There exists a memorandum dated 1583, written by George Gilbert, leader of the band of young Catholics who had assisted Campion and Persons during the first Jesuit mission to England. It is called A way to deal with persons of all sorts as to convert them and bring them back to a better way of life—based on the system and methods used by Fr. Robert Persons and Fr. Edmund Campion and, as its title suggests, it is a proselytizer’s handbook. Gilbert was ideally placed to advise the new missionaries. It had been his money and his connection with most of the major Catholic families in England that had enabled Campion and Persons to travel the country in relative safety, setting up their network. And until his escape to France in 1581 (at Persons’ entreaty), Gilbert had been adept at cheating capture. Arrested and brought before the Bishop of London in midsummer 1580, he was quickly released when Norris, the bishop’s pursuivant, attested to his honesty; Norris was said to be in Gilbert’s pay. This memorandum was Gilbert’s last contribution to the English Catholic cause—he died in Rome on 6 October 1583 aged just thirty-one, having been admitted into the Society of Jesus on his deathbed. But it was Gilbert’s instructions that John Gerard now followed as he began his Norfolk apostolate.20
‘As soon as any father or learned priest has entered an heretical country’, wrote Gilbert,
‘he should seek out some gentleman to be his companion. This man should be zealous, loyal, discreet and determined to help him in this service of God, and should be able to undertake honourably the expenses of both of them. He should have a first-rate reputation as a good comrade and as being knowledgeable about the country, the roads and paths, the habits and disposition of the gentry and people of the place, and should be a man who has many relations and friends and much local information.’
In Edward Yelverton, Gerard had found just such a companion. This primary contact made, the newly arrived priest could then ‘mix freely everywhere, both in public and in private, dressed as a gentleman and with various kinds of get-up and disguises so as to be better able to have intercourse with people without arousing suspicion’. And so it proved for Gerard: ‘I stayed openly six or eight months in the house of that gentleman who was my first host. During that time he introduced me to the house and circle of nearly every gentleman in Norfolk, and before the end of the eight months I had received many people into the Church.’21
Among his first converts were three members of Yelverton’s own family, including the Protestant Charles Yelverton and the Calvinist Jane Lumner. Before Gerard’s arrival at Grimston Jane had reportedly expressed certain anxieties about the state of her soul. A consultation with the ill-famed Dr Perne of Peterhouse had left her more confused than ever. Hearing Gerard say ‘time and again that the Catholic faith was the only true and good one, she began to have doubts, and in this state of mind, she brought [him] one day an heretical book which more than anything had confirmed her in her heresy’. Here was a chance for the priest to vindicate William Allen’s training methods. Allen had prepared his students for a war of words, schooling them in reasoning and rhetoric. Now Gerard proceeded to demonstrate ‘all the dishonest quotations from Scripture and the Fathers, the countless quibbles and mis-statements of fact’. Few English theologians were equipped to engage in dialectical combat of this sort single-handedly. Certainly no layperson was. Jane Lumner would prove an easy and a lasting convert. From then on her name was always among the annual lists of ‘obstinate’ Catholics returned to the Bishop of Norwich for the purpose of fining; the last entry dates from 1615, probably the year of her death.22
Catholicism bound the Norfolk gentry together; marriage bound them tighter still. Yelvertons wed Bedingfelds, Bedingfelds wed Southwells—theirs was a network of such interconnectedness as the Jesuits could only dream of, criss-crossing the county, extending deep into Suffolk and Essex too. Many had benefited from the wholesale disposal of church lands at the Dissolution, seizing the chance to extend their estates and entrench their position as the traditional power brokers of old England. Robert Southwell grew up at Horsham St Faith near Norwich, within sight of the Benedictine priory acquired by his grandfather Sir Richard. It was one of four such properties bought by the family as some of the best real estate in England changed hands.* 23
So at Elizabeth’s accession, with their new lands and old influence, the Yelvertons, the Bedingfelds, the Southwells seemed set to enjoy the peace and prosperity the new Queen was intent on pursuing. By the time of Gerard’s arrival at Grimston it was clear that for them, such peace and prosperity would never again be possible. The leniency of the 1559 settlement might not have given way to martyr-making in the style of Mary Tudor but it had, by 1588, crystallized into something altogether harder and more finely focused. There were no public tribunals or baying mobs, no calls to recant and save your soul, no crisis of survival in fact—rather, the slow, sapping efficiency of English law.
From the very first, the peace of the Catholic Norfolk gentry had been threatened. In 1561 it had come to the Council’s attention that Sir Edward Waldegrave’s estate at Borley in Essex was serving as a mass centre for a number of visiting Norfolk gentry. Waldegrave was arrested and dispatched to the Tower where he later died; the others were imprisoned in Colchester gaol. To the Government its policy was clear: such high profile arrests served as an example to the rest of the county, obviating the need for further action. Seventeen years on it seemed Norfolk’s landowners were due another lesson.24
In the summer of 1578 Elizabeth embarked upon her annual royal progress, this time through Suffolk and Norfolk. ‘The truth is’, wrote Thomas Churchyard, who observed the proceedings, ‘they had but small warning…of the coming of the Queen’s Majesty into both those shires.’ Once word of Elizabeth’s impending arrival leaked out, though, the preparations took on a frantic air: ‘all the velvets and silks were taken up that might be laid hand on, and bought for any money, and soon converted to…garments and…robes’. On Sunday, 10 August Edward Rookwood, now suitably attired, welcomed Elizabeth and her entourage to Euston Hall near Thetford. On the morning of Monday, 11 August, as Elizabeth took her leave, Rookwood was arrested. Royal hanger-on Richard Topcliffe described the scene to the Earl of Shrewsbury. The Lord Chamberlain ‘demanded of [Rookwood] how he durst presume to attempt [Elizabeth’s] real presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the Court, and yet to attend her Council’s pleasure; and at Norwich he was committed’. Rookwood was charged with refusing to attend his parish church, ‘contrary to all good laws and orders and against the duty of good subjects’. Joining him in the dock were nine other Norfolk gentlemen, all guests at a dinner in honour of the Queen hosted by Lady Style of Braconash near Norwich; among them were Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Humphrey Bedingfeld and Robert Downes, John Gerard’s contact from the Norwich inn. Rookwood and Downes, already excommunicate for non-attendance, were imprisoned until such time as they should conform. The others were placed under house arrest in Norwich, fined 200 pounds and instructed to conform or face a lengthy gaol sentence. So much for their hopes of peace.25
Soon their prosperity would be forfeit too. For although there was no way of measuring whether the actual number of Catholics was increasing under the influence of William Allen’s missionaries, there was a sure way of determining the effect the priests were having on existing Catholics. From 1574 onwards the