letters1

CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO EGTON RECUSANTS JUNE 1753

Letter of CARY ELWES to the Archbishop of York

My Lord,

Being upon a visit to my estate at Egton in this county and having comp-laints made me by the minister as well as by my tenants of undue practices by the popish priest there, I thought it my duty to apply to your Grace for the suppressing of so great a calamity. Out of 136 tenants near a third are papists and since this last priest has come among them, which was soon after the late rebellion, many improper measures have been taken which before was not. Two of y tenants in particular, who are of the Church of England, having married papists and each having four or five children, the minister has never been able to prevail with them to have their children baptised, though it is well known the papist priest has done the rite for them. One of these tenants with tears in his eyes, told me that he never enjoyed any peace at home because his wife would not allow him to bring up his children members of that church which he and his forebears had been brought up in. When I urged him to exert himself in so necessary a duty, he said before marriage he had promised his wife not to hinder her from bringing up their children in her way of thinking and therefore he could not break his word but that then things made him have no comfort and that at times, he was tempted to leave his wife and family and seek trial in some other part of the country where he might be more at rest.

A poor man being in high fever, the papist priest took that opportunity (though the man was delirious) to attend him and even in that situation administer the sacrament to him. The man since recovered and became a papist. I sent for Shep-pard which is the name at least the papist priest goes by, and though I found him as prevaricating as I expected, he discovered sufficient to convince me and others present of the truth of what I have always thought my indispensable duty to my King, my Country and to Your Grace, to lay before you.

I shall be at Mr. Wilson's my steward here about a fortnight longer, and am, with the greatest respect, my Lord,

Your Grace's most obedient and humble servant

Letter of Rev. Jonathan Robinson Vicar of Egton 1717 to 1777,

to Dr. Thomas, chaplain to the Archbishop.

Rev. Sir,

Esq. Elwes, making a survey of his tenants in his Lordship of ye parochial Chapelry of Egton found in all he had 136 of which number one third part were, by a general computation as he thought, papists. This I suppose he communicated in a letter to His Grace, who, demanding of me by ye Archdeacon at his visitation at Stokesley, a more particular account of those sort of people within our said chapelry. I have in obedience to his commands, done it with as much exactness & accuracy as I am able, ranging them into two columns as under:- The first, showing who were born papists and married such:-

B.I.Y. R Bp.5/242/3

Letter of Rev. Richard Robinson to the Archbishop of York dated May 28th l765.

My Lord,

Last Sunday, Mr. Bower of Sleights made me no little uneasy when he told me your Grace never received my answer relating to the R.C.'s in this parish. I got Mr. Clapham's letter on New Year's Day last and sent directed to your Grace at Brodsworth, the same month or beginning of February the following answer:-

We have in this parish 37 families of reputed papists and at Egton Bridge, a little village a mile from this place a Mass House where these papists and the papists from Whitby assemble together every Sunday morning at 10 o'clock and sometimes in the afternoon but not often. The reason that we have so many R.C.'s here has I find, been entirely owing to the intermarriages Papists with protestant Now as they all of them the dependance or under the influence of Cary Elwes Esquire, a worthy gentleman eminent for his probity, sobriety and charity, the first year I came to this curacy, with his approbation and consent, I put a stop to the intermarriages. I have not married a papist and a Protestant together since I came, neither have I had one of my flock seduced to the communion of the Church of Rome, but I have fixed seven Papists in our most excellent religion.

There is lately come to live in the chapelry of Glaisdale one John Lyth, a papist who in May 1764 was married to Ann Hinds (at Danby) a Protestant. She tells me she could not live a quiet life till she consented to be a Papist. I have noth-ing more, My Lord at this moment to add but that I have done and still am doing everything which in my present circumstances may be done towards the amendment and edification of the people committed to my care.