Preface

PREFACE

Egton, the town of the oaks, has its roots far back in unrecorded history. Its inhabitants, however, have their names in church and state records for two hundred years as wrong-doers, because they steadfastly refused to bend to the "winds of change" which blew around them. It is this quality of "obstinate" endurance that has prompted the choice of title "HEARTS OF OAK" for this essay. The soil which fed the sturdy oaks of the past, nurtured also sturdy families of peasants and yeomen one of whose descendants the author is proud to be.

What follows is an attempt to bring to life these musty archives, to weave the dry entries into a story, a ballad in prose befitting their endeavour. It is the result of many years research into the recusancy in the moorlands of the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is a more intensive study than the general one of I966; it includes names from many of the earliest presentments and from all the later ones. For the first time are published translations of the registers of the infant parishes first hidden in Latin. The work of the late W.G. Ward is reproduced in full, being a fit tribute to pay to an early pioneer in this subject. So too is Ugthorpe St. Anne's centenary pamphlet for the permission to print which I must thank Canon Bluett, a former parish priest. I acknowledge the help of the present and former parish priests of Egton Bridge, Whitby and Ugthorpe and that of the vicars of Egton and Lythe. I would be remiss if I failed to record also my gratitude to the archivists of the North Riding Record Office, the Borthwick Institute, York; and the Public Record Office London; Catholic Record Society and to Rev. Basil Harrison and his brother Edwin who have made a special study of their family which is by no means complete as the text will show. The fortunes of other families were not able to be overlooked and the stories of these will be related. It is hoped that gars, the presence of which is unavoidable, will be filled by future work in the subject. Any other indebtedness is in the text as necessary.

What was titled "AN INTRODUCTION TO THE RECUSANT HISTORY OF THE NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS" chronologically follows Mr. Ward's " A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE MISSIONARY PRIESTS WHO SERVED EGTON BRIDGE AND UGTHORPE IN THE PENAL DAYS" with which this begins.

All in all it is offered as a memorial to Canon Callebert, who like his contemporary neighbour Canon Atkinson of Danby, spent almost the same " Forty Years in a moorland Parish". More especially, may it humbly commemorate its raison d'etre Venerable Nicholas Postgate, the tercentenary of whose martyrdom occurs on August 7^th, 1979.

Billingham, Teesside, January 19^th, 1974