⁹⁵ From Rome Thomas More travelled via Milan, Cambrai and Lyons, and arrived in Paris about 18 September 1609 (NS), AAW A VIII, no. 154 (p. 625). Via St Omer (where he met Richard Holtby SJ who was peace-making among the English in Flanders, Downshire MSS II, 173Google Scholar) More arrived in England by 15 October 1609, AAW A VIII, no. 164. He had Birkhead's authority (according to Edward Bennett) ‘to visitt all England over’. ‘The somme of his commission’ was to give good reports of the agency's progress, to exhort to peace and unity, and, riding with the assistant in each circuit, to enquire ‘if any disorders’ were comitted ‘by any of our brethern & to call them to accownt for it in every division as the assistant of the place & hym self seeth cause…soe that by godes grace it will in tyme apeare to his holl that the clergy withowt f par [Robert Persons SJ] direction’ can ‘govern it self’. In addition, ‘as he goeth a longe’ he was to elicit support for the appointment of a bishop for England, AAW A VIII, no. 179 (p. 685); Letter 6. John Bavant's hostile account, written to Persons in March 1610, said that More had confessed that for all this he had received ‘no commission from our Archpriest’, CRS 41, 98–9.

⁹⁶ Identity uncertain.

⁹⁷ Gabriel Colford, a friend of the intelligencer Richard Verstegan, CRS 64, 142, was resident in Brussels, , Downsshire MSS II, 79Google Scholar. He acted as a conveyer of letters and money for the priests, though he also associated with the English diplomat Trumbull, William, Downshire MSS II, 129–30Google Scholar, III, passim. (However, by January 1610, Colford was making it known that he was too busy with his commercial projects ‘to receave and derect the Archepriests lettres’, AAW A IX, no. 3 (p. 7).) His daughter Martha was professed in the English Benedictine convent at Brussels with Elizabeth Digby and Elizabeth (Lucy) Knatchbull (the sister of John Knatchbull) in January 1611, AAW A X, no. 7. Later a commercial dispute arose between Colford and the secular priest Robert Pett, Letter 35.

⁹⁸ Robert Ubaldini.

⁹⁹ Robert Persons SJ.

¹⁰⁰ This is probably the priest Paul Green alias Washington who had arrived in Rome in May 1609 (having been in England since June 1603), Anstr. I, 137. Birkhead implies here that Green was interfering in the agency petitioning counter to the archpriest's party's interest, although on 14 March 1609 (NS) Persons had written to Birkhead that he was ‘very willing to doe any thinge I can for Mr Washington whom you recommend hither’, Milton House MSS (transcript at ABSI).

¹⁰¹ Among these letters was one from Birkhead's assistants to Cardinal Lawrence Bianchetti of 21 September 1609, AAW A VIII, no. 153.

¹⁰² Benjamin Norton.

¹⁰³ See Letter 6.

¹⁰⁴ See TD V, p. ciii.

¹⁰⁵ i.e. priests.

¹⁰⁶ i.e. upon the Jesuits. Birkhead complained to Smith in April 1610 of ‘votive brethren’ who ‘though they beare shew of secular people yet I finde them wholly directed by them to whome they have made there vowes’, and ‘so by consequent the almes commeth verie sparingly to us’. He had instructed his own ‘Assistantes…to make Collections, but yow wold marvell to see how even some of my owne, are sent abroad to declare against that course’. The deposed archpriest Blackwell was still in higher repute than Birkhead, Birkhead judged, because ‘a Catholique lately deceased hath bequeathed him 401i yearly for his lyfe. but no such gobbetes falleth to me’, AAW A IX, no. 31 (pp. 77–8) [part printed in TD IV, p. clxxx in note]. In October 1609 Birkhead had listed ‘those that have the great summes to distribute’ as ‘Mr Roger manners, my Lord Lumley, mr Hord, and my Lord of dorset [Richard Sackville, third earl of Dorset]’, AAW A VIII, no. 168 (p. 661). In May 1612 John Mush complained that Catholics such as Manners, Lumley, Hoord and Jane Shelley had given many thousands of pounds for the aid of the clergy and yet SJ had appropriated all of it, AAW A XI, no. 70. Cf. McCoog, 194 (showing how the Lumley, Manners and Sackville families came within SJ's mission), 252. Nevertheless Birkhead acknowledged in 1613 that ‘I fynd no fait with them that have the common almes. for they are honest, and distribute the almes better then my selfe can do’. The problem was his own impecuniosity and consequently very limited powers of patronage, AAW A XII, no. 233 (p. 519).

¹⁰⁷ See Letter 8.

¹⁰⁸ Birkhead did not want to use his own authority to deprive the oath-favouring priests in the Clink prison of their faculties since he feared they would retaliate by denouncing him to the authorities. The breve of Paul V appointing Birkhead specified that he should admonish those priests who took the Jacobean oath of allegiance or taught it was licit, and, if they did not reform themselves, they should be deprived of their priestly faculties, CRS 41, 13 n.2; for the partial success of the admonition, CRS 41, 85–6. His admonition to these priests was issued on 2 May 1608. In July 1609 Birkhead wrote to Smith that Blackwell ‘holdeth his opinion still verie strongly for the oath, because nothinge is don against’ the oath-favourers ‘many catholiques begin to imagin’ Blackwell's ‘fault is not so heynous as it was thought to be’; the oath-favouring priests should undoubtedly be censured by ‘declaringe the losse of there faculties, but not to be executed by me’, AAW A VIII, no. 133 (p. 561). As late as 3 August 1611 Birkhead wrote to thank More for his efforts to obstruct any order to proceed formally with the oath-favourers’ deprivation, which ‘may hurt me and my best frendes exceedinge much’; ‘those that are wise’ think ‘that an excommunication’ from Rome ‘wold serve’ better, AAW A X, no. 97 (p. 273). A compromise was reached when Birkhead received a precept from the pope that he should send out private letters to his assistants depriving the oath-favourers (AAW A X, nos 101, 114) ‘so as they [the assistants] shall give it out to there frendes both of the Clergie and laitie in there circuites I was once of mynd to have admonished the parties them selves, but that living under the protection of the state, they are like to contemme my admonition to my great perill’, AAW A X, no. 112 (p. 329). William Bishop opposed Birkhead's action, adding to the general suspicion that he was unreliable about the oath, AAW A X, no. 115.

¹⁰⁹ Thomas Ravis. Perhaps Birkhead meant Archbishop Bancroft.