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No. III TOWER BILLS 1595-1681 WITH GATEHOUSE CERTIFICATES 1592-1603 The first instalment of the Tower Bills " ( vol. III, pp. 4-29) ceased with Babington's Plot , 1586. When the series recommences, nearly ten years later, several changes may be noticed . By the legislation of 27 Elizabeth , Catholic priests could be, necessary, executed without the trouble formerlythought appropriate of examining and torturing them, and so they were more rarely sent to the Tower. Mary Stuart , too, was dead, and the Armada defeated, the remaining adherents of the ancient faith were too insignificant to need so important a place as the Tower for their prison . Yet besides the secular prisoners confined for matters relating to the faith, as James Fitzgerald, the Tower Earl " of Desmond, and others, " , as Father William Weston , S.J. we find a considerable number of priests 1600 to 1603 (cf. C.R.S., 1, pp. 77-81), under name Edmonds) the of , from ( and Father John Gerard , S.J., who escaped with Mr Arden , or Ardent, on October 4 , 1597 (J. Morris, Life of Fr John Gerard, 1881, p. 277). Besides these we find Thomas Wright , and Alabaster(see The Month, April, 1904 ), who did not end so well , besides Watson and Clarke , who were the reverse of martyrs . In Father Weston's Narrative, already printed in vol. 1 , p. 78, we have a pathetic account of the sufferings of Robert Humberstone, and we are glad to find that his last hours seem to have been relieved by some occasional care . We note , however, a trifle, which may be significant, that he was denied the allowance for washing for some time after it had been granted to the other prisoners . With these lists before us, we can also identify the Gentleman ," whose courageous endurance is commended by Father Weston , next after Humberstone ( 1, 79 ). This must be Robert Lingham, who had originally been arrested in company with the martyr, HenryWalpole. In the Gatehouse Certificate for Lady Day, 1602, we find the name of Father Fernando Cardim, a celebrated missionary in South America. He was returning to the field of his labours with a band of fresh helpers, when they were carried off by English pirates and thrown into prison . Eventually they escaped or were ransomed, and left England in January , 1603, to continue their apostolic work. Father Cardim eventually became Provincial of the Jesuits in Brazil ( C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèquede la C. de Jésus, ). Certificates II, 741The of the Gatehouse Prison have in many cases been " with the "Tower filed together Bills, and these give us several interesting names indeed , they begin with the martyr- poet, Robert Southwell . There is a martyr's name in the last four Tower Bills, where the charges forWilliam Howard , Viscount Stafford , end the day before he was taken out to death The documents here printed are all in the Record Office, Exchequer " of Receipt , Miscellanea , Bundle 342. The principle on which mereformalities, repeated constantly and at great length, have been curtailed, has already been explained . must again thank Father P. Ryan , S.J. , for his care in copying these difficult and intricate records. J. H. P.
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