THAMES VALLEY PAPISTS: From Reformation to Emancipation (The Press at Stonor)

The secret printing press was established at Stonor by a team of Catholic printers disguised as gentry. They were later joined by Fr Edmund Campion, but his superior, Fr Robert Persons, remained in London.

Clandestine liaison with sympathisers at Oxford University was established by Fr William Hartley and Fr Arthur Pitts, a son of the deceased Iffley church papist of the same name. While visiting Oxford Fr Hartley discovered that Roland Jenks, the Catholic stationer and bookbinder of 'Black Assizes' fame, was in trouble with the authorities again.

As Jenks had recently worked for Fr Persons, the Stonor team sent a messenger to London to give warning. It transpired that Fr Person's lodgings had already been raided by a hundred armed soldiers, and that a young Douai priest had been arrested nearby. The priest, Fr Alexander Bryant, was starved and severely tortured, but revealed nothing about the secret press. The former Oxford student's bravery allowed the printing to continue and enabled Fr Persons to escape to Stonor.

The press was probably installed in the large bedroom at Stonor House called Mount Pleasant. This has concealed access through another small room to the vast attics. As the house is built on a slope it was possible to escape from the attics to the then thickly wooded rising land behind the house.

Stonor House
As it is today. In Tudor times it was even more surrounded by woods.

By late June 1581 enough copies of Fr Campion's new book 'Decem Rationes' had been printed for circulation at Oxford. The full title in English was 'Ten Reasons Proposed to his Adversaries for Disputation in the Name of the Faith and Presented to the Illustrious Members of our Universities'. Fr Hartley smuggled more than 400 copies into Oxford, leaving several hundred on the benches of the university church of St Mary. The books caused consternation among the University and Anglican Church authorities.

The work of the Stonor press was now complete, at least for the time being. A fortnight later, on Tuesday 11 July, Fr Campion and Fr Persons left Stonor. Fr Campion intended returning to Lancashire to collect his reference books but had been given permission by Fr Persons to go first to Lyford Grange. Francis Yate, the owner of the house, was in prison for refusing to conform to Anglicanism. His mother remained at Lyford and Yate had managed to get a letter to Fr Campion asking him to visit her. Fr Persons agreed to the Lyford visit on the strict condition that it was for one night only. Ralph Emerson, a Jesuit lay brother, was instructed to go with Fr Campion and make sure that he kept to schedule.

Lyford Grange is a moated manor house near the River Ock, in a part of the Vale of White Horse as flat as Flanders. The house is now smaller than in Fr Campion's time but is strongly evocative of that period.

It has already been noted that one of the Lyford Yates had recently become a Jesuit missionary in Brazil. The family, and their equally Catholic cousins four miles away at Buckland, were descended from John Yate, a Merchant of the Staple in Henry VIII's time. The Yates of Lyford were traditionally buried at St James's church, West Hanney, two miles north of Wantage. One of the monuments to them states that they died 'in the full Catholic Faith'.

At the time of Fr Campion's visit to Lyford Grange the house had two chaplains, Fr Thomas Ford and Fr John Colleton. Fr Colleton had spent three years at the home of James Braybrooke, the expelled Inner Temple lawyer of Sutton Courtenay, jailed for his refusal to conform to Anglicanism.

But there was something more remarkable about Lyford Grange. It was home to what may have been the last remnant of English monasticism still on native soil; a community of Brigittine nuns, still following the religious life. Their convent of Syon in Middlesex (where Syon House now stands) had been suppressed forty-two years earlier. At one time an aunt of Dame Cecily Stonor had been abbess of the community. Queen Mary restored the convent but it was suppressed again by Queen Elizabeth. Since then the nuns had been put in the custody of various unsympathetic people until they ended up at Lyford. Francis Yate's widowed mother had become one of the sisters.

Fr Campion's overnight stay at Lyford passed off peacefully. After lunch he and Bro. Emerson headed towards Oxford, guided by Fr Colleton. Later that day a party of Catholics called at Lyford. They were disappointed to have missed the famous Jesuit, so Fr Ford was sent to bring Fr Campion back to preach to the visitors. Fr Campion and his companions were found at an inn near Oxford where they had met a large group of Catholics from the University, also eager to hear the author of the 'Ten Reasons'.

Bro. Emerson was eventually persuaded to go on to Lancashire alone and to let Fr Campion return to Lyford to preach. So next day the two Lyford chaplains took Fr Campion back to the grange where he preached and celebrated Mass for the people gathered there.

On the Sunday a government spy named Eliot joined the worshippers at Lyford. Eliot had worked in various Catholic households and was known to Mrs Yate's chef, who believed him to be a trustworthy Catholic. However, since they had last met Eliot had been in serious trouble with the law. He had been released from jail only after offering his services as a priest-hunter. This was a lucrative occupation because the priest-hunter could claim a third of the priest's considerable fine.

Compton House
Much altered, the house where the wife of the exiled Sir Francis Englefield died

Eliot was one of thirty or forty people who attended Fr Campion's 10 o'clock Mass that Sunday morning. He then slipped away to call the nearest justice of the peace. As it happened the magistrate was less than enthusiastic. Quite apart from having his Sunday disturbed, he was a member of the then numerous Fettiplace family, some of whom remained Catholic and many of whom seem to have had Catholic sympathies. Indeed the wife of the exiled Catholic activist Sir Francis Englefield was a Fettiplace who had died only two years earlier, eight miles away at Compton Beauchamp. So too were John Yate of Buckland's wife and mother.

Compton Beauchamp
Next to the manor, today this is a charming Anglo-Catholic church

The magistrate brought a posse of about a hundred men, who were probably no more enthusiastic than him. The ensuing search was less than thorough, and failed to find the three priests who were in a secret hiding place over a stairwell.

The magistrate and his men were keen to leave but Eliot accused them of being secret Catholics. Justice Fettiplace defended hinmself by saying that he did not want to damage the house. As the evening wore on a second, more thorough search was made, but with no greater success.

Next morning the search was resumed with more enthusiasm and the priests were captured. Other known Catholics in the house were arrested, including William Hildesley of Beenham. He was probably the youngest son of Margaret Hildesley (née Stonor) and may have been the Hildesley who, two years earlier, was studying for the priesthood at Douai, but who seems not to have been ordained.

Although Justice Fettiplace's men found the three priests, they seem to have missed some of the incriminating evidence. In 1959 electricians working in the roof void found a wooden box about eight inches in diameter and of similar depth nailed to a joist. It had been there for 378 years. Inside the box was ancient vellum, still soft and pliable, on which was written a list of indulgences. Wrapped inside the vellum was an Agnus Dei (Latin for Lamb of God), a wax medallion issued by the Pope, so-called because it bore a picture of the Lamb of God. In Elizabeth's reign it was a criminal offence to import or possess such a medallion.

The owner of Lyford Grange at the time of this remarkable find was a Miss Whiting who, with her companion Miss Morrell, had the Agnus Dei framed in gold. They presented it, together with its box and vellum wrapping, to the Jesuits of Campion Hall in Brewer Street, Oxford. There it is kept with a copy of a commentary on Aristotle's 'Physics' containing several specimens of Fr Campion's signature.

After the arrests Justice Fettiplace summoned the Sheriff of Berkshire, Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston, to take charge of the prisoners. Like Fettiplace, Sheriff Forster must have found the situation embarrassing. He is said to have been an admirer of Campion and 'almost a Catholic', with plenty of Catholic neighbours.

His branch of the Forsters owned Harpsden Court which is only five miles south of Stonor. (His great great great grandmother was Alice Stonor.) And his principal residence, Aldermaston Court, was virtually surrounded by lands controlled by Catholics: the Shalford estates of William Wollascott, Edmund Plowden's Wokefield and Burghfield estates, the Hildesleys' holdings at Beenham, Lady Marvyn's Ufton properties and the sequestrated estates of Sir Francis Englefield.

At first Sheriff Forster stalled and had a message sent back to Lyford saying that he could not be found. Justice Fettiplace had also summoned a fellow magistrate, and it was he, Justice Wiseman, who arrived first, reaching Lyford before dusk with a dozen of his own servants. That night sixty men guarded the house, while the rest slept.

When Sheriff Forster arrived he sent a message to the Privy Council asking what they wanted done with his illustrious prisoner and the other captives. For the next three days, while waiting for the reply, the Sheriff treated the prisoners civilly. The Council's orders put an end to this politeness. The dozen male prisoners were to be taken to London. Fr Campion was to be sat on a tall horse, his arms tied behind his back and his legs tied together under the horse. An inscription was to be fixed round his head to read 'Edmund Campion, the seditious Jesuit'.

The convoy's route took it first through Abingdon where, over dinner, Fr Campion forgave Eliot his treachery. Later it passed through Henley-on-Thames. Fr Persons was hiding nearby, possibly at Henley Lodge in Henley Park. He sent a servant to watch the prisoners pass through the town. The message came back that Fr Campion's morale was high.

But also in the crowd of townspeople was Fr William Filby, a young, recently ordained priest who had helped with the press at Stonor. He was the son of George Filby, a leather worker, who kept open house to Catholic priests at his home in the parish of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford.

Fr Filby broke his cover to speak to Fr Campion, swapped hats with him and was arrested. According to local tradition this took place at the top of the Fair Mile, the road that leads north-west out of Henley towards Stonor. Although the whereabouts of Fr Campion's hat are now uncertain, until earlier this century it was in the possession of the Jesuits of Prague, the city in which he was ordained.

Two days after passing through Henley-on-Thames the prisoners were put in the Tower of London. Fr Campion was confined to Little Ease, a notorious cell where he could neither stand nor lie straight. A week later the rack-master began torturing him. The combination of excruciating torture and false promises that no harm would come to anyone named led Fr Campion to reveal many details of the evolving Catholic underground.

This information was acted upon immediately. In the first week of August 1581 Stonor House was searched and Fr William Hartley, the printers' foreman Stephen Brinkley, and his four assistants were arrested. Stonor Lodge was then raided. Dame Cecily Stonor's younger son John was arrested and charged with having given refuge to a priest. The seven men arrested at Stonor joined the Lyford prisoners in the Tower. A Mr Browne, perhaps a relative of Sir Francis Browne, who was living at Henley Lodge in Henley Park was also arrested.

Fr Robert Persons had left Stonor by the time it was raided. About a fortnight later he escaped to the Continent. For nearly thirty years he was to work in exile for the cause of Catholicism in England. He became a trusted adviser to popes and Catholic rulers such as Philip II of Spain. Shortly after leaving England for the last time he published 'The Christian Directory' which was widely read by Catholics and Protestants. So great was the interest that Protestant publishers edited out the specifically Catholic references and printed pirated copies.

The trial of the priests captured at Lyford and Stonor began in late November 1581 at Westminster Hall. Fr Edmund Campion was charged under the old Treason Act of 1352. He stated 'I will willingly pay to her Majesty what is hers, yet I must pay to God what is his.' At the end of the rigged trial, having been found guilty, he said 'In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors, all the ancient priests, bishops and kings, all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.'

On 1 December 1581 Fr Edmund Campion suffered a traitor's death at Tyburn (now Marble Arch) along with Fr Alexander Bryant and Fr Ralph Sherwin, two priests who had helped Fr Persons. Sir Francis Knollys of Greys Court was at the scaffold to ask Campion if he now rejected his Catholic faith. He wasted his breath. A piece of the rope used to hang Fr Campion was retrieved and is now kept at Campion Hall, Oxford.

But the dead Campion was in many ways a greater problem to the government than when he was alive. Even the anti-Catholic Lord Burghley, Elizabeth's close adviser, described him as 'one of the greatest jewels of England'. Numerous pamphlets on his trial and execution were produced, both in England and on the Continent.

Soon after Fr Campion's execution an Oxford Anglican professor of divinity complained that 'in place of one single Campion, champions upon champions have swarmed to keep us engaged.' At Balliol Catholicism was now so strong that the Privy Council ordered an enquiry. And this at the college once controlled by John Wycliffe, founder of the Lollards!

Four centuries later Edmund Campion is far from forgotten. In 1970 he was canonised as one of the forty English martyrs. He is remembered through churches and schools named after him. And every summer, thanks to the ecumenical goodwill of the present Anglican owner of Lyford Grange, a commemorative Mass is celebrated at the scene of his arrest.

Dame Cecily Stonor escaped imprisonment in the Tower. Her younger son John accepted most of the blame for sheltering the priests at Stonor. The authorities considered her old age and her good reputation, and decided to put Dame Cecily and her three daughters in the custody of her elder son Francis. She remained under house arrest or close supervision for the rest of her life. Her death and burial are not recorded.

Francis Stonor, a friend of Lord Burghley, lived at Blount's Court, Rotherfield Peppard. Hitherto he had not been conspicuously Catholic. He was one of six gentry in charge of the muster for the Chiltern Hundreds, the Elizabethan equivalent of the Territorial Army. Two of the other commanders were members of Catholic families, his cousin Robert Chamberlain and Robert Belson.

Francis Stonor was also given custody of John, his younger brother. John Stonor, was about twenty-five years old and had spent eight months in the Tower. There he had fallen in love with Cecily Hopton, the daughter of the Lieutenant of the Tower. She became a Catholic and for four years acted as a messenger between the Catholics in the Tower and their fellows in the more liberal Marshalsea jail at Southwark. Cecily Hopton later married Thomas, Lord Wentworth, whose mother was the daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue and Anne Stonor.

John Stonor was bailed on the condition that, if he failed to conform to Anglicanism within three months, he would be sent back to jail. He seems to have jumped bail and late the following winter arrived at Douai. There he met his cousin and namesake from North Stoke, who had escaped to Flanders after the Lyford arrests.

A month later they parted company for ever. John Stonor of North Stoke returned to North Stoke Manor, which was probably on the site of the present rectory. His cousin spent the rest of his eventful life on the Continent. There he was kidnapped by the French and later served as a volunteer in an English & Welsh regiment of the Stadtholder of the Netherlands. Later he resigned his commission, settled in Louvain and married a Flemish woman.

He opposed the Jesuits' involvement in political matters but fully supported their spiritual aims. When he died, more than forty years after leaving Blount's Court, he left them 10,000 florins.

What of the others captured following the printing operation at Stonor? Fr William Morris, an old priest who had been the original literary editor, was imprisoned then banished. One of the printers seems to have turned informer. The rest were sent to the Marshalsea prison. So too was Fr William Hartley, who was later banished. He slipped back into England, was recaptured in December 1587 and was subsequently executed at Shoreditch.

Stephen Brinkley, the press foreman, was released from jail after less than eighteen months. He continued printing Catholic books in Normandy, from where they were smuggled into England. William Hildesley was also banished but seems to have returned. He was probably the William Hildesley later arrested for smuggling Catholic books. He had collected them from Amiens in Picardy and intended delivering them to a Mr Reynolds of Corpus Christi College, Oxford on behalf of Mr Reynold's brother living on the Continent. (The Puritan President of Corpus Christi was John Reynolds, one of whose four brothers, William, was a Jesuit.)

Sr Julian Harman and Sr Catherine Kingsmill were sent to Reading Gaol where they are thought to have died. Sr Joan or Philippa Lowe died in the White Lion prison, London nearly eight years after the Lyford incident.

Fr William Filby, the young priest arrested when he tried to speak to Fr Campion at Henley-on-Thames, was executed. So too was Fr Thomas Ford, the Lyford chaplain. His colleague Fr John Colleton, able to disprove the allegation of conspiracy made aginst him, was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for two years then exiled. He returned to England to work as a missionary, and was jailed a number of times. He died more than half a century after the Lyford arrests.

As for Roland Jenks the Oxford bookbinder, he later worked at the English College in Rome and printed Catholic books in Flanders. He is said to have ended his days as a baker at Douai, nearly thirty years after the fateful raids on Lyford Grange and Stonor House.

Introduction

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How Christianity Came to the Thames Valley (3rd-7th cent.)

Lollard Influence (1382 onwards)

The Thames Highway (16th-19th cent.)

The Early Catholic Martyrs (1534-1539)

The Religious Changes (1534-1558)

The Elizabethan Settlement (1558-70)

The First Missionaries (1570-1581)

The Press at Stonor (1581)

The Mission Becomes Established (1582-1588)

Thomas Belson (1583-1589)

Elizabeth's Later Years (1589-1603)

The Gunpowder Plot (1604-1606)

The Jacobean Period (1606-1625)

Charles I (1625-1642)

The Civil War (1642-1646)

The Commonwealth (1646-1660)

The Restoration (1660-1685)

The End of a Dream (1685-1700)

When Alexander Pope Lived in Berkshire (1700-1715)

Twixt Fifteen and Forty-Five (1715-1745)

Low Ebb (1745-1770)

A Little Relief (1770-1792)

The French Exiled Clergy (1790-1808)

Emancipation (1808-1829)

Appendices:

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