POLITICAL HISTORY more considerable of them, which was accomplished. They gradually died, sank into obscurity or got away abroad. In 1586 there is a return of such recusants as remained in the county of Surrey paying a regular composition for their estates. They were only Sir William Catesby of Lambeth, John Talbot of Mitcham, Francis Browne of Henley Park, Edward Bampster of Putney, the Lady Katherine Copley of Gatton, Thomas Pounde of Kennington, and some others owning property but not actually resident in Surrey. Others are returned as dead or gone away out of the country. 1 In 1587 there is a list of persons who stand indicted as recusants in the county, comprising Jane Furnivall of Egham (gentlewoman), Jane Saunder of Ewell, Lady Mary Vauxe of South wark, John Mollinax of Nutfield, and fourteen of lower rank ; all indicted and convicted. There are thirty-three more names of those who stand in- dicted but not yet convicted. Further, there are fifty-four names of those who, having been indicted, have been discharged by order of the Council, or have conformed, or are in prison in the various Southwark prisons.* Some of these prisoners may have owed their indictment to a letter from the Council to the Lord Admiral and his deputy lieutenants, of January 4, 1588," bidding them, in the present time of national danger, arrest recusants of property or station in the county, and im- prison them in the common prisons or in the houses of some of her majesty's well-affected and competent subjects. Perhaps it was thought decent to indict, after arrest, those who were in the common prisons. But Sir Francis Browne of Henley Park, brother to Lord Montague, was at this time a prisoner in Sir William More's house at Loseley, and is not in the lists above. These therefore do not represent the total number under arrest that year. The ladies thrust into the common prisons could hardly have been a serious menace to the State. Priests were of course liable to be hanged if caught. Four ecclesiastics and one layman were certainly executed in Surrey under the penal laws, all towards the end of Elizabeth's reign. William Way, alias Flower, and William Wiggs, priests, were hanged at Kingston on September 23 and October i, 1588. In 1598, a Franciscan friar; in 1600, John Rigby, a layman ; in 1601, John Pibush, a priest, were hanged at St. Thomas' Waterings. The Government seem to have searched vainly in Sir Henry Weston's house at Sutton for Morgan, a priest 4 ; and once the beneficed clergy of Surrey are connected with recusancy, when on July 10, 1591, orders were given to search for a priest apparently, a papist certainly, concealed in a ' certain parsonage house ' in Surrey known to Sir William More. 8 The prominent county families among the recusants were the 1 St. Pap. Eliz. Dm. clxxxix. 48. 8 Loseley MSS. 1587, no further date, v. pt. ii. 68. 8 Ibid. January 4, 1587-8, v. pt. ii. 30.
- Ibid. June 14, 1591, v. pt. ii. 57. Morgan was 'sometime of Her Majesty's chapel,' and
' perhaps is not called by his right name.' In the same year, January iz, the house of one Richard Lumleighe of Wintershull was to be searched ' for Popish books, instruments and relics, and also for suspected or unknown persons,' a general warrant of the most outrageous kind. 6 Ibid. July 10, 1591, v. pt. ii. 51. I 385 CC
