seposita magis elucescent. Decimo quinto Aug. Tni
honoris orator.
"JOANNES STOREY." 2
This letter was sent up to London by Parker
and Simon Jewkes, as we learn from the following
items in the bill of expenses 3 which was afterwards
to form such a bone of contention. (Parker was of
course a nominal prisoner and Jewkes his keeper.)
*' Paid at Yarmouth for three horses
and a post, sent up with Parker and
Simon Jewkes 214
Paid them in their purses, to bear their
charges to London and to the court .300"
Parker however broke down on his journey when
he got to St. Alban's, and sent Cecil the following
letter from thence :
" Right Honourable, Not long since your
Honour was advertised from Yarmouth of the
arrival of Dr. Storey, brought from beyond the seas
by me and my supports, or assistants, the I4th
of this instant, about eight of the clock in the
afternoon ; since which time I have been travelling
towards your Honour, with whom my hearty desire
1 Illegible. ' 2 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 18.
3 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 64.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 59
is to have conference of those things which in these
affairs doth appertain ; but being a man not much
used to travel, I have over-travelled myself, so as
yet I could not attain to the presence of your
Honour, and also not having any determinate time
to have any access to your Honour, which I require,
if it may stand with your Honour to signify the
same by the bearer hereof, and then shall I give my
diligent attendance at all times, according to my
bounden duty herewith. The Almighty have your
Honour in His blessed tuition.
" From St. Alban's, this present night, i8th
August, 1570.
" By your honour's obedient during life,
"WILLIAM PARKER. MI
Roger Ramsden and the rest set off with their
prisoners after a three days' stay in Yarmouth,
having received a strict injunction to let Storey
speak to no one. So rigorously was this injunction
observed, that one Gosling, a bailiff, got into trouble
for supplying the prisoner with kersey to make
hose of.' 2
The bill here also supplies us with considerable
information.
" Paid for 5 more horses when we came
up is. and to the post for his pains,
and for bringing up our mails and
other things 3 10 o
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 21.
- The martyr was most probably imprisoned in the ancient
Toil House, a picturesque mediaeval building which contains
several dungeons.
60 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Paid for our charges at Yarmouth the
space of 3 days with the Doctor,
Parker and the rest so long as they
were in our company, as also that
which was spent upon the master
and mariners 3 15 o
Paid for all our charges from Yarmouth
to London 5 10 o
Paid for our charges here in London to
this 26 of August, 1570, with our
horse meat the first night .... o 13 2
Paid for one to help to bring up the hoye
from Yarmouth to London because
the master came up with us . . .010 2"
Blessed John Storey arrived in London August
the 2ist. His capture naturally caused great excite-
ment and unbounded joy among the heretics. The
Spanish agent, Don Antonio de Guaras, wrote
August the 2oth to Zayas as follows :
" I wrote to your Worship on the i6th and the
news since then is that they have enticed Dr. Storey,
whom you will know, on board a ship in Flanders,
and have brought him hither. He was betrayed by
a false companion of his, a treacherous Englishman,
and an acquaintance of mine met the traitor on the
i6th instant coming from Yarmouth whither Storey
had been taken.
" My acquaintance seeing the traitor alone was
surprised that he should be here ; the latter said :
' I have come hither to do the Queen a great service,
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 61
for I have managed to bring into England a bitter
enemy of the Queen and this country.' It is now
understood that Dr. Storey will arrive here a prisoner
to-night or to-morrow."
In a letter written three days later the Ambas-
sador adds : " These people in London are only
talking of the martyrs they are going to make."
The jubilation of the Protestants may be judged
from the following letter of Bishop Horn, of Win-
chester, written to Bullinger a year later (August,
I57 1 ):
"There was here not long since a doctor of
laws, of some learning, such a one as I imagine as
those among the Jews who menaced Christ with
death. His name is Storey, a man as it were born
for cruelty, a most raging persecutor in Marian
times to whom it was gain to kill the saints and
sport to shed blood.
" This man after the happy day had shone on us
. . . was thrown into prison on an evident charge
of treason. A short time afterwards ... he
escaped to Flanders, . . . where like a fury fresh
from hell, or more truly like a wicked Davus, it is
wonderful how he made mischief. . . . There
comes to him one of his friends, whose fidelity he
least suspected, but who had been suborned by the
merchants. 1 This man whispers in his ear that a
ship has just arrived from England with I know
1 Even Horn did not know that Parker had been sent to
Flanders for the very purpose of kidnapping the martyr. But it is
evident from the whole letter that Horn cared little forgaccuracy.
62 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
not what golden mountains of treasure. Fired with
the love of plunder, he straightway sallies forth,
promising the money to himself and death to the
merchants. After he had entered the ship and
was prying about in every corner, and had just
gone down into the interior of the vessel, they
suddenly closed the hatches, and with their sails set,
are carried by a prosperous and safe breeze to
England.
"And so at length he was brought to London
amidst the great congratulations of the people
awaiting him on his return." 1
The Lords of the Council ordered Dr. Watts,
Archdeacon of London, to take care of Dr. Storey
till the Lollards' Tower 2 could be got ready for his
reception ; for no common prison would do for such
a man.
As Lord Cobham wrote to Cecil : " In my
poor opinion no common prison is fit for him, for he
shall find too many friends." " No," comments
Simpson, " the man who might have put Cecil and
1 Zurich Letters, First Series, n. 98.
2 Not the tower at Lambeth Palace, commonly so called, but
a tower attached to St. Paul's Cathedral, where heretics who came
under the Bishop of London's jurisdiction were confined. "At
each corner of this West End [of St. Paul's] was a strong tower
of stone, made for Bell-Towers, one of them, viz., that next the
Bishop's Palace, was used by the Palace in Stow's time, and the
other, toward the South, was called the Lollards' Tower, and used as
the Bishop's Prison, for such as were detected for Opinions in
Religion contrary to the Faith of the Church." (The History and
Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. By Seymour and
Marchant. London, 1754, vol. i. p. 739.)
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 63
Leicester, and Elizabeth herself to death, and had
only put them in fear, was not to be allowed the
use of friends. He was to have no common prison,
the vindictiveness of the Court faction was to ape
the vengeance of God, and Dr. Storey was to be
punished by that wherein he had sinned. The
Lollards' Tower, in which he shut up the heretics
whom the ancient laws then punished, was to be
new-locked and bolted to shut him up."
On August the 26th, Archdeacon Watts wrote
to Cecil that on the Friday evening last Dr. Storey
had been brought to his house, "albeit I am very
unmeet and unprovided for such a charge." The
Lollards' Tower should be made ready for him, the
locks and bolts having been broken off its doors at
the death of Queen Mary and never repaired since.
" My house is so weak," he plaintively adds,
"that I am forced to get men to watch every night,
which is a great trouble to me ; and the care that I
have of his safe keeping (being a person of whom
such an account is made) doth much impair my
health. I will commit him to the Lollards' Tower as
soon as it is ready, and will appoint a couple of
keepers to keep him there." 1
He wrote again on September the 4th, that
Storey had been in the Lollards' Tower since the
Friday before.
" He seemeth to take little thought for any
matters, and is as perverse in mind concerning
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 30.
64 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
religion as heretofore he hath been ; and plainly
saith that what he did in Queen Mary's time he did
it lawfully, because he was but a minister of the
law ; and if the like law were again he might do the
like. I have appointed two of my neighbours, being
honest men and favourers of the truth, to be his
keepers jointly, and have divided the keys of the
prison between them, so as the one cannot come
at him without the other ; and I have given them
strait charge to keep him secret and safe, and not
to suffer any to have conference with him." 1
Meanwhile the blessed martyr was filled with
supernatural joy. Though entirely taken by surprise
at his capture, he soon divined what was in prospect
for him, and earnestly gave thanks to God, who had
brought him back again to the place of suffering,
ardently praying that he might obtain the martyr's
crown and palm. 2 The Catholics were plunged into
deep distress, and many prayers went up to Heaven
that he might be constant in the hour of trial.
The Spanish Ambassador, Don Guerau de Spes,
wrote on September the 3rd :
"Dr. Storey is at present very strictly imprisoned
and is being examined. The man who betrayed
him is also under arrest, in order to make the people
believe that he did not betray him. Many burlesque
verses have been printed about the kidnapping of
Storey." 3
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxxiii. 30. - Concertatio, f. 44.
3 Spanish Calendar, 1570, n. 216.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 65
On the nth he wrote to the King :
" The captain of the smack which brought
Dr. Storey is called Cornelius Hadria, 1 who I do
not think is a Bergen man. He is swaggering
about here very impudently. He arranged the
matter with Mershe the English commissioner, and
others whose names I am ascertaining."
Meanwhile the rogues engaged in this conspiracy
were quarrelling over the payment and division of
the spoil. William Parker was the luckiest of all;
for as Cecil did not desire the share he had in it
to be known, and as for appearance sake he was to
be kept in prison and tried with Dr. Storey as an
accomplice with him, under the pretence that both
of them were entrapped and brought over as traitors,
it was necessary to pay him very handsomely not
to divulge the plot, and to submit quietly to his
imprisonment in the Tower, to which both he and
Storey were transferred in December. Among the
State Papers we find Sir Owen Hopton the
Lieutenant's charges for their maintenance there ;
each of them being charged 135. 4d. a week for
diet, 53. for a keeper, and 45. for fuel and lights. 2
John Mershe wrote to Cecil and Leicester on
the nth of September, 1570, enclosing the porten-
tous bill of charges presented by his accomplices :
" Right Honourable, my duty remembered, I
am earnestly pressed by these 3 young men who
1 Ramsden and his companions call him Cornelius Adrianson,
but Van Eycke seems to have been his real name.
- R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 46.
F II.
66 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
brought over Dr. Storey to commend their suit to
your Honours, which is that they may be answered
such money as they say they have laid out, amount-
ing, besides 68 us. 4d., which I have answered to
that account, 109 35. 2d., as by an account which
they will exhibit may appear. And therefore I am
bold to be a humble suitor unto your Honours
to be as good to them as may be ; for they have
adventured so far as they may no more go into
the Low Countries, their names being notoriously
known, and yet two of them are married. They
trust also that their dangerous services taken in
hand with so good a will is taken in so good part
that they shall have some further consideration, and
although they have kept themselves close in one
house which is clear, yet will they spend 5 or 6
days in the country ere they come to the city." *
We much regret that -considerations of space
forbid us from printing the bill of charges in its
entirety. It is a most interesting document and the
effrontery of the ingenuous young men who drew it
up is very amusing. It evidently quite took away the
breath of the worthies to whom it was addressed. 2
It is headed A die 23 Julii anno 1570, and has
been annotated by Mershe as we shall see. The
whole comes to the respectable total of 177 145. 6d.
(which may perhaps be multiplied by at least eight
to get the modern value). This bill was of course
1 R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 62.
2 It is printed in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Relations Politiques des
Fays Bas et de I'Angleterre, etc. torn. vi.
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 67
for money out of pocket, and did not include the
reward claimed by the merchants. Among the more
interesting items are the following :
" Paid for our charges the space xiii
days at the English house in
Barrow as well for Parker as for
ourselves and two men more for
divers which came out of Zealand
and from Antwerp, as also expenses
upon the master and mariners
during our abode there ...'.. 8 4 6
(Margin, Too much.)
Paid more than we were fain to give to
be released of a hoye which we had
bought at Barrow aforesaid for
that she was not so able, nor so
fit to serve our turn as we took her
to be 16 13 4
(Margin, / doubt thereof.)
Paid more to be released of x sacks of
tow and other things which at the
first were determined to be laid
upon the said hoye, and afterwards
we resolved upon the contrary . 328
Paid more for beer, bread and beef and
other victuals for this our last hoye
our company being in all x persons 10 o o
(Margin, There was V liv. paid.}
Paid to Cornelius Adrianson skipper for
his freight, according to our bargain
made with him 50 o o
(Margin, He had but 33 liv. 6s. 8d.)
68 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
Paid unto iii mariners which we hired
for x liv. a man, whereof the one
had but iii liv. vis. viii d. in hand
and afterwards ran away from us,
so that to encourage the rest which
we feared would have done the
like, we granted them the rest of
his hire, so have they in all ... 30 o o
(Margin, He that maketh freight
with the master hireth also the
mariners.)
Paid more unto one Englishman which
we took with us for over more
strength, if need should have been,
as also to be our pilot when occasion
might serve 13 6 8
(Margin,/ think he had xx or xxxfl.)
More we have promised unto another
Englishman as well for his pains
taken on the other side as also for
his coming with us for over more
aid and strength, whatsoever might
have happened by the way 20 o o
(Margin, This was needless, I would
they had left him alone.) "
Of the total sum they had already received over
68, which was paid to them at Antwerp by one
John Taylor. They still demanded 109 35. 2d. ;
but Cecil was not disposed to give a penny more,
though Mershe wrote many strenuous letters, urging
that it were better to give way, for if the young men
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 69.
were made discontented the affair might acquire an
awkward publicity. He hoped, however, that it
would not be thought that he " allowed of their
account, which I think untrue and unreasonable,
as by the 'notes in the margin may appear;
but yet I cannot remove them from it ; they doubt
by likelihood how they shall be considered [i.e.,
what reward they will get] and therefore would help
themselves this way." He went on to plead for
more money for himself. 1 We learn from this letter
that Ramsden had a wife and children at Antwerp
to whom he could not safely return, and that he
and Bragge had refused a reward of 40 a piece
offered them by Cecil's agent Lee, " saying they
would stand to the reward of the Lords of the
Council."
Cecil, in one of his last replies (after the affair
had gone on sometime and Dr. Storey was executed)
jocosely suggested that if the young men were not
satisfied, they might have Dr. Storey's carcase
among them to sell as relics. They at last invented
a new tale, namely, that they had left 2,300 of
debt behind them in the Low Countries which
the Duke of Alva had confiscated ; for that the
seizure of Dr. Storey had very much embittered
both the King and himself against Elizabeth and
her Government. However, as Simpson says,
if there had been any truth in this story, " we
doubt whether they would have been a whole
twelvemonth in finding it out as an argument for
the payment of their bill, and we have still greater
1 Letter of September 14, 1570. R.O. Domestic, Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 64.
70 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
doubts whether they would have undertaken the
affair with the almost certain prospect of losing
everything they had in the Low Countries."
We may end this episode by giving one of their
whining letters to Cecil, dated June, 1571, a few
days after the martyrdom, because of the great light
it throws upon the whole transaction. We do not
know if they ever got their money, but probably
they did not. As it was, they had already received
considerably more than the traditional thirty pieces
of silver.
" To the Right Honourable my very good Lord
the Lord of Burghley,
" The cold answer, right honourable, which of
late we received of Mr. Mershe to his motion, made
as he saith, of our cause unto your lordship, had
wholly dismayed us, had not the right honourable
Earl of Leicester sundry times declared unto us the
contrary ; and you yourself of your great goodness
very lately confirmed the same, which yieldeth us
indeed great hope that notwithstanding the said
Mershe's discouragement, we are shortly to have
some good end of that which so long we had sued
for, wherein undoubtedly your great bounty shall so
much the more appear and shine, as our present
necessity doth urgently crave the same ; and our
hope is likewise the better assured, in that you have
used, as of late we understand, so great liberality
towards Parker, whose good hap in that behalf, as
we do not in any wise malign, so doubt we not but
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 71
our travail and losses, without whom he had never
prevailed, will also be somewhat considered accord-
ingly. Yet forasmuch as those, perhaps, to whom
we had partly trusted, have not so effectually
declared our cause as both by promise and in
conscience they are bound to do, and to the intent
(whatsoever report be made to the contrary) it may
plainly appear to your lordship, that of all prudence
touching those affairs, ours hath been and still is the
greatest, may it please your lordship to understand
the whole order how we came first to deal in this
matter. The thing being pretended and planned by
others long before, charge was committed unto one
Pigotte to furnish a ship with men and mariners
sufficient for the purpose. He proceeded therein
so far, that the very place, time, and tide were
appointed, where the Doctor should be shipped with
the whole train almost in all points as we now
lastly used, for none other to that end could aptly
have served. But in effect those matters were so
slenderly handled, that when it came to the very
point, all was dashed and like to be discovered. For
beside that the men and mariners forsook the enter-
prise, and refused to deal any more therein, certain
of them letted not to make exclamation at Parker's
house, where Storey and all other rebels resorted ;
and not knowing that Parker was privy thereunto,
warned him, as he said unto us himself, to take
heed, for there were that pretended to carry him
and another into England. Until the matter was
brought into this exigent, we never dealt therein,
nor once understood of any such pretence ; and in
72 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
this extremity did one John Lee, gentleman, break
the news unto us, declaring how lewdly Pigotte had
ordered the matters, greatly complaining the danger
he stood in himself, being in fear their enterprise
would be bewrayed, that in very deed he once
determined with the rest to have fled and absented
themselves, for fear of the peril which was like to
ensue ; and so far discoursed upon the matter with
us, that plainly we perceived him to be the principal
dealer therein by order from hence, and the only
man that by promises of great rewards and other
things had allured Parker to consent thereunto :
craving instantly (for so much as he brought the
matter so far) our aid and assistance in that distress
towards the accomplishing of the rest ; whereunto,
although in heart we were very well inclined, yet
could we not upon such a sudden be persuaded to
hazard all that we had and our lives withal, until
such time as, upon sight of certain letters which he
showed us from Mr. Saltanstall and Mr. Mershe,
wherein your lordship was also mentioned, he
showed in the end your lordship's own letter for
confirmation of the rest, without which indeed we
had not so far endangered ourselves at that sudden.
But perceiving thereby that our service should be
great and very acceptable to the State, we judged
no time to be omitted, nor any danger refused,
which might further so good an enterprise. So that
it was neither Lee, Saltanstall, or Mershe, but the
credit of your lordship's letters, my lord, that moved
us, all other things set apart, presently to employ
ourselves that way, and without further delibera-
BLESSED JOHN STOREY 73
tion to hazard our lives, and all that we ever had,
rather than so good a piece of service should be
overthrown. It was a dangerous attempt, and very
well handled of Lee, the winning of Parker to
consent thereunto ; for without him the Doctor
could never have been blinded in such sort as he
was. But all the rest was our deed only, and no
man's else, as we trust Lee hath long sithence writ
unto your lordship ; and we have also his letters to
testify the same, if need require, whereby it shall
plainly appear, if Mr. Mershe have not likewise
reported accordingly, that he hath greatly abused
us. As for Parker, be it spoken under correction,
my lord, it was the opinion which Storey had of his
simplicity, and not his own policy, that so deceived
and allured him into those dangers ; which thing
Storey by this one point sufficiently declared, in that
he thought him not able to deal in any matter
touching his office without his presence to guide and
direct him ; and sure I am your lordship doth well
perceive him to be very incapable of any such affairs
as these were. For our parts, more assistance than
of a very child or infant we never had of him, and
accordingly were forced from time to time to instruct
him what he should say or do in every respect ; and
for his office, if your lordship make account what he
hath lost thereby, surely as it was his only substance,
it is well known, although he bore the name, that it
was a matter of trust, and that Storey notwith-
standing would have reaped the greatest fruit
thereof. For our parts, right honourable, besides
that we lack a great part of our disbursed money,
74 BLESSED JOHN STOREY
and the great charge which we have been at in
following her Majesty's Court these ten months
continually, what we have lost and are likely to
lose, if we should so amply declare as our cause
requireth, your lordship may think it very much ;
for over and above the 2,300 heretofore mentioned,
our liberty and traffic in those places hath hitherto
maintained the estate of mean merchants, whereof
we are now wholly destitute. And for mine own
part, those hopes which on behalf of my wife I am
like to lose, I would not willingly have given for
1,000 marks. Thus humbly beseeching your lord-
ship to weigh our cause with compassion, for that
Mr. Mershe declaring unto us so heavy a message
from you, the same is a double grief that your
lordship should wish us Dr. Storey's carcass among
us, as Mr. Mershe saith, or otherwise to make some
more reasonable suit. Wherein, my good lord, as we
have lost all that ever we had in doing this service,
so, for that matter what we require tends to the
Queen's Majesty's profit, and the Commonweal, and
is but a casualty to what it may be worth to counter-
vail our damages before mentioned ; yet we humbly
content ourselves therewith, desirous no further to
enjoy it than as the same be not prejudicial to the
intercourse and good policy of the State. And now,
if we be driven to change our suit again, as we were
once before for the matter of leather, we must be
driven withal to beg our bread, and so leave to