ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Watson, Feckenham, Young, and other prisoners for religion now at liberty on bail, who were suspected of perverting those who resorted to them in London and elsewhere, were carefully watched," and ultimately imprisoned once more.^* The bishop sent in a certificate of the recusants in his diocese, con- taining eighty-seven names, not counting two or three whole ' households ' mentioned ; a good proportion were women, and the great majority were described as very poor.^' Search was made for Papists and for Popish vest- ments and ornaments in private houses.* Davy Jones, one of Walsingham's spies," supplied a list of the names and addresses of thirty-one Papists in London, many of them people of good position, with particulars of those who kept chaplains and attended mass.^' From 1580 to 1593 a bitter per- secution of Roman Catholics was carried on in London. In 1580 articles from the Council concerning popish recusants were published, to which churchwardens and sidesmen were sworn to make their answers quarterly." In November of that year the lord mayor was ordered to search for beads and other ' popish trumpery ' said to be on sale at the Exchange and else- where,*" and the queen warned him of special danger in the City from Papists.*^ In spite of the severe measures taken, recusants continued to come to London from country parts, thinking so to avoid the necessity of con- forming.*^ In May 1581 a close search was ordered to be made for such persons in every ward and in the liberties of the bishop, and all who refused to conform were to be dealt with according to the statute.*' This search was to be renewed month by month.** The aldermen, however, failed to carry out these instructions with due diligence, whereupon the Council in Septem- ber 1 58 1 warned them to obey ' without any favour or respect ' of persons.** In December a special search was made in Lord Southampton's house in Holborn for suspected persons and for ' books, letters, and ornaments for massing.' *° Certificates" sent up by various aldermen in 1584 show that over 350 recusants were discovered, besides books, pictures, a silver chalice and saucer,** a super-altar, a pax, a box of wafer-cakes, and in Sir Thomas Tresham's house a painted crucifix, found ' on a table by the Lady's bedside.' A search in High Holborn two years later revealed in one house ' three Irishmen all in one bed,' and in another three sprigs of palm with crosses bound on them.** In 1592 three persons were appointed to serve for short periods as ' inquisitors and searchers for seminaries ' in the parish of St. Peter Cornhill.*° This seems to have been in accordance with an order issued by the lord mayor in December 1591 to the parsons and churchwardens of some, if not all, of the London churches.*' Close inquiries were made as to the " Acts ofP.C. ix, 370. '* Ibid. 388. " S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxvi, 15 ; cxviii, 73. Separate certificates were sent in of recusants in the Temple and the various Inns ; only twelve persons are specified as being Londoners ; ibid, xxxviii, 68-71 ; Corp. Rec. Journ. xxi, fol. 81^. " Acts ofP.C. X, 143. " See S.P. Dom. Eliz. xcvii, 27, 39 ; xcviii, 10. '» S.P. Dom. Add. Eliz. xxv, 118. " St. Andrew Holborn Rec. Bk. 22 Eliz. "^ Jc/s. o/P.C. xii, 256.
- ' Corp. Rec. Letter Bk. Z, fol. 105^,- see S.P. Dom. Eliz. clxii, 51.
" Acts o/P.C. xiii, 63 ; Analytical Index of ... the Remembranc'm (ed. Overall, 1878), 127 (i, 237). "' Stat. 25 Eliz. cap. i. " Anal. Rememb. loc. cit. ; Corp. Rec. Letter Bk. Z, fol. 1441J et seq. " Corp. Rec. Letter Bk. Z, fol. 166 et seq. '^ Acts ofP.C. xiii, 298.
- ' S.P. Dom. Eliz. clxxii, 102-15. "' "^ >' ■ =P>ten.
" S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxcii, 35. ™ Vest. Min. 1592. " St. Stephen Walbrook Vest. Min. 1591 ; St. Margaret Lothbury Vest. Min. 1591.
