Almost a century ago Calthrop recognized that there were important recusants in some Lincolnshire county families. Interest has been revived recently by Martin and Finnis in an article on the Tyrwhitts of Kettleby, and more specifically on Goddard Tyrwhitt, who became a martyr in 1580 (see fig. 1 for location maps). Whilst the Tyrwhitts were at the top of the gentry hierarchy, the Forsetts of Bilsby near Alford, were practically at the bottom, so presenting some social contrasts with the former family. The Forsetts were newcomers to the county sometime in the mid- to late-fifteenth century and were minor manorial lords at Bilsby in the east Lincolnshire Marsh from the time their documentation begins with John Forsett in 1482 down to about 1600.

In considering the period from 1559–1603, and the attitudes within the recusant community to the acceptance or rejection of the Elizabethan Settlement, the first major event giving extensive evidence of political attitudes in the northern region is the Rising of the Northern Earls, a crisis which, as elsewhere in Elizabethan England marked the watershed for the fortunes of Catholicism during the reign. An analysis, conducted at some length, of its causes, events and consequences is, indeed, indispensable to understanding Catholic survival in Elizabethan northern England.

While there was considerable interest in education in sixteenth and seventeenth century England (it is unnecessary to remind ourselves that it was not compulsory) there can be little doubt that it had suffered much as the result of the changes brought about by the Reformation. The religious houses of men and women where boys and girls had received some schooling were swept away and the new grammar schools only partially filled the void. The universities too had been through a period of upheaval. By the end of the sixteenth century the State had laid it down that every schoolmaster had to have a licence to teach and that no children might be sent abroad for their education. The curriculum in the schools was narrow; despite proposals, which had little effect, to make education more practical, the choice of subjects was still largely dictated by theological considerations and Latin, Greek and Hebrew were predominant in the grammar schools. The State, of course, did little or nothing to help although some sequestrated revenues were allotted to education during the Commonwealth period.

With a rich history of over four centuries behind it, St. Alban’s English College in Valladolid possesses bibliographical and documentary sources of an exceptional wealth. The present paper reports on the constitution of a team of researchers in the University of Valladolid permanently devoted to the study of such documentary holdings. Extensive reference is made, more particularly, to the preparation of a critical edition of one of the manuscripts kept in the College Archive: ‘A Sketch of the Ancient British History . . . ’, an ecclesiastical history of early Britain written by former College rector Philip Mark Perry (1720–1774).

Catechisms in the vernacular for the Catholic community in England appeared surprisingly early after the break with Rome, and were published continuously from the 1560s by English and continental presses, although many have not survived. Catechetical material is also often found within books dealing primarily with apologetical, educational, devotional and liturgical subjects. From the beginning, there seems to have been types of catechism written for particular groups such as teachers, children or the illiterate. Laurence Vaux, who taught English exiles’ children in Louvain in the 1560s, published the first extant catechism for the simple and unlearned in 1568, and with the publisher John Fowler’s encouragement, his later catechisms carried illustrations ‘for those not yet able to read’. Vaux’s catechisms were followed by popular European catechisms translated into English by the Jesuits.

Another Catholic who for a number of years was in business as a timber merchant, was Robert Watmough, who was born in 1762 or 1763, the son of Thomas Watmough, husbandman of Litherland, a village five miles north of Liverpool. Though much of Watmough’s career as a timber merchant falls into the early nineteenth century, he is mentioned here as he provides a link with another business connected with the operation of the port, namely shipbuilding. He was a partner for a number of years of John Dwerryhouse, who was possibly the leading local Catholic shipbuilder of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

In the choir of the chapel at St Mary’s College, Oscott, is a stained glass window dedicated to the memory of Fr John Wheble, a military chaplain who died in the Crimean War. Whereas the four upper lights of the window depict scenes from the life of St John the Apostle, Fr Wheble’s patron saint, the four lower ones show Wheble setting sail for the Crimea, giving absolution to soldiers, attending the wounded at the Battle of the Alma, and his death on board the hospital ship Arabia on November 3, 1854. St Edmund’s College, Ware, also has a Crimean window and again Fr Wheble, a benefactor of the college, is depicted along with two alumni of the college, Fr Michael Canty and Fr Denis Sheehan, who also died in the Crimea.