THE
WISBECH STIRS
N.B. Notes will be found at the end of each document , or at the end of the translation of Latin documents . No. I. 18 PRIESTS TO GARNET.1
[7 February 1595.]
Stonyhurst Anglia II , n . 2. Original letter and contemporary copy, neither with schedule of Rules attached . Another contemporary copy, with Rules, in the hand of Edmund Calverley, is in Westm . V, n . 7; other copies , without Rules, in Stonyhurst , Coll. P.f. 570 , and A.R.S.J. Anglia 30. . f. 343. Printed in part, in an English translation, in Persons ', Briefe Apologie, ; printed in full, not including Rules, in Plowden, ff. 72v 73v Panzani , pp . 328-30, and in Tierney -Dodd , p. civ.
II
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III
Introductory Note to No. I. This letter is the earliest document now extant about the Wisbech " Stirs , but the abruptness with which the story thus begins is deceptive. A state of internal disorder in the Castle was of long standing (see Note 3 below), but as yet not known to Catholics outside. The most significant thing about the quarrels is not , indeed, the existence of disorders, for long imprisonment is apt to breed such things , but the suddenness and completeness with which knowledge of them became public property from the early months of 1595. As will become apparent from later documentsin this present volume, this was wholly due to the deliberate broadcasting of information by members of Bagshaw's party (cf. Bagshaw to Dr. Windham , [c . late June 1595 , No. VI, note 6) , and by their methods of conducting campaigns for settlement . The background of this present letter will be found in the account made a few months later by Garnet. Soon after Christmas 1594 Weston made efforts to bring some order into the prisoners' common life, and his remarks were so reasonable that his questionersfrom among Bagshaw's followers even soon became evident , however, that they had no inexpressed approval.
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It
tention of doing anything constructive . Earlier direct appeals to Garnet by various secularpriests in the Castle for intervention had always been refused (see Note 5 below) , and the proposals in this letter, and in the schedule of Rules (No. II) which accompanied it , represent the attempt of eighteen of them to implement Weston's ideas , ( cf. Garnet to Aquaviva , 12 July 1595, No. VIII). These proposals offer in themselves no explanation for the bitter strife which soon followed, and this must be sought in the wider aims pursued by Bagshaw'sparty, probably since the death of Cardinal Allen in October 1594 ( cf. Bagshaw to Dr. Windham , ut supra, Note 2, and Introduction, Part ) . The original copy of this present letter was sent to Rome by Garnet, with his letter to Aquaviva of 12 July (ut supra).
I
Contulimus inter nos ab heri et nudiustertius , venerandepater ac frater , de meliore disciplina , propter ea quod emerserunt apud nos intra septennium³ vel mala, vel species mali, vel aperta scandala, vel obventura pericula scandalorum; et deprehendimus iustitiam nostram non esse tam inculpatae vitae , (utinam fuisset) ut requiescere debeamus ultra in illa fiducia sanctorum, lex non est posita 1