16th – 17th CENTUARIES

16th – 17th centuries

There were certainly communities of people who kept Catholic belief and practised their faith, when the Protestant Reformation was in process. In the early period, it was rather confusing as to what this meant; what people were expected to do to maintain the Catholic faith and practice. Men who had left their homeland to study for the priesthood, returned to England to minister to Catholics. They were able to clarify what was expected of Catholics faced with the upheavals brought about through the introduction of Protestantism. It was a gradual process, carried on in spite of persecution of Catholics, by government, for their refusal to associate with the newly established Church of England.

Catholics in North Lincolnshire, as in other parts of the kingdom, attached themselves to aristocratic gentry who were loyal to the Papacy. A prominent family in North Lincolnshire were the Tyrwhitts of Kettleby. This family was mainly responsible for establishing resistance in the early years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. One member of the family went abroad to be ordained a Catholic priest. Nicholas Tyrwhitt arrived at Douai in 1573 and was ordained at Cateau Cambrensis in March 1577. He returned to England on August 9th 1577 to minister to Catholics in South Lincolnshire.

A Catholic centre was established at Twigmore Hall near Brigg. It became prominent and notorious at the beginning of James1’s reign. This centre was maintained by the newly founded Jesuit order. The so-called Gunpowder Plot was hatched at Twigmore Hall by the Catholic recusant John Wright. 

It is recorded that an historical person, the priest Fr. Henry Garnett, said mass at Twigmore Hall in 1604. A Jesuit priest, on his way to minister to Catholics in North Lincolnshire, was lost in the Wolds near Girsby. He sought refuge in a local Catholic house but had to be passed on to Twigmore Hall because the house at Girsby was about to be searched for priests and items of Catholic worship (Foley records). Antonia Fraser, in her book about the Gunpowder Plot, records that “Jack Wright moved his family into Twigmore Hall, which, even before the Essex Rising, was noted as a resort for priests for (Wright’s} spiritual and corporal comfort.” Government reported: “This place is one of the worst in her majesty’s dominions and used like a Popish college for traitors in Northern parts”. At Twigmore in 1940 a tenant farmer discovered a complete room for a horse underground, when the leg of his wife’s piano went through the floor. The room had probably been used as a refuge for priests being hunted by government agents. In the late 17th century the Heneages of Hainton became associated with Catholic resistance.

Their chapel in Hainton parish church bears witness to this. The monuments in the chapel are a reminder of the Heneage family’s marriages with other Catholic recusant families in the 16th/17th century period. During that period a number of men were ordained priest abroad and returned to England to minister to faithful Catholics.

 

Some of those priests came from North Lincolnshire. 

Thomas Pormort was from Great Limber, near Caistor. He was arrested and tried at Newgate Sessions in London on February 18th 1592 and executed on February 20th.

Mark Barkworth came from Searby in North Lincolnshire. He was arrested, condemned for priesthood and executed at Tyburn on February 27th 1601. Blessed Mark Barkworth was a member of the Benedictine Order.

Guy Holland was born in Gainsborough in 1587 and entered the Jesuit Order in 1615. He died on November 25th 1660. John Pansford died in Claxby, November 9th 1668. He had become a Jesuit in 1661.

William Clifford came from Louth where he had been baptised in 1594.

Fonaby Top, near Caistor, was the birthplace in 1589 of Edward Maddison, who was related to the family of St Thomas More.

Richard Wright from Market Rasen was arrested for being a priest when he landed at Portsmouth in 1611.

Robert Constable of the branch of the Constable family of West Rasen was born in 1605, ordained priest at Arras and returned to work in England in 1632.

St Eustace Wright was executed at Tyburn on December 10th 1591 for being ordained priest in the Catholic Church. He came from Louth.

Bl. William Ireland born in Lincoln, a Jesuit executed at Tyburn 24th January 1679.

Bl Roger Dickenson born Lincoln, educated at Rheims, ordained 1583, executed at Winchester for priesthood 7 July 1591.

Bishop Richard Smith from Welton N. Lincs returned to England in 1625. By 1627 he reports having visited all parts of the country for confirmation. He was forced to return to the continent in 1631 because of persecution.

Thomas Smith born in Lincoln 1603, ordained 1629 returned to England 1630 and died 1656.