe]. and fr Iuan de S millan Hijo [John Harper]’, AAW A XI, no. 85 (p. 243).

⁷⁶³ Perhaps a relation (one of the brothers?) of Nicholas Fitzjames OSB, Davidson, 657. In mid-January 1612 Pett had written to More that James Fitzjames was with him in Brussels pursuing some private suit or matter of his own, though it was likely to be hindered by King Philip III, AAW A XI, no. 5.

⁷⁶⁴ Sir John Ramsay, first Viscount Haddington.

⁷⁶⁵ Elizabeth Radcliffe.

⁷⁶⁶ Robert Creighton, eighth Baron Sanquhair. In 1608, Sanquhair had married Mary, the daughter of Sir George Fermor of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, a Catholic family which, through Sir Francis Lacon of Kinlet, had a connection with the Brownes of Cowdray, Davidson, 595.

⁷⁶⁷ For Chamberlain's accounts of the murder and the trial, McClure, , 348–9, 362, 364Google Scholar. This murder is the subject of a forthcoming article by Michael Bowman, ‘The Murder of John Turner’. See also Letters 28, 30.

⁷⁶⁸ It had been reported in May 1612 that Viscount Haddington had (inexplicably) taken his wife from London to Farnham Castle and had not returned, Downshire MSS III, 290.

⁷⁶⁹ James Hawley.

⁷⁷⁰ James Maxwell.

⁷⁷¹ McClure, , 348Google Scholar: James Maxwell, ‘a sewer or gentleman usher upon very small occasion pluckt or pincht one Hawly a gentleman of the Temple by the eare at the feasting of the Duke of Bouillon’ and ‘the bloud followed freshly’; Downshire MSS III, 297, 306, 341Google Scholar. See Letter 29.

⁷⁷² For Sir Henry James's refusal to take the oath of allegiance, see Bowler, H., ‘Sir Henry James of Smarden, Kent, and Clerkenwell, Recusant (c. 1559–1625)’, in A.E.J. Hollaender and W. Kellaway (eds), Studies in London History (1969), 289–313, at pp. 307–8.Google Scholar

⁷⁷³ i.e. one of the Chichester family of Arlington in Devonshire. On 15 May 1612 Edward Bennett wrote to More that, in this drive to enforce the oath, ‘m^r Bery & m^r Chichester gentlmen of the west [are] boath in prison’, AAW A XI, no. 76 (p. 217); cf. Downshire MSS III, 298.Google Scholar

⁷⁷⁴ William Vavasour of Hazlewood, Yorkshire offered a composition to the crown of £700 for his refusal to take the oath, BL, Lansdowne MS 153, fo. 87r; Foley IV, 689–90.

⁷⁷⁵ Richard Broughton wrote to More on 5 May 1612 that many gentry were through favour being allowed to compound for refusal ‘as fower out of yorkeshire, M^r Sayre [John Sayer of Worsall]; M^r Vavicer, M^r Gascoyne, the fowrth name I have not hard [in fact, William Middleton's of Stockeld, BL, Lansdowne 153, fo. 80r]’, AAW A XI, no. 72 (p. 209). For Middleton's pardon for refusal to take the oath, see PRO, SO 3/5 (26 November 1612). See PRO, SP 14/70/9 (a list dated 18 July 1612 of those who were to be offered the oath).

⁷⁷⁶ See Letter 115.

⁷⁷⁷ Philip Lewis, Count of Hanau, brother-in-law of the Duke of Bouillon.

⁷⁷⁸ Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

⁷⁷⁹ Princess Elizabeth.

⁷⁸⁰ Don Pedro de Zúñiga.

⁷⁸¹ Thomas Roper.