Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/39

 1 56 1. J THE ENGLISH AT HA VRE. 1 9- tinned Catholics in disguise : they remained at their post scarcely concealing, if concealing at all, their true creed, and were supported in open contumacy by the neighbouring noblemen and gentlemen. In a general visitation in July 1561 the clergy were required to take the oath of allegiance. The Bishop of Carlisle reported that thirteen or fourteen of his rectors and vicars refused to appear, while in many churches in his diocese mass continued to be said under the coun- tenance and open protection of Lord Dacres : and the clergy of the diocese generally he described as wicked ' imps of Antichrist ; ' ' ignorant, stubborn, and past measure false and subtle/ Fear only, he said, would make them obedient, and Lord Cumberland and Lord Dacres would not allow him to meddle with them. 1 The Border of "Wales was as critical as the Border of Scotland. In August of the same year ' the Popish justices ' of Hereford commanded the observance of St Lawrence's day as a holyday. On the eve no butcher in the town ventured to sell meat ; on the day itself ' no gospeller ' durst work in his occupation or open his shop. A party of recusant priests from Devonshire were received in state by the magistrates, carried through the streets in procession, and so ' feasted and magnified as Christ himself could not have been more reverentially entertained/ 2 In September, Bishop Jewel going to Oxford reported the fellows of the college so malignant that ' if he had 1 The Bishop of Carlisle to Cecil : Domestic MSS., vol. xviii. - The Bishop of Hereford to Cecil : Domestic MSS., vol. six.