If the ideology of Catholics in exile grew within a relatively free and prosperous political space, recusant discourse in England was framed in an environment far more threatening and claustrophobic. Though the Catholic lay leaders demonstrated notable resilience in the face of social pressure, their prospects for the future still appeared, in contemporary judgements, to be distinctly parlous. Memories of 1688 entrenched a state of estrangement from the body politic: a starkly ironic end to the great loyalist turn in Catholic thought, when older Jesuit theories of resistance had been surmounted by a patriotic commitment to the Stuart throne. Now, in a kingdom vigorously asserting its Protestant identity, Whig pamphlets could assert that ‘Foreign jurisdiction in the Pope, and a Foreign Pretender to our Crown, are inseparable’, in a manner that mocked the very appellation of the loyal recusant. The situation was paradoxical, when private correspondence revealed the continuing regard in which Catholics held the patriotic virtues. The Lancashire landowner Caryll, Lord Molyneux reserved admiration for those who ‘will serve their own country as is duty bound, who will … act like men of honour and integrity …. This is my intention and only design [to be] steadie to my principles and to act like a man of Honour.’ However, in the wake of the Glorious Revolution, it was far harder to articulate national feeling – or, at least, far harder to be heard. With suspicions of treason cast over Catholic leaders, and the penal laws returned, the political odds were stacked more heavily against the recusant community than at any time since the Gunpowder Plot.