This article uses a previously unpublished document from the archives of Downside Abbey in Somerset to demonstrate that although the concept of malfeasance is generally thought to have developed in the late seventeenth century, some officials were already challenging malfeasance in the early years of James I’s reign. It shows that the need to stamp out corruption was balanced and at times outweighed by security concerns in a period when Catholics were believed to present a serious threat. It also provides evidence of a previously unrecorded imprisonment of the Catholic martyr, St John Roberts.