york00orns

37° YORK.
of the oath of allegiance to the king as a temporal
sovereign, which was required to be taken by all his
subjects. Blackwell, the archpriest, and several
others submitted to the oath, but a brief was soon
issued by Paul V. forbidding it to be taken. Great
severity in the treatment of the Romanists followed.
Upwards of fifty were imprisoned at York for refusing
the oath, and of these forty died of their sufferings
in prison. The " Notes of a Prisoner " tell us that
" some were pressed by extreme hunger, others were
forced to lie on the ground in prison until their putrid
flesh adhered to their clothes. "i Three laymen and two
priests were executed at York during James's reign.
The adherents of the ancient faith lived at this
time under the strictest surveillance. Lists of recusants
were carefully compiled and returns made
to the authorities. The record of those in the
county of York, taken from the original MS. in the
Bodleian, was published by Mr. Peacock some years
ago. It shows, as he observes in his preface, " that
the inquisitorial proceedings of the Government
officials were not confined, as so many fancy them to
have been, to persons who, from their high position,
had it in their power factiously to oppose the Government
in Church and State, but that poor farmlabourers,
servant-maids, tailors, and fishermen, were,
as much as their social superiors, the objects of strict
scrutiny."
'
"Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers" (3rd series),
p. 329-
- "List of the Rom. Cath. in the co. of York in 1604" (ed.
by Edw. Peacock, F.S.A. Lond. 1872). Pref., p. vii.