"I was so happy lately, amongst other good graces, that her majesty did tell me of sundry lewd papist beasts that have resorted to Buxton," etc. Lodge, ii. 188, 30 August 1578. This Topcliffe was the most implacable persecutor of his age. In a letter to Lord Burleigh (Strype, iv. 39), he urges him to imprison all the principal recusants, and especially women, "the farther off from their own family and friends the better." The whole letter is curious, as a specimen of the prevalent spirit, especially among the puritans, whom Topcliffe favoured. Instances of the ill-treatment experienced by respectable families (the Fitzherberts and Foljambes), and even aged ladies, without any other provocation than their recusancy, may be found in Lodge, ii. 372, 462; iii. 22. But those farthest removed from puritanism partook sometimes of the same tyrannous spirit. Aylmer, bishop of London, renowned for his persecution of nonconformists, is said by Rishton de Schismate, p. 319, to have sent a young catholic lady to be whipped in Bridewell for refusing to conform. If the authority is suspicious (and yet I do not perceive that Rishton is a liar like Sanders), the fact is rendered hardly improbable by Aylmer's harsh character. [226] Strype's _Life of Smith_, 171; _Annals_, ii. 631, 636; iii. 479; and Append. 170. The last reference is to a list of magistrates sent up by the bishops from each diocese, with their characters. Several of these, but the wives of many more, were inclined to popery.