[54] — “Collecti Cardwelli,” Public Record Office, Brussels Vitæ Mart, p. 147.
In Foley’s “Records,” vol. iv., there is a beautiful picture of Father Edward Oldcorne, S.J., now “the Venerable Edward Oldcorne,” one of York’s most remarkable sons. In the left-hand corner of the portrait is a representation of a portion of Old Ouse Bridge, with St. William’s Chapel (at present the site of which is occupied by Messrs. Varvills’ establishment). St. Sampson’s Church, the ancient church which gave the name of the parish where Oldcorne first saw the light of the sun, is still standing. It is near Holy Trinity, King’s Court, or Christ’s Parish, where “the Venerable,” Margaret Clitherow lived. Oldcorne must have known that great York citizen well. She was born in Davygate, and was the second wife of a butcher, named John Clitherow, of the Parish of Christ, in the City of York. She was married in the Church of St. Martin, Coney Street, in 1571. She was one of Nature’s gentlewomen, by birth: and the Church of Rome, ever mindful of her own, declared in 1886 (just three hundred years after the martyr’s death in the Tolbooth, on Old Ouse Bridge)
that Margaret Clitherow, a shrewd, honest, devout York tradeswoman, is one of the Church’s “Venerable Servants of God,” by grace. — See J. B. Milburn’s Life of this extraordinary Elizabethan Yorkshire-woman, entitled, “A Martyr of Old York” (Burns & Oates, London).
[55] — This crossing-out of the word “yowe” is noticed in Nash’s “History of Worcestershire.”
[56] — The word “good” is omitted in the copy of the Letter given in the “Authorised Discourse,” which is remarkable. I think it was done designedly, in order to minimize the merit of the revealing plotter.
[57] — King James’s interpretation of these enigmatical words was simply fantastical. It may be read in Gerard’s “Narrative,” and in most contemporary relations of the Plot.
[58] — I am of opinion that one of Father Oldcorne’s servants, Ralph Ashley by name, a Jesuit lay-brother, was the person that actually conveyed the Letter to the page who was in the street adjoining Lord Mounteagle’s Hoxton residence, on the evening of Saturday, the 26th of October, 1605. My reason for being of the opinion that Ralph Ashley conveyed the Letter will be seen hereafter, in due course of this Inquiry.
The page’s evidence went to show that the deliverer of the Letter was a tall man, or a reasonably tall man. There is nothing inconsistent in this account of the height of the Letter-carrier with what we know of the size of Ashley, which is negative knowledge merely. I mean we are not told anywhere that he was of short stature, as we are told in the case (1) of the Jesuit lay-brother, Brother Ralph Emerson, a native of the County of Durham, and the servant of Edmund Campion — see Simpson’s “Life of Campion” — whom the genial orator playfully called “his little man” — “homulus”; and in the case (2) of the Jesuit lay-brother, Brother Nicholas Owen, the servant of Garnet, who was affectionately termed “little John” by the Catholics in whose castles, manor-houses, and halls, up and down the country, he constructed most ingenious secret places for the hiding of priests.
Ralph Ashley had acted in some humble capacity at the English Catholic College of Valladolid, which had been founded in Spain from Rheims, through the generosity of noble-hearted Spanish Catholics, among whom was that majestic soul, Dona Luisa de Carvajal. — See her “Life,” by the late Lady Georgiana Fullerton (Burns & Oates). — See also
“The Life of the Venerable John Roberts, O.S.B.,” by the Rev. Bede Camm, O.S.B. (Sands & Co.) — Father Roberts founded the Benedictine College at Douay, still in existence. Cardinal Allen’s secular priests’ College is now used as a French Barracks. Ushaw College, Durham, and St. Edmund’s College, Ware, are the lineal successors of Cardinal Allen’s College at Douay.