sentences:  In 1603 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Petre, of Writtle in the County of Essex.He publicly acknowledged that he was a Roman Catholic and his descendants have remained loyal to Catholicism ever since.In 1589 his father's friend, William Cecil, now Lord Burghley, wrote to the Deputy Lieutenants of Essex that he has appointed three gentlemen to be captains of the ‘600 foot formerly entrusted to Sir J. Petre’.