[Footnote 178:——In Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,” third series, p. 325, we read: “In 1572 John Oldcorne is one of the four sworn men against the late rebels and other evil-disposed people suspected of papistry, for St. Sampson’s parish.” Again, under date April 10th, 1577, we read: “And now also John Oldcorne, of St. Sampson’s parish, who cometh not to the church on Sundays and holidays, personally appeared before these presents, and sayeth he is content to suffer the churchwarden of the same parish to take his distresses for his offence.” There is also for January, 1598, the following pathetic entry concerning the mother of Father Oldcorne:—— “Monckewarde Saint Sampson’s, Elizabeth Awdcorne, alias Oldcorne, old and lame a recusant.” York is now divided into six wards for the purposes of municipal government, namely: Bootham, Monk, Micklegate, Walmgate, Guildhall, and Castlegate. Until the nineteenth century there were only the first four wards, which, indeed, corresponded to the four great Gates or chief Ways for entering the City. The writer remembers with pleasure that, now some years ago, his fellow-citizens of Micklegate Ward, on the west side of York, did him the honour of electing him to occupy a seat, for the term of three years, in the Council Chamber of his native City, which, he is proud to remember, was the City wherein first drew the breath of life Edward Oldcorne; one, he has every reason to believe, whose keen, sane mind, and ready, skilful hand were instrumental, under Heaven, in penning that immortal document which saved the life, certainly, of King James I., of His Royal Consort Queen Anne of Denmark, of Henry Prince of Wales, and Charles Duke of York, afterwards King Charles I., as well as the life of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, and many Foreign Ambassadors, in the year of grace 1605, now well-nigh three centuries ago. As some readers may be, perchance, interested in a few particulars concerning the ancient Parish of St. Sampson, which is in the heart of the City of York, close to the Market Place, I propose to mention a few. First of all, then, the ancient parish church which bears the name of the old British Saint, St. Sampson, is pre-eminently one of “the grey old churches of our native land,” whereof in the reign of King Henry V. (Shakespeare’s ideal English monarch) there were in the City of York and its suburbs no less than forty-one, though in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth the number was reduced. That forty-one was the number originally we know from a subsidy of Parliament which granted to King Harry, in 1413, two shillings in the pound leviable on all spirituals and temporals in the realm for carrying on the then war with France.——See Drake’s “_Eboracum_,” p. 234.