BCCCAP00000000000000000000853

316 CASSIAN OF STANLEY Roger Barlow is known to have been active in acquiring property in Pembrokeshire from 1535 9 • As a typical, successful Tudor merchant, he saw that profitable investments were to be made in confiscated Church property. In 1546, together with his brother Thomas, he bought the Commandery of Slebech, a property which before the Dissolution was owned by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. By this transaction he acquired not only the house at Slebech with its right of lordship and land in the manor of Minwear with the rectories of Slebech, Boulton and Martlewy, but also the lands of local monastic houses 10 • He thus laid the foundation of the large estate and fortune of the Barlows in Pembrokeshire. It seemed unlikely that this establishment at Slebech, based as it was on Reformation spoils, would become a stronghold of Catholicism. Nevertheless, such, in fact, it did become. Roger Barlow had married Julian Dawes of Bristol, a staunch Catholic who survived her husband by almost fifty years. To her, it seems, was due the loyalty of their descendents to Catholicism 11 • John Barlow, Roger's son and heir, was a noted recusant. For the greater part of his life he was, according to one of his contem– poraries, too influential a figure to harry on acount of his religion. He certainly held positions of some importance in the county, being a justice of the peace and twice sheriff of Pembrokeshire 12 • In February 1601, shortly after London had been startled with the noe such thing acted by him, not being at anie time Bishop of that See. Neverthelesse the adverse part doth much insist thereon » (Ms. cit., f.124-125). In fact, Bishop Barlow's posi– tion as principal consecrator of Archbishop Parker has given rise to controversy. Cf. A.S. BARNES, Bishop Barlow and Anglican Orders. A Study of the original docwnents, London 1922; C. JENKINS, Bishop Barlow's Consecration and Archbishop Parker's Register. With some new Documents, in Journal of Theological Studies 24 (1922-1923) 1-32. Cf. also, G. Wn.– LIAMS, The Protestant Experiment in the Diocese of St. David's 1534-1553. William Barlow and the Diocese of St. David's, in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, vol. XV, part iii, 1953, 212-213; E.G. RUPP, Studies in the making of tlze Protestant tradition, Cambridge 1947, 62-72; T. FULLER, The History of the Worthies of England II, London 1811, 389. n B.G. CHARLES, The Records of Slebech, in The National Library of Wales Journal 5(1948) 184. 1 0 W. REES, A History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Wales and on the Welsh Border, Cardiff 1947, 87; R. FENTON, A Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire, Brcck– nock 1903, 160-161; B.G. CHARLES, art. cit., 185. How large the Barlow estate in Pembrokeshire was soon to become may be seen fron1 the Inquisition post nzorte111 of John Barlow held in October, 1613. Cf. F. GREEN, The Barlows of Slebech, in West Wales Historical Records 3 (1912-1913) 131-137. 11 L. DwNN, op. cit., 117; F. GREEN, art. cit., 124; J.M. CLEARY, The Catholic Recusancy of the Barlow Family of Slebech in Pembrokeshire in the XVI and XVII centuries, Cardiff 1956, 8. 12 Acts of the Privy Council of England, new series, vol. X: 1577-1578, London 1895, 299, 411; vol. XVI: 1588, London 1897, 252; vol. XXI: 1591, London 1900, 218; R. FLENI.EY , A Calendar of the Queen's Majesty's Council in the Dominion and Principality of Wales and in the Marches of the same (Cymmrodorion Record Series, no. 8), London 1916, 69, 73, 109, 133, 213.