Chapter I: Penal Times

Speech of St. John Plessington from the gallows at Boughton.

Stuart Times

If the Catholics had hoped for some relief on the accession of James I, they were to be bitterly disappointed; indeed, in many ways the next hundred years must have been harder than what had already been faced, for the recusants were no longer upheld by their numbers and the sense of unity, even of heroism, which had bound them together in former times. After the ill-fated Gunpowder Plot, Parliament re-enacted all the Elizabethan penal laws. Recusants were obliged to receive communion at least once a year in the Anglican Church, or face a heavy fine, while in the parish churches, churchwardens had to report to Quarter Sessions the names of all absentees, together with their wives, children and servants. A new oath was drawn up, declaring "damnable" the Pope's claim to excommunicate or depose princes, and pledging the man who took it to report "traiterous conspiracies". Anyone indicted for recusancy was obliged to take the oath, or incur the penalty of praemunire, i.e. the loss of his property. At the same time, a Bull from Rome forbade Catholics to take the oath. To reconcile anyone to Rome or to be reconciled was treason; anyone detecting a Catholic so doing could receive a reward of £50.

A convicted recusant found himself debarred from the professions. He could not practise as a doctor or lawyer. He had no right to carry arms beyond what a magistrate considered sufficient for his self-defence. His house was open to search for suspected books, rosaries or crucifixes. A convicted woman recusant lost her rights to inherit her husband's chattels which might therefore fall into the hands of Protestant relatives, and she was not allowed to act as executrix of a will or as guardian of a child. A marriage which had not been solemnised in the Anglican church was invalid, and the children of a marriage before a priest could be declared illegitimate. A fine of £100 was elicited if a child was not baptised in the established church, and one of £20 for a burial carried out secretly. The law forbidding parents to send their children abroad to be educated still held good.

It is true that the full weight of this legislation was not always or continuously applied, either through inefficiency or through good-will on the part of neighbours. None-the-Iess they created a feeling of insecurity, especially in times of crisis. One such time must have been the Civil War.

The merchant class of Chester, unlike those of towns in East Cheshire like Stockport and Macclesfield, remained loyal to Charles I, in spite of the harm being caused to their trade by the war. In this, they were at one with whatever Catholics there were in the city, and also with Catholic families in the area, like the Stanleys, the Masseys, the Hockenhulls, the Pooles and the Whitmores, all of whom were royalist. From November 1644 until February 1646, Chester had to face a long siege, or "leaguer" as it was called, at the hands of Sir William Brereton of Handforth, the Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces. During it, houses in and around the city, in Handbridge, Boughton and Christleton were either damaged and destroyed by the bombardment from cannons placed at Morgan's Mount, the tower of St. John's Church, and other vantage points won by the Parliamentarians, or by the "scorched earth" tactics of the Royalists. Eastgate and Watergate Streets suffered particularly badly, "The drawing dry of the cittie's stockes" wrote a Royalist, "plate, rentes and collections, not knowne, all of which losses, charges and demolishments, in the opinion of most, will amount to two hundred thousand pounds att the least; so far hath the God of heaven humbled this famous cittie".

At last, starving and demoralised, the citizens surrendered. Local sequestration committees were set up for compounding with the "delinquents", as the Royalists were called. The mere fact of professing the Catholic faith subjected the "delinquent" to the forfeiture of two thirds of his estates and goods.

With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Catholics might have thought that their loyalty would win them some respite. In fact, things became worse. Charles II was obliged to withdraw the Declaration of Indulgence he was prepared to grant at the beginning of his reign, and new laws against "our old enemye the Papists", as a Cheshire J.P. called them, were set in motion. In 1671, in order to ensure that all recusancy fines were paid up, and thereby to increase the revenues of the Exchequer, and also because the lists presented by the Anglican clergy to their bishops were unreliable, Commissioners drew up, county by county, lists of convicted recusants. Only three appeared on the Chester list, and no names were given.11

The strength of the anti-catholic feeling of the Goverment can be gauged by the letters which were dispatched to the J.P.'s in Chester, "for the stricter execution of the laws against the growth of popery". In 1667, the J.P.'s were ordered by the Privy Council, "to use their utmost endeavours to apprehend all popish priests and Jesuits that endeavour to seduce or pervert His Majesty's Subjects". In 1674, they received another letter telling them "to encourage and quicken the convictions of popish recusants in the city".12

The climax came for Catholics throughout the land with the so-called discovery of the Popish Plot, concocted by Titus Oates in 1678. A hurried correspondence ensued between William Williams, the Recorder of Chester, and William Harvey, the Mayor. Williams was in London a few weeks after the mysterious murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the lawyer who had accepted the sworn "revelations" of Titus Oates. He wrote on 19th October, advising the Mayor "to examine Mr. Matthew Ellis for the discovery of the priests and Jesuits mentioned by him in his discourse at John Bridge's house".13 Matthew Ellis of Overleigh, whose house stood on the site of the present lodge and gateway of Eaton Park, was a well-known person in Chester. He was not a Catholic, and it is impossible to say what rumours he had been circulating.

The following month, the mayor was asked for a complete and accurate return of all popish priests, Jesuits, recusants and suspected Papists in Chester, in obedience to an order from the House of Commons. There was panic in London, as well as suspicion of what might be perpetrated in Chester. The mayor complied with the request. At the same time he gave the information that he had arrested several Catholics making for Ireland without the passes they were obliged to obtain from the Privy Council, in its attempt to prevent the escape of persons believed to be implicated in the plot. The three persons apprehended by the mayor were Sir William Talbot, Captain Mark Talbot and Captain Patrick Sarsfield, who all claimed to be crossing to Dublin with passes obtained from the Earl of Derby. Their rapiers were taken from them by the mayor on account of their being Catholics. The mayor, however, seems to have over-reached himself, for they appealed to the Earl of Derby on the grounds that the king had allowed them to return home to Ireland, and presumably they were released.14

Far more dangerous to the Catholic cause, however, was the arrest of the prominent gentry in the area, all of whom had refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. Sir Rowland Stanley of Hooton, Sir James Poole of Poole, William Massey of Puddington and Michael Fitzwilliams of Hooton were all imprisoned, though for how long is not clear.15 The other victim of the Plot was St. John Plessington, who was taken at the home of William Massey, Puddington Hall. Tried at Chester and convicted of high treason on account of his priesthood, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Gallows Hill, now known as Barrel Well Hill, Boughton, on July 19th, 1679.

The list of papists whom the mayor was told to draw up has survived,16 though it may not be complete. It contains twenty three names. Two of them were Lancashire gentlemen, William Houghton of Ditton and Mr. Standish of Standish near Wigan, who were included because they possessed property in Chester. Two others were the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir James Poole, the latter already under suspicion for refusing to take the Oath.

By comparison, the five other men named on the list were craftsmen of the city. Two of them, William Bagley and Richard Rowland were carpenters, Richard Cowley was a webster (i.e. a weaver), William Arnett, a miller and Ralph Hulton, a watchmaker. If he is the same person a William Bagley, living in St. Brigid's Ward, was assessed for Hearth Tax in 1664 at the rate of four hearths,17 so that he must have had a fairly substantial house for those days, whereas a John Cowley, possibly the father of Richard, was too poor to be assessed. It is impossible to identify the other three.

Among the fourteen women listed were Mistress Ann Massey of Puddington Hall and Mary Fitzwilliams of Hooton, both of whose husbands were already in serious trouble, together with Elizabeth, wife of Seth Mort of Preston, the aunt of William Massey. There were two other gentlewomen, Hester, the wife of Thomas Browne, who had considerable property in Eastgate Ward, and Ursula, wife of Thomas Salisbury, Gent. Joanna Bourlace was the wife of a Doctor Bourlace who had a large house in St. Oswald's Ward. In addition, there was a Margaret Parker the wife of a jeweller, together with three women servants of Mary Fitzwilliams and three other women living in the city. It is clear that the authorities in Chester were bent on rounding up all the recusants not only in Chester, but also in the Wirral area, which was regarded as "a nest of Papists".

One factor which emerges in studying the history of Catholicism in Chester during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is the important contribution made to its survival by the recusant gentry of the Wirral; the Stanleys of Hooton, the Masseys of Puddington Hall, the Pooles of Poole. Later the Fitzherberts of Swynnerton Place, Derbyshire, who had a house in the Northgate Ward, emerge into prominence. These families remained loyal Catholics and their influence and protection kept their tenantry in the surrounding area faithful also. Their loyalty was essential to the Catholics of Chester, because the recusants in the city relied on the priests they supported. Without these priests, there could have been no Mass or Sacraments, and Catholicism would have died out in Chester. The priests operated from their houses, living there as servants or tutors to their children, and in fact being their chaplains, but they could also use the houses as the centres from which they could move out into the surrounding countryside, and into Chester itself.