By HELEN COMPSON helen.compson@hexham-courant.co.uk

Published at 13:11, Thursday, 08 January 2009

THE Reformation might have been a canny ruse on Henry VIII’s part to get shot of Catherine of Aragon, but needless to say, Catholics the world over were unimpressed.

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They paid a heavy price for their refusal to join the Church of England – estates were seized, imprisonment and execution were common, and Catholicism itself went underground.

Even the far-flung reaches of rural Tynedale were sucked into the maelstrom.

Catholics here have a turbulent tale to tell, but order eventually arose out of the flames of anarchy, allowing the religion to be practised in the open once again.

St Mary’s Parish Church in Hexham was opened on September 22, 1830, by Bishop Penswick.

It was reported: “There was a very respectable and numerous attendance on this occasion, and the collection amounted to upwards of £30.”

However, the path leading up to that day had been a long one.

By the time of Henry’s death in 1547, his son Edward was so utterly convinced of the worth of Protestantism, he ordered the removal of every trace of Catholicism from the realm.

Catholic churches throughout the land were stripped of their altars, crucifixes, statues, vestments, plate, paintings and glass.

What remains today probably totals no more than five per cent of England’s medieval heritage.

Northumbrians were left alone, for the most part, during those times, because they were needed to defend our troubled border lands.

But by the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, her government felt it politic to harass Northern Catholics, lured on, no doubt, by the prospect of plundering deep coffers.

The Radcliffes of Dilston Castle were fabulously wealthy and prime targets as the region’s leading Catholic family.

Their names come up frequently on the lists of recusants (those who refused to join the Church of England) appearing before the Assizes from the late 1580s onwards.

In 1588 Anthony Radcliffe was picked as sheriff, only to be hastily removed from office when he became the first prominent Northumbrian Catholic to be indicted for recusancy.

A decade later, the papists really began to feel the pressure when Thomas, Lord Burghley, was appointed as Lord President of the North.

At the Newcastle Assize of August 1600 upwards of 150 Northumbrians were convicted of recusancy.

Soon after, Francis Radcliffe, nephew of Anthony, was denounced as an “obstinate, dangerous and not unlearned recusant” by Bishop Matthew and imprisoned at York.

The names of the priests who visited Hexham during those times remained largely unknown – unless they were caught. After the Gunpowder Plot, there was a renewed search for priests.

There was brief respite from the persecution, beginning in 1618, as King James I furthered a match with the Spanish throne for his son, and everything was done to placate Britain’s Catholics.

During this period of comparative calm, Sir Francis Radcliffe built the chapel at Dilston that stands there to this day.

But with the accession of Charles I and his marriage to a French princess, there was a sudden change of policy in religious matters.

His government, in a desperate search for funds, enforced the laws against popish recusants once more.

In 1625 chattels to the value of £621 were seized from Sir Edward Radcliffe, and 700 head of cattle and 400 head of sheep, worth £909, from Roger Widdrington, bailiff and steward of Hexham.

In all, goods belonging to 12 families of gentry were seized, and 65 recusants of lower social status were fined between £2 and £100.

It is estimated that during the early 1600s around 5,000 of the 83,000 people living in Northumberland were Catholics; a total of 1,255 were indicted for recusancy.

The early years of Charles II's reign brought a period of healing calm, but the discovery of a popish plot to kill the King unleashed another hysterical outburst of anti-Catholic feeling.

It led to the worst level of persecution ever experienced, but within time the fire burned itself out.

Throughout, the Radcliffes of Dilston had kept secular clergy as their chaplains, and they are generally thought of as the founders of the secular mission in Hexham.

When members of the Benedictine order took charge at Dilston in 1722, the secular clergy moved out, and established a mission in the Cockshaw area of Hexham.

Roughly at the same time the Catholic priesthood established a presence in the town thanks to an annuity bequeathed by one Ursula Mountney.

She directed that Stonecroft Farm, in Warden, should be “let to some discrete Catholic qualified to entertain a priest for the help of poor Catholics in Hexham and Warden parishes”.

She left £20 per annum to support the priest, £6 a year to help the poor of Hexham and Warden parishes, and 80 shillings a year for the poor of the parishes of Corbridge, Chollerton and St John Lee.

Stonecroft Farm became the Hexham priest’s base for the next 35 years, until the 1715 Uprising threatened the security of many a Catholic family in Tynedale.

George Gibson, farmer and tenant of Stonecroft at the time, was with the third Earl of Derwentwater when he was arrested for his part in the uprising.

The then incumbent, Father Peter Antoninus Thompson, wrote in his journal: “By night and day, I exposed myself to danger when I saved and carried away their household goods; I was forced to absent myself for a while.”

Father Thompson set up residence in Hexham. Hence, between 1721 and 1827 there were two Catholic chapels in Hexham;one Dominican, on Battle Hill, and the other secular, at Cockshaw.

In the end, it was agreed only one church was needed to serve the town.

Father Michael Singleton was appointed as the parish priest, and the foundation stone for the current St Mary’s Church was laid on April 22, 1828.

He spent much of the next two years travelling in search of subscriptions to pay for the church, and then started all over again to raise money for the founding of a Catholic school in the town.

Two years ago, St Mary’s Church was expanded again to provide a chapel twice the size.

Today it offers a warm and welcoming environment in which Tynedale’s Roman Catholics can worship in peace.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk