Mass also was said (before the present Roman Catholic Chapel was built at Bishop Thornton) at Raventoftes Hall, in the Ripon Chapelry of Bishop Thornton, once the home of the stanch old Catholic family of
Walworth. Then Mass was said in the top chamber, running the whole length of the priest’s present house. Afterwards (about 1778) followed the present stone Chapel. Clare Lady Howard, of Glossop, built the Schools at Bishop Thornton a few years ago.
F. Reynard, Esquire, J.P., of Hob Green, Markington and Sunderlandwick, Driffield, now owns Raventoftes Hall, which has a splendid view towards Sawley, How Hill, and Ripon. It is rented by a Roman Catholic, named Mr. F. Stubbs, who is akin to the Hawkesworths, the Shanns, the Darnbroughs, and other old Bishop Thornton and Ripon families.
Peacock, in his “List,” speaks of William Norton as a grandson of Richard Norton, but, according to Burke’s “Peerage,” he must have been a great-grandson. The Nortons may have saved the Sawley estate from forfeiture, somehow or another, or perchance they bought it in afterwards from some Crown nominee. Francis Norton, the eldest son and heir of old Richard Norton, fled with his father to the continent. His son was Edmund, and his son was William Norton, of Sawley, whose descendant was the first Lord Grantley.
Gabetis Norton, Esquire, owned Dole Bank, between Markington and Bishop Thornton, where Miss Lascelles, Miss Butcher, and others of Mary Ward’s followers, lived a semi-conventual life during the reign of Charles II., previously to their taking up their abode near Micklegate Bar, York. — See “Annals of St. Mary’s Convent, York,” Edited by H. J. Coleridge, S.J. (Burns & Oates). — Sir Thomas Gascoigne, of Barnbow, Aberford, was the benefactor of these ladies, both at Dole Bank and York; Dole Bank probably at that time belonging to this “fine old English gentleman,” who died a very aged man at the Benedictine Abbey of Lambspring, in Germany, a voluntary exile for his faith. Dole Bank came to Gabetis Norton, Esquire, in the eighteenth century, from his sister, who was the wife of Colonel Thornton, of Thornville Royal (now Stourton Castle, near Knaresbrough, the seat of the Lord Mowbray and Stourton) and of Old Thornville, Little Cattal, now the property of William Machin, Esq. (Derived from old title-deeds and writings in the possession of representatives of William Hawkes, yeoman, of Great Cattal.) Dole Bank, I believe, now belongs to Captain Greenwood, of Swarcliffe Hall, Birstwith, Nidderdale. During the early part of the nineteenth century the Darnbroughs rented Dole Bank, the present tenant being Mr. Atkinson.
[79] — I think that Thomas Warde may have been born about the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign; for if he were married in 1579, and was, say, twenty-one years of age at the time of his marriage, this would fix
his birth about the year 1558. Early marriages were characteristic of the period. Mounteagle, for example, was married before he was eighteen. The Ripon Registers begin in fairly regular course in 1587, though there are fragments from 1574, but not earlier. If Christopher Wright, the plotter, lived in Bondgate, Ripon, and had a child born to him in 1589 (the year after the Spanish Armada), he must, like Mounteagle, have been married when about eighteen years of age. These instances should be carefully noted by students of Shakespeare, inasmuch as they render the poet’s marriage with Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he was little more than eighteen and a-half years old, less startling. — See Sidney Lee’s “Life of Shakespeare,” p. 18 (Smith & Elder, 1898).
I should like also to add that I think there is a great deal in Halliwell-Phillips’ contention as to Shakespeare having made the “troth-plight.” — Concerning the “troth-plight” see Lawrence Vaux’s “Catechism,” Edited by T. G. Law, with a valuable historical preface (Chetham Soc). — Shakespeare’s “mentor” in the days of his youth was, most probably, some old Marian Priest, like Vaux, who was a former Warden of the Collegiate Church at Manchester, and with “the great Allen” and men like Vivian Haydock — see Gillow’s “Haydock Papers” (Burns & Oates) — retained Lancashire in its allegiance to Rome — so that “the jannock” Lancashire Catholics style their county, “God’s County” even unto this day.
[80] — The strong and, within due limits, admirable spirit of “clannishness” that still animates the natives of Yorkshire — a valiant, adventurous, jovial race, fresh from Dame Nature’s hand — is evidenced by the fact that within a very recent date the Yorkshiremen who have gone up to the great metropolis, like many another before them, to seek their livelihood, and maybe their fortune, have formed an association of their own. This excellent institution for promoting good fellowship among those hailing from the county of broad acres has for Patron during the present year, 1901, the Duke of Cornwall and York (now H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, December, 1901), and that typical Yorkshireman, Viscount Halifax, for President. The Earl of Crewe, Lord Grantley, Sir Albert K. Rollit, Knt., M.P., cum multis aliis, are members. May it flourish ad multos annos!
[81] — In the Record Office, Chancery Lane, London.