member of the Yorkshire clergy in a public discussion, in which he acquitted himself with only too great success and cleverness. In February he was committed to the care of the notorious Richard Topcliffe [q. v.], under whose charge he was carried to London and placed a close prisoner in the Tower. It was not till 27 April that he was subjected to his first examination upon the information which the government had been collecting against him. This was a preliminary to a long succession of similar attempts to extort from the prisoner particulars which it was supposed he only was qualified to furnish on the movements of the catholics abroad and the plots which were assumed to be hatching at home. Minute reports of these examinations were drawn up at the time which have come down to us. Walpole was put upon the rack again and again, and Topcliffe seems to have used his utmost license in torturing his victim. In July 1594 he was still able to write, but after this he was handed over to Topcliffe to treat as he pleased. There is some reason for thinking that there was a motive for keeping him alive. Henry Walpole was his father's eldest son and heir. His father was at this time in failing health, and in the event of his son surviving him a considerable estate would have escheated to the crown. In the spring of 1595, however, he was sent back to York for trial on the capital charges: (1) that he had abjured the realm without license; (2) that he had received holy orders beyond the seas; and (3) that he had returned to England as a jesuit father and priest of the Roman church to exercise his priestly functions. Of course he was found guilty, though during the trial he acquitted himself with great ability, and he was condemned to death. The sentence was carried out on 17 April 1595. The long and minute accounts which have reached us of his conduct during the last few days of his life prove the great interest that was felt in his case, and though the judicial murder of Henry Walpole and of Robert Southwell [q. v.] by no means brought to an end the massacre of the jesuits and seminary priests in the queen's reign, yet after this year (1595) the rack was much more sparingly used than heretofore, and something like hesitation was shown in sending the Roman proselytisers to the gallows.
A portrait of Henry Walpole, stated to be contemporary, was preserved in the English College at Rome till the general spoliation of the religious houses. A copy of this was made for the late Hon. Frederick Walpole of Mannington Hall, Norfolk. A collection of nineteen ‘Letters of Henry Walpole, S. J., from the original manuscripts at Stonyhurst College, edited with notes by Aug. Jessopp, D.D.,’ was printed for private circulation in 1873, 4to. Only fifty copies were struck off. Twenty-five of these were presented to the fathers at Stonyhurst.
[The career of Henry Walpole has been traced in detail by the writer of this article in ‘One Generation of a Norfolk House,’ 1878. The authorities on which the statements there made are based will be found in the notes. A short life of Henry Walpole was published by Father Cresswell at Madrid eight months after the execution of his friend. A French translation of this Spanish original was issued at Arras in September 1596, and it has been asserted that an English version was also printed. This, however, is very doubtful. There is a full account of Walpole's career, with some of his letters and details of his trial, in Diego de Yepes's Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra, published in quarto at Madrid in 1599 (only four years after Walpole's death), and in our own times much valuable information has been brought together in Foley's Records of the English Province S. J.; Morris's Life of John Gerard; and in the Records of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws, edited by the London Oratorians, 1878, vol. i. The Official Reports of Walpole's examinations in the Tower are abstracted in Cal. Dom. Eliz. 1591–4; the originals are in the Record Office. The reports of the disputations at York, of the trial, and of the incidents at the execution must have been widely circulated. We find them quoted in unexpected places. Of course they were known to More (Hist. Prov. Angl.), but one is surprised to find extracts from them in the Kerkelyke Historie of Corn. Hazart S. J., folio, Antwerp, 1668, iii. 375. A devotional life of Henry Walpole, taken almost exclusively from Cresswell's biography, was published by Father Alexis Possoz, S. J., at Tournai in 1869.]
WALPOLE, HORATIO, first Baron Walpole of Wolverton (1678–1757), diplomatist and politician, was the fifth son of Robert Walpole, and the younger brother of Sir Robert Walpole, first earl of Orford [q. v.] He was born at Houghton on 8 Dec. 1678, and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. A copy of Latin verses by him was included in the ‘Luctus Cantabrigienses’ published on the death of William III in 1702. In the same year Horatio, or, as he was more usually called, Horace Walpole, was elected a fellow of his college. After some hesitation as to the choice of a profession, and a brief residence as a law student at Lincoln's Inn, where he was admitted on 2 Oct. 1700, Walpole entered
