Note 236 — Chapter XLV

The details about Derbyshire are from the Belvoir MSS. in the appendix to the 12th report of the Historical MSS. Commission, vol. i. pp. 326-381; Mayor of Barnstaple to Cecil, Aug. 24, 1602; Mayor of Chester, Sept. 14 and Oct. 22 and 24, 1602; Mayor of Bristol to the Privy Council, May 29, 1602. The letters from these mayors are all at Hatfield. On Sept. 18, 1595, Burghley tells his son Robert that he knows how to provide horse for Ireland at the expense of the clergy, and this levy was made; Hugh Bellott, Bishop of Chester, to Burghley, March 13, 1596. Commissary Peter Proby writes to Burghley from Chester on April 10, 1596, that the recruits malingered and threw away arms and clothes rather than sail, and that it might be necessary to send them on board pinioned. There are many details about recruiting for Ireland in Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa. In 1584 the Queen ordered some recusants, who professed themselves loyal in all but religion, to furnish certain men, or 23l. in lieu of each man. If they obeyed cheerfully, she said, she might perhaps ‘qualify some part of the extremity that otherwise the law doth lay upon them.’