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FATHER PERSONS MEMOIRS
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MEMOIR II A STORIE OF DOMESTICALLDIFFICULTIES
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[Title page ] A Storie of DOMESTICALL DIFFICULTIES wch
(fol . 1)
the Englishe Catholike cause and promoters therof, have had in defendinge the same, not onely against the violence, and persecution of hæretikes, but also by sundry other impediments amonge themselves, of faction, emulation, sedition , and division , since the chaunge of Religion in England , first under K. Henry the 8, K. Edward the 6, and Queen Mary, and then under Queen Elizabethe. Collected and left in writing for memory of God's holy providence, in suche affayres, by exercisinge His servantes with contradictions . [ Persons hand] Anno Jubilæi , 1600 . [Grene's hand] Authore R. P. Roberto Personio.
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THE object of this storie " is clearly set forth in the Preface . The Englishe cause, " that is, the fortune of the Catholic Church in England, was in no little difficulty at the time of writing through the violencewith which the institution of the Archpriest was being discussed , and Father Persons thought that , if people would remember that the cause ofChrist always met with opposition, they would not suffer serious harm from the outcries that were being raised. He therefore set to work in 1599 (fol. 17) and put together the memoir, which is here printed from the fair copy, to which he himself added the date on the title page, Anno Jubilæi, 1600 . This storie " was presumably never carried further , for the increasing acrimony of the controversy then led him to write his Briefe Apologie (the preface to which is signed 20 July , 1601 ), in which he seems to speak of our Apologie substantial and autentique, " containing ," as an " storie , trew copies of letters and other wrytinges set downe at some originals length " (sig. A3). The Briefe Apologie is to take its place for the time. Though this plan does not seem to have been completed further , there is evidence to show that some steps were taken towards carrying it out, for there is extant in the general archives of the Society of Jesus a bundle of papers relating to the troubles of 1580-1600 , which bears an endorsement , A Story of Domesticall Difficulties , " & c. (Angl. Hist. 11, ff. 317-434, see f. 357 ). Canon Tierney noticed and put a strange misinterpretation upon a similar endorsement which he found on a paper of 1596 ( Tierney-Dodd, Church History of England, III , p. 45, n. , cf. clxii) . The Stonyhurst Manuscript A I , 18, is written on large Roman carta palomba , in one English hand , possibly that of Brother John Lilley, S.J. It is the author's original fair copy, with his corrections on folios I , 18b, and 68b. There is also a note by Fr Christopher Grene on the title , a marginal note by Fr Nathaniel Southwell ( probably) on fol . 32, and another by Dr George Oliver at fol . 69. The back is bluish-green leather, lettered " A Personio MS 1600. " There is also at Stonyhurst a transcript by Dr Oliver. There is also a short Latin summary of the first four chapters by Fr Stephenson , S.J. , copied by Fr
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Grene in his Collectanea P., . 187-203. The Latin documents on folios 22-25 have been inserted later, and so have the two letters making up chapter 23 (folios 69-95) . It will be noticed that in each
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