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Archpriests were appointed by the Pope to oversee the mission, but their authority was too limited to be effective. Seminary Priests had very much to fend for themselves with family and friends to support and protect them. Normally a priest is subject to his bishop, but in seventeenth-century England there was no Catholic bishop exercising full authority. When a young secular priest, fresh from one of the seminaries, landed in this country, he was to a great extent left to his own resources; there was no one in authority to whom he could look for guidance. If he went to his native part of the country, as many did, he would soon find his work; but on occasion a priest would arrive in London and have to find what shelter he could until he got in touch with Catholics. This lack of system in placing priests or of keeping in touch with them partly explains the absence of information about them. Martyrdoms were usually reported to Douay or one of the other seminaries, but these were limited to accounts of arrest, trial and death. As we shall see in following the ministry of John Southworth, there are completely blank periods as far as the records go. The priests themselves, though willing and eager to give their lives in defence of the Church, desired nothing better than to exercise their functions in obscurity. We must think of them carrying on their work without the fortifying guidance of a bishop, or the possibility of spiritual renewal in retreat, or even the