Recusancy

Abstract: Between 1535 and 1603, more than 200 English Catholics were executed by the State for treason Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary sources, Anne Dillon examines the ways in which these executions were transformed into acts of martyrdom Utilizing the reports from the gallows, the Catholic community in England and in exile created a wide range of manuscripts and texts in which they employed the concept of martyrdom for propaganda purposes in continental Europe and for shaping Catholic identity and encouraging recusancy at home Particularly potent was the derivation of images from these texts which provided visual means of conveying the symbol of the martyr Through an examination of the work of Richard Verstegan and the martyr murals of the English College in Rome, the book explores the influence of these images on the Counter Reformation Church, the Jesuits, and the political intentions of English Catholics in exile and those of their hosts The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535-1603 shows how Verstegan used the English martyrs in his Theatrum crudelitatum of 1587 to rally support from Catholics on the Continent for a Spanish invasion of England to overthrow Elizabeth I and her government The English martyr was, Anne Dillon argues, as much a construction of international, political rhetoric as it was of English religious and political debate; an international Catholic banner around which Catholic European powers were urged to rally

Abstract: Part I. The early Tudor Church: 1. The government of the Church 2. Lancashire parishes and their incumbents 3. Chapels, chaplains and chantrists 4. Priests and people: conduct and attitudes 5. Orthodox piety and practices 6. Lancashire, Lollards and Protestants 7. The county community and the outside world Part II. Reform and counter-reform: 8. The enforcement of reform in the reign of Henry VIII 9. Militant resistance: the Pilgrimage of Grace 10. The official Reformation under Edward VI 11. The unofficial Reformation: the beginnings of Protestantism 12. The reign of Mary: counter-reform 13. The reconstruction of the Church Part III. The division of a community: 14. The attempt to impose Anglicanism 15. The Elizabethan Church in Lancashire 16. The emergence of recusancy 17. Recusants and church-papists 18. Protestantism and south-east Lancashire 19. Catholics, Puritans and the establishment.

Abstract: This book is about the politics and political culture of the ‘last decade’ of the reign of Elizabeth I, interpreted to mean the years from 1585 to 1603. It will open with a proposition, which goes like this: there were two reigns of Elizabeth I, each with distinctive features. Her ‘first’ reign ended about 1585 with the dispatch of an English expeditionary force to the Netherlands. This seemingly dramatic reversal of the queen's non-interventionist foreign policy was followed by the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and by the outbreak of war with Spain and her ally, the French Catholic League. Mary's execution resolved one political and constitutional crisis, but precipitated another. For the war engulfed multiple theatres: English forces were deployed in France, the Netherlands, the Atlantic and latterly Ireland. Costs and casualties were high. England was several times threatened with encirclement by the superior forces of the Counter-Reformation. The physical and emotional strains were acute. In politics the anxiety of courtiers fused with the poverty of the crown and the competition for patronage to kindle factionalism, self-interest and instability which – in the shape of Essex's frustrated ambition – sparked an attempted coup. In the country xenophobia, war-weariness, and the turmoil created by rising prices, bad harvests and outbreaks of plague and influenza, fomented particularism and resistance to the crown's fiscal and military demands. All this, in turn, triggered an authoritarian reaction from privy councillors and magistrates, whose emphasis on state security, the subversiveness of religious nonconformity, and the threat of ‘popularity’ and social revolt became obsessional.

Abstract: After the Reformation, England’s Catholics were marginalised and excluded from using printed media for propagandist ends. Instead, they turned to oral media, such as ballads and stories, to plead their case and maintain contact with their community. Building on the interest in Catholic literature which has developed in early modern studies over the last few years, Alison Shell examines the relationship between Catholicism and oral culture from the mid-sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In order to recover the textual traces of this minority culture, she expands canonical boundaries, looking at anecdotes, spells and popular verse alongside more conventionally literary material. In her archival research she has uncovered many important new manuscript sources. This book is an important contribution to the rediscovery of the writings and culture of the Catholic community and will be of great interest to scholars of early modern literature, history and theology. • An important contribution to the growing field of Catholic literature and culture studies • Contains much original scholarship on important yet little-known texts • Of great interest to literary, historical and theological scholars