I’m really proud to announce that my John Roberts article has finally been published. After more than 13 years of work, today the article was published in Volume 12 of Law, Crime and History.

‘Patronage, Recusancy and Malfeasance in the Early Modern Prison System: A New Source Related to Saint John Roberts and Robert Cecil’ presents a transcription of a document that shows that the Catholic martyr and saint was imprisoned in the Gatehouse in London in 1609, and, perhaps more importantly, demonstrates that there was a clear understanding of malfeasance in the early seventeenth century. This challenges existing assumptions that the concept of public accountability and corruption in public office only came into being after the 1783 Rex v Bembridge case.

The article stemmed from a palaeography training exercise set for me by my fiend on 3 April 2011 – he sent a document from Downside Abbey archive about John Roberts, told me to transcribe it and pointed me at the National Archives online palaeography tutorial. And that is how my experience of working with archival documents began.

John Roberts went on holiday with us to Ireland – the whole extended family in a self-catering cottage took it in turns to pore over the document on the dining room table trying to help me work out what the funny looking letters in secretary hand were. I remember my fiend commenting that I wasn’t using my knowledge of Downton Abbey to work out what ‘servants table’ said – hardly surprising, given that I’d never watched it! Even once I’d got a transcription there were things in it I didn’t understand – what was a close prisoner?

So there were two things that then needed doing. First, I needed to find out a bit about early modern prisons, so I read around the subject using my alumni access to Manchester University’s Library. And second, I needed to find out who the other people named in the document were, so I researched the Tregians of Cornwall and the rest.

The next challenge was to understand what writing an academic article actually entailed. This was the first piece of work I had undertaken in years. I wasn’t really aware that it needed an argument – a thesis that underpins the work. And for years, finding a good argument was really difficult. There were bits and pieces, but nothing that I really felt did it justice. It was a strange experience. I knew it was an important document, but nothing I wrote seemed to make sense of it. I even tried to get it published as a ‘document’, stripped back to just the information about John Roberts and his co-detainees and the date of their incarceration. Over the years, it has been turned down by Historical Research, the London Journal, and the Huntington Library Quarterly. Possibly others too. It’s been more than 13 years and you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve lost track.

I finally found a really strong approach based on the feedback from the anonymous peer-reviewers for Law, Crime and History. Whoever you were, I salute you and you will have my eternal gratitude.

Right at the start of my PhD, I wrote a quote from Louis Pasteur in the front of my research notebook: “My strength lies only in my tenacity”. I’ve no idea now where I picked it up. But I think my John Roberts article is proof.