The Randy Rector of Havant: Leonard Bylsey (before 1526-1585)

Leonard Bylsey (before 1526-1585), Rector of St Faith's, Havant (1548-1562)

Leonard Bylsey (also Bilson) was born before 1526, the younger son of Arnold Bylsey (died January 1535), a brewer of St Mary Ode, Winchester, whose father, Arnold Belsonn or Bilsonn, had been born in Germany and had married the alleged daughter of a Bavarian duke, and Clemence Bylsey, who after her husband's death married Cornelius Cornelison, also a brewer, who was admitted a freeman of Winchester in 1537. Leonard’s elder brother Harman (or Herman), who died in 1592, was a graduate of Merton College, Oxford (BA 1538), and a member of Winchester city council from 1546, who went on to be Bailiff (1548-9), Alderman (1551), and Chamberlain (1554), of Winchester, and Collector of the Poor Relief for St. Maurice in 1555, and had six children, the eldest of whom, Thomas Bilson (1547-1616), was to become Headmaster and then Warden of Winchester College, before appointment as Bishop of Worcester, 1596-7, and of Winchester, 1597-1616.

Bilsey was educated at Merton College, Oxford, graduating BA in 1545 and being incorporated MA in February 1548, and was from 1546 until 1554, 'The Learned Master', that is the headmaster, of the Free School, Reading, Berkshire, refounded by Henry VII from the Abbey school originally founded in 1121, and now Reading School, succeeding the English humanist, Leonard Coxe (c.1495-c.1549), author of the first book in English on rhetoric, 'The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke', first published 1524.

While headmaster at Reading, he was collated to the Rectory of St Faith's, Havant, in 1548 by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, before being presented by Edward VI on 28 June and installed as Canon and 10th Prebendary of Winchester Cathedral on 7 July 1551, and then in 1552, presented by its patron, Henry Clifford, esquire, to the Prebendial stall of Teinton Regis (Kingsteignton in Devon) and installed as a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral on 15 July, a year before the restoration of Catholicism under Mary I (1553-8). In 1557, he was also instituted as Rector of King's Worthy, Hampshire.

Bylsey at some time became enamoured of Jane, widow of Sir Richard Cotton (c.1497-1556), courtier of Henry VIII and Edward VI, sheriff of Hampshire, 1551-2, and MP for the shire in 1553, who had been leased the manor of Bedhampton by Edward VI after his accession and rewarded with the manor and castle of Warblingon in 1551, and whom he probably knew well through his being rector of Havant. Bylsey asked John Coxe, alias Devon, a former monk and priest of the Catholic Sir Edward Waldegrave, to help him with some 'love magic', allegedly inviting him to his house in the Cathedral Close at Salisbury to conduct a ceremony asking Satan whether the canon might “have his will” with the wealthy widow.

On 14 April 1561, John Coxe was arrested at Gravesend by customs officials, whilst attempting to secure passage to the Catholic Spanish Netherlands, and was found in possession of a breviary, money and letters to catholic exiles, confessing to saying mass, banned since the accession of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and the Act of Uniformity 1559, as part of “love magic”

On 17th of April, he was sent for clerical interrogation by the Bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, where he admitted to saying mass and that he did not believe that the newly reinstated Protestant faith was the true faith, naming 22 lay people for whom he had conducted mass, whom the Privy Council then ordered arrested. One of those named was Sir Edward Waldegrave, and he and the others were found guilty before the Essex Assize Court on 3rd June 1561, and ordered to each pay a fine of 100 marks (￡66 13s. 4d,). Waldegrave refused to pay the fine and he and his wife Frances were taken back to the Tower of London, where he died on 1 September 1561. Frances was released from the Tower upon his death but similarly refused to pay the fine, forfeiting Edward’s manor of Newhall in Essex.

Under examination in Star Chamber John Coxe admitted to saying mass in Leonard Bylsey's house in Salisbury to help him obtain the love of Lady Cotton, so that, "Bilson…to have his will of the Lady Cotton caused young Coxe, a priest, to say a mass to call on the devil to make her his lady."

On 20 June 1561, Coxe, Bylsey and seven others appeared before Star Chamber and on 23 June before the Court of Queen’s Bench, admitting their involvement in magic, and being obliged to swear that they would have nothing more to do with evil spirits. Besides John Coxe and Leonard Bylsey, the 'magicians' included an innkeeper, Hugh Draper, an ironmonger, Robert Man, a cleric, John Cockoyter, a salter, Fabian Withers, Rudolf Poyntell, a miller and a goldsmith, John Wright and Francis Coxe. Bylsey and three other priests were pilloried on the same day at Westminster and again two days later at Cheapside, for conjuring and other matters, and each swore on the Bible:

"… that from henceforth yeshall not use, practize, deuise, or put in vse or exercise, or cause, procure, consell, agree, assist, or consent to be vsed, deussed, practized, put in vse, or exercised, any inoucations or coniuriations of spirits, witchcraft, inchantments, or sorceries, or any thing whatsoeuer, touching or in any wise concerning the same."

Since the 1542 Witchcraft Act had been repealed, there was in 1561 no crime in practicing magic, although the 'Conspiracy' would provide the opportunity for the 1563 Witchcraft Act, William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s chief councillor, seeking to conflate sorcery with treason, so as to construe the so-called Waldegrave Conspiracy from the illegal masses and necromancy, told the Queen that 'the nest of conjurors' recently broken up by the Privy council had been plotting against her, 'conjuring and conspiring' to summon demons to kill her. This was part of Cecil's plan to undermine Lord Robert Dudley, his principle rival at Court, who, although a Protestant, was willing to see Catholicism restored to placate Spain should he marry Elizabeth. As a consequence, Bylsey was confined to the Tower of London for 'papistry', where on 5 September 1562, he was one of 22 prisoners, alongside Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane, and the Earl of Hertford, imprisoned for their clandestine marriage, and the Catholic Henry Howard.

After his conviction, Bylsey was deprived by the Court of Arches of all ecclesiastical benefices in the Province of Canterbury because of his 'indelible infamy', and cited by Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury to appear in Chapter and show cause why he should not be deprived of his prebend there, which he was unable to do because of his imprisonment. By 7 December 1562, he had been deprived of his Winchester Prebendary, but he was still recorded as a Prebendary of Salisbury in the Register of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1559-1575, as late as 15 December 1571. The date of his deprivation or resignation as Rector of Havant is unknown, but the Court of Arches judgement suggests some time in 1562, although a new rector was not appointed until 1567, when, somewhat ironically, Henry Cotton, a younger son of Sir Richard and Jane Cotton, was collated to the living, holding it until his appointment as Bishop of Salisbury in 1598.

In 1570, after two failed applications to the Privy Council, Bylsey was still imprisoned in the Tower, but on 14th of October 1571, he was removed, by order of the Council, to the Marshalsea prison, where he was recorded as being in 1580, before being eventually discharged from prison between January and March 1582, living out his final years in London, until his death in 1585. It may be that, although unable to fulfill any spiritual functions of a canon of Salisbury while in the Tower, where political prisoners were detained, it was the income from the prebend that paid for his board and lodging, which is why he was still listed as Prebendary in 1571, but that when he was moved to the far less salubrious Marshalsea in October, the prison of the Court of Queen's Bench, with criminal jurisdiction, and this money no longer required for his upkeep, the prebend was at last removed in December and subsequently allocated to Tobias Matthew, who, again presented by Henry Clifford, was installed by proxy on 28 May 1572.

His will is dated 22 Oct 1584, with codicil of 16 February 1585 added on his death bed, and was proved on 5 March 1585. In the will he describes himself as "Leonard Bylson of City of Winchester, Clerk, and now abyding within the Cittie of London." He mentions St. Catherine Creechurch and City of Westminster, and, among others, Mr. Francis Thompson, clerk, Mistris Gage the wife of Mr. Edward Gage, esquire (whom was to have all his printed books according to the bargain and agreement made with him), his nephew Master. Thomas Bylson, D.D., and, in his codicil, his brother at Winchester (Harman Bilson), and a "cosen", Osmund Bilson, a witness and actually his nephew, a son of Harman. Another witness was Ambrose Shorter, servant to William Searche, scrivenor, that is, notary, of London, whom he appointed overseer, and who is the William Serche of St. Michael le Quern, London, whose own will was proved 1597. Leonard Bylson appointed as executor and residuary legatee, William Whitinge, a tanner of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, Surrey, who proved the will with codicil. The 'Mistris Gage' mentioned was Margaret Gage (buried 1598 Framfield, Sussex.) née Shelley, daughter of Sir William Shelley, of Michelgrove in Clapham, Sussex, while her husband, Edward Gage, was the son of James Gage of Bentley in Framfield, Sussex (buried 15 January 1573 in Framfield). This James Gage in his will (1569-73) mentions a 'Mr. Bilson', who may be Leonard Bylson, although he may be a family relation called Belson, originally from Buckinghamshire.

Bibliography

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D.K. Warner, 12 February 2024