THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE 
 
 OF 
 
 LOS 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 CALIFORNIA 
 ANGELES
 
 ST. THOMAS'S PRIORY.
 
 ST. THOMAS'S PRIORY 
 
 OR 
 
 THE STORY OF ST. AUSTIN'S 
 
 STAFFORD 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH GILLOW 
 
 And I too dream'd, until at last 
 Across my fancy, brooding warm, 
 
 The reflex of a legend past. 
 And loosely settled into form. 
 
 — Tevnvson. 
 
 LONDON: BURNS & GATES, Limited
 
 
 TO 
 
 FRANCIS WHITGREAVE, Esq., J.P., D.L., 
 
 OF BURTON MANOR, AND MOSELEY COURT, 
 STAFFORDSHIRE, 
 
 TO WHOM, AND TO WHOSE FAMILY, 
 
 THE MISSION AT STAFFORD IS MUCH INDEBTED. 
 
 14S0.1©S
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Magna est Veritas, ct prcEvalebit. 
 
 The following pages are the outcome of a visit 
 with a friend to the remains of St. Thomas's 
 Priory, and originally were written at his re- 
 quest to awaken in the Stafford congregation 
 an interest in the story of how their forefathers 
 handed down to them the Teaching of their 
 Redeemer. What the Faith was in pre-Re- 
 formation days is so evident to the Catholic of 
 to-day that it would be a needless encroachment 
 upon time to exemplify that period. It is 
 sufficient to say with Verstegan : — 
 
 Thus was the Faith, this is the Faith of old, 
 Held by the whole, now by the parte control'd. 
 
 The history of Stafford Mission \'~, facsimile in 
 outline with hundreds of others that mi^ht have
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 been culled from my collection towards a de- 
 tailed account of all the Missions, Chaplaincies, 
 and Missionary Stations that have existed in 
 England and Wales since the so-called Re- 
 formation or Overthrow of the Ancient Faith. 
 The record is sadly incomplete, and yet too 
 vast, may be, ever to be displayed in its entirety. 
 Therefore, from time to time, I have ventured, 
 almost haphazard, to draw a few illustrations, 
 and have issued them in some similar form to 
 this, in the belief that Light discovers Truth, 
 and that, thereby, others may be led to exclaim 
 with the eminent antiquary, poet, and exile, 
 previously cited : — 
 
 And live that Faith, whereof Christ gave the ground, 
 As long as Faith may on the earth be found. 
 
 J. G. 
 
 Woodlands, Dunham Massev, 
 Cheshire.
 
 I. 
 
 Stafford's great name in old records did sleep, 
 And lay regardless 'mongst the common heap. 
 
 — Nathaniel Thompson. 1685. 
 
 Hitherto, I believe, there has been no 
 
 attempt to throw light upon the obscure 
 
 history of Catholicity in Stafford. We are 
 
 living in an age remarkable for its spirit of 
 
 inquiry and its honest endeavour to brush aside 
 
 the cobwebs of prejudice and ignorance, which 
 
 so long have darkened the religious history of 
 
 this country. In furtherance of this object the 
 
 following jottings in my note-book are set down 
 
 in chronological order, but without the formal 
 
 pretension of a history, being presented rather 
 
 as historical finger-posts to direct the future 
 
 historian in his path. 
 
 It is unnecessary for the present purpose to 
 
 enter into the origin and ^rowth of the novel 
 
 doctrines foisted upon a simple people by tyran- 
 
 I
 
 2 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 nical sovereigns and their attendant mercenaries. 
 It is sufficient to note that all the property of 
 the Church, with the people's real and in- 
 alienable interest in it. was either confiscated, 
 or transferred to a new religion, set up and 
 established by the State, to which the people 
 were forced to bow under penal laws framed 
 and administered in a spirit rivalling that of the 
 pagan persecutor. Every kind of abuse and 
 calumny was heaped upon the ancient Faith ; its 
 professors were proscribed and outlawed, and 
 the rising generation assiduously inoculated 
 with the heresies of the reformers. 
 
 By Law we'll bring't within the reach 
 
 Of Death for papist priests to preach, 
 
 Say Mass or even to be found 
 
 In any place on English ground. 
 
 Nor will we Mercy have, or spare them, 
 
 Who either harbour priests, or hear them. 
 
 — Ward, Canto ii. 1710. 
 
 Hence it is that our first glimpses into the 
 history of the Stafford mission only reveal 
 pictures of a crowded gaol, barbarous execu- 
 tions of priests, and other cruelties devised 
 to deter people from exercising the rights of 
 conscience. These scenes are too numerous
 
 Sf. Thomas's Priory. 3 
 
 to be recorded in the space at our disposal. 
 Sometimes it is an account of a sudden raid 
 upon the houses of those who clung to the 
 Faith, by pursuivants in search of evidence 
 against the proscribed religion, or in the hope 
 of catching a priest ; at others, a harrowing- 
 description of poor recusants being despoiled 
 of their goods, and even homes, on account 
 of their inability to pay the penalties indicted 
 upon them for non-attendance at the estab- 
 lished service. A few such examples will 
 suffice, for — 
 
 To bring the number in accompt, 
 
 Unable is my skil : 
 Of all such glorious martirs names. 
 
 And their endured il. 
 
 — Rich. Vet'stegan, Odes, 1601. 
 
 In or about 1586,^ Sir Robert Parton, a 
 venerable old priest, presumably assisting the 
 Catholics in the town, was apprehended and 
 thrown into Stafford gaol. Some time previous 
 to this he suffered four years' incarceration in 
 Newgate, whence he was set at liberty, and, full 
 of zeal and courage, he had come down to 
 
 ' Strype, Annals, 2nd ed., iv. 184.
 
 4 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Stafford, where he had probably held some cure 
 in Queen Mary's reign, to devote his remaining 
 years to the preservation of the ancient Faith. 
 For six long years he patiently endured the 
 horrors of Stafford gaol, encouraging the 
 numerous recusants, who suffered a living death 
 rather than conform to the new religion, 
 ministering to their spiritual wants, and com- 
 forting them in their extremity. Probably it 
 was on this account that the good shepherd 
 was transferred by his relentless persecutors to 
 the Marshalsea in London at Christmas, 1592. 
 There the old man was immured, awaiting his 
 martyr's crown, at the time of a report issued 
 i" 1593' — his longings for the heavenly Hieru- 
 salem being aptly pourtrayed in "A Prisoner's 
 Songe," penned by a priest and fellow-confessor 
 about 1615.^ 
 
 My thirstie soule desyres her drought 
 
 At heavenlic fountaines to refreshe, 
 
 My prisoned niynd would faine be out 
 
 Of chaines and fetters of the flesh. 
 
 —F. B., Priest. 
 
 An ancient manuscript,^ written in the last 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 15,225. 
 
 - Foley, Records S.J., iii. 232, iv. 493; Morris, Troubles, iii. 8.
 
 St. Thomas's Priory. 5 
 
 decade of the sixteenth century, tells us how 
 Erasmus Wolseley, of Wolseley Hall, about 
 eight miles from Stafford, William Maxfield, 
 or Macclesfield, of Chesterton Hall, esquires, 
 Edward and Francis Thornbery, two brothers, 
 and Edward Sprott, of Ashenbroke, gentlemen, 
 and William Myners, yeoman, besides others, 
 all prisoners for conscience sake, were met 
 together in a closed chamber in Stafford gaol,^ 
 attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at 
 which the venerable martyr, Robert Sutton, 
 was officiating, when the pursuivants or gaolers 
 rushed in and arrested them. They were all 
 tried, at the Stafford summer assizes in July, 
 1587, and condemned to death, — the martyr, as 
 we shall see, on account of his priesthood, and 
 the others for aiding and relieving him. Father 
 Sutton suffered at Stafford on the 27th of that 
 month ; but though the other prisoners were 
 likewise sentenced to death as felons, the judge, 
 seeing that popular feeling was strongly in their 
 favour, for most of them were highly esteemed 
 in the town, thought fit to reprieve them. 
 
 'Stafford gaol at this time, and down to the year 1700, 
 stood in the Broad Eye, near the site of the Wesleyan chapel.
 
 6 SL Thomas's Prioiy. 
 
 They were, nevertheless, detained in custody ; 
 and it is said that Mr, Maxfield, whose property 
 was forfeited, passed the remainder of his Hfe in 
 Stafford gaol. His wife was condemned with 
 him ; and their son Thomas, who is believed 
 to have been born in prison, subsequently 
 became a priest, and suffered martyrdom at 
 Tyburn in 1616. 
 
 Though the eldest son of Anthony Wolseley, 
 Esq., Erasmus would seem either to have been 
 disinherited or to have had his estate forfeited 
 in consequence of his recusancy ; for Wolseley 
 Hall passed to the Protestant descendants of a 
 younger brother of his father, to whom a 
 baronetcy was granted in 1628. This branch 
 happily returned to the Faith upon the conver- 
 sion of the late Sir Charles Wolseley in 1837. 
 Both Erasmus and his wife ^ endured many years' 
 imprisonment for the Faith in Stafford gaol. 
 This lady was Cassandra, daughter of Sir 
 Thomas (jiffard, of Chillington, Co. Stafford, by 
 Ursula, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, 
 of Coughton Court, Co. Warwick, and by her 
 Mr. Wolseley had two or three sons and two 
 
 ' Bridgewater, Cuticerhitiu, 1594.
 
 St. Thomas's Priory. 7 
 
 daughters, one of whom, Grizle, became the 
 wife of Ralph Fitzherbert, Esq. The children 
 appear to have shared the sufferings of their 
 parents. Two of the sons, John and Humphrey,^ 
 escaped to the Continent, and entered the 
 English College at Rheims. There the former 
 was ordained priest, but the latter proceeded to 
 the English College at Rome, where he died in 
 deacon's orders in 1589, aged twenty-three. 
 
 It is also stated^ that about the same period 
 Nicholas Thornes, a pursuivant of infamous 
 memory in Staffordshire, drove away at a time 
 hundreds of cattle belonging to Catholics, even 
 all that many possessed, and afterwards turned 
 the unfortunate owners with their families out 
 of their homes. Amonost those so wronged 
 were " Knolles, Widow Wade, George Cooke, 
 William Poker, John Coher, Timothy Browne, 
 Mr. Richard Fitzherbert, and many others ". 
 Elsewhere^ we find that William Knowles, of 
 Kidware, yeoman, a married man, a native of 
 the county, and a good Catholic, was committed 
 
 ^ Douay Diaries ; Foley, Records S.J., vi. 
 
 - Foley, ibid., iv. 492 ; Morris, Troubles, iii. 23. 
 
 ^ Foley, ibid., iii. 226.
 
 8 St Thomas's Priory. 
 
 on account of his religion to Stafford gaol, where, 
 In about a year's time, he died, and was buried 
 in 1587 at the Friary. Miss Joan Vyze,^ a very 
 virtuous lady, also died a prisoner in the same 
 gaol, after more than four years' imprisonment, 
 in 1589; and Mr. Edmund Vyze, of Stoke, 
 gentleman, of an ancient family seated at 
 Staundon, was apprehended at his residence, 
 committed to prison in Stafford, and after three 
 months died there in 1592. Alice Palin, a 
 devout Catholic, probably of Dearnsdale, near 
 Stafford, where the Palins maintained a chap- 
 lain at a later period, after two years' imprison- 
 ment died in this gaol, and was buried in the 
 Friary.'^ This was the usual burial place for 
 the Catholic prisoners, who were not permitted 
 to be interred in any churchyard in the town. 
 The document first cited speaks of many others 
 dying in Stafford gaol at this time : "In 
 Stafford imprisoned thirty, whereof six yet re- 
 
 ^ Foley, Records S.J., iii. 226-7. 
 
 -The Friary was that of the Franciscan, or Grey Friars, ex- 
 tending along the present Greyfriars Street from Browning 
 Street to beyond the houses built by the late Mr. John Sharp. 
 Within recent years many human remains have been disinterred 
 on its site.
 
 SL TJiomas's Priory. 9 
 
 main, the others for the most part dead ".^ But 
 of this enough has been said : — - 
 
 Some maried were, and some were maydes, 
 
 Their suffrance sundry wayes : 
 Their cause all one, their only King 
 
 Did all to glorie raise, 
 
 — Verstegan, Odes. 
 
 II. 
 
 Ingland, loke up, thie soyle ys steinde with bloode, 
 Thow hast made martyrs manie of thine owne, 
 
 Yf thow hadst grace, theire deathes wuld do thee good, 
 The seede wyll take wich yn such blood ys sowne. 
 
 — Blessed Campion's Epitaph. 1581.^ 
 
 The venerable martyr, Robert Sutton.^ to 
 whom we have already alluded, resided in 
 Stafford with a relative of Fr. John Gerard for 
 a considerable time, possibly from his first 
 coming to the English mission in 1578. He 
 probably acted as tutor in the family with which 
 he lived, and at the same time attended to the 
 spiritual wants of the town and neighbourhood, 
 besides secretly administering the comforts of 
 
 ^ Foley, Records S.J., iv. 493. 
 -Bodleian Lib., Rot. F., i, 2. 
 
 * Pollen, Acts of Eng. Martyrs, 323 ; Challoner, Memoirs, ed. 
 1741, i. 193 ; Foley, ibid., iii. 231 ; Dodd, CJi. Hist., ii. 94.
 
 lo SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 religion to the crowds of poor recusants who 
 were wearing away their lives in Stafford gaol. 
 His father is said to have been only a car- 
 penter atBurton-on-Trent; but if so he was able 
 to provide his sons with an excellent education. 
 Robert, the eldest, after studying humanities in 
 his native town, was sent in his fifteenth or 
 sixteenth year to Oxford, where he was ad- 
 mitted a scholar of Christ Church. In due 
 course he proceeded in arts, and obtained re- 
 pute as lecturer in logic, philosophy, Greek 
 and Hebrew. After remaining at the university 
 for eleven or twelve years he was rewarded 
 with the important rectory of Lutterworth, Co. 
 Leicester, formerly held by the heretical John 
 Wycliffe. There he spent six years, till, through 
 the mercy of God, he received grace to see the 
 falsity of his position, and strength to abandon 
 his benefice. His younger brother, Abraham,^ 
 was also beneficed in the Anglican Establish- 
 ment, and the two resolved to forsake their 
 worldly prospects to follow Christ by devoting 
 their lives to the reclamation of the scattered 
 sheep of His fold. Their conversion was in- 
 
 ' Bridgewater, Concertatio, ed. 1594.
 
 SL Thojiias's Priory. 1 1 
 
 strumentally brought about by the letters of 
 their younger brother WilHam, formerly of 
 Trinity College, Oxford, but then studying for 
 the priesthood at Douay College/ The latter 
 was ordained priest, and came to England in 
 July, 1577, and some three years later became 
 tutor to Sir Thomas Gerard's son John, the 
 renowned Jesuit. About 158 1, he was exiled, 
 and in the following year was admitted into the 
 Society at Paris, and eventually was drowned 
 on the coast of Spain in March, 1590. A. 
 fourth brother, John,- subsequently became a 
 lay-brother in the Society, and was first socitis 
 to Fr. John Gerard in London, and then for 
 many years lived with the venerable martyr 
 Henry Garnett, SJ., up to the time of his 
 arrest in 1606. 
 
 Under Fr. William Sutton's advice, the rector 
 of Lutterworth^ announced from the pulpit to 
 his assembled parishioners his intention to leave 
 them. Overcome with grief, he began by beg- 
 
 ^ Douay Diaries; Foley, Records S.J., vii. 750; Uodd, Cli. 
 Hist., ii. 137. 
 
 2 Morris, Condition of Catholics, Ixvi. ; Morris, Life of Fr. 
 John Gerard. 
 
 ^ Pollen, Acts, 323.
 
 12 SL Thomas's Prio7y. 
 
 ging pardon for having been so long not only 
 a blind sfuide, but one who had led them into 
 pitfalls and noxious errors. Then he declared 
 that there was no hope of salvation outside the 
 Church of Rome, and explained the reasons 
 thereof Finally he offered up a prayer for his 
 deluded people much to the following effect : — 
 
 God grant you grace still in your hearts 
 
 False doctrine to refrain, 
 And hold the true Catholic Faith 
 
 Which Christ did once ordain. 
 
 — Ven. John Thules' Song. 1616.^ 
 
 Upon the conclusion of his pathetic address 
 he quickly descended the pulpit stairs, threw 
 off his gown, and, being otherwise ready booted 
 and girt for a journey, joined his brother Abra- 
 ham, who by arrangement had come to him. 
 Without delay the two brothers mounted their 
 horses, which a trusty servant held in waiting 
 outside the churchyard, and rode in hot haste 
 to London, whence they set sail at once for 
 Flanders. 
 
 The two brothers arrived at Douay College 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 15,225. 
 - Douay Diaries. 
 
 2
 
 67. Thomas s Priory. i 
 
 o 
 
 23rd March, 1577, and were admitted to the 
 community on the following day. There they 
 applied themselves to the study of divinity ; 
 were ordained 23rd February, 1578 ; celebrated 
 Mass for the first time on 7th March ; set out 
 together for England on 19th March ; and 
 proceeded to the mission in their native 
 county. About seven years later both fell 
 into the hands of the persecutors, and were 
 banished the realm, with a number of other 
 priests, in 1585. Fr. Abraham was betrayed 
 by the notorious Bess of Hardwick, then wife 
 of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. ^ Not- 
 withstanding, both returned to the scene of 
 their apostolic labours, — the elder to Stafford, 
 and . the younger perhaps to Padley Hall, 
 Co. Derby, for he was certainly at one time 
 tutor to two of the young Fitzherberts. 
 Fr. Abraham lived till the time of James I., 
 and was one of the forty-seven priests who, 
 being confined in various prisons in the begin- 
 ning of that reign, were sent into perpetual 
 banishment.^ 
 
 ^ Morris, Troubles, iii. 26. 
 
 - Challoner, Memoirs, ed. 1742, ii. 14.
 
 14 SL Thomas s Prior-y. 
 
 Wee that are heere in banishment 
 
 Continuallie doe moane, 
 Wee sighe and sobbe, wee weepe and waile, 
 
 Perpetually wee groane. 
 —The, Exile's Song, by F. B., Priest. About 1615.1 
 
 This was in 1606; but Fr. Abraham's zeal 
 for the salvation of souls daily increased in 
 intensity, and would not permit him to stand 
 idly groaning, so that the following year saw 
 him once more braving the dangers of the 
 English mission ; and from this time the 
 apostolic man is lost to sight.^ 
 
 Fr. Robert, whose zeal and piety were un- 
 surpassed, was markedly successful in reclaiming 
 his deluded countrymen from the snares of 
 the new-fangled doctrines. In his care for 
 the faithful he was undaunted by the terrors 
 of the penal laws, and even ventured into the 
 very prison itself to minister to the suffering 
 recusants. At length, apprehended as we have 
 seen in Stafford gaol, he was straightway 
 dragged before Sir Walter Aston, a justice of 
 the peace, and a virulent persecutor, who, in 
 the words of the manuscript relation, ^ " writ his 
 
 1 Brit. Mas. Add. MSS., 15,225. 
 
 2 Dodd, Ch. Hist., ii. 386. 
 
 a Foley, Records S.J., iii. 231.
 
 SL Thomas's P^'iory. 15 
 
 examination as pleased himself, and when he 
 read it to the said Mr. Robert, he utterly- 
 denied it to be his confession ". Thereupon 
 the irate knight uplifted his staff, felled the 
 helpless priest to the ground, and forthwith 
 committed him to gaol. This happened in 
 July ; and the summer assizes being at hand, 
 the holy martyr's detention previous to his ap- 
 pearance at the bar was of but short duration. 
 Meanwhile, he was visited in his cell by 
 William Overton, the Protestant Bishop of Lich- 
 field, who " came hither, and disputed with 
 him of many things, but of what matters I 
 cannot learn," says the contemporary narrator, 
 "but in the end, by every man's saying, he put 
 the bishop to silence ". The valiant confessor 
 was then arraigned at the bar, and with him 
 the prisoners previously cited who were found 
 in the chamber at the time of his apprehension. 
 The verdict of the jury was " Guilty " in each 
 case — the martyr of high treason, on account 
 of his priesthood, and the others of felony, "for 
 aiding and relieving him," that is for being 
 present at his xMass. Sir Walter Aston was 
 vehernent in denunciation of the priest, and
 
 1 6 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 protested that if his evidence was ineffective 
 he would never more sit on the bench. Neither 
 did he, tradition says ; the wretched perse- 
 cutor was soon afterwards seized with sickness, 
 and was buried on May-day, 1589. All the 
 prisoners were condemned to death ; but the 
 gentlemen, as we have already seen, escaped 
 the extreme penalty ; for, in the words of the 
 manuscript relation,^ " the judge, seeing the 
 people flock about them much lamenting for 
 them (for they were well-beloved in the town), 
 was moved to some compassion, and so re- 
 prieved them." 
 
 Many, too, were the lamentations that so 
 learned a man as Fr. Sutton should suffer ; but 
 in his case no mercy could be shown unless he 
 would renounce the authority by which he re- 
 ceived his sacred orders, to which, like a fellow- 
 martyr, he could only reply : — 
 
 Yet that shall never fayle 
 
 Which my faith bare in hande; * 
 
 I gave my vow ; my vow gave me ; 
 
 Both vow and gift shall stande. 
 
 — Ven. Robert Southwell. 1595. 
 
 ^ Foley, Records S.J., iii. 232.
 
 SL Thovias s Priory. 17 
 
 " In the night preceding his passion," writes 
 Fr. Gerard, an intimate acquaintance of the 
 martyr,^ " he was heard by some Catholic 
 prisoners in conversation with others ; but 
 they, knowing that he was in strict solitary 
 confinement, and fearing lest some attempt 
 might be made against him secretly, descended 
 to the door of his cell and found it securely 
 shut ; but looking through a window, they saw 
 him enveloped in light and praying. Next 
 morning the Catholics waited at the door of 
 the prison to see the martyr go forth, and to 
 commend themselves to his prayers ; on seeing 
 them the ofood father commended himself to 
 theirs, that God would be pleased to grant him 
 constancy and perseverance to the end, ' from 
 Whom,' he said, ' I have this night received 
 greater consolation than I deserved.'" This 
 account is corroborated by another contempor- 
 ary writer," who says: "Truly the prisoners 
 there do assure themselves he had some special 
 comfort in prison the night before he suffered ; 
 for in the morning, being ready to go towards 
 execution, he turned him towards his fellow- 
 
 ' Pollen, Acts^ 325. ^ Foley, Records S.J., iii. 231. 
 
 2
 
 1 8 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 prisoners, giving them his blessing, then said 
 these words : ' God comfort you all, for I am 
 comforted ; ' and so went most cheerfully and 
 boldly towards the end ". 
 
 The same writer continues : "When he came 
 to the place he desired he might speak, but they 
 would not permit him. Then he took his hand- 
 kerchief out of his pocket, lapped it together, 
 made a fine discourse of the candle we receive 
 in baptism and in the hour of death ; and in 
 remembrance of what he said, he held up the 
 handkerchief in token he lived and died in the 
 light of the Catholic faith. He was put off the 
 ladder and cut down very lively, for he stood 
 upon his feet, was taken by great violence, dis- 
 membered, spoke these words : ' O thou bloody 
 butcher ! God forgive thee ! ' So, calling upon 
 Jesus and Mary, he gave up his spirit." 
 
 Such is the graphic account handed clown to 
 us of the sufferings of this holy martyr. The 
 horrible tragedy was performed at the ordinary 
 place of execution just outside Stafford, to which 
 he was drawn on a hurdle in the customary 
 manner, on 27th July, the feast of the martyr- 
 dom of the Seven Sleepers, 1587. After the
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 19 
 
 lapse of a year, the Catholics, longing to possess 
 relics of the holy martyr's body, one night 
 carried off from one of the oates of the town 
 a shoulder and arm, the thumb from which is 
 now preserved at Stonyhurst College. 
 
 My skaffold was the bedd where ease I founde, 
 The blocke a pillowe of eternall reste ; 
 
 My hedman cast me in a blisfull swounde, 
 
 His axe cutt off my cares from combred breste. 
 
 — Vcn. Robt. Southwell. 1596. 
 
 III. 
 
 O God above, relent, 
 
 And listen to our cry : 
 O Christ, our woes prevent. 
 Let not Thy children die. 
 — Song of the Death of Ven.John Thules. i6i6.j 
 
 A generation has passed before we again 
 catch a glimpse of missionary work in Stafford. 
 The darkness meanwhile has become more in- 
 tense ; scenes of blood throughout the land are 
 witnessed with ever-increasing rapidity during 
 the long reign of the modern Jezebel ; and the 
 respite which was looked for under her more 
 humane successor has been delayed. It is now 
 
 1 Brit. Mas. Add. MSS., 15,225.
 
 20 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 that we meet with another martyr closely as- 
 sociated with the local mission — the last to suffer 
 on the scaffold in the reign of James I. — the 
 Venerable William Southerne.^ 
 
 This zealous missioner was born within the 
 limits of the old diocese of Lindisfarne, and was 
 probably a son of Thomas Southerne, whose 
 daughter Isabel married George Killingworth, 
 Esq., of Killingworth, near Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne. It is also likely that he was a near 
 relative to Mr, Southerne, the merchant of 
 Newcastle, whose daughter and co-heiress, 
 Eleanor, became the wife of Thomas Forster, 
 of Durham, gent., in the first quarter of the 
 seventeenth century. On 15th December, 
 1 569, Fr. Southerne was admitted into the 
 English College at Valladolid,"^ whence after 
 some time he was sent to the English College 
 at Seville, where he was ordained priest. 
 He then returned to St. Alban's, Valladolid, 
 and thence came to the English mission. 
 
 So to his native soil, upon command he came, 
 Of only love to save the souls that fell from virtue's frame. 
 
 — Bricj of the Life of Cmnpiun. 1581. 
 
 ' Challoner, Memoirs, ed. 1742, ii. 118. 
 - Valliuiulid Diary, MS.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 21 
 
 His first labours appear to have been in his 
 native county of Northumberland, where he was 
 reported in 1606 as saying Mass at Halton 
 Tower, the seat of Lancelot Carnaby, Esq. 
 Again, some half-dozen years later, his name 
 occurs in connection with missionary work in 
 the same county/ Most probably the perse- 
 cutions ragino- in the north at this time necessi- 
 tated his withdrawal to a county where he was 
 unknown ; for we next hear of him as convert- 
 ing and assisting the poor at Baswich, an estate 
 belonging to the Fowlers, and adjoining their 
 residence of St. Thomas's Priory. There he was 
 seized at the altar, and hurried away in his vest- 
 ments to a neighbouring justice of the peace, 
 who committed him to Stafford oaol. A con- 
 temporary document," entitled "An Account of 
 the Present State of Persecution " dated London, 
 15th November, 161 8, gives the following char- 
 acter of the roving pursuivant, a servant of the 
 governor of York, Lord Sheffield, who was in- 
 strumental to Fr. Southerne's martyrdom : — 
 
 " This Dales is notorious, on account of two 
 
 ' Foley, Records S.J., iii. S, 115, iig, 120. 
 -Foley, ibid., iii. 120.
 
 22 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 or three murders he committed, and for his 
 brutal and immodest conduct towards a lady, 
 whom he both struck with his cudgel and loaded 
 with abusive epithets, and then robbed her of 
 her shoes, stockings, and under-dress, declaring- 
 that they were the dress of some priest; he also 
 carried off her towels, table-cloths, etc., pretend- 
 ing that they belonged to the altar ; and he has 
 already carried off property of this description 
 to the value of thirty crowns. Gentlemen he 
 commits to prison as priests ; of the priests he 
 will sometimes take forty crowns for ransom 
 money. He examines all the public streets in 
 the towns, the roads in the country, and the 
 inns ; carrying off everything he can lay hold 
 upon, and committing to prison with all fury." 
 
 Such is a fair sample of the miscreants de- 
 signedly selected and employed to stamp out 
 the Faith of our fathers. 
 
 Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe, 
 But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe. 
 
 — Dry den, Religio Laid. 
 
 ¥r. Southerne's apprehension happened at 
 the beginning of the Stafford assizes, so he 
 was immediately placed at the bar, convicted,
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 23 
 
 and condemned to death for being a priest, 
 having refused the proffered oath of allegiance, 
 to take which would have been an act of apos- 
 tasy. Upon the sentence of death being pro- 
 nounced, the holy martyr fell upon his knees, 
 and gave hearty thanks to God for the great 
 privilege he was to have of dying for the Faith. 
 He was then removed to a dark and loathsome 
 dungeon, where he lay for six days, owing to 
 the difficulty experienced by the authorities in 
 finding any one to perform the odious office of 
 executioner. Eventually he was conveyed to 
 Newcastle-under-Lyme, and there on 30th April, 
 1 6 18, was strangled and butchered alive accord- 
 ing to the barbarous custom of the times. His 
 four quarters were distributed in various places, 
 and his head was sent back to Stafford, where 
 it was fixed upon a spear over one of the gates 
 of the town in terroreni. 
 
 The bloody axe his body fair 
 
 Into four partis cut; 
 And every part, and eke his head, 
 
 Upon a pole was put. 
 
 — Chatterton, Bristow Tragedy.
 
 24 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Church shone brightly in her youthful days, 
 
 Ere the world on her smiled ; 
 So now, an outcast, she would pour her rays, 
 
 Keen, free, and undefiled : 
 Yet would I not that arm of force were mine, 
 
 Which thrusts her from her awful ancient shrine. 
 
 — Cardinal Newman 
 
 The church at Baswich, or Berkswich, two- 
 miles south-east of Stafford, belonged to the 
 Austin Priory of St. Thomas, which, some little 
 time after the dissolution of religious houses, on 
 13th October, 1539, was granted to Rowland 
 Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,^ one of 
 Henry VII I. 's most active agents in the sup- 
 pression of monasteries and in the spoiler's pre- 
 tended divorce, though Burnet " indeed asserts 
 that "he did afterwards turn over to the popish 
 party". Lee died 24th or 27th January, 1543, 
 having divided the St. Thomas estates among 
 his four surviving nephews, sons of his sister 
 Isabel and her husband, Roger Fowler, of 
 Broomhill, in Norfolk, descended from an 
 
 ' Dugdale, Monasticon Avglicanum, ed. 1846, vi. 471. — 
 Fowler pedigree. 
 
 "Hist, of Reformation, ed. 1849, i. pt. i. 255, pt. ii. 430.
 
 SL T/iomas's Priory. 25 
 
 ancient Buckinghamshire family. This good 
 couple having died early, the bishop had taken 
 charge of their five sons and three daughters, 
 the latter of whom he gave in marriage. The 
 Priory fell to the share of the second son, Bryan, 
 who married Jane, daughter and heiress of John 
 Hanmer, of Bettsfield, Co. Flint, and like- 
 wise became possessed of that estate. The 
 Fowlers were staunch supporters of the ancient 
 Faith, and maintained chaplaincies atSt.Thomas's 
 and Bettsfield throughout the days of perse- 
 cution. There can be little doubt that the 
 venerable martyr, William Southerne, was sup- 
 ported by them, if, indeed, he did not actually 
 reside at St. Thomas's. With this chaplaincy 
 the Stafford mission is inseparably associated, 
 and derives its immediate descent. Soon after 
 Father Southerne's martyrdom, we incidentally 
 meet with the name of another priest, who 
 would appear to be attending to the spiritual 
 wants of the neighbourhood. In 1620 the Rev. 
 Mr. Fisher is found reconciling to the Church a 
 gentleman in Stafford.^ It is probable that he 
 lived with the Fowlers, and is identical with 
 
 ' Foley, Records S.J., 423.
 
 2 6 S^. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 the Rev. Thomas Fisher, alias Ashton, an elder 
 brother of the eminent president of Douay 
 College, the Rev. George Fisher, alias Mus- 
 kett.^ They were younger sons of Thomas 
 Fisher, of Barton-Segrave, Co. Northampton, 
 and subsequently of Stilton, Co. Hunts, by 
 Magdalene Ashton, a lady of high family, 
 supposed to have been connected with one of 
 the ancient Lancashire families of that name. 
 After studying humanities for some years at 
 Stilton, the two brothers, born respectively 
 about 1580 and 1582, went to Wisbeach Castle, 
 where the imprisoned priests secretly kept a 
 sort of college, and instructed a number of 
 youths, who, under the guise of servitors, were 
 permitted to reside in the prison. Several of 
 these eventually became priests. The two 
 Fishers appear in a list" of boys in nominal 
 attendance upon the priests, drawn up in Jan 
 uary, 1 595- 1 596. The Rev. Christopher Thules, 
 alias Ashton, and the Rev. Christopher South- 
 worth were confined at Wisbeach at this time, 
 and both were related to the Lancashire 
 
 '^ Douay Diaries; Foley, Records S.J., iv. vi. ; Gillow, Bib. 
 Diet., iv. - Morris, Troubles, ii.
 
 Si. Thomas s Priory. 27 
 
 Ashtons, the latter being also connected in- 
 directly with a family named Fisher. It is 
 therefore not improbable that the two boys 
 were allied to them. Dr. Lee, the Anglican 
 Vicar of All Saints', Lambeth, in his "Church 
 under Queen Elizabeth," ^ gives an interesting 
 account of the experiences of the two youths 
 during their life at Wisbeach. It is slighdy 
 misleading, however, as regards the social posi- 
 tion of their parents, and also is difficult to 
 reconcile with the statement of their elder 
 brother Richard, which implies that it was the 
 youngest brother George who first went to 
 Douay. 
 
 "They had been admitted to the Castle," 
 writes Dr. Lee, " to attend upon the prisoners 
 as servitors. Naturally clever and observant, 
 by degrees they each became greatly in- 
 fluenced by what they heard and saw. The 
 old religion, as so many persons quietly and 
 privately maintained, was a strong and remark- 
 able contrast to the new ; and though these 
 youths had been brought up under the latter, 
 in no long time they became sincerely attached 
 
 Mi. 77.
 
 28 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 to the former ; and, at their own request, were 
 carefully instructed in its tenets and duties. 
 This being reported to the governor [of Wis- 
 beach], offended him greatly, who, on a certain 
 day when a sermon was to be preached in the 
 parish church ' by a painful and weighty 
 minister,' commanded them both, as a test, to 
 be present at its delivery. But, in respectful 
 language, they asked to be excused. They 
 would rather not go. They had recendy 
 learned what the religion of their fathers was, 
 and, if they might be allowed to make choice, 
 they preferred it to that now set up. The 
 governor now became furious. Was ever 
 such insolence and heresy known : and from two 
 boyish knaves ! As a punishment they were 
 stripped to the waist, and publicly flogged in 
 the market place in the presence of a large 
 concourse of people, and then put in irons. 
 Being subsequently set free, the eldest escaped 
 abroad, and became a student at the college at 
 Douay. But the younger, on a certain occa- 
 sion, was found serving one of the old priests 
 at Mass, and was imprisoned in company with 
 some of the worst and most depraved criminals.
 
 kS/. Thomases Priory. 29 
 
 At length he was brought to trial, accused of 
 being an ignorant recusant, and upbraided by 
 the magistrates for being so foolish, and for 
 bringing so much misery upon himself and his 
 parents. 
 
 " ' It is true that I am very ignorant about 
 many things,' he replied ; ' but of this one 
 thing I am quite certain, notwithstanding my 
 ignorance, that the Catholic Faith is the only 
 faith for salvation, and that it is a deal older, 
 by many centuries, than your new religion.' 
 
 '" How can you, an ignorant boy, know which 
 is the oldest religion, or anything about it ^ ' 
 asked the magistrate. 
 
 " ' Why, in this way, sir,' the youth replied ; 
 ' your own chroniclers, your own ministers, 
 admit as much. Holinshead, who must have 
 known, says so.' 
 
 " The maoistrate denied that the writer in 
 question had admitted anything of the sort. 
 ' You lie, sirrah ! ' 
 
 " Upon this the youth triumphantly drew out 
 from his breast pocket a single leaf of the 
 ' Chronicles ' of Holinshead, and presented it 
 to the official.
 
 30 S^. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 " It contained a description of the coming 
 hither of St. Augustine, with litanies, CathoHc 
 prayers, silver cross, and pictured banner, and 
 had been given to him by one of the prisoners 
 at Wisbeach, as evidence of the antiquity of 
 the old religion, — a leaf which might be 
 judiciously produced when it was required. 
 The youth himself, being poor and unable to 
 pay fines, appears to have been dismissed with 
 a warning." 
 
 George Fisher would seem to have escaped 
 to Douay early in I5g6. The elder brother, 
 Richard, previously referred to, who was study- 
 ing for the law in London, came down to 
 Wisbeach to visit his brother Thomas in the 
 Castle at Easter, 1596, and was converted to 
 the Faith by one of the imprisoned priests, the 
 Rev. John Greene. He was then persuaded 
 to accompany his brother abroad ; and, eventu- 
 ally, in 1 599, obtained admittance into the 
 Knglish College at Rome, upon entering which 
 he made the long statement, already mentioned, 
 in reference to his brothers' and his own con- 
 version. On account of ill-heallh, he was 
 unable to persevere in his studies for the
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 31 
 
 Church in the Eternal City ; and on 30th May, 
 1600, he left the college for Belgium, from 
 which period we lose sight of him. His brother 
 Thomas joined George at Douay College, and 
 thence proceeded to Rome, where he was ad- 
 mitted into the English College, 21st October, 
 1598. There he received minor orders; but 
 the climate disagrreeino- with him, as it had done 
 with his brother, he departed on i6th October, 
 1602, for Flanders, and, returning to Douay, 
 was ordained priest in 1603. In the following 
 year he came to the English mission ; but when 
 he first came to Stafford, if we are right in 
 identifying him with the Mr. Fisher who was 
 here in 1620, it is impossible to say. Parson 
 Gee, who pretended to be a convert in 1623 in 
 order to gain information about Catholics and 
 their affairs, and then published it in his " Foot 
 out of the Snare," in 1624, includes " Ashton, 
 alias Fisher, M. Muskett's brother," in his list 
 of priests residing in and about London in the 
 former year. Hence it is probable that he 
 removed from the Priory shortly after the death 
 of Walter Fowler, Esq., in 1622. But as this 
 is all we can gather of the chaplains at the
 
 32 
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Priory down to this date, we must turn for a 
 moment to a glimpse which we catch about 
 this time of another chaplaincy to which the 
 Catholics of Stafford had been long indebted. 
 
 Tempora inutantur, et nos mutainur in ilhs. 
 
 Henry Stafford, son of the attainted Duke 
 of Buckingham, was restored in blood, sum- 
 moned to Parliament as a baron, and died in 
 1562. Both he and his son and successor, 
 Edward, appear to have retained the Faith; but 
 it is the grandson Edward, the third baron of 
 the new creation, whom we meet with during 
 this dark period as a protector of religion and 
 provider of a pastor for the afflicted Catholics 
 of Stafford. This nobleman, in 1595, married 
 Isabel, daughter of Thomas Forster, of Tonge 
 Castle, Co. Salop.^ Hitherto the Staffords had 
 married into none but the noblest houses, and 
 indeed were allied to royalty. Hence the 
 marriage was regarded as a indsalliance, and a 
 calumnious report was issued that the lady had 
 been chambermaid to his lordship's mother. 
 
 ' Gillow, Bib. Did., ii. 3^4 ; Burke, Extinct Peerage.
 
 SL Thomas s Priory. 2)Z 
 
 Now in reality the marriage reflected honour 
 on the Stafford family. The lady's parents 
 were both of ancient lineage, but reduced to 
 great straits by persecution, on account of 
 their faith. The mother was the daughter of 
 Humphrey Vyze, Esq., of Staunton, Co. Staf- 
 ford, members of whose family we have seen 
 dying confessors of the faith in Stafford gaol. 
 She also was apprehended for recusancy, and 
 committed to Shrewsbury gaol, where she was 
 manacled and grossly treated by the inhuman 
 keeper, till her glorious death as a confessor, 
 July 15, 1590. During her mother's imprison- 
 ment, Isabel Forster was compassionately taken 
 into the household of Lady Stafford, Mary, 
 daughter of Edward, Earl of Derby, and wife 
 of the second Baron Stafford ; and it was thus 
 that her marriage came about with the third 
 Lord Stafford. The young baroness had a 
 brother, then a secular priest, but afterwards 
 a Benedictine, who came to reside at Stafford 
 Castle, and attended to the wants of the Catholics 
 in the town. His name is the only one pre- 
 served of the successive chaplains at the Castle, 
 from the change of religion upon the accession 
 
 3
 
 34 •S^. TJiomas's Pj'ioiy. 
 
 of Elizabeth till its capture and dismantlement 
 during the civil wars, about 1643-4. 
 
 Francis Forster/ Lady Stafford's brother, was 
 admitted into the English College at Rheims, 
 with Lawrence Stafford and others, October 7, 
 1590. Thence he was sent to the English 
 College at Rome, where he arrived February 
 21, 1592, and took the gown on the following 
 day, being then twenty years of age. In 1597, 
 he returned to his former College, which mean- 
 while had been transferred back to Douay. 
 There he completed his theology, was ordained 
 priest, and in 1598 came to the English mission. 
 After some time he was apprehended and 
 thrown into Newgate, and was one of the forty- 
 seven priests banished the realm in 1606, 
 Notwithstanding, he soon ventured again into 
 England, joined the Benedictines, and was 
 professed on the mission. It is recorded that 
 he was imprisoned many times, and possibly he 
 was banished more than once. Ultimately he 
 settled at Stafford Castle, where he resided 
 during the minority of his sister's grandson, 
 Henry, fourth Baron Stafford, and died June 4, 
 
 ^ Dolan, Weldon's Chron. Notes.
 
 Si. Thomas's Priory. 35 
 
 1 63 1 , aged fifty-eight. H is earthly resting-place 
 is probably in the Castle churchyard, with — 
 
 No name to bid us know 
 
 Who rests below, 
 No word of death or birth, — 
 
 Only the grass's wave, 
 Over a mound of earth, 
 
 Over a nameless grave. 
 
 — Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 He was an admirable missioner, says Dom 
 Bennet Weldon, who adds that he was "par- 
 ticularly addicted to deeds of charity, both 
 spiritual and corporal, in which he gave away 
 all that he had ". 
 
 There is no record of any successor to Fr. 
 Forster at the Castle. It is very improbable 
 that the Stafford chaplaincy was maintained 
 later than the demolition of the Castle by the 
 Parliamentarians in 1644. Mr. Arthur Clifford 
 states in the " History of Tixall " (p. 265) that 
 Viscount Stafford, who fell a martyr to the 
 Gates Plot, in 1680, resided at the Castle. No 
 doubt he did so before its destruction ; but it 
 was given in evidence at his trial that in 1678 
 he was only staying at Stafford in the house 
 of Mr. Thomas Abnett, who was possibly his 
 steward.
 
 36 SL TJioinas's Priory. 
 
 Having now exhausted the Httle information 
 we possess about the mission at Stafford Castle, 
 we must return to that at the Priory, of St, 
 Thomas. 
 
 And though I dy, succession wil supply, 
 Undying truthe unto posteritie. 
 
 — Verstegati, Odes. 
 
 V. 
 
 Never more, when the day is o'er, 
 
 Will the lonely vespers sound ; 
 No bells are ringing — no monks are singing, 
 
 When the moonlight falls around. 
 
 — L. E, Landon. 
 
 We have already referred to the dissolution 
 and grant of the ancient Priory of St. Thomas- 
 the-Martyr, and briefly sketched its subsequent 
 history. A portion was adapted to domestic 
 use, and the remainder of the buildings were 
 converted into stables, barns, and out-houses. 
 It was situated in a sweet sequestered valley, 
 watered by the river Sow, under a woody 
 height which sheltered it from the north and 
 east. Above this wood, say the historians of 
 Tixall,' was formerly a tract of ground, sur- 
 
 ' Clifford, Parish of Tixull, p. 40.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 37 
 
 rounded by a paling, called St. Thomas's Park, 
 which was bounded on the north and east by 
 Tixall parish. 
 
 Though the Priory has been demolished, and 
 a farm-house occupies its site, there are yet 
 remains sufficient to interest and repay an 
 antiquary's visit. 
 
 Walter Fowler, Esq., son of Bryan, the 
 inheritor of the Priory, married Mary, daughter 
 of Ralph Sheldon, Esq., of Beoley, Co. Wor- 
 cester, and resided alternately at Bettsfield, in 
 Flint, which he inherited from his mother, and 
 at his paternal estate of St. Thomas's, His son 
 Edward, born at Bettsfield, went in 1603, at 
 the age of nineteen, to the English College at 
 Rome, where he adopted the alias of Blake, but 
 returned home in the following year, on account 
 of the death of an elder brother. ^ Another 
 son, William, - also born at Bettsfield, was 
 admitted into the English College at Valladolid 
 1 6th November, 1609, aged eighteen, and 
 assumed the name of Stapleton. He took the 
 College oath to serve the secular mission, but 
 
 ' Fowler pedigree ; Foley, Records S. J., vi. 
 
 - Valladolid Diary, MS. ; Palmer, Obit. Notices, O.P.
 
 38 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 after a time obtained leave to enter a Dominican 
 convent, and was professed in that order, and 
 . subsequently ^took^ the , degree of S. Th. Mag. 
 When at length Cardinal Howard, nephew 
 of Viscount Stafford, purchased Bornhem, in 
 Flanders, and enabled the English Congrega- 
 tion of Friar Preachers to establish a convent 
 of their own in 1658, Fr. Fowler contributed 
 largely towards its foundation. As far as can 
 be ascertained, his missionary labours were 
 confined to St. Thomas's, with occasional service, 
 perhaps, at Bettsfield, so that possibly he suc- 
 ceeded Mr. Fisher some time after 1620, and 
 served the mission at the Priory till his death, 
 24th May, ,662. His father died in 1621; 
 and his nephew, Walter, who married Con- 
 stantia, youngest daughter of Walter, first 
 Lord Aston, of Tixall, had his estates seques- 
 trated by the Parliamentarians, but lived to 
 see the Restoration, and died in 1 684. The 
 brief record of F'r. Prowler's life is, that he 
 lived, died, and was buried among his relations, 
 the P"()wlers of St. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 So earth to earth, and dust to dust — 
 And though my bones decay,
 
 St. Thomas'' s Priory. 39 
 
 My soul shall sing among the just, 
 Until the judgment day. 
 
 — R. S. Hawker. 
 
 There was another priest, however, of whom 
 we catch a glimpse as serving the mission at the 
 Priory during some portion of this period. The 
 civil war brought great trouble to the Fowlers, 
 in common with all Catholic families. On 
 account of his recusancy Walter Fowler's estate 
 was sequestrated ; and under the Rump Act 
 of 15th July, 1 65 1, was purchased by Robert 
 Ducy and Thomas Rogers, for .which Mr. 
 Fowler compounded in a very large sum.^ 
 
 The deplorable state to which the nation was 
 reduced is thus aptly described in a humorous 
 portraiture of the Puritans in a broadside circu- 
 lated at this period : — 
 
 There dwells a people on the earth 
 That reckons true religion treason, 
 That makes sad war an holy mirth. 
 Count madness zeal and nonsense reason ; 
 That think no freedom but in slavery. 
 That makes lyes truth, religion knavery; 
 That rob and cheat with " yea and nay " ; 
 Riddle me, riddle me, who are they ? 
 
 On 5th June, 1651, two priests travelling in 
 
 1 Dring, Catalogue of Compositions, 1655.
 
 40 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Yorkshire were apprehended at Malton,^ and 
 taken to York Castle. One of them answered 
 to the name of Thomas Fowler, but ultimately 
 acknowledged himself to be Fr. John Robinson, 
 a Jesuit ; the other called himself John Man- 
 nering, otherwise Gravenor. The Jesuit was 
 convicted of being a seminary priest, and con- 
 demned to death at the Yorkshire assizes in 
 March, 165 1-2, but was reprieved at the last 
 moment. Of the fate of his colleague, whom 
 he had accidentally met on the road, we are left 
 in the dark. If our identification be correct, 
 he must have been a man well in years, over 
 threescore and ten ; and, as we do not trace 
 him further, it is not improbable that he was 
 detained in prison, and there spent his few 
 remaining days, like so many other priests at 
 this period. The following is his deposition, 
 taken upon his examination : — 
 
 " John Mannering saith that he is sometimes 
 called by the name of John Gravenor, his 
 mother being of that name. Was born near 
 Stafford town, at a place called Hampton. 
 Was bred a Catholic. Served one Mr. Fowler, 
 
 ^ Kaine, York Casth Depositions.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 41 
 
 in the county, of the same profession, and since 
 hath Hved with Mrs. Meynell, of Kilvington, 
 and did teach her children. He met with John 
 Robinson at Wetherby, and stayed with him 
 until he did eat meat, and did not know of his 
 coming. They met on this day se'nnight, and 
 did part with him at Ripon, and met again 
 upon Monday at Osmotherley. He doth now 
 belong to Mr. Thomas Watterton, of Walton, 
 and doth teach his children. He was arraig^ned 
 for the death of Robert Cooper, the last Lam- 
 mas assizes, and was acquit. Denieth that he 
 was in arms against the Parliament. He was 
 going yesterday, when he was taken at Malton, 
 to Farburne, hard by Brotherton, and saith that 
 John Robinson was going to Beverley, as he 
 told this examinant, and the said Robinson did 
 undertake to know the way." 
 
 It seems probable that this priest is identical 
 with John Gravenor who was admitted as a 
 student into St. Alban's College, Valladolid, 
 1 8th October, 1602, and shortly afterwards on 
 account of ill-health was sent to Douay Col- 
 lege.^ At the latter he was ordained priest in 
 
 1 Valladolid Diary, MS. ; Douay Diaries.
 
 42 SL TJiomas's Priory. 
 
 1606, and thence in the same year came to the 
 English mission. A branch of the Gravenors, 
 or Grosvenors, ancestors of the Dukes of West- 
 minster, resided at Bellaport, Co. Salop, and 
 several times intermarried with the Mainwar- 
 ings, of Ightfield, in the same county, and of 
 Peover, Co. Chester. William Grosvenor, of 
 Bellaport, married Cecilia, daughter of Richard 
 Mainwaring, of Ightfield, and possibly was 
 father of the priest. Another branch of the 
 Grosvenors was settled at Bushbury, Co. 
 Stafford, one of whom, Henry Grosvenor, 
 married, in the reign of Elizabeth, Alice, 
 daughter of Robert Whitgreave, of Burton 
 Manor. It is difficult from John Grosvenor's 
 deposition to assign the date of his residence 
 at St. Thomas's Priory ; but judging from the 
 ages of the children of Mrs. Meynell and Mr. 
 Waterton we may conclude that his removal to 
 Yorkshire was during the civil wars. 
 
 Before proceeding with the history of the 
 chaplaincy at the Priory we must not omit to 
 say a word about the very eminent Catholic 
 writer, John Austin, who is commemorated on 
 one of the Fowler tablets in Baswich Church.^ 
 
 ' Gillow, Bib. Diet., i. 87.
 
 S/. Tli07nas's Priory. 43 
 
 He was a student at St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, and some time after his conversion, about 
 1640, became tutor in the family of Walter 
 Fowler, with whom he resided for some time. 
 It was probably at the Priory that some of 
 Austin's works were written before his with- 
 drawal to London, where he died in 1 669. Such 
 was the esteem in which he was held by Mr. 
 Fowler, that when that gentleman died at 
 London, in 1681, he was buried by his own 
 desire at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, "near his 
 vertuous and devout friend Mr. John Austen ". 
 
 Here lies a man by all good men esteemed. 
 Because they proved him really what he seemed. 
 Faith, hope, and resignation filled his breast, 
 Good ground we therefore have to think he's blest. 
 
 —Old Epitaph. 
 
 The Rev. John Sergeant, in his Epistle 
 Dedicatory to the 1672 edition of Austin's 
 "Devotions", gives the author the following 
 character: "He was a sfentleman so far from 
 retirement that his chamber was generally open 
 to multitudes, who either lov'd his friendly 
 affability, or needed his useful advice or char-
 
 44 S/. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 itable assistance. His conversation and outward 
 behaviour were exceeding cheerful and pleasant. 
 He appear'd severe in nothing but sincere 
 honesty, in nothing singular but perfect in- 
 nocence consistent with so much freedom. The 
 ereat business of his life that concern'd Heaven 
 was transacted in the inmost recess of his soul, 
 and never disclos'd itself without reluctancy and 
 constraint. He was a traveller, and brought 
 home from forreisfn countries all that could con- 
 duce to a manly becomingness and wise carriage, 
 leaving the extravagancies and follies where he 
 found them. He was well skill'd in the best 
 of our European languages, and an absolute 
 master of our own. He comprehended also to 
 a very great degree of excellency, law, mathe- 
 maticks, philosophy, but he penetrated thoroughly 
 all the solid and useful parts of divinity, which 
 comfort faith and advance charity. . . . Thus, 
 having fitted his soul by a well-spent life for a 
 happy death, he sweeten'd a tedious sicknes 
 with a perpetual exercise of Divine Love." 
 He, indeed, was a living illustration of his own 
 paraphrase of Martial's saying, non est vivere, 
 sed valere vita —
 
 SL TJiomas's Priory. 45 
 
 Time is well bestow'd on those 
 
 Who well their time bestow, 
 Whose main concern still forward goes, 
 
 Whose hopes still riper grow. 
 
 — John Austin, Devotions. 1668. 
 
 Some years before Fr. Fowler's death, the 
 Rev. Daniel Fitter, son of William Fitter, of 
 Wolverhampton, gent., came from the English 
 College at Lisbon, and in or about 1654 was 
 placed at the Priory, with the spiritual charge of 
 the Catholics at Stafford.^ During the terrible 
 persecution raised by the Gates Plot, and fom- 
 ented by the unscrupulous Earl of Shaftesbury to 
 prevent the succession of the Catholic Duke 
 of York to the throne, a local informer, pre- 
 pared for any perjury, was found in the person 
 of Stephen Dugdale, a fraudulent steward, dis- 
 charged by Lord Aston, of Tixall — Monstrum 
 nulla virtute redeinptzun a vitiis. The nation, 
 lashed into frenzy by the pretended disclosures 
 of the miscreant informers, demanded the 
 rigorous enforcement of the penal laws ; and 
 the objectionable oath of spiritual supremacy 
 was presented to every known Catholic. Mr. 
 Fitter evaded imprisonment, and possibly death, 
 
 ^ Gillow, Bib- Diet., ii. 270,
 
 46 Si. Tho7nas's Priory. 
 
 by submitting to the oath, and defended his 
 action in writing by interpreting the word 
 "spiritual" agreeably to the sense given to it 
 in the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, and by 
 the generality of Protestants. His patrons and 
 some friends followed his advice, but most 
 Catholics declined to accept this compromise. 
 About Michaelmas, 1678, William Howard, 
 Viscount Stafford, was charged with the pre- 
 tended plot, convicted on the perjured evidence 
 of Oates and Dugdale, and suffered death for 
 the Faith on the feast of St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury, December 29, 1680. 
 
 And happy Stafford, unto whom 
 God gave the crown of martyrdom. 
 
 — Ward., Canto iv. 
 
 Stafford gaol once more was crowded with 
 priests and recusants. Amongst them may be 
 noted Mr. Fitter's nephew, the Rev. Andrew 
 Bromwich, who resided chiefly about Wolver- 
 hampton, and was apprehended and committed 
 to Stafford in 1679. A Jesuit, also serving in 
 that locality, was taken about the same time, 
 and likewise brought to Stafford. This was 
 Fr. William Atkins, a paralysed, bed-ridden
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 47 
 
 octogenarian, almost speechless, and perfectly 
 deaf. In this pitiable condition he was dragged 
 from his bed and carried to the gaol, a distance 
 of eleven miles. These two inoffensive priests 
 were brouoht to the bar at the next Stafford 
 summer assizes, and actually condemned to 
 death for being priests by Scroggs, the Lord 
 Chief Justice, on August 13. 1679. 
 
 Subsequently Fr, Bromwich was reprieved 
 and obtained his release, but Fr. Atkins died 
 a confessor of the Faith in Stafford gaol, March 
 17, 1 68 1, aged eighty. The carrying out of his 
 sentence had been deferred on account of the 
 difficulty in executing it upon such a wreck. 
 During his trial he was unable to hear a word 
 of what was going on ; but when it was signified 
 to him that he was condemned to be executed, 
 he turned to Scrooors and said : " Most noble 
 lord judge, I return you my warmest thanks ". 
 
 Sic itur ad astra. 
 
 — Virgi/. 
 
 Among many others imprisoned in Staf- 
 ford at this time was Fr. Robert Petre, a/ias 
 Williams, and Spencer, S.J., who obtained his
 
 48 S^. TJiomas's Priory. 
 
 liberation on bail in 1680. Fr. Richard Bab- 
 thorpe, S.J., died at Stafford in 1681, aged 
 sixty-three, but what had brought him to the 
 town is not stated. The Society of Jesus 
 certainly never had a mission in Stafford ; 
 perhaps he, too, was in gaol. 
 
 Another secular priest, condemned to death 
 for exercising his priestly functions during this 
 period of national fanaticism, was allowed to 
 wear out his life in Stafford gaol in 1685, just 
 before freedom came in view with the accession 
 of the much-abused sovereign whose offence, 
 which cost him his throne, was his struggle for 
 liberty of conscience.^ In the record, the Old 
 Chapter Obituary, which tells us of this con- 
 fessor, he is merely called "Farmer". It has 
 been thouoht that he is identical with one of 
 the six younger sons of Henry Fermor (pro- 
 nounced Farmer), Esq., of Tusmore, Co. 
 Oxford, by Ursula, daughter of Sir Peter 
 Middleton, of Stockeld, Co. York, great- 
 grand-daughter of Charles Neville, last Earl of 
 Westmoreland. 
 
 ^Gillow, Bib. Diet., ii. 250.
 
 S^. TJiomas's Priory. 49 
 
 Besides the blood profusely spill'd, 
 All prisons in the land were fill'd, 
 Where cruel usage, stench, and whips, 
 And hunger, slaughter'd them in heaps. 
 
 — Ward, Canto iv. 
 
 Mr. Fitter continued to reside at the Priory, 
 and when hopes of better times were raised by 
 the accession of the Catholic monarch, James 
 II., he opened a school in Stafford for the 
 benefit of the town and neighbourhood. At 
 the general assembly of the Chapter, in 1687, 
 he was elected vicar-general of the counties of 
 Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Salop, 
 upon the condition that he should sign the 
 declaration made by the English brethren in 
 Paris against the oath of supremacy, which, as 
 we have seen, he had previously approved. 
 With this condition he complied, and probably 
 held the office till he became a member of the 
 Institute. For a brief period the prospects of 
 religion in Stafford were most promising, and 
 Mr, Fitter's school began to flourish ; but all 
 this was brought to a sudden termination by 
 the Revolution of 1688. The school was 
 broken up, No-Popery mobs paraded the streets 
 and threatened the personal safety of Catholics, 
 
 4
 
 50 5"/. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 and the houses in the vicinity of the town, 
 wherein Mass was usually said, stood in immi- 
 nent danger of being sacked. Priests through- 
 out the country had to hurry into concealment, 
 and for a time it appeared as if the worst forms 
 of persecution were about to be revived. 
 
 Religious ornaments they burn, 
 And sacred things to ashes turn, 
 Break chalices, and corporals rent. 
 Blaspheme the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
 — Ward, Canto ii. 
 
 Once more Stafford gaol began to fill with 
 prisoners for religion, and amongst them was 
 Father Philip Philmot, S.J., a native of Staf- 
 fordshire, who was seized at some neighbour- 
 ing mission and closely confined for fourteen 
 months before he was brought to the bar at the 
 Stafford assizes.^ Upon his indictment being- 
 read, the judge, detecting a flaw, deferred the 
 trial, and remanded the father to Stafford gaol. 
 There, strong efforts were made to induce him 
 to apostatise ; but proving of no avail, he was 
 transferred to London, where he obtained his 
 liberation on bail, and finally his discharge. 
 
 ' Foley, Records S.J., vii
 
 S/. Thomas ' s Priory. 5 1 
 
 The position of Catholics now became more 
 tolerable, and Mr. Fitter was enabled to con- 
 tinue his missionary duties in comparative quiet 
 until his death, at the Priory, February 6, 1700, 
 aged seventy-three. 
 
 The old man's head is white with age, 
 Weary has been his pilgrimage ; 
 Yet 'few and evil ' were the years 
 Spent amid our vale of tears. 
 
 — L. U. Landon. 
 
 He was laid in the Fowler vault at Baswich 
 Church, where his name may still be seen on 
 one of the family monuments. 
 
 In or about the year 1695, at the recom- 
 mendation of Cardinal Howard, the Institute, a 
 society of secular priests, originally established 
 in Germanv, was introduced into England, with 
 certain modifications of its rules to render it 
 suitable to the English mission. Mr. Fitter 
 was one of the first to embrace it, and was 
 appointed provincial-president and procurator 
 of the Staffordshire District, which comprised 
 the counties of Stafford, Derby, Salop, War- 
 wick, and Worcester. In this office he con- 
 tinued till his death, when his private estate 
 passed under his will to his brother Francis for
 
 52 S/. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 life, with remainder to the Institute. But the 
 latter was dissolved in 1702, and Francis, who 
 had succeeded his brother as provincial-pre- 
 sident, assigned the property bequeathed to the 
 Institute by his brother to Bishop Giffard and 
 others in trust for the benefit of the secular 
 clergy of the Midland District. From a subse- 
 quent administrator the trust obtained the name 
 of Johnson's Fund, by which the Common Purse, 
 or secular clergy fund of the old Midland Dis- 
 trict, was commonly known until recent times.^ 
 
 The Rev. William Pegge, a kinsman of the 
 Fowlers, succeeded Mr. Fitter in the chaplaincy 
 at the Priory.- He was a member of the 
 ancient Catholic family of Pegge, of Yeldersley, 
 Co. Derby, and presumably a brother of Father 
 Dominic Pegge, O.P., who died in 1691, aged 
 thirty-five. His aunt Katharine, daughter of 
 Thomas Pegge, Esq., of Yeldersley, being in the 
 suite of the royal exiles in France, was taken 
 advantage of by Prince Charles, subsequently 
 King, and in 1647 gave birth to a son, Charles 
 Fitz-Charles, who was elevated to the peerage by 
 
 > Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS. 
 
 - Kirk, ibid.; Burke, Extinct Peerage and Baronetage.
 
 SL Thomas's Priojy. 53 
 
 his Majesty on 29th July, 1675, as Baron Dart- 
 mouth, Viscount Totness, and Earl of Plymouth. 
 The lady subsequently became the wife of Sir 
 Edward Greene, Bart., of Sampford, in Essex, 
 who by extravagance and gambling entirely 
 ruined and alienated his extensive estates. 
 
 Mr. PeeSfe is said to have been educated and 
 ordained priest at Douay College, though his 
 name does not appear in the published diaries. 
 For many years after he came to the mission 
 he was house chaplain at Madeley Court, the 
 seat of the Brooke family, in Shropshire. 
 Thence he removed to the Priory on the death 
 of Mr. Daniel Fitter in 1700. Like his pre- 
 decessor, Mr. Pefjofe was a member of the 
 Institute, which was dissolved in 1702. In that 
 year he succeeded the Rev. Francis Fitter as 
 administrator of the Common Purse, or clergy 
 fund, and, on 14th Feb., 1703-4, he was elected 
 an archdeacon of the Old Chapter. In 1703, 
 the Fowlers invited the new vicar-apostolic of 
 the Midland District, Bishop George Witham, 
 to take uj) his residence at the Priory, which he 
 made his head-quarters until his translation to 
 the Northern Vicariate in 17 16. Meanwhile
 
 54 S/. TJiomas's Priory. 
 
 Mr. Pegge retained the chaplaincy till his death, 
 which happened at the Priory, 7th Nov., 171 1. 
 He was held in great respect by his brethren ; 
 and the love and veneration with which he was 
 regarded by the family is testified by the squire, 
 Walter Fowler, commemorating him on one of 
 the Fowler tablets in Baswich Church, where 
 he was interred, as his " vertuous kinsman". 
 He was perhaps too much reserved, for Bishop 
 Witham complains of his unwillingness to tell 
 him anything concerning the Common Purse ; 
 nevertheless — 
 
 Most orthodox he was and sound, 
 And many errors did confound. 
 
 —Old Epitaph. 
 
 VI. 
 
 O 3'et we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill. 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 The dozen years which Bishop Witham 
 passed at the Priory formed, no doubt, one of 
 the most interesting periods of its ecclesiastical 
 history after its suppression and the expulsion 
 of the Black Canons. The ceremonies of the 
 Church were once more performed widi a
 
 SL Thomases Priory. 55 
 
 degree of splendour scarce likened since 
 Richard Peche, Bishop of Coventry and Lich- 
 field, resigned his see to become a canon here 
 in 1 182, and pass in the peace and solitude of 
 the cloister the remainder of his days. 
 
 His cope-clad priests, with cliant divine, 
 
 The sacred Host upraise ; 
 And girt with tapers holy shrine 
 
 His gorgeous altars blaze. 
 
 Bishop Peche had been present at the con- 
 secration of St. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and founded this Priory in honour 
 of that martyr. 
 
 Besides the missioner, or family chaplain. 
 Bishop Witham's private chaplains resided in 
 the house, and occasionally his lordship kept 
 for a term under his immediate supervision one 
 or two newly ordained priests before launching 
 them on the dangers of the mission. Of the 
 necessity of this practice an illustration will 
 shortly appear, in which one of these young 
 priests, bending under the pressure of penal 
 laws, or seduced by the emoluments offered to 
 apostates, first turned informer, pursuivant, and 
 priest-catcher, and ultimately settled down in a
 
 56 SL TJiomas s Priory. 
 
 Protestant vicarage in Yorkshire, presented to 
 him as a reward for his infamous services. 
 
 George Witham/ born in 1655, was a younger 
 son of George Witham, Esq., of Cliffe Hall, 
 Yorkshire, and his wife Grace, daughter of Sir 
 Marmaduke Wyvill, of Constable- Burton, in 
 the same county, knight, and baronet, by Isabel, 
 daughter and sole heiress of Sir Wm. Gas- 
 coigne, of Sedbury, knight. In due course he 
 was sent to Douay College, where he was 
 3.dn\iite.d3.n a/2i?7imis, under his mother's maiden 
 name of Wyvill, 26th May, 1674. Four years 
 later he proceeded to St. Gregory's Seminary, at 
 Paris, where he took the degree of D. D. at the 
 Sorbonne, 14th August, 1688, and in the same 
 month returned to Douay as professor of divinity. 
 After teaching theology for four years he came 
 on the mission, and was chaplain at Naburn, 
 near York, the residence of his brother-in-law, 
 George Palmes, Esq. After a year or so 
 Bishop James Smith, vicar-apostolic of the 
 Northern District, appointed him grand vicar ; 
 but he had not held that office long when, in 
 
 ' Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS. ; Douay Diaries; Brady, Episcop. 
 Succession, iii.
 
 Thi; Right Rkv. Gkokge VV'itham, D.l)., 
 msimi' OF MAUcoi'OLis, and successively vicak apostolic 
 
 OF THE MIDLAND AND NORTHERN DISTRICTS. 
 
 From an original oil painting in the possession of the K. K. Mgr. Thomas Witham, 
 
 of Lartington Hall.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 57 
 
 1 694, he was sent to Rome by the vicars-apostolic, 
 and there for the next six years or more dis- 
 charged with much credit the office of their agent 
 at the Papal Court. He had hardly returned home 
 when he was despatched a second time in 1701. 
 Shortly before Bishop John Leyburne's death 
 was known at Rome, Clement XI. had re- 
 solved to give him a coadjutor in the person of 
 Dr. Witham. So Propaganda, in general con- 
 gregation, held 7th Aug., 1702, decreed that Dr. 
 Witham should be appointed to succeed Dr. 
 Leyburne in the London vicariate. He was 
 described in the acts of Propaganda, in congre- 
 gation of the previous i 7th July, as a man of much 
 prudence, learning and zeal, with great practical 
 experience in the affairs of the Catholic Church 
 in England, and of the government of that king- 
 dom, as well as in the affairs of the Roman 
 Court. Subsequently, however, it was arranged 
 that Bishop Giffard should be transferred to 
 London, and that Dr. Witham should take the 
 Midland District thus vacated. Meanwhile 
 Dr. Witham retired to the seminary at Monte- 
 fiascone, where he was consecrated to the See of 
 y\.2SQ,o'^o\\'s, in partibus, 15th April, 1703. On
 
 58 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 the following 22nd June, he arrived in London, 
 and at once proceeded to his vicariate. On 
 the invitation of Mr. Fowler he took up his 
 residence at St. Thomas's Priory, where he 
 passed under the name of Markham, a precau- 
 tion necessitated by the persecuting spirit of 
 the times. Here he remained until his trans- 
 lation to the Northern Vicariate in March, 1716. 
 It is related of him in the " Douay Diary" that he 
 never ceased to labour strenuously, and was 
 eminently successful in confirming Catholics 
 by his conversation and manner of life, and that 
 many Protestants were converted to the Faith 
 through his convincing arguments. He govern- 
 ed the Northern Vicariate with the same zeal 
 till his death at Cliffe, the seat of his brother 
 John, 27th April, 1725 (n.s.), aged sixty-nine. 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 Bishop Witham wrote many works, but owing 
 to the penal laws, and the peculiar circumstances 
 of his time, it is doubtful if any of them were 
 published. Amongst his English works are —
 
 Si. Thomas s Priory. 59 
 
 "A Catholic Thesis — He who denys allinfalli- 
 bility in knowing ivJiat Christ taught, can have 
 no Christian Faith;'' "An Answer to Dr. 
 Tillotson's ' Discourse against Transubstantia- 
 tion ' ; " "A Weekly Exercise for the Use of a 
 Good Christian ; " and Prudential Directions ". 
 
 During his residence at the Priory, his lord- 
 ship had several young priests assisting in the 
 mission, and preparing themselves for more 
 onerous duties. It is to be regretted that all 
 their names are not recorded. One was the 
 Rev. Stephen Bowes/ brother of the Rev. 
 Robert Bowes, alias Lane, author of the well- 
 known " Practical Reflections for every Day 
 throughout the Year". He was born at or 
 near Arundel, in Sussex, of a good Catholic 
 family, and in due course followed his brother 
 to Douay College, where he made his profes- 
 sion of faith, 1 6th April, 1694, and was admitted 
 an alumnus, 24th April, 1696. After teaching 
 classics for some time, he was ordained priest 
 in March, 1703, and came immediately to reside 
 at the Priory as assistant to Mr. Pegge in the 
 mission. He remained until 171 2, when he 
 
 1 Gillow, B\h. Did., i. 281.
 
 6o SL Thomas'' s Priory. 
 
 was appointed chaplain to Anne, Countess of 
 Sussex, natural daughter of Charles II. by 
 Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, and wife of 
 Thomas Lennard, fifteenth Baron Dacre, who 
 in consequence of his marriage was created 
 Earl of Sussex. 
 
 Mr. Bowes did not survive his change many 
 months, for he died suddenly in the first half 
 of the following year, 17 13. 
 
 To each anointed priest 
 
 God's summons came : 
 Oh, soul, he speaks to-day 
 
 And calls thy name. 
 
 — Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Latet ano^uis in lierba. 
 
 Thou hast done well, perhaps, 
 
 To lift the bright disguise, 
 And lay the bitter truth 
 
 Beiore our shrinking eyes. 
 
 — Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 It must have been shortly after the depar- 
 ture of Mr. Bowes that the Priory had the 
 misfortune to be polluted by an infamous apos 
 tate who worked widespread trouble amongst
 
 SL Thomas s Priory. 6i 
 
 Catholic families, and perhaps occasioned more 
 loss and confiscation of Catholic charities and 
 ecclesiastical property throughout the kingdom 
 than any other informer. This unhappy man 
 was Richard Hitchmough/ alias Barker, whose 
 name will ever be held in execration. He 
 was born in or about 1675, at Garston, near 
 Warrinoton, in Lancashire, where his fore- 
 fathers had lived for centuries on the estate 
 of the N orris family of Speke Hall, and had 
 always been honest men and staunch to their 
 relisfion. For the latter we have the evidence 
 of the fines for recusancy paid by them annually 
 from the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 The parents of this apostate informer were 
 Richard and Mary Hitchmough, of Garston, 
 his mother being of the good family of Bar- 
 ker, which gave many excellent priests to the 
 Church. Through the influence of his mater- 
 nal relatives he was sent to Douay College, 
 where he assumed his maternal name, and in 
 due course took the missionary oath, 12th 
 April, 1697, but about two years later was 
 
 1 Gillow, Lane. Recusants, MS.; Foley, Records, S.J., vi. ; 
 Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS.
 
 62 SL Tho7nas's PiHory. 
 
 turned out of the College for misbehaviour. 
 He then proceeded to Rome, where he was 
 . admitted by the Jesuits into the English Col- 
 lege, 1 2th September, 1699. Though probably 
 he conducted himself better at Rome, for he 
 was ordained priest on loth June, 1702, his 
 superiors considered it prudent to detain him 
 for some little time before permitting him to 
 brave the dangers of the English mission. 
 Thus it was not till 29th April, 1703, that 
 he left the College for Paris en route for Eno-- 
 land. On the mission his life was anything but 
 that which a priest should lead, and no per- 
 suasion or endeavour of his superiors could 
 reclaim him. Obliged to leave Lancashire, 
 where he certainly was till i 709 and probably 
 later. Bishop Witham kindly took him under 
 his immediate supervision at the Priory, but 
 with no return other than o-ross infrratitude. 
 He was then sent, at much expense, to reside 
 for a time at St. Gregory's Seminary at Paris, 
 in the hope that he might reform ; but there 
 he lapsed into unruliness and drunkenness to 
 such an extent that he was quickly expelled. 
 He, indeed, was the unhappy illustration of the
 
 S/. T/wmas's Priory. 63 
 
 axiom — grave virus niimditias pepulit. In 
 Wordsworth's paraphrase — 
 
 His genius and his moral frame 
 Were thus impaired, and he became 
 The slave of low desires : 
 A man who, without self-control. 
 Would seek what the degraded soul 
 Unworthily admires. 
 
 Meanwhile the failure of the Jacobite rising 
 of 1 7 1 5 was followed by a renewal of persecu- 
 tion, and priest-hunting again became a profit- 
 able calling. Moreover, the appointment of 
 a commission for seizing upon the property of 
 those who were implicated in the late rising 
 and upon that devoted to Catholic purposes, 
 or, as it was termed, "estate given to super- 
 stitious usages," presented a tempting bait to 
 informers. The wretched Hitchmouoh lost no 
 time in offering his infamous services, and, 
 armed with warrants, roamed about from place 
 to place, seeking to prey upon his former 
 brethren or the belongings of their missions. 
 Many were the houses in which he had formerly 
 found shelter and comfort that now were ruth- 
 lessly broken into, ransacked, and plundered by
 
 64 'S^. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 this wretch in quahty of his new office, or at 
 his instigation. Neither bishops nor priests 
 escaped his attention ; and many of the latter, if 
 not one of the former, fell into his hands and 
 were hurried off to prison. In a letter to the 
 commissioners, in 17 18, he informs them of 
 valuable chalices and other altar plate formerly 
 seen and used by him when officiating as a 
 priest ; and in the long list he specially 
 enumerates the following : " At St. Thomas, 
 the seat of William Fowler, Esq., in the 
 Co. of Stafford (where used to reside George 
 Witham, who was titular Bishop of Calcedon, 
 but departed for Canterbury, and to whom 
 this deponent was chaplain), one large mas- 
 sive silver chalice, one paten, one other 
 silver chalice and paten double gilt with gold, 
 two large silver crucibles, one large silver 
 plate for the said crucibles to stand upon, two 
 large silver thuribles, six large silver candle- 
 sticks and a large silver crucifix, one other 
 silver crucifix carried in procession on Maundy 
 Thursday, and a large silver ciborium double 
 gilt within with gold, in which was kept the 
 consecrated Hoste — all which plate this de-
 
 6"/. Thomas's Priory. 65 
 
 ponent has used when officiating at the altar ".^ 
 Whether the commissioners succeeded in ob- 
 taining possession of this plate does not appear. 
 Meanwhile, after Hitchmough's departure, great 
 changes had taken place at the Priory. Mr. 
 Fowler had died in 17 16, and the property 
 was in the possession of others. As to Hitch- 
 mough himself, he seems to have received 
 considerable payments from the commissioners 
 for his services. He settled in Liverpool, and 
 married some low woman, by whom he had 
 several children. His new friends would 
 doubtless be reminded of ^ jeu cV esprit of the 
 Merry Monarch. Whenever Charles H. heard 
 his prelates congratulating each other on the 
 acquisition of a new brother in the person of a 
 fallen priest, his Majesty used to twit their lord- 
 ships with the near prospect they had of having 
 a new sister also! About 17 17 Hitchmough 
 removed to Preston, his sole support being 
 that obtained by his infamous trade, which 
 being highly resented, the good people of that 
 town made his residence amongst them any- 
 thing but agreeable. In November, 1720, as a 
 
 ^ 21 P., Forfeited Estates Papers, P. K. O. 
 S
 
 66 SL Tho7nas s Priory. 
 
 reward for his services and for his apostasy, he 
 was presented to the living of Whenby, Co. 
 York. But this he did not long enjoy, for the 
 "Bishop's Certificates" for the archdiocese of 
 York give the 20th April, 1724, as the date of 
 the next presentation to the vicarage, then 
 vacant per inorhun naturahun Richardi Hitch- 
 mough, — the only record we have been able to 
 trace of the end of this miserable man.^ 
 
 There lies Dick Hitchmough, apostate, 
 
 Traitor and fratricide, 
 With n'er a stone to state his date, 
 
 His name, or how he died. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Make the charred logs burn brighter ; 
 
 I will show you, by their blaze, 
 
 A half-forgotten record 
 
 Of bygone things and days. 
 
 —Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 We must now return to the vacancy in the 
 chaplaincy occasioned by the death of the 
 Rev. William Pegge, towards the close of 
 171 1. To that virtuous pastor — antiqua homo 
 virtute ac fide — a worthy successor was found 
 
 1 Payne, Eng. Cath. Nonjurors, 343 ; Records of Eng. Caths., 
 125.
 
 Si. Thomas's Priory. 67 
 
 in the person of the Rev. Thomas Bering- 
 ton.^ This orentleman was the son of Thomas 
 Berington, Esq., of Moat Hall, Co. Salop, by 
 Anne, daughter of John Berington, Esq., of 
 Winsley, Co. Hereford, both Catholic and 
 ancient families, and, though bearing the same 
 name, not, as one might expect, in any way 
 related previous to this alliance. He was born 
 iith or i2th December, 1673, and was edu- 
 cated and ordained priest at Douay College. 
 In what year he came to the English 
 mission, or where he was stationed, is not 
 precisely stated ; but in 1 702 he was serving 
 somewhere in Shropshire, and therefore it is 
 not improbable that he filled the family chap- 
 laincy at Moat Hall. In 171 1 he became 
 chaplain to Mr. William F"owler at the Priory, 
 and upon that gentleman's death, in 17 16, con- 
 tinued in the same capacity to his nephew-at- 
 law, John Betham, who assumed the name 
 of F"owler. 2 After serving this mission for 
 at least nine years, and passing through the 
 troubles consequent upon the rising of 171 5, 
 
 1 Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS.; Berington pedigree; Gillow, Bib. 
 Diet., i. -Kirk, Cath. Mag., v. 427.
 
 68 SL T/iomas's Priory. 
 
 Mr. Berington withdrew from the Priory, and 
 in or about 1720 was appointed chaplain to 
 Mrs. Mary Ann Howard, at Hoar Cross, in 
 the parish of Yoxall, Co. Stafford. This lady 
 was the widow of Robert Howard, Jun., Esq. 
 The estate subsequently passed to the Talbot 
 family, and was sold in 1793, when the mission 
 was transferred to Woodlane, Needwood. It 
 was possibly upon Mrs. Howard's death that 
 Mr. Berington removed to London. In 1731 
 he succeeded the Rev. Charles Umfreville, 
 alias Fell, D.D., as agent for the clergy of the 
 Midland District. He was a member of the 
 Old Chapter ; and in i 748, as senior capitular, 
 presided at the general assembly held in 
 London, and in the second session was elected 
 dean in succession to the Rev. Thomas Day, 
 who died on 8th July of that year. Upon 
 that occasion he delivered a rather remarkable 
 address to his assembled brethren. Though 
 he had attained an advanced age, his death 
 would appear to have been somewhat unex- 
 pected. Shortly before, in the same year, he 
 again presided at the general assembly of the 
 Chapter. On 3 1 st October he made his will.
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 69 
 
 and died at his residence, in the parish of St. 
 George the Martyr, Queen Square, London, 20th 
 December, 1755, aged eighty-two, to the great 
 regret of his brethren, by whom he had always 
 been held in high esteem and respect. In his 
 will he mentions his three nephews. Dr. William 
 Berington, Dr. Joseph Berington, and Thomas 
 Berington, Esq., of Stock Hall, in Essex, the 
 latter being executor. Amongst other bequests 
 he leaves to his niece, Lady Philippa Fleetwood, 
 wife of Sir John Fleetwood, fifth Bart., and 
 daughter of William Berington, Esq., M.D., 
 of Shrewsbury, a "spring clock that strikes the 
 quarters ". Whilst Mr. Berington was at the 
 Priory he published a curious work, entitled, 
 " News from the Dead ; or, the Monthly Packet 
 of True Intelligence from the other World : 
 written by Mercury". (London : Thomas Meig- 
 han, 1 7 19, 8vo.) 
 
 Upon the Rev. Thomas Berington's removal 
 from the Priory, in 1720, his cousin, the Rev. 
 Simon Berington,^ was appointed to the 
 chaplaincy. He was the son of John Berington, 
 Esq., of Winsley, Co. Hereford, by Elizabeth, 
 
 1 Gillovv, Bib. Did., \. ; Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS.
 
 70 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 daughter of the loyal and gallant governor of 
 Bridgnorth, Sir Thomas Wolryche, Knt. and 
 Bart., of Budmaston, Co. Salop, and was born 
 Jan. 1 1 -2 I, 1679-80. Like his cousin, he was 
 educated at Douay College, where, under his 
 maternal name of Wolryche, he took the 
 missionary oath, and became an alumnus in 
 1700. In due course he was ordained priest, 
 and remained at the College as professor of 
 poetry and philosophy. Eventually he was 
 sent to the English mission, and, as stated, 
 succeeded his cousin at the Priory. Mr. 
 Berineton was a man of studious habits, 
 possessed of varied acquirements and of 
 indubitable abilities, which are illustrated in 
 the numerous writings he has left behind him. 
 During the Rev. Simon Berington's chap- 
 laincy great changes took place at the Priory. 
 Mr. William Eowler, the last male representa- 
 tive of his family, died, as already mentioned, 
 in 1 7 16, leaving behind him the best of char- 
 acters for piety, hospitality, and charity. 
 
 Uni cc(]uus virtuti, atcjuc ejus am ids. 
 
 — Horace. 
 
 Byawill made in i 7 i 2 he bequeathed thewhole
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 71 
 
 of his extensive estates in Staffordshire, Flint, 
 and Lancashire (where he owned the manor of 
 Pendleton), to his nephew-at-law, John Betham 
 (son of Richard Betham, Esq., of Rowington, 
 Co. Warwick), whose wife Katherine was the 
 only child of the testator's sister Magdalen 
 Cassey, sixth daughter of Walter Fowler, Esq., 
 of St. Thomas, and his wife Constantia, youngest 
 daughter of Walter, first Lord Aston, of Tixall. 
 To his sister Dorothy, wife of John Grove, 
 Esq., the testator merely devised ^300 a year, 
 and after her death an annuity of ^200 to her 
 son, Thomas Grove, of Worcester. This will 
 was proved in March, 1716 ; and Mr. Betham, 
 who assumed the name of Fowler according 
 to injunctions, was given possession of the 
 estates, and took up his residence at the Priory. 
 On 5th August, 1726, Mr. John Betham 
 Fowler's only daughter and heiress, Catherine, 
 married Thomas Belasyse, fourth Viscount 
 Fauconberg, who took possession of the Priory. 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Fowler's later will of 171 5 
 remained in the custody of Christopher Ward, 
 an attorney in Stafford, whom the testa- 
 tor had employed to draw it up completely
 
 72 Sf. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 unknown to his friends. Whether through 
 forgetfulness or design, the will lodged in 
 Ward's hands was not divulged till after his 
 death, which happened in 1724 ; and two years 
 later Viscount Fauconberg upon his marriage 
 with Catherine Betham Fowler, in compliance 
 with the will of 171 2, assumed the name of 
 Fowler- Fauconberg, and took possession of all 
 the Fowler estates, which at that time yielded 
 an annual income of more than ^2000, and 
 were considered very improving. At this 
 period, Thomas Grove, the son of Dorothy 
 Fowler, was established in Worcester, where, 
 having fallen into distress, he followed some 
 business which hardly afforded him a livelihood. 
 Lord Fauconberg then took upon himself the 
 expense of the education of Grove's only sur- 
 viving child, Rebecca, and sent her to a con- 
 vent in France ; but whether this was a pure 
 act of generosity or was done to get rid of the 
 girl is rather questionable ; for it was about 
 this very time, in 1727, that Edward Ward, son 
 of the Stafford attorney, in looking over his 
 father's papers, discovered the will of 1715, and 
 communicated with Lord Aston, of Tixall,
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 73 
 
 principal trustee for the Fowler estates. The 
 tradition is, that Lord Aston laid the will in 
 question before Mr. Richard Fitzgerald, an 
 Irish barrister, for his opinion. Fitzgerald at 
 once perceived that Rebecca Grove, as repre- 
 sentative of her grandmother Dorothy, sister 
 and co-heiress of the testator, would be clearly- 
 entitled upon the death of her father to a 
 moiety of the Fowler property under the will 
 of 17 1 5. In consequence he paid his addresses 
 to her, and obtained her hand. ^ Letters of 
 administration to the will of 171 5 were granted 
 to Thomas Grove, ist December, 1729. Lord 
 Fauconberg disputed the will, and a long suit 
 in Chancery was followed by an appeal to the 
 House of Lords, where it was determined, in 
 1733, that the estates of the late Mr. William 
 Fowler rested in the representatives of his two 
 sisters, Dorothy and Magdalen. It was supposed 
 that the testator had scruples about the partiality 
 he had shown to the daughter of his youngest 
 sister, and had therefore executed the will of 
 1715, whereby that of 17 12 was revoked, and 
 
 ^ Clifford, Parish of Tixall, p. 39 ; Kirk, Biog. CoUns., MSS.
 
 74 -S^- Thoiims's Priory. 
 
 the estates equally divided between the heirs of 
 his two sisters, Dorothy Grove and Magdalen 
 Cassey. In consequence of this final decision, 
 Lord Fauconberg had to surrender a moiety of 
 the property to the Irish barrister. Fitzgerald 
 was a man of family, being the eldest son of 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Fitzgerald, M.P. 
 for Waterford, who was slain in 1690 in the 
 service of James II. at the battle of the Boyne. 
 The Fitzgeralds of Little Island, of whom he 
 was the representative, were derived from the 
 ancient Earls of Kildare. 
 
 Though Lord Fauconberg was not required 
 to refund any part of the income he had hither- 
 to enjoyed from the Fowler estates, he was 
 very much piqued, and lost all relish for what re- 
 mained to him. Indeed, in disgust he dropped 
 the name of Fowler, and hastily sold the Priory 
 of St. Thomas to the notorious Sarah, Duchess 
 of Marlborough. Hut this was not the only 
 effect of his disappointment ; for it so greatly 
 affected both his religious and moral principles 
 that he first conformed to the Established 
 Church, and then added robbery to apostasy by 
 refusing any longer to pay the interest or to
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 75 
 
 refund the principal of the money left for 
 religious purposes in the hands of Mr. William 
 Fowler by his former chaplain, the Rev. Daniel 
 Fitter, on the plea of its having been left for 
 "superstitious uses". His lordship was re- 
 warded for his apostasy by being sworn of 
 the Privy Council, and in 1756 was created 
 Earl Fauconberg of Newborough, Co. York, 
 However, he sent for a priest, and was re- 
 conciled to the Church shortly before his death 
 at his Newborough seat in 1774.^ 
 
 By the last testament of its new owner, 
 the Duchess of Marlborough, who died in 1744, 
 St. Thomas's Priory passed to her grandson, 
 the Hon. John Spencer, fourth son of Charles, 
 Earl of Sunderland, by Lady Anne Churchill, 
 daucfhter and co-heiress of the orreat Duke of 
 Marlborough. His son, created Earl Spencer, 
 in 1765, sold the estate of St. Thomas to Lord 
 Talbot. Soon after the property had passed to 
 the Spencers, the Priory was let to a firm of 
 cotton printers, which in a few years' time 
 found it expedient to abandon the under- 
 
 ^K\vk,Diog. Collns., MSS.
 
 76 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 taking. A great part of the original Priory was 
 then demoHshed, and the remainder was trans- 
 formed into a farmhouse. On this occasion, 
 write the brothers CHfford in 1817/ the ancient 
 fixtures were sold by auction, and some aged 
 persons still commemorate the massive marble 
 chimney-pieces, from each of which the pur- 
 chaser was enabled to make two or three in 
 modern taste. A flower garden now occupies 
 the site of the great hall ; and a balustrade, by a 
 flight of steps leading from the house to the 
 river-bank, is still decorated with two laree 
 antique vases or flower-pots of very rude 
 sculpture. Some of the buildings appear from 
 their style of architecture to be part of the 
 original structure of Henry II. ; but no traces 
 can now be found of the church or cloisters, 
 whose "fretted vaults" once resounded with 
 the "pealing anthems of the religious," and in 
 whose " long-drawn aisles " the trophied tombs 
 of heroes, statesmen, and bishops still served to 
 perpetuate the memory of their talents and 
 virtues. But the monuments of man are frail 
 and perishable as himself 
 
 ^ Parish of Tixull, p. 41.
 
 St. Thomas's PiHory. 77 
 
 Miramur periisse homines ? monumenta fatiscunti 
 
 Interitus saxis nominibusque venit. 
 
 Not man alone — his works decay, 
 His towers and temples pass away. 
 
 Meanwhile, in or about the year 1733, when 
 Lord Fauconberg lost his final appeal, Mr. 
 Simon Berington had to leave the Priory, and 
 a chapel was opened in a house in the town of 
 Stafford, under the auspices of the Earl of 
 Stafford, though it is questionable if a resident 
 priest was appointed. Mr. Berington then, or 
 some time later, settled in London, where he 
 was given the custody of the Clergy Library at 
 Gray's Inn. In 1748 he was elected secretary 
 to the Old Chapter, of which he had long been 
 a member. He died at his chambers in Gray's 
 Inn, 1 6th April, 1755, aged seventy-five, leaving 
 behind him, as already alluded to, a lasting 
 memorial of his literary labours in the long list 
 of his works both in print and manuscript. 
 
 So we declyne even at our highest rate, 
 Changing with tyme the change of our estate. 
 
 — Verstega7i, Odes.
 
 78 SL Thomases Priory. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Not so has the creed departed, 
 Once the glory of yon shrine — 
 
 Still it cheers the lowly-hearted, 
 Still it maketh earth divine. 
 
 —M. L. L. 
 
 The twenty years succeeding the breaking up 
 of the Priory and the opening of a chapel in a 
 house at Stafford, in or about 1733, is a period 
 of darkness in the history of the mission, the 
 veil of which is too thick to afford more than 
 a speculative view of its condition. It is im- 
 probable that there was a resident priest, at any 
 rate during the greater part of the time. And 
 yet it is certain that the spiritual welfare of the 
 Catholics in the town was not altoirether 
 neglected. About three miles west of Stafford, 
 at Dearnsdale, in the parish of Bradley, resided 
 the ancient family of Palin. They had ever 
 been staunch to the Faith, and were allied to 
 some of the best Catholic families in the county. 
 They may be traced at Dearnsdale, in the parish 
 registers of Bradley, from early in the reign of 
 Elizabeth. In 1564 was baptised Roger, son of 
 Thomas Palin and Agnes his wife, and on 5th
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 79 
 
 May, 1 569, was christened Margaret, daughter 
 of Thomas Palin and AHce his wife. It has 
 already been shown how this good lady, Alice 
 Palin, died in Stafford gaol, a confessor of the 
 Faith, in 1592. Ralph Palin, in 1591, married 
 Mary Ann Cradock, and Richard Palin, of 
 Dearnsdale, gent, probably their son, married, 
 in 1634, Joyce, daughter of Thomas Whitgreave, 
 Esq., of Moseley Old Hall. The issue of the 
 latter marriage was a daughter, Alice, born 30th 
 August, 1638, and a son, Thomas Palin, who 
 was one of the pupils of his uncle's chaplain, 
 Fr. John Huddleston, at the time when Charles 
 II. found shelter under the hospitable roof of 
 Moseley after the disastrous batde of Worcester 
 in 1 65 1. Young Palin and his fellow-students, 
 Sir John Preston, Bart., of the Manor, Furness, 
 Lancashire, and Francis Reynolds, a nephew of 
 Mr. Whitgreave, were employed during his 
 Majesty's stay in keeping watch lest the parlia- 
 mentarians should take the house by surprise. 
 The story ^ of the king's adventure and escape 
 is too well known to require repetition. It is 
 only necessary to say that both Thomas Whit- 
 
 ^ Huddleston, Summary oj Occurrences^ 1688.
 
 8o SL TJioiiias s Priory. 
 
 greave and Fr. Huddleston were not forgotten 
 after the Restoration, and were rewarded by his 
 Majesty with pensions and special exemption 
 from the penahies imposed by law upon Catholics. 
 Fr. Huddleston subsequently became a Benedic- 
 tine, and was successively chaplain to the Queen 
 Dowager, H enrietta Maria, and Queen Catherine. 
 It was he who was the happy instrument of the 
 king's reception into the Church upon his death- 
 bed in 1685. After the accession of James II., 
 Fr. Huddleston continued to reside with Queen 
 Catherine, as her chaplain, till his death at 
 Somerset House, 22nd September, 1698, aged 
 ninety. The writer of these notes is the fortunate 
 possessor of a most interesting memento of this 
 venerable father. It is a finely illustrated 
 " Missal," printed at the Plantinian press at 
 Antwerp in 1577, of the small octavo size so 
 necessary in times of persecution. It was used 
 by Fr. Huddleston at Moseley Old Hall, and 
 elsewhere during his missionary career ; and the 
 calendar is annotated in his own handwriting 
 with a long and valuable obituary of his relatives, 
 patrons, and friends. But to return to the 
 Palins. Fr. Huddleston's pupil, Thomas Palin,
 
 SL TJiomas's Priory. 8i 
 
 subsequently married a member of the ancient 
 family of Giffard, likewise associated with the 
 preservation of the king. He had three chil- 
 dren : Thomas, who married a Leveson, but left 
 no son to succeed him ; Constance, who died 
 a spinster ; and Richard, the last of the family, 
 who is closely identified with the history of the 
 Stafford mission/ 
 
 Richard Palin,^ born in September, 1670, was 
 educated at Douay College, where he took the 
 oath, and became an alumtms, in June, 1694. ^"^ 
 due course he was ordained priest, and came to 
 the English mission. In 1702 he was stationed 
 in his native country, and it is not improbable 
 that he was chaplain at Moseley Old Hall, the 
 seat of his great uncle, Mr. Thomas Whitgreave, 
 who died in that year at the venerable age of 
 eighty-four. How long this energetic pastor 
 remained in Staffordshire is not known ; but as 
 early as Jan., 1725, if not sooner, he opened a 
 much-needed school for Catholic young gentle- 
 men at Rowney-wood, in the parish of Alve- 
 church, Co. Worcester. It was situated not very 
 
 1 Family papers, apud Fris. Whitgreave, Esq. 
 ^ Kirk, Biog. Colbts., MSS. ; Douay Diaries. 
 
 6
 
 82 Sf. TJiomass Priory. 
 
 far from Beoley, the seat of the Sheldons, under 
 whose patronage the school is thought to have 
 flourished. It is supposed that Fr. Francis 
 Romanus Chapman. O.S.F., a native of the 
 neighbouring town of Henley-in-Arden, studied 
 his classics there previous to his admission into 
 the English College at Rome in 1721. If so, 
 the school must have been established at an 
 earlier date than that assigned by extant evi- 
 dence.^ The bold step was at first successful ; 
 but, like all such ventures, was short-lived and 
 had to be withdrawn, owing to the bigotry and 
 persecution of the times. It is probable that 
 Rowney-wood school was closed about 1 740, and 
 that Mr. Palin took up his residence on his pater- 
 nal estate at Dearnsdale either then or a little 
 earlier. Here, no doubt, had long been a chapel, 
 but there is no record of a resident priest before 
 Mr. Palin's arrival. Anyhow, from this time 
 the Catholics of .Stafford appear to have been 
 mainly dependent on the Dearnsdale mission ; 
 and here Mr. Palin continued to exercise pas- 
 toral duties till his death, 8th December, 1750, 
 at the advanced age of eighty. He is entered 
 
 ' Gillow, Cath. Schls. in Engl.
 
 Sf. Thomas's Priory. 83 
 
 in the burial resfister of Bradlev Church as a 
 *' Popish Priest,' and Hes in the churchyard 
 beside his brother and sister. Over them are 
 slabs to their memories, placed there by their 
 cousin and executor, Francis \¥hitgTeave, Esq., 
 of Moseley Old Hall, the great-grandfather of 
 the present Mr. Francis Whitgreave, of Burton 
 Manor and Mose'ey Court. 
 
 Then ".r: :-.; fv. :;-. a; I may go 
 And i r /. hrrr :h ;e r right lillies grow, 
 W ■- r r r : ^ r : - ; : ~ :-. ~ : i of glory rise 
 An-i :::^>.; ^ i.-- : .-.-ise. 
 
 — ' : AasttKf Dsv>oiitm5. 166S. 
 
 After Mr. Palin's death, the Deamsdale estate 
 passed to families of the name of AIerr\'e and 
 Ryder. By deeddated 1 9th Februar)-, 1 754, E iiza- 
 beth Rvder. of Grove Park. Co. Warwick, settled 
 a small annual charo-e on a farm at Deamsdale 
 for a priest to say Mass once a month in that 
 neiofhbourhood. and once in two months on 
 Sundays, at the family residence at Deamsdale. 
 In case the trustee, Frd/.cis \\ h;:^ reave, was 
 unable to find a priest in the neighbourhood to 
 render this holy service. Thomas IMerrye, of 
 Deamsdale. was to provide such help for the 
 neighbourhood as best he could : and in con-
 
 84 Sf. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 sideration of so doing was to take the annuity, 
 which was "to be paid forever to ye world's 
 end, or Restoration of ye Catholic Religion in ye 
 kingdom "/ Miss Ryder died about four years 
 after the date of this deed. Her benefaction 
 bore immediate fruit, for in the very year of her 
 death, 1754, a resident priest was appointed, and 
 the mission was re-established in the town of 
 Stafford. Though the old chapel at Dearnsdale 
 may still be traced in the garrets of the farm- 
 stead into which the ancient seat of the Palins 
 has descended, now — 
 
 I see no little kirk— no bell 
 
 On Sabbath tinkleth through this dell. 
 
 — John Wilson. 
 
 X. 
 
 Faint not, and fret not, for threaten'd woe, 
 
 Watchman, on Truth's grey height ! 
 Few though the faithful, and fierce though the foe. 
 
 Weakness is aye Heaven's might. 
 
 — Cardinal Newman. 
 
 It will be remembered that in or about 1733, 
 when the mission at the Priory was discontinued, 
 a chapel was opened in Stafford under the 
 
 ' Original document, aptid Fris. Whitgreave, Esq.
 
 S/. Thomas's Priory. 85 ■ 
 
 auspices of the Earl of Stafford. From that 
 period till 1754 no name of a missioner has been 
 handed down. Hence it seems doubtful that 
 there was a resident priest, unless the Rev. 
 Simon Berington, whose family was possessed 
 of considerable property in and about the town, 
 and whose eldest brother, John Berington, 
 Esq., died there in 1721, continued to serve 
 the mission for a much longer period than the 
 scanty records at hand lead us to suppose. 
 
 In 1754 the Rev. Thomas Wilson, alias 
 Clarke,^ took charge of the mission. He was 
 born at or near Stourbridge, Co. Worcester, 
 lOth November, 1712. It is very probable that 
 he studied his rudiments at the Rev. Richard 
 Palin's school at Rowney-wood, previous to his 
 being sent to Douay College. 
 
 There, on 4th August, i 732. being at the time 
 in his first year's course of philosophy, he was 
 admitted an aliLimms, and in due course was 
 ordained priest, in or about 1737. Upon 
 coming to the mission he was appointed chap- 
 lain to Walter, fourth Lord Aston of P'orfar, at 
 Tixall, about three miles and three quarters 
 
 'Kirk, J3io^. Collm., MSS.
 
 86 SL Thomas'' s Priory. 
 
 from Stafford. When the mission at Stafford 
 was vacant, or the missioner incapacitated, 
 the duty of attending to the spiritual wants of 
 the town generally devolved upon the chaplain 
 at Tixall. In 1751 the fifth and last Lord 
 Aston was carried off by the small-pox, which 
 he caught whilst attending the funeral of a friend 
 at Stafford ; and three years later Mr. Wilson 
 withdrew from Tixall to take charge of the 
 Stafford mission, as already stated. Here this 
 good and zealous missionary, for such he was 
 esteemed, continued his labours till his death, 
 9th March: 1766, aged fifty-three. 
 
 After this there is again some uncertainty as 
 to the succession of the pastoral charge. It is 
 probable that the financial position of the mission 
 had become somewhat embarrassed ; for the 
 earldom of Stafford had fallen into abeyance 
 upon the death of John Paul Stafford- Howard, 
 the fourth earl, in 1762. It is therefore ques- 
 tionable if a resident priest succeeded Mr. 
 Wilson. It is not unlikely that the; mission was 
 served for a time by the chaplain at Tixall, the 
 Rev. George Beeston.^ This estimable man, 
 
 ' Kirk, Biog. Cullns., MSS.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 87 
 
 born at Irnham, Co. Lincoln, in 1736, was edu- 
 cated and ordained priest, like his elder brother 
 Peter, at Douay College, where he was admitted 
 2S\. alumnus, 24th December, 1756. Soon after 
 his ordination he was sent to teach at St. 
 Omer's College, which had just been taken from 
 the Jesuits by the French Government, and 
 handed over to the English secular clergy, in 
 1762. There he would most gladly have re- 
 mained, as he dreaded the great responsibility 
 attached to the pastoral charge ; but Bishop 
 Hornyold, being much in want of priests, called 
 him over to the mission. Disregarding his own 
 inclinations, Mr. Beeston readily obeyed, and 
 was placed at Tixall, which had recently become 
 the seat of the Hon. Thomas Clifford, younger 
 son of Hugh, third Lord Clifford, through his 
 marriage, in 1761, with Barbara, youngest 
 daughter and co-heiress of James, fifth and last 
 Lord Aston. Mr. Beeston remained chaplain at 
 Tixall till hisdeath,deeplyregrettedbyhiscongre- 
 gation and numerous friends, 15th August, 1797. 
 Shortly after Mr. Wilson's death, Mary, Com- 
 tesse de Rohan-Chabot,^ who died at London, 
 
 ^ Diary of Blue Nuns, MS. ; Burke, Extinct Peerage.
 
 88 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 1 6th May, 1769, aged forty-eight, established a 
 fund for the benefit of the pastor of the Stafford 
 mission, whereby it was placed in a more inde- 
 pendent position. This benevolent lady was the 
 eldest daughter of William Stafford- Howard, 
 second Earl of Stafford, and his wife Anne, his 
 first cousin, daughter of George Holman, Esq., 
 of Warkworth Castle, Co. Northampton. She 
 was the first pupil at the school established at 
 the English Convent of the Immaculate Con- 
 ceptionists, commonly called Blue Nuns, at Paris, 
 where she arrived 29th May, 1733. On 21st 
 May, 1737, she left the convent to finish her edu- 
 cation at the Abbaye de Marquette, near Lille, 
 and some few years later became the wife of the 
 Comte de Rohan-Chabot. In the year 1745 she 
 assisted her old friends the Blue Nuns with a 
 loan of 10,000 livres ; and her memory should 
 ever be held in veneration by the congregation 
 at Stafford for the help she gave them in a time 
 of ofreat need. 
 
 The next pastor on record was the Rev. 
 Thomas Barneby ; but it is not known when he 
 took up his residence in Stafford. Dr. Kirk 
 was under the impression that he lived on the
 
 Si. TJiomass Priory. 89 
 
 mission in Norfolk for more than thirty years. 
 If that be correct he must have moved to Staf- 
 ford only a short time before his death, which 
 seems improbable. He was the son of Thomas 
 Barneby and his wife Mary Thompson, and was 
 born in London, 22nd October, 1727. The father 
 was apparently the only son of James Barneby, 
 third son of William Barneby, Esq., of St. John's 
 in Bedwardine, Co. Worcester, by Elizabeth 
 Acton, of Bourton, and was baptised at St. 
 John's, 8th November, 1677. Their ancestor, 
 Thomas Barneby, of the Hull, Co. Worcester, 
 acquired Acton, in the parish of Ombersley, in 
 that county, through his marriage with Joyce, 
 dauo'hter and heiress of Walter Acton. The 
 Hull estate came to the family through the 
 marriage of Thomas Barneby, of Ludlow, 
 with Isabel, daughter and sole heiress of 
 Thomas Whitgreave, of the Hull, brother of 
 Robert Whitgreave, of Burton Manor. This 
 Thomas Barneby was a distinguished officer 
 in the army of Edward IV., and was slain at the 
 battle of Towton.^ James Barneby, already 
 mentioned, married Elizabeth, daughter of 
 
 ^ Nash's Worcestershire.
 
 90 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Thomas Metcalfe, of the family seated at Nut- 
 hill, in Holderness, Co. York, and she was resid- 
 ing a widow with herdaughter at Stafford in 1 750. 
 This lady's grandson, the Rev. Thos. Barneby, 
 was educated at Douay College, where he was 
 admitted an alwnnus in his first year's theology, 
 1 5th April, 1 748 ; so that in the ordinary course 
 he would be ordained priest in or about 1751. 
 The fact of his grandmother and aunt residing 
 at Stafford about this time shows a connection 
 with the town, and lends force to the supposition 
 that he came to the mission much earlier than 
 Dr. Kirk implies. However, the only direct evi- 
 dence bearing upon the date of his missionary 
 labours in the town is that of his death at Staf- 
 ford in July, 1783, aged fifty-five. There is a 
 tradition that he used to say Mass in the garret 
 of a house on the Green. 
 
 Now, my soul, the day is gone 
 Which in the morn was thine; 
 
 Now its glass no more shall run, 
 Its sun no longer shine. 
 
 — John Austin, Devotions. 
 
 For some months after the death of Mr. 
 Barneby, the mission at Stafford appears to 
 have been without a i)astor, and it is most
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 91 
 
 probable that it was served from one of the 
 neighbouring missions until the arrival of Mr. 
 Corne in 1784. The Rev. John Corne ^ was a 
 younger son of Mr. James Corne and his wife 
 Elizabeth Birchall, and was born at Betley, 
 North Staffordshire, i8th August, 1749. 
 
 The Cornes were originally Protestants, and 
 the circumstances connected with their conver- 
 sion are interesting. Early in the eighteenth 
 century, the family resided in West Chester, 
 and was noted for its adherence to the cause 
 of the exiled royal family. Charles Corne, son 
 of Mr. James Corne and his wife Elizabeth 
 Butler, supposed to have been descended from 
 a younger son of the Butlers of Rawcliffe, who 
 suffered so much for their Jacobite leanings, 
 was born in 17 16 at West Chester, and became 
 a distiller there. In 1745 he joined Prince 
 Charles, and after the battle of Culloden, i6th 
 April, 1746, hid himself till he was enabled to 
 pass over in safety to Ireland. There he 
 became a Catholic, and thence proceeded to 
 Louvain. After a stay of nine months at the 
 
 ^ Kirk, B'log. Colitis., MSS. ; Diary of Blue Nuns, MS. ; Douay 
 Diaries.
 
 92 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 latter place, he was filled with a desire to em- 
 brace the ecclesiastical state; but knowing very- 
 little Latin, and not caring to go to Douay at 
 the age of thirty to learn that language, Dr. 
 Joseph Holden was induced by Prince Henry, 
 subsequently Cardinal Duke of York, to admit 
 him into St. Gregory's Seminary at Paris. 
 John Towneley, Esq., generously proffered to 
 pay his pension of six hundred livres. 
 
 After remaining at St. Gregory's for four 
 years and three months without any prospect 
 of his taking degrees, for which that seminary 
 was primarily intended, Mr. Corne went to 
 Douay College in October, 1751, where he took 
 the oath of the ahunni at the age of thirty-six, 
 4th November, 1752, and eventually was ad- 
 mitted to holy orders. At Douay he filled the 
 office of prefect-general until 1761, in which 
 year, on i8th May, he succeeded the Rev. 
 William Daniel as chaplain to the Blue Nuns 
 at Paris. In that position he continued till 
 his lamented death, 9th November. 1777, 
 aged sixty-one. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Corne's brother James, who 
 was married and settled at Betley, also became
 
 SL Tho7nass Priory. 93 
 
 a Catholic under quite distinct and very curious 
 
 circumstances. One day he found Bishop 
 
 Challoner's " Think well on't ; or, Reflections 
 
 on the great Truths of the Christian Religion," 
 
 accidentally dropped in a marl pit. Taking the 
 
 book home, he perused it with such earnestness 
 
 that both he and the whole of his family became 
 
 converts to the true Faith. In January, 1762, 
 
 the Rev. William Errino-ton established a school 
 
 at Betley, and placed it under the charge of 
 
 the Rev. John Hurst.^ It is possible that Mr. 
 
 Corne's sons studied in this school previous 
 
 to its removal, 25th March, 1763, to Sedgley 
 
 Park, where the eldest, James Corne, became 
 
 spiritual director. Four years older than John, 
 
 the latter was born 20th August, 1745, and took 
 
 the missionary oath at Douay in his third year's 
 
 theology, 3rd November, 1770. Where his 
 
 first missionary labours were spent is not stated ; 
 
 but it would seem from a letter of Bishop 
 
 Hornyold to Francis Whitgreave, Esq., dated 
 
 Longbirch, 15th June, 1779, that he was for 
 
 a short time chaplain at Moseley, and was 
 
 replaced by the Rev. Thomas Stone. In 1781 
 
 1 Sedgley Park Annals, MS.
 
 94 •5'^- Thomas's Priory. 
 
 he became chaplain of Sedgley Park School/ 
 and left in 1783 to take charge of the mission 
 at Shrewsbury, where he died, 4th December, 
 18 1 7, aged seventy-two. 
 
 Two of his sisters are said to have taken the 
 veil in a convent in France. The diary of the 
 Blue Nuns at Paris records that on 20th Nov., 
 1767, "Mistress" and Miss Corne, sister and 
 niece of the chaplain, the Rev. Charles Corne, 
 took up their residence in the convent. "Mrs." 
 Hannah Corne, after spending an edifying life in 
 the convent for eight years, died there, 26th June, 
 1 775, aged sixty-seven. Miss Corne returned to 
 her parents in England in April, 1772, and is 
 apparently identical with the Miss Anna Corne, 
 sister to the two priests, James and John, who 
 married James Orrell, Esq., of Blackbrook, 
 Co. Lancaster, and was mother of Charles 
 Orrell, Esq., the Rev. James Orrell, and the 
 Rev. Philip Orrell, the last male representatives 
 of that ancient family. The Rev. John Corne 
 in due course was sent to Douay College, where 
 he took the missionary oath in his second year's 
 theology, ist Feb., 1775. In the following year 
 
 ' Husenbeth, Hist, of Sedgley Park.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 95 
 
 he was ordained priest, and sent to the EngHsh 
 mission, where he was given the charge of the 
 CathoHcs about Burslem and Rushton Grange, 
 in succession to the Rev. Thomas Flinn. In 
 the spring of 1779 he settled finally at Rushton 
 Grange,^ a very ancient missionary station, and 
 soon resolved to erect an independent chapel. 
 Having acquired an eligible site, spacious 
 enough for all future needs of the mission, on 
 the eastern boundary of the Grange estate, and 
 adjoining the well-known " Cobridge Gate," he 
 began to build ; but owing to the Gordon riots 
 the foundations of the new chapel were allowed 
 to stand for a considerable time, lest the pro- 
 tectors of the Protestant cause in the neighbour- 
 hood should demolish them. Indeed, Rushton 
 Grange was actually sacked and plundered by 
 a " No-Popery" mob from Burslem. After the 
 fanaticism had abated, Mr. Corne proceeded 
 with the erection of his chapel, and St. Peter's, 
 Cobridge, was opened in 1781. He was not to 
 enjoy the fruits of his labours long ; the ap- 
 parent difficulty his bishop seems to have felt 
 in filling the vacancy caused by the death of 
 
 ' Leith, Hht. of Cobridge Mission, MS.
 
 96 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Mr. Barneby was at length solved by Mr. 
 Corne's removal to Stafford in 1784. 
 
 Ring out a slowly dying cause, 
 And ancient forms of party strife; 
 Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
 
 With sweeter manners, purer laws. 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 XI. 
 
 'Tis the Sunday's loved morn, and there breaketh the swell 
 O'er the town's quiet streets of a single church bell. 
 Simple bell of St. Austin's — long may'st thou impart, 
 In the moil of the world, sacred thoughts to the heart ! 
 
 —Edward Wilcock. 
 
 At first Mr. Corne resided in a house which 
 he rented in Tipping Street, now occupied by 
 Mr. Jennings, and his chapel was in the garden. 
 After some time the Beringtons of Winsley, 
 Co. Hereford, who possessed considerable pro- 
 perty in Stafford and the vicinity, gave Mr. 
 Corne a ninety-nine years' lease of a piece of 
 land in the Forebridge for the purpose of 
 building upon it a house and chapel. The 
 Beringtons had long been closely connected 
 with the Stafford mission, as we have already 
 seen, and, moreover, for a considerable period
 
 St Thomas's Priory. 97 
 
 the family resided at Rowley Hall, in the 
 vicinity of the town.^ In 1717 John Berington, 
 Sen., Esq., of Winsley, and his eldest son and 
 namesake, both registered their estates as 
 Catholic nonjurors. Amongst other property 
 the father returned lands in the parish of Castle 
 Church, Stafford, called the Friar's Kitchen 
 and Sandles meadows, valued at that time at 
 ^171 los. per annum, which would represent 
 a large income nowadays.^ 
 
 Here we see the reason of the dedication of 
 the Stafford church to St. Austin. It is built 
 on land formerly belonging to the convent of 
 the Friars Hermites of the Order of St. Austin. 
 The Friary owed its existence to one of the 
 Lords Stafford, who, about 1344, gave to the 
 Order a piece of ground upon the green in the 
 south suburb called "Forbrugge," whereon to 
 found a church, dormitory, rectory and other 
 necessary buildings. After the suppression of 
 monasteries the site was granted to Thomas 
 Neve and Giles Isam, and subsequently passed 
 
 1 Fris. Whitgreave, Esq. 
 Berington pedigree ; Payne, Nonjurors, and Records of 
 Eng. Caths. 
 
 7
 
 98 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 into various hands, the Beringtons eventually- 
 becoming possessed of the portion referred to, 
 upon which St. Austin's now stands. 
 
 John Berington, Jun., left Winsley, and took 
 up his residence in Stafford, where he died 
 about the beginning of 1721. It was at this 
 period that his younger brother, the Rev. 
 Simon Berington, succeeded his cousin, the 
 Rev. Thomas Berington, in the charge of the 
 mission at St. Thomas's Priory. Squire Bering- 
 ton died "considerably indebted," as he states 
 in his will dated 26th Feb., 1720. It is therefore 
 probable that the family did not return to their 
 seat at Winsley for some time, and that after 
 the sale of the Priory Mr. Simon Berington 
 removed the mission to the Stafford residence 
 of his own family in or about 1733. It was Mr. 
 John Berington the younger's son and successor, 
 Andrews John Berington, of Winsley, and his son 
 and heir Thomas, who leased the ancient friary 
 land in the Forebridge to Mr. Corne. The 
 father died 2nd Feb. , 1 794, aged eighty-seven, and 
 the son 14th March, 1824, aged eighty-two. On 
 this site Mr. Corne erected a house and chapel, 
 but how he defrayed the cost is not recorded.
 
 SL Thomas's Prio7y. 99 
 
 The following persons were undoubtedly bene- 
 factors either then or a little later. Their 
 memories are preserved by the Tabula Mis- 
 sarum of the mission — Jean Barras, anniversary 
 not stated; Sophie de I'Age, loth January; 
 Vincent Newton, loth April, and Marie Sophie 
 de 1 'Age, 23rd October. The De I'Ages 
 were refuoees durinof the first French Revolu- 
 tion, and so probably was Jean Barras. The 
 Count de TA^e resided at a manor-house in 
 the hamlet of Aston, near Seighford, close to 
 Stafford. Vincent Newton, Esq., who be- 
 longed to an ancient Catholic family seated at 
 Irnham, Co. Lincoln, resided in Devonshire St., 
 Queen Square, London, and died loth April, 
 1814, aged eighty- eight. There are also Masses 
 to be said for Henry Maine (.'* Maire) and 
 Joseph Leveson ; but from the usurious number 
 of obligations attached to their benefactions 
 they are evidently of a much earlier date. 
 The Levesons were a well-known Stafford- 
 shire Catholic family. It is improbable that 
 Mr. Corne had anything of his own to spend 
 upon his chapel ; for, as his fellow-priest and 
 neighbour, the Rev. George Beeston, of Tixall,
 
 TOO SL TJwmas's Priory. 
 
 facetiously remarked, he came to Stafford in 
 1784 "on his failing in business in the Pot- 
 teries . 
 
 The man who builds, and v/ants wherewith to pay, 
 Provides a home from which to run away. 
 
 — Young. 
 
 In all likelihood Lady Chabot's fund was 
 sunk in the new buildings. The chapel was 
 dedicated to St. Austin, and opened, with as 
 much solemnity as was possible in those days, 
 on 31st July, 1791. On the occasion, the Rev. 
 Joseph Berington, younger son of Andrews 
 John Berington, delivered to an aristocratic 
 and crowded audience an excellent and much 
 admired sermon. 
 
 Mr. Corne continued to serve the Stafford 
 mission till 1804. In that year he removed to 
 Harvington Hall, Co. Worcester, in succession 
 to the Rev. Richard Cornethwaite, who died 
 iith September, 1803, and there he remained 
 till his death, 4th August, 1 8 1 6, aged sixty-seven. 
 He was interred at Chaddesley church. Speak- 
 ing of the two brothers. Bishop Milner said : 
 "James Corne was all soul, John all body; 
 
 ' Kirk, Diug. Collns., MSS.
 
 SL Thomases Priory. loi 
 
 James was desirous of solid knowledge, John 
 of gossip ". 
 
 The next incumbent at St. Austin's was the 
 Rev. James Appleton/ who arrived on 27th July, 
 1804, as appears from a statement of his in an 
 old register. According to the " Douay Dairy " 
 he was son of James Appleton and his wife 
 Mary Smith, of the diocese of Norwich, and 
 was admitted an aluinims of the College 1 2th 
 March, 1762, being then nineteen years of age 
 and in his second year's philosophy. Dr. 
 Husenbeth, however, without giving any 
 authority, says that his real name was Moore." 
 A few years later he was ordained priest, and 
 came to the English mission. Subsequently 
 he travelled on the Continent as tutor to some 
 of the Jerninghams, and after his return was 
 made chaplain to Sir William Jerningham, Bart., 
 at Cossey Hall, in Norfolk. There he remained 
 till 1778, when he became chaplain to Michael 
 Blount, Esq., at Maple-Durham, Berks. Next, 
 after a few years, he went to Chillington, Staf- 
 fordshire, the seat of the Giffards ; thence to 
 
 ' Gillow, Bih. Diet., i. 
 Mcmoira of Parkers, MS., i. 6.
 
 I02 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Mawley, Salop, as chaplain to Sir Walter Blount, 
 Bart. ; and finally settled at Stafford, in 1804. 
 Here he continued till his death, 22nd March, 
 18 1 3, aged seventy-one, and was buried at Castle 
 church, where his gravestone may still be seen. 
 
 Mr. Appleton was a sound theologian and an 
 able writer, and his works obtained consider- 
 able popularity in their clay. In 1792, whilst 
 at Chillington, he translated Lhomond's " La 
 Doctrine Chretienne," and published it under 
 the title of " Theophilus : or the Pupil instructed 
 in the Principles, the Obligations, and the Re- 
 sources of the Roman Catholic Religion ". This 
 was followed by another translation from the 
 same author, "Pious Lectures" (London, 1794). 
 Later he was induced to publish some of his 
 sermons, entitled, '' Discourses for all Sundays 
 and Festivals of the Year on the Various Duties 
 of Religi(M"i, as taught by the Catholic Church " 
 (London, 1800), which passed through several 
 editions (one of them in three volumes), the 
 last being issued in 1852. His fourth and last 
 work was "An Analysis, or Detailed Explica- 
 tion, of the Gospels read in the Mass on Sundays 
 and Festivals throughout the Year," which
 
 SL TJwinas's Priory. 103 
 
 appeared immediately after his death (London, 
 1 8 14), was reprinted by Andrews in 181 5, and 
 again at Dublin so late as 1853. 
 
 Six months intervened between Mr. Apple- 
 ton's decease and the appointment of a perma- 
 nent pastor. During this interregnum the 
 wants of the mission were attended to by a 
 French emigre priest, 1 'Abbe Henri Le Sage, 
 who resided at Tixall, and had charge of that 
 mission. This zealous man was grand-nephew 
 of the ingenious author of "Gil Bias," Alain 
 Rene Le Sage, whose work has been so fre- 
 quently translated into English. The abbe was 
 chaplain to the Cliffords at Tixall, from 18 10 till 
 his death, 4th May, 1821, and lies buried opposite 
 the door of the parish church. 
 
 Sous ce tombeau git Le Sage, abattu 
 Par le ciseau de la Parque importune ; 
 S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortune, 
 II fut toujours ami de la vertu. 
 
 — Lc Sage's Epitaph. 
 
 Thus the mission was gradually established ; 
 and, though the individual efforts of its first 
 pastors were not distinguished by great achieve- 
 ments, we may say with Miss Landon : —
 
 I04 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 But not in vain — their toil was blest; 
 
 Life's dearest hope by them was won ; 
 A blessing is upon their rest, 
 
 And on the work which they begun. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Call those sheep back who go astray, 
 
 And bring them to Thy fold ; 
 That they and we united may 
 
 One faith in God all hold. 
 
 —Haydock's Hymns. 
 
 On 24th September, 18 13, the Rev. Thomas 
 Price' formally took charge of the mission. At 
 the age of fourteen he was sent to Sedgley 
 Park School, where he was admitted 12th May, 
 1776.'^ Thence, after a few years, he proceeded 
 to the English College at Valladolid, where he 
 was ordained priest, and for some years was 
 professor of theology. At length he returned 
 to England, and about the end of 1798 was 
 appointed to the chaplaincy at Tixall, then the 
 seat of Sir Thomas Clifford, Bart. In 18 10 he 
 left Tixall to become chaplain to Sir George 
 William Jerningham, Bart, subsequently Lord 
 
 Kirk, Biog. Collns., MSS. 
 -Sedgley Park Reg., MS.
 
 S^. TJiornas's Priory. 105 
 
 Stafford, at Cossey Hall, and there he re- 
 mained till his appointment to Stafford in 
 1813. 
 
 It was about this time that Sir George, 
 representative of the Barons Stafford and 
 claimant to the title, resolved upon the erection 
 of a seat at Stafford, in accord with the early 
 traditions of the family. Between 1 780 and 
 1790, nothing remained visible of Stafford 
 Castle but a solitary fragment of a wall, which 
 Sir William Jerningham underpinned to prevent 
 from falling. About the same time, some 
 workmen, engaged to search for an ancient 
 well, discovered that all the basement of the 
 Castle lay buried beneath the ruins of the upper 
 stories. Sir William at once ordered the whole 
 to be excavated and cleared from debris, and 
 thus was displayed the plan and extent of a 
 Castle of the time of the Conqueror.^ Sir 
 William died in 1809 ! 3-'"^^ in the following year 
 his son and successor, Sir George, recalling its 
 former pride, commenced to erect on the 
 foundations of the ancient Castle the present 
 massive and imposing fortress, in apparent 
 
 ^ Clifford, Hhi. of Tixall.
 
 io6 6"/. Thomases Priory. 
 
 oblivion of the peaceful change which time had 
 effected in our national life. 
 
 Oh I vain delusion ! Cruel days 
 
 Were then upon the land,— 
 A ba.ttlement on every wall, 
 
 A sword in every hand. 
 
 — L. E. Landon. 
 
 It was designed by his younger brother 
 Edward/ a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, whose 
 predilections were architectural and musical 
 rather than legal. Only one front flanked by 
 two round towers was completed when the 
 great cost of this reproduction of a baronial 
 Castle of feudal times, designed with a total 
 disreo^ard of domestic comfort and modern re- 
 quirements, brought about a suspension of 
 building operations in 1815 ; and to this day 
 Stafford Castle remains in its unfinished state — 
 a most conspicuous and picturesque feature of 
 the landscape, indeed, but of no other advan- 
 tage save to illustrate the folly of an amateur 
 antiquarian's enthusiasm. Mr. Jerningham 
 then turned his attention to St. Austin's, which 
 he transformed into a Gothic chapel of much 
 
 'Gillow, Dib. Diet., iii. 627.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 107 
 
 larger dimensions, utilising the old one as the 
 transept. This was done under his own direc- 
 tion, and at his expense and that of his brother 
 Sir George, who purchased the oak stalls of 
 Lichfield Cathedral and placed them round the 
 sanctuary. These oak stalls had been erected 
 by Bishop Hackett in the Cathedral at the time 
 of its restoration after the Civil Wars. ^ The 
 windows, also, which were of the lancet order, 
 he enriched with fine old painted glass. '^ All 
 this was accomplished by this amiable and 
 charitable gentleman some years before his 
 death, which occurred at London, 29th May, 
 1822, at the comparatively early age of forty- 
 seven. And the congrreration will lono- remem- 
 ber him — 
 
 For woordes and deedes, at parting done or said, 
 In memories conservance best are laid. 
 
 — Verstegan. 
 
 In 1 8 18 Mr. Price erected a small school, the 
 want of which was sorely felt. This was 
 done at the joint expense of Sir George 
 Jerningham and Mrs. Frith. The latter, besides 
 her contribution of ^200 towards the erection, 
 
 ^ Fris. Whitgreave, Esq. 
 ■•^ Kirk, Cath. Mcig., v. 429.
 
 io8 Si. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 was in other ways a great benefactress to the 
 mission, as also to those at Newcastle, Ashley, 
 and other places. After serving the mission for 
 almost eighteen years, Mr. Price died suddenly 
 in London, whilst on a visit to Lady Stanley, 
 15th June, 1 83 1, aged sixty-nine. The day 
 previous to his decease, he dined with Bishop 
 Bramston in excellent health and spirits, and 
 retired about nine o'clock in the evening, de- 
 claring that he had never spent a more pleasant 
 day. The next morning, at seven o'clock, the 
 footman on entering his room found him a 
 corpse, and on examination it was supposed 
 that he had been dead at least four hours. He 
 was one of the mildest of men, and universally 
 regarded with affection and respect. On the 
 following Saturday, the iSth June, a solemn 
 requiem was performed in his chapel at Staf- 
 ford, where his memory is still revered. 
 
 Death came unheralded: — but it was well; 
 
 For so thy Saviour bore 
 Kind witness, thou wast meet at once to dwell 
 
 On His eternal shore; 
 
 All warning spared, 
 
 For none He gives where hearts are for prompt 
 
 change prepared. 
 
 — Cardinal Newman. 
 
 ' Cath. Mag., i. 384.
 
 SL Thomas'' s Priory. 109 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Let Charity and Truth prevail, 
 
 And all divisions cease ; 
 That nothing in the world be seen 
 
 But Love, and Joy, and Peace. 
 
 — Hay dock's Hymns. 
 
 Meanwhile the Act of Emancipation had 
 passed in 1829 ; and, though gradual, the 
 improvement in the position of Catholics was 
 very marked. In less than a generation, during 
 our second pastorate, prejudice and ignorance 
 had so far succumbed that His Holiness Pope 
 Pius IX. felt justified in restoring the hierarchy 
 in 1850; and the Church in this country, after 
 an interval of three centuries, assumed its ancient 
 form of government. 
 
 His people He affects 
 He wil not have destrest. 
 The thralled He wil free 
 With ease of their unrest. 
 
 — Verstegan. 
 
 Within two months of the death of Mr. Price 
 the bereaved conofresfation at Stafford had the 
 satisfaction of seeing the pastorate refilled in 
 the person of one whose whole life was in true 
 accord with the motto so loyally borne by his 
 forefathers from time immemorial — S0/2 Deo
 
 no S/. Thomas's P^dory. 
 
 honor et gloria. The Rev. Edward Huddleston, 
 a worthy scion of one of our most ancient 
 Catholic families, took charge of the mission in 
 August, 183 1. He was a younger son of 
 Edward Huddleston, Esq., of Purse Caundle, 
 in Dorsetshire, who eventually succeeded his 
 brother to the Sawston estates, near Cambridge, 
 At a very early age, in 1805, he was sent to that 
 venerable academy of Catholic youth, Sedgley 
 Park,^ whence he was transferred to Oscott 
 College, 7th February, 18 15. There he con- 
 tinued his studies till he was ordained priest in 
 March, 1826, having some time previously 
 filled the office of prefect of discipline. After 
 his ordination, he went to his ancestral home at 
 Sawston to supply the family chaplaincy, which 
 had been filled by Dom Charles Ambrose 
 Feraud, O.S.B., from 1824. It is probable 
 that Sawston Hall was never without a priest 
 throughout the days of persecution. For two 
 centuries and more it was served by the Jesuits, 
 from 1783 to 1785 by the Dominicans, and again 
 by the Jesuits till Fr. Feraud took charge in 
 1824. At this time there was no Catholic chapel 
 
 ^Sedgley Park Reg., MS.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 1 1 1 
 
 at Cambridge, which came under the charge of 
 the chaplain at Sawston. The late Vicar- 
 Apostolic of the Midland District, Bishop Milner, 
 had long entertained the design of supplying this 
 want, a measure strongly recommended by the 
 celebrity of the place, the daily increasing 
 number of resident Irish Catholics, and from the 
 fact of there being no public chapel in the whole 
 county. Influenced by the same weighty 
 reasons, his successor, Bishop Walsh, deter- 
 mined to act upon the favourable opportunity 
 offered by Mr. Huddleston's ordination, and 
 appointed him to undertake the arduous task. 
 The zealous missioner issued an appeal, and 
 began to collect funds ; but before he was in a 
 position to establish an independent mission in 
 Cambridge he was called away, owing to Mr. 
 Price's sudden demise, to take charge of the 
 more important mission of St. Austin's, though, 
 indeed, the congregation at this time only 
 numbered about one hundred and fifty com- 
 municants. 
 
 These are the chosen few, 
 The remnant fruit of largely-scattered grace, 
 God sows in waste, to reap whom He foreknew 
 
 Of man's cold race. 
 
 — Cardinal Newt)ian.
 
 112 SL T/iomas's Priory. 
 
 Some three years later, an incident occurred 
 which illustrated the force of the young mis- 
 sioner's character, and greatly endeared him to 
 the hearts of his people/ During the Lent 
 assizes of 1834, two poor Irishmen were 
 capitally indicted for an assault upon some 
 constable or constables. Penniless and friend- 
 less, and intimidated by the array of judge, jury, 
 counsel, witnesses, and all the pomp and 
 circumstance of Justice, these poor fellows 
 offered no defence. They were found guilty, 
 and sentenced by Mr. Justice Parke to be 
 hanged at an early date. Mr. Huddleston was 
 present at the trial, and felt deeply dissatisfied 
 with the evidence against the prisoners. He 
 followed up his doubt, instituted inquiry, and 
 convinced himself of the injustice of the sentence. 
 He sought and obtained an interview with the 
 judge, to whom he explained the grounds of 
 his doubt. But he was ill received, and when 
 he stated that a witness of the transaction was 
 without, ready to swear to the truth of his 
 representations, the judge dismissed him with 
 
 1 Kirk, Caih. Mag., v. 430.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 113 
 
 the exclamation : " Sir, I could not believe him 
 upon his oath ". Notwithstanding this rebuff, 
 Mr. Huddleston remained undaunted. In 
 haste he took coach to London, called on Mr. 
 Littleton, the member for the Northern 
 Division of the County, who was elevated to 
 the peerage as Baron Hatherton in the following 
 year, and induced him to see Lord Melbourne, 
 the Home Secretary, The latter at once saw the 
 merits of the case, represented them to the 
 sovereign, and having obtained a reprieve, sent 
 for Mr. Huddleston and informed him of it. 
 The men were, however, to be hanged the next 
 day, and any accident might be fatal to them ; so 
 to guard against the chances of failure, his 
 lordship resolved to send three copies of the 
 reprieve, one by post, one by express, and one 
 by Mr. Huddleston, who had the inexpressible 
 satisfaction of arriving in time to present the 
 king's pardon, and thus save the lives of the two 
 innocent men. Such was this worthy pastor's 
 glorious triumph in the cause of humanity. The 
 case was simple ; the poor men had resisted 
 attacks upon themselves, and this resistance was 
 construed into an attack upon others.
 
 114 S^. TJiomas's PiHory. 
 
 Justice for right, mercie for grace did crave, 
 Justice had right, mercie her favour gave. 
 
 — Verstegan. 
 
 In 1852 Mr. Huddleston was elected canon 
 penitentiary of the diocese of Birmingham. 
 Four years later, in Sept., I856 he exchanged 
 his charge at Stafford for the quieter mission of 
 St. Michael, Aston, where he passed the re- 
 mainder of his missionary career, till his death, 
 14th December, 1871.^ 
 
 I make no doubt but he is gone 
 
 Where soon I hope to go, 
 Where we for ever shall be blest, 
 
 From out the reach of woe. 
 
 — Chatterton. 
 
 Of Francis Kerril Amherst,- Fr. Huddle- 
 ston's successor, the conorresfation of St. Austin's 
 may well feel proud ; for though his pastorate 
 was brief, it was most promising for the welfare 
 of the mission, and was only severed by an 
 
 ^ A monumental sculptor of a waggish turn inscribed the 
 following lines on the tombstone of a namesake : — 
 
 " Here lies Edward Huddlestone. Reader, don't smile ! 
 Reflect, as this tombstone you view, • 
 That death, who kill'd him, in a very short while 
 Will huddle a stone upon you." 
 ^Gillow, Bib. Diet, i. ; Oscotian, vi. 157, zoz, vii. ; Burke, 
 Landed Gentry.
 
 5/. Thomas'' s Priory. 115 
 
 unsought call to a higher state — his elevation 
 to the episcopacy. Dr. Amherst, who'was born 
 in the metropolis, 21st March, 18 19, was the 
 eldest son and heir of William Kerril Amherst, 
 Esq., of Parndon House, Essex, and of Fieldgate 
 House, Kenil worth. Co. Warwick, who died at 
 the latter seat in 1835. His mother was Mary 
 Louise, daughter of Francis Fortescue Turvile, 
 Esq., of Husband's Bosworth Hall, Co. Leicester, 
 by Barbara, daughter of the Hon. Charles 
 Talbot, and sister of Charles, sixteenth Earl of 
 Shrewsbury. The first ten years of the future 
 bishop's life were spent at Parndon. Thence he 
 was sent to a small preparatory school kept by 
 the Rev. William Foley, at Northampton, sin- 
 gularly the very house in which subsequently 
 he resided as bishop of that see. 
 
 In June, 1830, Mr. Foley was called to 
 Oscott to act as locum tcneiis to Dr. Weedall 
 during his temporary retirement from the 
 presidency of the College ; and thence he was 
 followed by eight of his pupils, among whom 
 were Francis Kerril Amherst and his 
 younger brother, the present Fr. William Joseph 
 Amherst, S.J., who both entered as lay student:^-
 
 ii6 SL Thomas'' s Priory. 
 
 on loth August in that year. After continuing 
 their studies for eight years, the two brothers 
 left the College together to enter the world ; but 
 in May, 1841, the elder returned to Oscott to 
 study for the Church, and was ordained priest 
 by the late Cardinal Wiseman, 6th June, 
 1846. His ecclesiastical call was followed 
 eventually by his brother, who joined the 
 Society of Jesus ; and was ordained priest 
 at St. Austin's, Kenilworth. 15th Aug., 1859. 
 From 1847 to 1852 the subject of this brief 
 memoir was a professor at Oscott, and after an 
 interval of three years resumed his professorial 
 gown for eleven months, till his appointment 
 to the Stafford mission in Sept., 1856. His 
 missionary career, however, was soon closed. 
 For on nth Feb., 1858, the Right Rev. 
 William Wareing, first Bishop of North- 
 ampton, resigned his see, and Dr. Amherst 
 was selected by His Holiness Pius IX. to fill 
 the vacancy, his episcopal consecration taking 
 place on 4th July in that year. After twenty- 
 one years' hard work in his new sphere of duty, 
 his lordship was compelled by rapidly-failing 
 health to resign his bishopric. Accordingly, in
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 1 1 7 
 
 the following year, 1880, he was translated by 
 the Holy Father to the See of Sozusa in parti- 
 bus injideliuni. From this time his sufferings 
 continually increased, culminating in the afflic- 
 tion of total blindness, till his death at his 
 residence, Fieldgate House, Kenilworth, 21st 
 Aug., 1883, aged sixty-four.^ 
 
 Farewell, fair saint ! Let not the seas, and wind, 
 Swell like the eyes and hearts you leave behind ; 
 But smooth, and gentle, as the looks you wear. 
 Smile in your face, and whisper in your ear. 
 
 — Tixall Poetry. 
 
 His lordship's brother, Fr. Amherst, in a brief 
 review of his life in his " History of Oscott," 
 has expressed the opinion that that College lost 
 a great deal, in more ways than one, when Dr. 
 Amherst was raised to the episcopacy. A 
 period of service on the mission might have 
 been extremely useful to him, as it is indeed 
 to every priest ; but, that period over, he should 
 have returned to his a//na mater. He certainly 
 had some qualities which eminently fitted him 
 for the episcopal order ; but, considering the 
 whole of his constitution and disposition, he was 
 
 Tablet, Ixii. 339 ; Wkly. Reg., Ixviii. 241, 261.
 
 ii8 S^. Thomases Priory. 
 
 much more fitted for the responsibilities of col- 
 lege life and of parochial life than for those of 
 an office in which weightier and more harassing 
 cares bore so heavily on one who, with the 
 sensitiveness of a woman, and a horror of eivine 
 pain to any one, combined the strong good sense 
 and the hiorh notions of honour of an EnoHsh 
 gentleman. Fr. Amherst adds, he loved his 
 diocese, and in his testamentary dispositions he 
 gave unmistakable proof of the claims North- 
 ampton had upon him. 
 
 In the literary world he is best known by his 
 " Lenten Thoughts, drawn from the Gospel for 
 each Day of Lent " (London, 1873, i2mo), which 
 has since passed through several editions. He 
 was also the author of a story entitled "Nor- 
 ton Broadhead," some sonnets printed for 
 private circulation, and occasional articles in 
 the Catholic press. 
 
 In June, 1858, the Rev. John Wyse suc- 
 ceeded to the charge of St. Austin's. He was 
 educated at Oscott and Stonyhurst, ordained 
 priest 27th y\pril, 1851,^ and, after residing at 
 Clifton for a while, took charge of the mission 
 
 ' (Jscutiun, \ii. ; Hatt, Stonyhurst Lists.
 
 SL Thomas 's Priory. 1 1 9 
 
 of St. Winifrid's, Shepshed, Co. Leicester, in 
 1852. In the following year he became chap- 
 lain at the convent in Alcester Street, Birming- 
 ham, where he remained till his appointment to 
 Stafford. Though his stay was brief, he left a 
 lasting memorial behind him in the shape of a 
 sum of /700, which he and his curate, the Rev. 
 John P. Dowling (a young priest ordained at 
 Oscott loth June, 1854), had collected towards 
 the rebuilding of the church. In the autumn of 
 1859 he proceeded to Woodchester Priory to 
 join the Dominicans; but in 1861 he left the 
 Friar Preachers, and was appointed Rector of 
 West Bromwich, which mission he exchanged 
 for Warwick in 1863. Thence he withdrew to 
 St. Edmund's College, Old Hall Green, in 1864; 
 subsequently lived in retirement for a number 
 of years, till he undertook the charge of Tich- 
 borne in 1884; and is now resting from mission- 
 ary work on sick leave. 
 
 Whilst at Birmingham Mr. Wyse published 
 a " Manual of the Confraternity of La Salette, 
 comprising every information concerning La 
 Salette, with Devotions for the Confraternities 
 established in England" (London, 1855, i2mo),
 
 I20 S^. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 and about the same time edited " The Music 
 of the Hymns, Anthems, and Litanies for the 
 use of the Confraternities of La Salette," the 
 music being arranged by Mr, Spivey. 
 
 Though the honour of the erection of the 
 new church was left to his successor, it must 
 ever be remembered that Mr. Wyse was the 
 originator of the movement, and left, as we have 
 already seen, a substantial sum towards the 
 carrying of it out. He had the felicity of being- 
 present at the laying of the foundation-stone, 
 on which occasion his deserts were fully acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 With the erection of this church commences 
 a new era in the history of St. Austin's. The 
 old chapel was transformed into a school, and 
 yet remains a speaking memorial of the past, 
 a link with times which happily cannot come 
 again. 
 
 Dear Mother I at whose angel-guarded shrine 
 The faithful sought of old their daily Bread, 
 How full thou art of iinpulses divine, 
 And memories deep and dread I 
 
 — F. W. Faber.
 
 SL Thomas's Pidory. 121 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Within these walls let holy peace, 
 
 And love with concord dwell : 
 Here give the troubled conscience ease, 
 
 And all our passions quell. 
 
 — Haydock's Hymns. 
 
 The Rev. Michael O'Sullivan^ became mis- 
 sionary rector upon Mr. Wyse's withdrawal, 
 charged with the onerous task of erecting the 
 new church. He was a native of Ireland, born 
 in 1823, and when but three months old had 
 the misfortune to lose his father, a farmer of 
 the middle class in one of the southern CQun- 
 ties. At the age of ten, in 1834, through the 
 good offices of an uncle, he was placed at the 
 well-known school at Sedgley Park,^ with the 
 view of his being trained for the priesthood. In 
 September, 1837, he was transferred to Oscott 
 College, where he remained five years, and 
 laid the foundation of the scholastic training, 
 and, probably, of the dialectical skill, by which 
 he was distinguished in riper years. His ad- 
 vanced studies in theology were made at the 
 English College at Rome ; but before leaving 
 
 ^Tablet, Ixxix. g8. -Sedgley Park Register, MS.
 
 122 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Oscott, in 1842, he matriculated a member of 
 the London University. At Rome he passed a 
 brilHant career, till his ordination, i8th Decem- 
 ber, 1848. His natural quickness and indus- 
 trious study brought him numerous rewards. He 
 gained medals and distinctions in Hebrew, 
 canon law, theology, and other subjects. After 
 ordination his first charge was as assistant priest 
 at St, Peter's, Birmingham. In 185 1 he was 
 removed to the Cathedral, where he was ap- 
 pointed prefect of the church and master of 
 ceremonies. Here he threw himself with great 
 enthusiasm into the work which was being 
 carried on in the schools connected with the 
 Cathedral, particularly in the night-schools, in 
 which elementary education was given to adults 
 who had not enjoyed the advantage of school- 
 ing in their boyhood. In 1857, his health having 
 suffered from overwork, he was sent to the 
 rural parish of Brewood, whence, in November, 
 1859, he assumed charge of the Stafford mis- 
 sion. Here his energy and zeal were shown 
 in promoting the erection of the new church, 
 and subsequently of the schools in Foregate 
 Street.
 
 S/. Thomas's Pi'iory. 123 
 
 The site of the church immediately adjoins 
 that of the old chapel on the side farthest from 
 the town. It is a brick structure, in the decor- 
 ated Gothic style, and was designed by the 
 younger Pugin, Simplicity and neatness are 
 its prevailing characteristics. It was intended 
 to seat five hundred persons — three hundred in 
 the nave, and one hundred in each of the aisles, 
 — and the dimensions were to be one hundred 
 by fifty feet, with a tower over the porch at the 
 end of the western aisle, from which was to rise 
 a spire one hundred and ten feet high. The 
 ceremony of laying the foundation-stone was 
 performed on 26th May, 1861, by the vicar- 
 general of the diocese, the Very Rev. George 
 Jeffries, in the presence of some hundreds of 
 people ; and at the subsequent luncheon at the 
 Swan Hotel, the Right Hon. Lord Stafford 
 presided, the vice-chairs being filled by Henry 
 B. G. Whitgreave, Esq., of Moseley Court, 
 and his brother, Francis Whitgreave, Esq., of 
 Burton Manor, all generous benefactors to the 
 new church. The latter gentleman, in propos- 
 intr the healths of the former incumbents of St. 
 Austin's, FF. Huddleston and Wyse, who were
 
 124 •^^- Thomases Priory. 
 
 present, gracefully acknowledged that it was to 
 the latter that the congregation owed, the com- 
 mencement of the work which had that day 
 been advanced so important a step. The 
 building proceeded apace, so that within little 
 over a year's time it was ready for use. In the 
 words of the ancient hymn, Coelestis urbs Jeru- 
 salem, composed for the anniversary service of 
 the dedication of a church — 
 
 Scalpri salubris ictibus, 
 
 Ex tunsione plurima, 
 
 Fabri polita malleo, 
 
 Hanc saxa molem construunt, 
 
 Aptisque juncta nexibus, 
 
 Locantur in fastigio. 
 
 On the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 
 1 6th July, 1862, the opening ceremony took 
 place. The building having involved an ex- 
 penditure of more than ^2500, exclusive of the 
 seats, organ, etc., the smallness of the fund at 
 the command of the congrreoation had neces- 
 sitated a modification of the origintil plans, not 
 only by the omission of ornament, but by a 
 material contraction of the proposed dimensions 
 of the church. The following description ap-
 
 SL Thomas'' s Priory. 125 
 
 peared in the Staffordshire Advertiser at the 
 time of the opening : — 
 
 "■ The interior of the structure consists of a 
 nave and two aisles, the nave terminating in a 
 semi-octagonal apse, and being separated from 
 the aisles in the usual manner by arches and 
 columns. The centre of the columns consists 
 of a shaft of granite marble, supported on a 
 base of white Sicilian marble, and this aoain 
 on a support of Yorkshire stone. The deep 
 colour of the polished centre-pieces, contrasted 
 with the white plaster coating of the walls, has 
 a very pleasing effect. Upon the arches there 
 is but little ornamental work, a simple moulding 
 from pier to pier. Above, on either side, is a 
 range of clerestory windows, fashioned in the 
 form of cinque-foils. In the apse at the farther 
 end of the nave there are three stained win- 
 dows, by Hardman of Birmingham, each con- 
 taining three figures. In the centre is a re- 
 presentation of the Crucifixion, with the Blessed 
 Virgin and St. John on either side ; upon the 
 right are Our Saviour, St. Augustine, and St. 
 Gregory, with three of the children known as 
 ' non Angli, sed Angeli ' ; while on the left are
 
 126 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 * the Good Shepherd,' St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 the figures being surmounted by the tiara. In 
 the centre of the apse is the high altar, of Caen 
 stone. . . . The aisles terminate in chapels, 
 that on the left being dedicated to Our Blessed 
 Virgin . . . while in a corresponding position 
 on the opposite side of the church is a figure 
 of St. Augustine bearing his crosier. Here a 
 temporary screen at present shuts off the space 
 destined for another chapel. ... At the 
 western extremity of the church the organ is 
 situated, in a small gallery fronting the high 
 altar. ... In the west front of the church, 
 and to some extent concealed from the congre- 
 gation by the organ, is a large window of 
 stained glass taken from the old building. In 
 the window itself, with its geometrical tracery, 
 there are perhaps more distinct marks of the 
 decorative style than in any other part of the 
 building ; but the glass it contains exhibits such 
 a diversity of design that it is impossible to 
 characterise it as a whole. The only entrances 
 to the church are at the west front by two 
 principal doors. . . . The roof, like the rest 
 of the interior, is covered with plaster, but it is
 
 SL Thomas 's Priory. 1 2 7 
 
 supported by open woodwork, continued over 
 the aisles." ' '• 
 
 The Right Rev. Dr. Ullathorne, Bishop of 
 Birmingham, and a large gathering of clergy, 
 were present in the sanctuary at the opening. 
 Fr. Peter Gailwey, S.J., preached, and at the 
 conclusion of the ceremony the procession left 
 the church to the triumphant strains of the 
 Jubilate Deo : — 
 
 Make ye jubilation to God, al the earth, 
 
 Say a psalme to His name ; give glorie to His praise. 
 
 — Ps. Ixv., Douay Bible. 1610. 
 
 At the luncheon which followed, the chair 
 was taken by Basil Thomas Fitzherbert, Esq., 
 of Swynnerton Park, brother-in-law to the sub- 
 sequent tenth and eleventh Barons Stafford, to 
 whose title his son is nov/ heir-presumptive. 
 In his acknowledgment of the toast of " Pros- 
 perity to the new church," associated with 
 his name, the rector, Fr. O'Sullivan, self- 
 abrogatingly said that the merit of having 
 built a church at Stafford was primarily to be 
 attributed to Canon Huddleston, who built the 
 living church ; to Dr. Amherst and his assist- 
 ant Fr. Dowling, who perfected that living
 
 128 SL TJiomas's Pi'iory. 
 
 church ; and to Fr. Wyse, who left ^^"700 
 collected for the new church. Had Fr. Wyse 
 presided over the building, his popularity 
 would have enabled them to erect a more 
 elegant structure. He thanked the benefactors, 
 especially Lord Stafford, Mr. George Thomas 
 Whitgreave, ^ and Serjeant Bellasis ; but he 
 reminded all who had made sacrifices that the 
 end had not come. The town of Stafford was, 
 like a line in Euclid, length without breadth. 
 The new church was at one end, many Catho- 
 lics at the other ; and it was hard to make both 
 ends meet. He thanked them all, and gave 
 credit to his assistant priest, the Rev. Clement 
 I. Harris, for the zeal with which he had ac- 
 complished his share of the labours connected 
 with the opening. 
 
 Some three years later Fr. O'Sullivan became 
 a member of the Birmingham Chapter, and 
 after seven years' residence at Stafford he was 
 summoned by his bishop to Birmingham, to 
 succeed the Very Rev. George Jeffries as 
 vicar-general of the diocese, an office which 
 
 ' Mr. Whitgreave gave /"lOO towards the building fund, and 
 ^^50 for the erection of the high altar.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. i 29 
 
 he held until 1879. His departure was early 
 in December, 1 866 ; and yet the memory of 
 him has remained fresh in the minds of his 
 people to this day. He changed the scene of 
 his pastoral duties, but the Stafford congrega- 
 tion never seem to have given him up, holding 
 him in their hearts with a devotion that was a 
 striking testimony to his worth. 
 
 Quando ullum inveniemus parein ? 
 
 On the formation in 1871 of the first Birming- 
 ham School Board, the canon's experience as 
 an educationalist marked him out as the best re- 
 presentative of the Catholic body. The history 
 of the first School Board was a stormy one. 
 There were Parliamentary and political debates 
 which often riveted the attention of the town, 
 and did much to form public opinion upon the 
 questions which were in dispute. Such men 
 as the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, the 
 late Mr. George Dawson and Mr. Charles 
 Vince, Dr. R. W. Dale, and the Rev. Dr- 
 Burgess were members ; and side by side with 
 them Canon O'Sullivan, with the kindliest feel- 
 ing and overflowing good humour, held a 
 
 9
 
 130 SL TJiouias's Priory. 
 
 brilliant part on behalf of the interests of which 
 he was the special custodian. In 1876 he 
 withdrew from the Board, his place being 
 taken by Canon Longman. His was a well" 
 known face at public meetings for charitable 
 and philanthropic objects ; and he was a very- 
 enthusiastic member of the Hospital Sunday 
 Committee. Amongst his own people he was 
 especially loved, and at the annual Catholic re- 
 unions he usually received the heartiest applause 
 of the evening when he came forward to say 
 a few words, generally in support of a resolu- 
 tion of thanks to the principal visitor. He was 
 an admirable pastor, a judicious administrator, 
 and an eloquent preacher. In 1877 he with- 
 drew from St. Chad's Cathedral to the com- 
 parative retirement of Solihull, where he took 
 charge of that mission, and erected a charming 
 presbytery, at which he spent the remainder of 
 his days, till his sudden, though not unprepared 
 death, 15th January, 1892, aged sixty-nine. 
 
 O wel are you that have subdude 
 
 The force of world's desyre, 
 And in the forte of solitude 
 
 For safety do rctyre. 
 
 — Verstegan.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 131 
 
 Canon O'SuUivan was a man of marked 
 literary tastes, and up to the very last maintained 
 a connection with Birmingham littdrateurs as a 
 member of the Old Library Committee, of which 
 he was president about three years before his 
 death. Two years before the latter event, he 
 made a journey to the United States. He had 
 previously travelled a good deal upon the 
 Continent ; and his keen observation of men 
 and things, together with his ready wit and 
 genial disposition, made him a cultured and 
 charming companion. No man was more 
 welcome at a dinner party ; and no man, while 
 freely contributing by his wit to the pleasure of 
 his companions, knew better how to maintain 
 the dignity of his clerical character, or to ensure 
 personal respect. The Rev. Dr. M'Cave, in 
 his funeral panegyric delivered at Birmingham, 
 said that the canon for well nigh thirty years 
 was the quasi leader of Catholicity in the 
 Midlands. He cared not for place, and he cared 
 not for pelf Nay, when an informal offer of 
 an archbishopric was made to him he declined, 
 and preferred to live and die working in 
 Birmingham. That meant many and many a
 
 132 Si. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 battle, but he threw himself into the fight 
 chivalrously and conscientiously. He loved his 
 Irish fatherland with intensity, and was never 
 so proud as when his audience consisted of the 
 sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle ; 
 indeed, he was the beau id(^al of the Soggarth 
 Aroon. Another feature of his admirable life 
 was the perfect order, precision, and piety with 
 which he discharged his priestly duties. Touch- 
 ing his life at Stafford, we may conclude with 
 an extract from a sympathetic memoir which 
 appeared in the Stafford Catholic Magazine for 
 January, 1892 :— 
 
 " During the seven years which Canon 
 O'Sullivan spent in Stafford much was done by 
 him, and under him, to promote the work and 
 improve the position of Catholicity in the town. 
 Throutrh his exertions the church was built and 
 freed from debt, and the schools in Foregate 
 Street erected. I n a long and bitter controversy 
 in the Advertiser, the canon vigorously and 
 learnedly defended the doctrines and rights of 
 Catholics ; and in spite of the bigotry aroused 
 by a clerical opponent the cause of this con- 
 troversy, viz., the claim to have a salaried
 
 S/. Thomas's Priory. xx'x 
 
 03 
 
 Catholic chaplain appointed to the gaol, was 
 carried through successfully. On the various 
 boards and committees of the borough the canon 
 was found taking his part, and by his tact and 
 urbanity he succeeded in removing much anti- 
 Catholic prejudice. When he was about to 
 leave the town, the purse of forty guineas 
 presented to him by his own people was aug- 
 mented by a testimonial of twenty-five sovereigns 
 from Protestant gentlemen of the town, headed 
 by Mr. J. Morgan, the mayor, who in his 
 address spoke of the canon as ' a gentleman 
 who had by his uniform kindness and affability 
 shown that social duties were not inconsistent 
 with the priestly office'." 
 
 Indeed, from the general description of the 
 good canon we seem to have embodied the 
 ideal sought by Richard Crashaw : — 
 
 A happy soul, that all the way 
 
 To Heaven hath a summer's day ; 
 * * * * 
 
 A man whose tuned humours be 
 
 A seat of rarest harmony ; 
 
 •X- * * * 
 
 Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering 
 Winter's self into a spring. 
 In sum, would'st see a man that can 
 Live to be old, and still a man.
 
 1 34 '^^- Thomas's Priory. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Though our notes be short and few, 
 
 And our rests too oft and long, 
 If we keep in time with you, 
 
 We at last shall sing your song. 
 
 — John Austin. 
 
 When Canon O'Sullivan left Stafford he was 
 succeeded by the Rev. John Fanning.^ This 
 venerable man was born at Louorhmore, near 
 Thurles, Co. Tipperary, loth November, 1805. 
 After completing a course of humanities and 
 philosophy in his native country, he came over 
 to Prior Park, Co. Somerset, 14th September, 
 1836, to pursue his theological studies; and there 
 was ordained priest, 14th March, 1840. His first 
 mission was Taunton, Co. Somerset, on which 
 he entered i6th October, 1841. To oblige 
 Bishop Hendren he consented to separate him- 
 self from his attached congregation, and to ex- 
 pose himself as a forlorn hope to recover the 
 misapplied funds of the well-founded but im- 
 poverished mission of Tiverton, in Devonshire. 
 There he displayed his characteristic tact and 
 energy, from the Advent of 1848 to th(; Advent 
 
 Cath. Times, 28th August, 1891 ; Oliver, Collns., 249.
 
 S^. Thomas's Priory. 135 
 
 of 1850, when he was permitted to return to the 
 scene of his first labours, to the deHght of his 
 numerous acquaintances. Soon after, a difference 
 with his superiors over a demand for monies, 
 supposed to have been advanced to the mission 
 some twenty years before his appointment to 
 Taunton, led to his withdrawal from the Ply- 
 mouth diocese, and to his acceptance of Bishop 
 Ullathorne's proffer to receive him into the Bir- 
 mingham diocese. On 30th January, 1853, he 
 bade adieu to his flock, who expressed their 
 sorrow at the separation by presenting him with 
 a eulogistic address, accompanied by a purse of 
 sovereigns. Bishop Ullathorne at once ap- 
 pointed him to the vacant mission of Chipping 
 Norton, Co. Oxford. On the following 30th 
 June he was transferred to the important mis- 
 sion of SS. Peter and Paul, Wolverhampton ; 
 and whilst there he opened with unprecedented 
 solemnity, ist May, 1855, the fine church of SS. 
 Mary and John. After a few more years of 
 zealous and active labour, failing health neces- 
 sitated a change to a lighter mission, and in 
 1858 he withdrew to Hanley, Upton-on-Severn. 
 In 1 86 1 he was transferred to Bromsofrove, where
 
 136 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 he remained till his appointment to Stafford in 
 1866. Here he continued his faithful services 
 till, in March, 1871, he had the satisfaction of 
 beins: restored to the Clifton diocese, and was 
 given the charge of Shepton Mallet, Somerset. 
 In 1878 he was transferred to Frome, in the same 
 county, where he continued to labour till old age 
 and infirm.ity necessitated his retirement from the 
 mission in 1884. For some time he resided 
 with or near his nephew, the Rev. James F. 
 Fanning, in Liverpool ; but some three years 
 before his death he returned to his native 
 country to enjoy more fully amongst his friends 
 his well-earned repose. Thus he quietly passed 
 to his eternal reward, at Holy Cross, Co. 
 Tipperary, 13th August, 1891, having nearly 
 attained the patriarchal age of eighty-six. 
 
 Wherever his lot was cast during his pere- 
 grinations he made the prospects of religion 
 brighter by his zeal and sanctity, and conciliated 
 those at variance through either creed or party 
 by his manners and character. 
 
 From the world's poor pageantry. 
 Lord, Thou call'st a soul to Thee, 
 Grant her rest eternally. 
 
 — Rev. Henry Formby.
 
 St. Thomas's Priory. 137 
 
 The Rev. James Nary succeeded Fr. Fanning, 
 and arrived at St. Austin's iith March, 1871; 
 he had been ordained priest at Oscott, 26th 
 March, 1 864,^ and subsequently served at Stonor, 
 Henley-on-Thames, till 1868, and then at 
 Oxford till his appointment to Stafford. His 
 sojourn terminated in December, 1872 ; and 
 after serving successively at Brewood, Dor- 
 chester, Blackmore Park, Eccleshall, and Can- 
 nock, he is now stationed at Leamington. 
 
 And now we come to one in whose person 
 the earliest and dearest traditions of the 
 mission are associated — the Very Rev. Edward 
 Charles Canon Acton, D.D., a descendant of 
 the Fowlers of St. Thomas's Priory, to whom 
 the Catholics of Stafford are so deeply indebted 
 for the preservation of their faith during the 
 dark ages of persecution. Dr. Acton is the 
 third son of the late William Joseph Acton, 
 Esq., of Wolverton, Co. Worcester, the repre- 
 sentative of an ancient family deriving 
 descent from the Actons of Acton, and of Mary, 
 widow of William Trafford, Esq., brother of 
 Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford, Bart., of 
 
 ^ Oscotiaii, vii.
 
 138 S/. Thomas's Priory. 
 
 Trafford Park, Co. Lancaster. His grand- 
 father, William Acton, of Wolverton, married, 
 in 1801, Ann Constantia Davies, descended from 
 the family of Fowler, of St. Thomas's Priory.^ 
 And thus is added one more link to the chain 
 of the past : — 
 
 Behold one more connection, 
 
 And long may it abide, 
 The brilliant reflection 
 
 Of vStafford's quondam pride. 
 
 Dr. Acton -was born at Wolverton on 13th 
 Oct., 1839. In Sept., 1853, he entered Oscott 
 College, and two years later had the distin- 
 guished honour of being elected by his fellow- 
 students their " public man" — an honour only 
 fully appreciated by those who have the privi- 
 lege of calling themselves Oscotians. In 1856 
 he matriculated at the London University, and 
 proceeded B.A. in 1858, after which he left 
 Oscott for the Iinglish College at Rome, where 
 he took his degree of D.D., and was ordained 
 priest in Sept., 1863. Shortly afterwards he 
 returned to England, and was given charge of 
 
 ' Burke, Landed Gentry. - Oscoiian, vii.
 
 The Very Rev. Canon Acton, D.D.
 
 SL Thomas's Pi'iory. 139 
 
 the mission of Warwick, which he exchanged 
 for Brewood in 1869. Thence he came to Staf- 
 ford in December, 1872. 
 
 In Oct., 1880, the Very Rev. John Hawksford, 
 D. D,,^ whose zeal and labour had overwrought 
 his strength, found it necessary, owing to con- 
 tinued indisposition, to resign the presidency of 
 Oscott College ; and the bishop of the diocese, 
 Dr. Ullathorne, called upon Dr. Acton to 
 exchange places with him. Thus, in the 
 following December, Dr. Hawksford took 
 charoe of the conQ-reoation at Stafford, and Dr. 
 Acton was duly installed president of his alma 
 mater. Dr. Hawksford, son of the late Mr. 
 John Hawksford, of Graiseley Hall, a solicitor in 
 Wolverhampton, who had the honour of being 
 the first Catholic mayor of that town in 1 863-4, 
 was admitted into Sedgley Park School in 1844, 
 and was transferred to Oscott in August, 1850,- 
 was ordained priest 19th Dec. 1859, and was 
 retained at the College as a professor till 1868, 
 when he became attached to the Cathedral at 
 Birmingham for two years. In 1870 he returned 
 to Oscott as prefect of studies, and continued 
 
 ' Oscotian, \ii. - Sed^^lcy Park Reg., MS.
 
 140 SL Thomas'' s Priory. 
 
 his professorial duties till his election to the 
 presidency, in succession to Dr. Northcote, in 
 July, 1877. Two years later His Holiness Leo 
 XHI, conferred upon him the honorary degree 
 of Doctor of Divinity, and in Feb., 1880, he was 
 installed a canon of the Cathedral Church of 
 St. Chad. Towards the close of the latter year 
 he resigned the presidency, and, as we have 
 already seen, came to recruit his health at St. 
 Austin's. Four years later he withdrew from 
 Stafford, to take upon himself the presidency of 
 St. Wilfrid's College, Cotton, the lineal repre- 
 sentative of the venerable and time-honoured 
 school at Sedgley Park — an office which long 
 may he continue to grace ! 
 
 In January, 1884, the Rev. Louis F. Torond 
 came to supply the vacancy at Stafford. He, 
 likewise, was an Oscotian, ordained priest 23rd 
 December, 1866/ having previously been a 
 " patriarch," or parlour-boarder, at Sedgley 
 Park School from 1862.'^ From that time till 
 his appointment to Kidderminster, in 1877, he 
 was attached to St. Chad's Cathedral. From 
 Kidderminster he came to St. Austin's, and after 
 
 ^Oscotian, vii. -Sedgley Park Reg., MS.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 141 
 
 serving this mission for a little over a year, he 
 was transferred to Bloxwich, Walsall, where he 
 still flourishes. 
 
 When Dr. Acton was appointed to the pre- 
 sidency of Oscott, he expressed his determina- 
 tion to uphold and secure for the students by 
 every means in his power that moral and 
 intellectual wellbeing which is embodied in the 
 motto above the College porch, Religioni ac 
 bonis Artibus ; and well did he fulfil his promise ! 
 In 1882, by invitation of H.R.H. the Prince of 
 Wales, he attended at St. James' Palace, 28th 
 February, to consider the question of the 
 establishment of a Royal College of Music. In 
 1884 he was elected to the vacancy in the 
 Birmingham Chapter caused by the death of 
 Canon Estcourt. Early in the following year 
 he announced his resignation of the presidency 
 of Oscott, which aroused general expression 
 of regret. Thus in March, 1885, Dr. Acton 
 returned to Stafford, to the great delight of his 
 old congregation, whose affection and respect is 
 the best evidence of his worth. 
 
 More needs not ; when acknowledged merits reign, 
 
 Praise is impertinent, and censure vain. 
 
 — Attcyhury.
 
 142 SL Thomas's Priory. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Me resonare jubent pietas, 
 Mors atque voluptas. 
 
 One can hardly conclude this panoramic view 
 of the life of the Church in this country, as 
 represented in the history of Stafford mission, 
 without pondering over the inscrutable ways of 
 Divine Providence. There was a time when 
 Englishmen were " non Angli, sed Angeli ". 
 One altar and one creed alone were known 
 throughout the land ; truth and piety held 
 sway. Yet the avarice and lust of a despot and 
 his sycophants were permitted to disturb and 
 ultimately change the Faith which Christ came 
 to implant. In the wail of the Elizabethan 
 poet, staunch Richard Verstegan, who suffered 
 imprisonment and exile for that Faith, this 
 so-called reformation, or rending of Christ's 
 seamless garment, has been thus quaintly por- 
 trayed : — 
 
 Somtyme the Crosse as sundry recordes tel, 
 Deryving vcrtue from our Saviour's death, 
 
 Hath had the force the divel to expel, 
 
 And by the same confirmed Christian faith. 
 
 But now it seemes, faith hath sustayned losse, 
 
 Because the divel hath chaste away the crosse.
 
 SL Thomas's Priory. 14 
 
 t 
 
 And now, after three centuries of oppression, 
 by every form of persecution that human in- 
 genuity could devise, what a marvellous change 
 has come over this country ! Is it the effect of 
 a new leaven, or rather the return of the pro- 
 digal to "the days of our fathers "? The nets 
 of Peter are again let down. Narrow prejudice 
 and extreme ignorance are fast giving place to 
 ingenuousness and a sincere desire for enligfhten- 
 ment. Half a century ago there was hardly a 
 bell in England that could be rung from a 
 Catholic church to call its con^regfation to 
 Divine worship. Thrice a hundred years 
 intervened ere toll from turret and steeple 
 called to the ancient service — the sole one of 
 old. Now from numberless Catholic churches 
 peal forth sweet chimes, and over the land 
 hundreds and hundreds of bells like St. Austin's 
 daily send forth their summons : — 
 
 When mirth and joy are on thawing, 
 
 I ring ; 
 
 To call the folks to church in time, 
 
 I chime ; 
 
 When God requires of man a soul, 
 
 I toll. 
 
 The gloom is lifting, gleams of pure bright-
 
 144 "^^^ Thomas's Priory. 
 
 ness are spreading. May we not hope, there- 
 fore, that our well-loved country is once more 
 to see the splendour of the day, and to rejoice 
 in the radiance of the true Faith in the one 
 fold ? 
 
 'Tis the old history, Truth without a home, 
 Despised and slain, then rising irom the tomb. 
 
 — Cardinal Newman. 
 
 FINIS.
 
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 July, 1854 
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 INDEX NOMINUM. 
 
 Abnett, Thos., 35. 
 
 Acton, Edw. Chas., 137, 138, 162, 163 ; Eliz., Joyce, Walter, 
 
 89; Wm., Wm. Jos., 137, 138. 
 Adys, Edm., Rebecca, 155. 
 Amherst, Bp., W. J., W. K., 114, 115. 
 Andrews, W. E., 103. 
 Appleton, Jas., pr., loi, 159. 
 Ashton, C, r^r^ Thules, pr., Mag., 26; Thos., vere Fisher 
 
 2, 26, 158. 
 Aston, Barbara, 87; Constantia, 38, 71, 152; Jas., 5th 
 
 Lord, 86, 87; Lord, 45; Walter, ist Lord, 38, 71^ 
 
 Walter, 4th Lord, 85 ; Sir Walter, 14, 152. 
 Atkins, Wm., S.J., confessor, 46. 
 Austin, Jno., 42, 153. 
 
 Babthorpe, Ric, S.J., 48. 
 
 Barker, Ric, vere Hitchmough, 61. 
 
 Barneby, Jas., Thos., Thos., pr., Wm., 88, 89, 90, 159. 
 
 Barnewall, Hon. Geo., 157. 
 
 Barras, Jean, 99. 
 
 Barry, Mich., pr., 162. 
 
 Beeston, Geo., pr., 86, 159; Peter, pr., 87. 
 
 Belasyse, Thos., Visct. Fauconberg, 7:, 156; Hen., 2nd 
 
 Earl Fauconberg, 157. 
 Bellasis, Edw., serjeant-at-law, 128. 
 
 Berington, Andrews Jno., 98; Anne, 67; Jno., 67, 85 
 
 (165)
 
 1 66 St. Thomas s Priory. 
 
 Jno., sen., Jno., jun., 97, 98; Jos., M.D., 69; Jos. 
 
 pr., 100; Sim., pr., 69, 85, 98, 159; Thos., Thos., pr., 
 
 67, 69, 98, 159 ; Wm., M.D., 69. 
 Bess of Hardwick, 13. 
 Betham, Jno., a/wi' Fowler, Mary, Ric, 67, 71, 155 ; Kath., 
 
 154- 
 Bethell, A. P., 161. 
 Birchall, Eliz., 91. 
 Blake, Edw., vei-e Fowler, 151. 
 Blount, Mich., loi ; Sir Walter, 102. 
 Blythe, Jno., M.D., 149. 
 
 Bowes, Rob., alias Lane, pr., 59; Stephen, pr., 59, 159. 
 Bradshaw, Alice, Jno., 149, 150. 
 Braniston, Bp., 108. 
 Brereton, Sir R., 150. 
 Brian, vere Fowler, Ralph, 151. 
 Brograve, Gertrude, 155. 
 Bromwich, And., pr., 46. 
 Brooke family, of Madeley, 53. 
 Browne, Tim., 7. 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 32. 
 Burgess, Dr., 129. 
 Burton, Thos., 149. 
 Butler, Eliz., 91. 
 
 Canning, Rich., Jno., and Wm., f7//a.y Fowler, prts., 152. 
 
 Cansfield family, of Cansfield, 150. 
 
 Carnaby, Lance., 21. 
 
 Case, Master, 151. 
 
 Cassey, Mag., 71, 154 ; Sir John, 155. 
 
 Catherine, Queen, 80. 
 
 Chabot, vide De Rohan-Chabot.
 
 Index. 1 67 
 
 Challoner, Bp., 93. 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., 129. 
 
 Chamberlaine, Rich., Sybel, 148. 
 
 Chapman, Fr. Rom., O.S.F., 82. 
 
 Charles II., 60, 65, 79. 
 
 Charles Edward, Prince, 91. 
 
 Chesshyre, Miss, 157. 
 
 Clark, J no., 148. 
 
 Clarke, Chas., Eliz., 154; Thos., vere Wilson, pr., 85. 
 
 Clement XL, Pope, 57. 
 
 Cleveland, Barbara, Duchess of, 60. 
 
 Clifford, Arthur, 35; family, 103; Hugh, 3rd Lord, 87; 
 
 Hon. Thos., 87 ; Sir Thos., 104. 
 Coher, Jno., 7. 
 Coleville, Edith, 148. 
 Condon, And., pr., 163. 
 Cooke, Geo., 7. 
 Cooper, Rob., 41. 
 Corne, Anna, Chas., Hannah, Jas., pr., Jno., pr., 91, 94, 99, 
 
 159- 
 Cornethwaite, Ric, pr., 100. 
 Cradock, M. A., 79. 
 
 Dacre, Baron, 60. 
 
 Dale (or Dales), pursuivant, 21 ; Dr. R. W., 129. 
 
 Daniel, Wm., pr., 92. 
 
 Danvers, Jno., Sir Thos., 148. 
 
 Dartmouth, Baron, 53. 
 
 Davies, Ann Const., 138. 
 
 Dawson, Geo., 129. 
 
 Day, Jno., pr., 161 ; Ric, 150; Thos., dean, 68. 
 
 De I'Age, Count, Sophie, Marie Sophie, 99.
 
 1 68 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 Derby, Edw., Earl of, 33. 
 
 De Rohan-Chabot, Mary, Comtesse, 87, 100. 
 
 De Trafford, Sir Thos., Wm., 137. 
 
 Dowling, J. P., pr., 119, t6o. 
 
 Draycot family, of Draycot, 151. 
 
 Ducy, Rob., 39. 
 
 Dugdale, Stephen, informer, 45. 
 
 Edwards, Edm., 155. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 19, 34, 46, 78. 
 
 Englefield, Cecilia, Nic, Sir Phil., 148. 
 
 Errington, Wm., pr., 93. 
 
 Estcourt, Canon, 141. 
 
 Eyre, Thos., 151 ; Thos., 157. 
 
 Fanning, Jas., pr., 136 ; Jno., pr., 134, 162. 
 
 Fauconberg, Thos. Belasyse, Visct., 71, 156; created Earl, 
 
 75 ; Hen., Earl of, 157. 
 Fell, Chas., vere Umfreville, U.D., 68. 
 Feraud, Chas., O.S.B., no. 
 Fermor, Hen., pr., confessor, 48. 
 Fisher, Geo., alias Muskett, i)r., 26; Ric, 27, 30; Thos., 
 
 26; Thos., alias Ashton, pr., 26, 30, 38, 158. 
 Fitter, Dan., pr., 45, 53, 75, 159 ; Fris., pr., 51 ; Wm., 45. 
 Fitzcharles, Charles, Earl of Plymouth, 53. 
 Fitzgerald, Col. Nic, 74, 156; Ric, 73, 156. 
 Fitzherbert, Basil Thos., 127 ; Ralph, Rich., 7 ; Young, 13. 
 Fleetwood, Sir Jno., Dady Fhilippa, 69. 
 Flinn, Thos., pr., 95. 
 Flynn, Jno. F., pr., 163. 
 Foley, Wm., pr., 115. 
 Forster, Fris., O.S.B., 34, 158 ; Thos., 20 ; Isabel, Thos., 32.
 
 Index. 1 69 
 
 Fowler family, of St. Thomas's, 21, 137; pedigree, 147; 
 Bryan, 25, 151; Cath. Betiiam, 71; Dorc, 71, 72; 
 Edw., alias Blake, 37 ; estates sequestrated, 39; Jno. 
 Betham, 71 ; Mag., 71 ; monuments at Baswich, 42, 
 51; Roger, 24, 149; Sybel, 148; Thos., S.J., 40; 
 Walter, 31 ; Walter, 37; Walter, 38, 71 ; Wm., alias 
 Stapleton, O.P., 37, 151, 158; Wm., 64, 67, 70, 148. 
 
 Frith, Mrs., 107. 
 
 Gallwey, Peter, S.J., 127. 
 
 Garnett, Hen., S.J., 11. 
 
 Gascoigne, Sir Wm., 56. 
 
 Gee, Jno., parson and spy, 31. 
 
 Geoffrey, vere Fowler, Fris., 151. 
 
 Gerard, Jno., S.J., 9, 17 ; Sir Thos., 11. 
 
 Gififard, Cassandra, 6 ; Bp., 52, 57 ; family, 81 ; Peter, 152 ; 
 
 Sir Thos., 6. 
 Godfrey, Mr., 152. 
 Greene, Sir Edw., 53; Jno., pr., 30. 
 Grosvenor family, Dukes of Westminster, 42 ; Hen., 42'; 
 
 Jno., pr., 40, 158: Wm., 42. 
 Grove, Doro., 71, 154; Gertrude, Mary, 156; Jno., 71, 
 
 155; Rebecca, 72, 156; Thos., 71, 154. 
 
 Hackett, Bp., 107. 
 
 Hall, Alfred, pr., 163. 
 
 Hanmer, Jane, Jno., Sir Thos., 25, 150. 
 
 Hardman, Messrs., 125. 
 
 Harewell, Edw., 154. 
 
 Harris, C. I., pr., 128, 160. 
 
 Hatherton, Baron, 113. 
 
 Hawksford, Jno., Jno., D.D., 139, 163.
 
 170 SL TJioniass Prioiy. 
 
 Hendren, Bp., 134. 
 
 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 80. 
 
 Henry, Prince, 92. 
 
 Heveningham, Walter, and his co-heirs, 153. 
 
 Hitchmough, Ric, apostate, 61, 159. 
 
 Holden, Jos., D.D., 92. 
 
 Holman, Anne, Geo., 88. 
 
 Hornyold, Bp., 87, 93. 
 
 Howard, Bern. Edw., 12th Duke of Norfolk, 157; Mary 
 
 Ann, 68 ; J. P. Stafford, 4th Earl of Stafford, 86 ; Phil. 
 
 Thos., cardinal, ■Ti^, 51; Rob., jun., 68; Wm., Visct. 
 
 Stafford, martyr, 46; Wm. Stafford, 2nd Earl, 88. 
 Huddleston, Edw., Edw., canon, no, 160; Jno., O.S.B., 
 
 79- 
 Hurst, Jno., pr., 93. 
 
 Husenbeth, F. C, D.D., loi. 
 
 Ironmonger, Wm., 154. 
 Isam, Giles, 97. 
 
 James I., 13, 20; H., 49, 74. 
 
 Jeffries, Geo., V.G., 123, 128. 
 
 Jennings, Mr., 96. 
 
 Jerningham, Edw., 106; Sir Geo. Wm.. 104 ; Sir \\\w., loi. 
 
 Kavanagh, Phil., pr., 162. 
 Killingworth, Geo., 20. 
 Kingsland, Visct., 157. 
 Kirk, Jno., D.I)., 88, 90. 
 Knowks, Wm., 7. 
 
 Lacon, Ric, 152.
 
 Index. 1 7 1 
 
 Lamb, Sir Malt., 157. 
 
 Lane, Edw., 150; Robt., vere Bowes, pr., 59. 
 
 Lee, F. G., D.D., 27; Isabel, Rowland, bp. of Lichfield, 
 
 Wm., 24, 149. 
 Lennard, Thos., Baron Dacre, 60. 
 Leo XIII., Pope, 140. 
 Le Sage, A. R., I'abbe Henri, 103, 159. 
 Leveson family, 81 ; Jos., 99. 
 Leyburne, Jno., bp., 57. 
 Lhomond, C F. , 102. 
 Littleton, Edw. Jno. Walhouse, 113. 
 Lloyd, Bern., pr., 163. 
 Longman, Mgr. Thos., 130. 
 Loveday, Miss, 147. 
 Lucan, Ric., 2nd Earl of, 157. 
 
 Macclesfield, vide Maxfield. 
 
 Maine or Maire, Hen., 99. 
 
 Mainwaring, Jno., pr., Ric, 42, 158. 
 
 Mannering, Jno., pr., 40. 
 
 Markham, Geo., vere Witham, bp., 58. 
 
 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 74. 
 
 Maxfield, Thos., pr., martyr, 6 ; Wm., confessor, 5. 
 
 M'Cave, Jas., canon, D.D., 131. 
 
 Meighan, Thos., printer, 69. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, 113. 
 
 Merrye, Thos., 83. 
 
 Metcalfe, Eliz., Thos., 89, 90. 
 
 Meynell, Mrs., 41. 
 
 Middlemore, Ric, 153. 
 
 Middleton, Sir Peter, Ursula, 48. 
 
 Milner, Jno., bp., 100, in.
 
 1/2 SL Thomas s Priory. 
 
 Mitcham, M. A., Rachel, 155. 
 
 Montfort family, 149 ; Wm., 150. 
 
 Moore, Jas., alias Appleton, pr., loi. 
 
 Moreton, Rob., 149. 
 
 Morgan, J., 133. 
 
 Muskett, Geo., vide Fisher. 
 
 Myners, ^\^m., 5. 
 
 Nary, Jas., pr., 137, 162. 
 
 Neve, Thos., 97. 
 
 Neville, Chas., Earl of Westmoreland, 48. 
 
 Newton, Vin., 99. 
 
 Norfolk, i2th Duke of, 157. 
 
 Norris family, of Speke, 61. 
 
 Northcote, J. S., D.D., 140. 
 
 Gates, Titus, informer, 35, 45. 
 
 O'Hanlon, Jas., pr., 163. 
 
 Onslow family, of Onslow, 150. 
 
 Orrell, Chas., Jas., Jas. and Phil., prts., 94. 
 
 O'Sullivan, Jas.. pr., 160; canon, 121, 127, 160. 
 
 Overton, Wm., bp. of Lichfield, 15. 
 
 Palin, Alice, 8, 79 ; Agnes, Margt., Ralph, Roger, Thos., 
 
 78, 79; Ric, pr., 79, 81, 85, 159; Thos., 79, 81. 
 Palmes, Geo., 56. 
 Parke, Mr. Justice, 112. 
 Parton, Sir Rob., pr., 3, 158. 
 Peche, Ricbp. of Lichfield, 55. 
 
 Pegge, Dom., O.P., Kath., Thos., 52 ; Wm., pr., 52, 66, 159. 
 Petre, Rob., alias Williams and Spencer, S.J., 47. 
 Philmot, Phil., S.J., 50. 
 Pius IX., Pope, 109, 116.
 
 Index. 1 73 
 
 Plymouth, Earl of, 53. 
 
 Poker, Wm., 7. ^ 
 
 Preston, Sir Jno., 79. 
 
 Price, Thos., pr., 104, 159. 
 
 Pugin, Edw. Welby, 123. 
 
 Reynolds, Fris., 79. 
 Robinson, Jno., S.J., 40. 
 Rogers, Thos., 39. 
 Rooks, Thos., 148. 
 Russell, Jas., pr., 162. 
 Ryder, Eliz., 83. 
 
 Sadler, Sir Thos., 153. 
 
 Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice, 47. 
 
 Sergeant, Jno., pr., 43. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 45. 
 
 Sharp, Jno., 8. 
 
 Shaw, Sir Jno., 148. 
 
 Sheffield, Lord, 21. 
 
 Sheldon family, of Beoley, 82 ; Ralph, 37, 151. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Chas., i6th Earl of, 115 ; Geo., 6th Earl of, 13. 
 
 Simeon, Sir Jas., 153. 
 
 Skrimshire, Thos., 150. 
 
 Smith, Jas., bp., 56 ; Geo., pr., 162 ; Mary, loi. 
 
 Southerne, Eleanor, Isabel, Thos., 20; Wm., pr., martyr, 
 
 20, 158. 
 South worth, Christopher, pr., 26. 
 Spencer, Rob., vere Petre, S.J., 47 ; Earl, 75. 
 Spivey, Mr., 120. 
 Sprott, Edw., 5. 
 Stafford, loth and nth Barons, 127; Earl of, 77; 2nd 
 
 Earl, 88 ; 4th Earl, 86 ; Edw., Lord, 32 ; Sir G. W.
 
 174 •^^- Thomas s Prio7y. 
 
 Jerningham, Baron, 104 ; Hen., Lord, 32 ; Lawrence, 
 
 34 ; Lord, 105, 123 ; Mary, Lady, 33 ; Wm. Howard, 
 
 Visct., martyr, 35, 38, 46. 
 Stanley, Lady, 108. 
 
 Stapleton, Wm., vere Fowler, O.P., 37. 
 Stone, Thos., pr., 93 ; Jno., 150. 
 Stringfellow, Jno., pr., 161. 
 Sussex, Anne, Countess of, 60 ; Earl of, 60. 
 Sutton, Abra., pr., 10 ; Jno., S.J., 11 ; Rob., pr., martyr, 5, 
 
 158; Wm.,S.J., II. 
 
 Talbot, Hon. Chas., 115; Family, 68; Hon. Fris., 157. 
 
 Thomas, St., a Becket, of Canterbury, 55. 
 
 Thompson, Mary, 8g. 
 
 Thornbery, Edw., Fris., 5. 
 
 Thorne, Geof., 150. 
 
 Thornes, Nic, pursuivant, 7. 
 
 Throckmorton, Sir Rob., Ursula, 6, 151. 
 
 Thules, Christopher, a/ias Ashton, pr., 26 ; Jno., martyr, 
 
 12, 19. 
 Tillotson, Dr., 59. 
 Torond, L. F., pr., 140, 163. 
 Totness, Visct., 53. 
 Towneley, Jno., 92. 
 Trollope, Sir And., 149. 
 Turvile, Mary Louise, Fris. For., 115. 
 
 Ullathorne, Wm., archbp., 127, 135, 139. 
 Umfreville, Chas., alias Fell, D.D., 68. 
 
 Vince, Chas., 129. 
 
 Vyze, Edm., Joan, 8; Humphrey, 33.
 
 Index. 175 
 
 Wade, Widow, 7. 
 
 Waldegrave, Sir — , 151. 
 
 Walker, Sampson, 150. 
 
 Walsh, Bp., III. 
 
 Ward, C, 71 ; Edw,, 72. 
 
 Wareing, Wm., bp., 116. 
 
 Waterton, Thos., 41. 
 
 Weedall, Mgr. Hen., 115. 
 
 Weldon, Dom. B., 35. 
 
 Westmoreland, last Earl of, 48. 
 
 Whitgreave, Alice, 42 ; Fris., 83, 93, 123 ; Geo. Thos., 128 ; 
 
 Hen. B., 123 ; Joyce, Thos., 79, 89; Robt., 42, 89. 
 Williams, Rob., vere Petre, S.J., 47. 
 Wilson, Thos., alias Clarke, pr., 85. 
 Windsor, And., Lord, 148. 
 Wiseman, Nic, cardinal, 116. 
 Witham, Geo., 56; Geo., bp., 53, 56, 64. 
 Wolryche, Sir Thos., Eliz., Simon, vere Berington, pr., 69, 
 
 70, 159- 
 Wolseley, Ant., Sir Chas., Erasmus, Grizle, Humphrey, 
 
 Jno., 5, 6, 7. 
 Wombwell, Sir Geo., 157. 
 Wortley, Sir Fris., 153. 
 Wrottesley, Margt., 150. 
 Wycliffe, Jno., 10. 
 Wylde, Anne, 155. 
 Wynn, Thos. Edw., Col. Glynn, 157. 
 Wyse, Jno., pr., 118, 160. 
 Wyvill, Geo., vere Witham, bp., Grace, Sir Marmaduke, 56. 
 
 York, Hen., Cardinal Duke of, 92 ; Jas., Duke of, 45.
 
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