53
No. II . CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF THE DOMESTIC CHAPEL AT ARUNDEL CASTLE ; AFTERWARDS AT THE PUBLIC CHAPEL AT ARUNDEL, 1749-1835. FOLLOWED BY A LIST OF BURIALS IN THE FITZALAN CHAPEL AT ARUNDEL (OTHER THAN THOSE MENTIONED IN TIERNEY'S HISTORY OF ARUNDEL ) , AND A PRIVATE REGISTER OF BURIALS THERE SINCE 1866. TRANSCRIBED AND EDITED BY MAJOR F. J. A. SKEET.
INTRODUCTION. The parish church of St. Nicholas , at Arundel, was served from 1380
until " The Reformation " from a college of secular priests, whohad a college adjoining, as also their own chapel , part of the same building as the
parish church, now known as the Fitzalan Chapel . The college, which was dedicated to The Holy Trinity, was suppressed in 1544. Two years later, in 1546, Thomas Hall was appointed vicar of St. Nicholas, by the Earl of Arundel, and sworn, Ad sancta Dei evangelia, de Romani Episcopi supremitate agnoscenda. He was replaced in 1549 by one Thomas Webster. The next priest we hear of was " a graveand ancient man, who had been ordained in Queen Mary's reign, and was introduced into Arundel Castle by Mr. Richard Bayly , a Catholic gentleman, to reconcile the Countess, wife of Philip, Earl of Arundel, to the Church. The next earl, a Protestant, was engaged in the Civil War, during which, was not in 1644 , the greater part of the castle was reduced to ruins. until between 1716-1720 , when Thomas , 8th Duke of Norfolk , repaired a portion and erected other apartments of a more modern appearance , that it again became habitable. During this long blank the Catholics in Arundel would have been dependent on the priests at Slindon House , four miles to the west , or on those at Michelgrove, three miles to the east, the seats respectively of the recusant families of Kempe and Shelley , well- known protectors of missionary priests. We get a glimpse of Arundel in 1741 on the occasion of a Visitation by Bishop Richard Challoner. From his Itinerary, preserved in the archives at Westminster, it appears that he found there a congregation " circiter 90," of whom he confirmedtwenty on the 21 June , andeighteen more two days afterwards. On his second Visitation, in 1749, the bishop's notes are no longer so methodical as before , but they show that the numbers at Arundel had not declined . When the castle was rebuilt in 1783 it was decided to remove the domestic chapel from its precincts. Charles , Duke of Norfolk, had a large room in the western portion of the south side of the old college
"
"
"
It
*
Mrs. Roundell, in her History of Cowdray , prints a letter from Horace Walpole, dated 26 August 1749, in which he writes : At last we got to Arundel Castle : it is now only a heap of ruins , with a new indifferent apartment clapt up for the Norfolks , when they reside there for a weekor afortnight. Their priest showed us about ."
*
"