ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY In I 59 1 is recorded the apprehension of George Gower, a priest taken at Norwich, a most dangerous seditious person ;^ and that year the keeper of Norwich gaol was dismissed from his post for giving liberty to recusants committed to his charge.^ Later, the Council was encouraged by the increase of conformity in Norwich, and the hst sent of men who had submitted ;' and in 1592 the bishop was commended for the great number he had persuaded to come to church, but whereas many had fled the country was directed to find out where they were.* Directions were sent that the house of Thomas Lovell, esq., should be searched, as there had been great recourse of papists and recusants there,* and as a result he appeared and made very earnest pro- fession of his conformity ' these many years past, and that he had taken the oath of supremacy, and all his house are conformable save only his wife, to his great grief ; and his daughter, whom he promises to reform. There must have been more than one such divided household in Norfolk, where the women seem to have remained firm when the heads of households, who had to pay the fines, thought it prudent to conform. Francis Woodhouse of Breccles was not a recusant, but his wife was, and his house was said to be a great resort of recusants and seminary priests. In 1587—8, Anne Howlet, a prisoner in the common gaol, was liberated, on bonds of 40 // taken for her appearance, as her husband was conformable in religion, and was said to be very careful to persuade her to the like obedience.^ Instructions to the bishop to grant liberty upon bond to Richard Lasher, a scrivener, he being very poor, and having ' nothing to sustain his wife and many children, but his onlie Industrie and traveyle in his profession,' and there being likewise some hope of his conformity (23 May, 1591),^ shows how hardly the laws must have pressed upon the poor. But most of the recusants in Norfolk were men of property, a fact which in some cases was their undoing, for there seem to have been always neighbours ready to inform against them in the hope of profiting by a grant of their recusancy fines ; Robert Clytherowe of Walsoken in Marshlande is even injuriously indicted as a recusant without cause, and had his corn and cattle restored to him on certificate of the bishop that he had been proceeded against in malice.' Robert de Grey, a staunch Roman Catholic, seems to have been very persistent in evading the laws against recusants. A truly pathetic case is that of Mr. Humphrey Bedingfield, of Quidenham, who was already an old man at the time of his first imprisonment in 1578. By order of the Council, 20 March, 1588,'° he was committed to the charge of the parson of Quidenham, Mr. Reeve, with orders not to depart two miles distant from Mr. Reeve, and this is granted ' forasmuch as there is good hope of his conformity in religion, if he might have conference with some that are of right opinion therein, and for his ill-health'; but he was perhaps too old to change, for letters of Archbishop Whitgift of 1599" speak of Humphrey Bedingfield of Quidenham, recusant, as aged and infirm, and of very quiet and honest conversation, and ask that his appearance in person ' Jets P. C. ixiii, 208. ' Ibid. 176, 215. ' Ibid. 336, 365. ' Ibid, xxii, 366. * Ibid, xxii, 203. ' Ibid. +54. ' Ibid, xv, 368. ' Ibid, xxi, 144. ' Ibid, rxiii, 343. "Ibid. r'ii, 1 12. " In a MS. collection at Merton Hall relating to Norfolk recusants, i 597-1600, described Nerf. Arck. ix, 283. 2 273 35
