ABSTRACT
A Staffordshire man, like Smith, he came from Ranton Hall, and his mother was a Biddulph of Biddulph Hall, a noted Catholic family. After the Restoration Harcourt was archdeacon of Warwick, and in 1665 was living with Jane Fortescue at Cookhill. The Fortescues, as people have seen, were supporters of the Mission of St George. Also, Francis Throckmorton's father's first wife was Dorothy Fortescue, before he married Mary Smith of Wootten, Francis's mother. These documents give us a tantalizing glimpse of local Catholic networks, and all these families may be caught up with the Residence of St George and therefore with the work of William Smith. The importance of miscellanies of whatever kind is what they show about the transmission, adaptation, and use of textual materials, blurring the line between copying and authorship. Any collection of materials by a Jesuit missioner will be limited in its choice of materials, and is unequivocally aimed towards the communities Smith was serving.
