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THE ORIGINS OF RECUSANCY IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND RECONSIDERED*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

FREDERICK E. SMITH Open the ORCID record for FREDERICK E. SMITH [Opens in a new window]
FREDERICK E. SMITH*
Affiliation:
Clare College, University of Cambridge
*
Clare College, University of Cambridge, Trinity Lane, Cambridge, cb2 1tlfes40@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

Most historians now acknowledge that Catholic recusancy existed in small pockets throughout 1560s and early 1570s England thanks to the sporadic efforts of a handful of former Marian priests. However, it is widely agreed that the influx of continentally trained seminarians and missionaries from abroad after 1574 was responsible for transforming the ‘curious and confused’ activities of these Marian clergymen into a fully fledged, intellectually justified campaign in favour of nonconformity. This article challenges this consensus through investigation of a neglected group of clerics – the cathedral clergy of Mary I's reign. Drawing on insights emerging from recent research into the nature of Mary's church, it demonstrates how these clerics became key agents in the so-called ‘invention of the Counter-Reformation’ in Marian England. It suggests that this ‘upbringing’ gave these priests the determination and skills to become leaders of a co-ordinated campaign in favour of principled nonconformity following Elizabeth's accession. Far from lacking the zeal of their seminary and missionary counterparts, this article sees the former cathedral clergy imitating the practices of their adversaries and anticipating the strategies of the later English mission in order to promote recusancy throughout England from as early as 1560.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 301 - 332
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor Alexandra Walsham, whose patience and support, both in the completion of my M.Phil. research (from which this article stems) and in commenting on several versions of this paper, have been invaluable. My thanks also go to Professor Peter Marshall and Dr Elizabeth Evenden who both kindly granted me early access to pertinent articles prior to publication, and with whom I have had several fruitful conversations. I must also acknowledge the helpful comments from attendees of the Catholic Record Society annual conference in 2015 on an earlier version of this article, especially Dr Anne Dillon, as well as the anonymous readers who commented on this article in the form in which it was originally submitted for publication. This research was partially funded through a generous grant from Clare College and the University of Cambridge's Newton Trust.

References

1 I Eliz. I c. 2, printed in Ginerva Crosignani, Thomas M. McCoog, and Michael Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity in early-modern England (Toronto, ON, 2010), p. 1.

2 Robert Persons, ‘A storie of domesticall difficulties’, printed in Catholic Record Society, Miscellanea II, CRS 2 (London, 1906), pp. 48–185, esp. pp. 48–63, qu. at p. 60.

3 Robert Persons, A briefe apologie, or defence of the Catholike ecclesiastical hierarchie… (Antwerp, 1601), sig. † 2v–3r.

4 Persons, ‘Domesticall difficulties’, p. 62. See also idem, A briefe apologie, sig. † 4r; idem, The Jesuit's memorial for the intended Reformation of England, ed. Edward Gee (London, 1690), pp. 2, 4, 21.

5 John Bossy, The English Catholic community, 1570–1850 (London, 1975), pp. 4–5, 11, 106–7, 147.

6 Haigh, Christopher, ‘From monopoly to minority: Catholicism in early modern England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 31 (1981), pp. 129–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 147; idem, ‘The continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation’, Past and Present, 93 (1981), pp. 37–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 48. See also McGrath, Patrick and Rowe, Joy, ‘The Marian priests under Elizabeth I’, Recusant History, 17 (1984), pp. 103–20Google Scholar.

7 Alexandra Walsham, Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain (Farnham, 2014), p. 89; Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: religion, politics, and society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), p. 256.

8 Ibid., pp. 261–2.

9 Walsham, Catholic Reformation, p. 57. See also A. G. Dickens, Reformation studies (London, 1982), pp. 179–80; Diarmaid MacCulloch, The later Reformation in England, 1547–1603 (Basingstoke, 1990), pp. 148–9; Norman Jones, The birth of the Elizabethan age: England in the 1560s (Oxford, 1993), ch. 5; Alexandra Walsham, Church papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern England (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 20–1; Peter Marshall, Reformation England, 1480–1642 (London, 2003), pp. 171–3; Christopher Highley, Catholics writing the nation in early modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008), pp. 8–9.

10 A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (2nd edn, London, 1989), p. 311 and ch. 12; David Loades, The reign of Mary Tudor: politics, government, and religion in England, 1553–1558 (2nd edn, London, 1991), pp. 96–128.

11 John Edwards and Ronald Truman, eds., Reforming Catholicism in the England of Mary Tudor: the achievement of Friar Bartolomé Carranza (Aldershot, 2005); William Wizeman, The theology and spirituality of Mary Tudor's church (Aldershot, 2006), esp. p. 254; Eamon Duffy and David Loades, eds., The church of Mary Tudor (Aldershot, 2006); Eamon Duffy, Fires of faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (London, 2009), ch. 9; Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman, eds., Mary Tudor: old and new perspectives (Basingstoke, 2011); Elizabeth Evenden and Vivienne Westbrook, eds., Catholic renewal and Protestant resistance in Marian England (Farnham, 2015). Although drawing very different conclusions, Lucy Wooding also saw much of this vibrancy in her Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000), chs. 5 and 6. Thomas Mayer, Reginald Pole: prince and prophet (Cambridge, 2000), passim, esp. pp. 297–301.

12 Duffy, Fires, p. 207.

13 Eamon Duffy, The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England, 1400–1580 (London, 1992), p. 526.

14 Ibid., passim, esp. pp. 4–6.

15 Duffy, Stripping of the altars, pp. 530–7; Duffy, Fires, chs. 3 and 9; Wizeman, Theology and spirituality, pp. 137–40; William Wizeman, ‘The Marian Counter-Reformation in print’, in Evenden and Westbrook, eds., Catholic renewal, pp. 143–64; John Edwards, ‘Fray Bartolome Carranza's blueprint for a reformed Catholic church in England’, in Thomas Mayer, ed., Reforming Reformation (Burlington, VT, 2012), pp. 141–60, esp. p. 144; Elizabeth Evenden, ‘Spanish involvement in the restoration of Catholicism during the reign of Philip and Mary’, in Evenden and Westbrook, eds., Catholic renewal, pp. 45–64; Claire Cross, ‘The English universities, 1553–1558’, in Duffy and Loades, eds., Church of Mary Tudor, pp. 57–76; Ceri Law, ‘The 1557 visitation of the University of Cambridge’, in Evenden and Westbrook, eds., Catholic renewal, pp. 65–91; Anne Overell, Italian reform and English Reformations, 1535–1585 (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 153–60.

16 Wizeman, Theology and spirituality, passim, esp. pp. 4, 251–4; Peter Marshall, ‘Confessionalization, confessionalism and confusion in the English Reformation’, in Mayer, ed., Reforming Reformation, pp. 43–64, at p. 52.

17 In a posthumously published essay in 2015, Thomas F. Mayer investigated this same group of Marian clergymen. Its findings, although differing in focus from those presented here, add further credence to the current article and will be discussed in greater detail below; Thomas Mayer, ‘Not just the hierarchy fought: the Marian cathedral chapters, seminaries of recusancy’, in Evenden and Westbrook, eds., Catholic renewal, pp. 93–123.

18 This percentage was calculated by dividing the total number of titled cathedral offices on the eve of the Elizabethan settlement (i.e. dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon) by the number of individuals deprived within five years of Elizabeth's accession. Those individuals holding more than one titled position have been counted twice. This information was drawn from analysis of John Le Neve, Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1541–1857 (FEA), edited and compiled by Joyce M. Horn, David M. Smith, Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Patrick Mussett, and William H. Campbell (13 vols., London, 1969–2014).

19 Duffy, Fires, pp. 197, 228 n. 27, came up with slightly different statistics from his analysis of the FEA. Duffy was writing prior to the publication of the final volume of the FEA (Hereford Diocese), and this may account for these slight differences, together with the fact that he included Welsh prebendaries in his study.

20 Marshall, Peter and Morgan, John, ‘Clerical conformity and the Elizabethan settlement revisited’, Historical Journal, 59 (2016), pp. 1–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 14–16.

21 Mary Bateson, ed., A collection of original letters from the bishops to the privy council, 1564 (London, 1893), pp. 19, 22, 23.

22 Duffy, Fires, ch. 2, esp. p. 33; Mayer, Reginald Pole, pp. 297–301; Wizeman, Theology and spirituality, pp. 14–20; Anne Dillon, Michelangelo and the English martyrs (Farnham, 2012), ch. 4.

23 Wizeman, Theology and spirituality, passim, esp. pp. 251–4, quotes p. 251.

24 A fact Wizeman does not acknowledge sufficiently: ibid., p. 42.

25 John Feckenham, A notable sermon mande within S. Paules church in London (London, 1555); John Harpsfield, A notable and learned sermon made vpon saint Andrewes daye (London, 1557); Roger Edgeworth, Sermons very fruitfull, godly, and learned: preaching in the reformation, ed. Janet Wilson (Cambridge, 1993); John Standish, A discourse wherin is debated whether it be expedient that the scripture should be in English (London, 1554, and London, 1555); John Standish, The triall of the supremacy (London, 1556); Hugh Glasier, A notable and very fruictefull sermon made at Paules crosse (London, 1555); Edmund Bonner, John Harpsfield, and Henry Pendilton, Homilies sette forth by the right reuerende father in God, Edmunde Byshop of London (London, 1555).

26 Duffy, Stripping of the altars, pp. 535–6.

27 Such enthusiasm for preaching is usually seen as intrinsic to Protestantism at this time – see Susan Waduba, Preaching during the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2002).

28 Henry Machyn, The diary of Henry Machyn, ed. John G. Nichols (London, 1848), pp. 44, 48, 65, 66–7, 73–4, 76, 88, 112, 117, 131, 135, 139–40, 151, 158, 177, quote at p. 140. For a discussion of the misnomer of Maychn's ‘diary’, see Gary G. Gibbs, ‘Marking the days: Henry Machyn's manuscript and the mid-Tudor era’, in Duffy and Loades, eds., Church of Mary Tudor, pp. 281–308.

29 Sharpe, J. A., ‘Last dying speeches: religion, ideology and public execution in seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present, 107 (1985), pp. 144–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 156.

30 John Foxe, The unabridged acts and monuments online (1570 edn, HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011), p. 2103, www.johnfoxe.org. All references to Foxe herein use the original pagination.

31 Letter from Reginald Pole to Harding, Heskyns, and Fessarde, 30 May 1558, qu. in Thomas F. Mayer, ed., The correspondence of Reginald Pole (4 vols., Aldershot, 2002–10), iii, p. 540; Duffy, Fires, p. 20; Anthony Browne to the queen, 17 May 1558, London, The National Archives (TNA), SP 11/13, fo. 11v. See also the ‘lewde preaching’ of Lichfield precentor, Henry Comberford, at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign in J. R. Dasent, E. G. Atkinson, J. V. Lyle, R. F. Monger, and P. A. Penfold, eds., Acts of the privy council of England (APC) (45 vols., London, 1890–1964), vii, p. 64.

32 Gerald Bray, ed., The Anglican canons, 1529–1947 (Reading, 1998), p. 127; David Loades, The religious culture of Marian England (London, 2010), pp. 108–9; Comerford, Kathleen M., ‘Italian Tridentine diocesan seminaries: a historiographical study’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 29 (1998), pp. 999–1022 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 1001; Duffy, Fires, pp. 205–6.

33 Duffy, Fires, p. 25; Haigh, English Reformations, p. 225; Comerford, ‘Italian Tridentine diocesan seminaries’, pp. 1009–10.

34 David Loades, ‘The Marian episcopate’, in Duffy and Loades, eds., Church of Mary Tudor, pp. 33–56, at p. 51.

35 Foxe, Acts and monuments, 1570 edn, p. 2179.

36 John Foxe, The unabridged acts and monuments online (1563 edn, HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011), p. 1651.

37 Ibid., 1570 edn, p. 2179.

38 Ibid., pp. 2338, 2237, 2244–6.

39 Alexandra Walsham, Charitable hatred: tolerance and intolerance in England, 1500–1700 (Manchester, 2006), esp. pp. 1–5, 66–92.

40 John Foxe, The unabridged acts and monuments online (1583 edn, HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011), p. 1936.

41 Glasier, A notable and very fruictefull sermon, sig. B 3v.

42 Feckenham, A notable sermon, sig. C 4v; Wizeman, Theology and spirituality, p. 153.

43 For a more in-depth analysis of each of these individuals, see Frederick E. Smith, ‘Deprived cathedral clergy and English Catholicism, 1553–1574’ (M.Phil. thesis, Cambridge, 2015). The paths of five individuals are not apparent from the records.

44 Christopher Haigh, Reformation and resistance in Tudor Lancashire (London and New York, NY, 1975), pp. 225–69.

45 Le Neve, FEA, i, ed. Joyce M. Horn (London, 1969), p. 61; W. A. J. Archbold (revised by Andrew A. Chibi), ‘Morwen, John (b. 1519/20, d. in or after 1583)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography (ODNB).

46 Printed in James Pilkington, The works of James Pilkington, ed. James Scholefield (Cambridge, 1842), pp. 480–6 and 617–44, at p. 634.

47 Ibid., pp. 620, 633.

48 Alexandra Walsham, ‘Supping with Satan's disciples: spiritual and secular sociability in post-Reformation England’, in Nadine Lewycky and Adam Morton, eds., Getting along? Religious identities and confessional relations in early modern England (Farnham, 2012), pp. 29–56, at p. 33; Peter Holmes, Resistance and compromise: the political thought of the Elizabethan Catholics (Cambridge, 1982), p. 84; Haigh, English Reformations, p. 259.

49 Pilkington, Works, p. 483.

50 Ibid., p. 629, emphasis is my own; Jean Hardouin, Gabriel Cossart, Philippe Labbe, and Claude Rigaud, eds., Acta conciliorum et epistolæ decretales (11 vols., Paris, 1714–15), i, pp. 25–6.

51 Quite why Morren chose to tackle this issue so obliquely is unclear. It could be that he feared provoking the government into issuing harsher penalties for nonconformists, though there is no evidence to substantiate this.

52 ‘Prebendaries of Minor Pars Altaris’, in Le Neve, FEA, vi, ed. Joyce M. Horn (London, 1969), p. 58; Laurence Vaux, A catechisme or Christian doctrine, ed. T. G. Law (Manchester, 1885), introduction.

53 Laurence Vaux to his friends in Lancashire, 2 Nov. 1566, printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 60–3, at p. 61.

54 Edmonde Holme to Mr Glasoeur and Mr Hurleston, Nov. 1568, TNA, SP 12/48, fo. 71r; Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, p. 61. Joseph S. Leatherbarrow in his The Lancashire Elizabethan recusants (Manchester, 1947), pp. 31–2, failed to identify Morren as the priest working alongside Peele in this document. This may be due to difficulties in reading the hand, which does exhibit some irregular letter forms. However, Christopher Haigh has recognized Morren's involvement in his Reformation and resistance, p. 250.

55 TNA, SP 12/48, fos. 71r–72r.

56 Jonathan M. Gray, Oaths and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2012), p. 209.

57 Vaux, Catechisme, ed. Law, p. xciv.

58 Walsham, Alexandra, ‘Wholesome milk and strong meat: Peter Canisius's catechisms and the conversion of Protestant Britain’, British Catholic History, 32 (2015), pp. 293–314 Google Scholar, at p. 304.

59 Laurence Vaux, A Catechisme, or a Christian doctrine necessarie for chyldren and the ignorant people ([Louvain, 1568]), fos. 2v, 32r. The dating of this tract is in some doubt since the surviving copy wants the title and five other leaves. However, the most likely date of 1568 is given by A. F. Allison and D. M. Rogers in their The contemporary printed literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558 and 1640 (2 vols., Aldershot, 1989–94), ii, pp. 148–9.

60 Vaux, Catechisme, fo. 36v.

61 Ibid., fo. 59v.

62 For some illustrative examples, see Wolfgang Musculus, The temporysour (Wesel, 1555); Pietro Martire Vermigli, A treatise of the cohabitacyon of the faithfull with the vnfaithfull (Strasbourg, 1555); John Knox, An exposition vppon the syxt psalme of Dauid (Wesel, 1556).

63 Decree of Edward, earl of Derby, 1568, TNA, SP 12/48, fos. 77r–78r.

64 Answers of Lancashire gentry to the articles objected against them by the ecclesiastical commissioners, 1568, TNA, SP 12/48, fos. 79r–86r.

65 Bishop Downham to Cecill, 31 Oct. 1568, TNA, SP 12/48, fo. 75r.

66 Relation of the proceedings with respect to the papists and recusants of Lancaster, 1 Nov. 1568, TNA, SP 12/48, fo. 73r.

67 Leatherbarrow, The Lancashire Elizabethan recusants, p. 29.

68 York high commission cause papers, violation of church rights, 1570–6, York, Borthwick Institute for Archives (BIA), HC.CP.ND/1.

69 York high commission cause papers, violation of church rights, 1571, BIA, HC.CP.1571/4.

70 Names of twelve gentlemen and one lady in Cheshire whose houses are greatly infected with popery, 1580, TNA, SP 15/27/2, fo. 170r; K. R. Wark, Elizabethan recusancy in Cheshire (Manchester, 1971), p. 148.

71 John J. LaRocca, ‘Vaux, Laurence (1519–1585)’, ODNB.

72 Henry Foley, Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus (7 vols., London, 1877–83), iv, p. 576; John C. H. Aveling, Northern Catholics: the Catholic recusants of the North Riding of Yorkshire, 1558–1790 (London, 1966), p. 41. Richard Marshall often appears in the records as Thomas Marshall; it is clear they are the same man.

73 Evidence for this map drawn from TNA: SP 12/48, fos. 79r–86r, SP 12/74, fos. 87r–88r, SP 15/11, fos. 74r–77r, SP 15/17, fo. 175r; BIA: HC.CP 1 1572, HC.CP.1571/4, HC.CP.ND/1, HC.CP.1572/1; the earl of Northumberland's confession, 1572, printed in Cuthbert Sharp, ed., Memorials of the rebellion of the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland (London, 1840), pp. 190–206, at pp. 203–4; Nineteenth-century transcription of Robert Pursglove's Guisborough School Statutes made by Ralph Dunn, Prior Pursglove College Archives, Z 52, pp. 3–15. Some priests’ locations have been gathered from where they were reported to have been sighted – in some cases, therefore, the priests may never have actually visited the locations reported. However, the fact that they were thought to have been in these places is nonetheless suggestive of their mobility.

74 Walsham, Church papists, p. 23.

75 TNA, SP 12/48, fos. 79r, 86r.

76 Schedule of recusants who are at large, but restricted to certain places, 1561, TNA, SP 15/11, fos. 74r–77v, at fo. 77r; TNA, SP 12/48, fo. 86r; BIA, HC.CP.1571/4; TNA, SP 15/27/2, fo. 170r.

77 York high commission cause papers, violation of church rights, 1572, BIA, HC.CP.1572/1.

78 York high commission cause papers, miscellaneous, 1572, BIA, HC.CP 1 1572.

79 Prior Pursglove College Archives, Z 52, p. 15.

80 Anon., An answer to a comfortable advertisement, printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 157–243, at p. 180. The authorship of this tract is contested – for a fuller discussion, see ibid., pp. 157–8, as well as Lake, Peter and Questier, Michael, ‘Margaret Clitherow, Catholic nonconformity, martyrology and the politics of religious change in Elizabethan England’, Past and Present, 185 (2004), pp. 43–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 65ff.

81 Prior Pursglove College Archives, Z 52, pp. 3–4; York high commission court books, 1576–80, BIA, HC.AB 1576–80, fo. 63r.

82 Discussed further below.

83 Thomas Middleton, The history of Tideswell Grammar School (Hyde, 1933), p. 23; Dan O'Sullivan, Robert Pursglove of Guisborough and his hospital (Redcar, 1990), p. 26.

84 Middleton, Tideswell Grammar School, p. 33.

85 Richard Challoner, Memoirs of missionary priests as well secular as regular, ed. J. H. Pollen (London, 1924), pp. 129–30.

86 O'Sullivan, Robert Pursglove, p. 26.

87 The earl of Northumberland's confession, 1572, in Sharp, ed., Memorials, pp. 203, 204. The activities of Catholic scholars in Louvain throughout the 1560s is discussed further below.

88 Paul Arblaster, ‘Sedgwick, Thomas (d. 1573)’, ODNB.

89 Anonymous to William Cecil, 6 Feb. 1570, TNA, SP 15/17, fos. 175v–176r.

90 Krista J. Kesselring, The northern rebellion of 1569: faith, politics and protest in Elizabethan England (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 63.

91 BIA, HC.CP 1 1572.

92 Archbishop Grindall to Sir William Cecill, 10 Nov. 1570, TNA, SP 12/74, fo. 85r.

93 Examination of Henry Comberford before the ecclesiastical commissioners for the County of York, 1570, TNA, SP 12/74, fo. 87v.

94 Kesselring, The northern rebellion, p. 78; Henry lord Hunsden to Sir William Cecill, 26 Nov. 1569, TNA, SP 15/15, fo. 87r–v.

95 TNA, SP 12/74, fos. 87r–v.

96 See Walsham, Alexandra, ‘Miracles and the Counter-Reformation mission to England’, Historical Journal, 46 (2003), pp. 779–815 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 801.

97 For more information on this episode, see Samuel Harsnet, A declaration of egregious popish impostures (London, 1604).

98 TNA, SP 12/74, fos. 87v–88r.

99 Daniel 3:16–19. All biblical references are to the Douai-Rheims Bible: The Holie Bible translated into English (Old Testament) (2 vols., Douai, 1609–10).

100 See, for example, Musculus, The temporysour, sig. A 6r.

101 Henry Garnet, A treatise of Christian renunciation (England, 1593), printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 265–78 at p. 269.

102 Mayer, ‘Not just the hierarchy fought’, pp. 99–113, esp. p. 94.

103 Ibid., pp. 102–10.

104 Foxe, Acts and monuments, 1583 edn, p. 2075; ‘Treasurers of Hereford’, in Le Neve, FEA, xiii, ed. William H. Campbell (London, 2014), p. 20.

105 Wainewright, J. B., ‘Archdeacons deprived under Queen Elizabeth’, Ampleforth Journal, 17 (1911), pp. 38–49 Google Scholar, at p. 38; John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and establishment of religion and other various occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's happy reign (4 vols., Oxford, 1824), i (1), pp. 413, 415.

106 Bishop Scory to Cecill, 17 Aug. 1561, TNA, SP 12/19, fo. 45r–v.

107 Bateson, ed., Letters from bishops, p. 19.

108 John Scory to archbishop of Canterbury, 17 Feb. 1564, London, British Library, Harley MS, 6990, No. 30, fo. 64r. The tract by Thomas Dorman was most likely his A proufe of certeyne articles in religion… (Antwerp, 1564).

109 TNA, SP 15/11, fo. 74v.

110 Will of John Blaxton, 9 Oct. 1574, TNA, PROB 11/56/455, fo. 298r.

111 Justices of peace of the county of Hereford to the council, 6 Dec. 1569, TNA, SP 12/60, fo. 63r.

112 John Scudamore to the justices of Hereford, 1569, TNA, SP 12/60, fo. 67r.

113 TNA, PROB 11/56/455, fo. 297v.

114 Will of Thomas Havard, 10 Feb. 1571, TNA, PROB 11/53/80, fo. 65v.

115 Peter Lake and Michael Questier, ‘Prisons, priests and people’, in Nicholas Tyacke, ed., England's Long Reformation (London, 1998), pp. 195–234, esp. p. 198.

116 Thomas Freeman, ‘The prison writings of the Marian martyrs’, in Sofia Gajano and Raimundo Michetti, eds., Europa sacra: raccolte agiografiche e identità politiche in Europa fra medioevo ed età moderna (Rome, 2002), pp. 295–319, at p. 295.

117 John C. H. Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, 1558–1791 (London, 1970), p. 41.

118 York high commission court books, 1572–4, BIA, HC.AB 1572–4, fo. 40r. Printed in Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, Appendix i, p. 171. See also p. 41.

119 Foley, Records of the English province, iii, p. 219.

120 Ibid., p. 219; John Young, De schismate, sive de ecclesiasticae unitatis divisione liber unus (Louvain, 1573); Walsham, Church papists, p. 24. John Aveling, in his Catholic recusancy in the city of York, p. 41, mistakenly asserted that Fletcher was here referring to Nicholas Sanders's De schismate Anglicano. However, since this work was not published until 1585, by which time Fletcher was already in prison for his Catholic beliefs, this cannot be true.

121 Foley, Records of the English province, iii, pp. 219–20. The requirement that he renounce his wife seems rather extreme – perhaps Comberford thought that only by adopting a quasi-clerical existence could Fletcher be trusted to remain committed to the faith?

122 York high commission court books, 1574–6, BIA, HC.AB 1574–6, fo. 149r. Printed in Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, Appendix i, p. 174.

123 Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, pp. 42, 44.

124 Foley, Records of the English province, iii, pp. 221–2.

125 BIA, HC.AB 1574–6, fo. 169v. Printed in Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, Appendix i, p. 174.

126 Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, p. 46.

127 See Joseph H. Hirst, The blockhouses of Kingston-upon-Hull and who went there (Hull, 1913).

128 Archbishop Sandys to the council, 28 Oct. 1577, TNA, SP 12/117, fo. 50r.

129 Archbishop Sandys to Burghley, 16 Apr. 1578, London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 27/12, fo. 20r.

130 C. S. Knighton, ‘Feckenham, John (c. 1510–1584)’, ODNB.

131 According to William Fulke, A confutation of a popishe, and sclaunderous libelle (London, 1571), sig. a 1r. Quite who these ‘friends’ were is unknown.

132 Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, p. xix.

133 John Feckenham, Certaine considerations and causes, printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 30–57 at pp. 31–2, 34 (Feckenham draws here partially from St Augustine, On baptism, against the Donatists, 2:1).

134 Ibid., p. 36.

135 Ibid., p. 37.

136 Record of meeting at Greenwich, 28 July 1562, TNA, PC 2/9, fo. 42r.

137 APC, viii, p. 73.

138 Commonplace book of John Harpsfield, 1572–7, British Library, Royal MS 8 B XX, fo. 83v.

139 Jacques Forget, ‘Josse Ravesteyn’, in The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline, and history of the Catholic church (15 vols., New York, NY, 1911–13), xii, p. 667.

140 He quotes passages from Ravesteyn's Apologiae, seu, defensionis decretorum sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini (Louvain, 1568).

141 William Wizeman, ‘Harpsfield, John (1516–1578)’, ODNB.

142 APC, ix, p. 8.

143 Ibid., pp. 370–1.

144 An entry book of letters and papers of very miscellaneous character: Francis Walsingham to the bishop of London, July 1577, TNA, SP 12/45, fo. 11r.

145 Thomas M. McCoog, ‘Martin, Gregory (1542?–1582)’, ODNB; Gregory Martin, A treatise of schisme (Douai [vere London], 1578); Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, p. xxiii.

146 An overview of these tracts is provided in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 111–278.

147 ‘John Jewel's challenge sermon’, 26 Nov. 1559, extract printed in A. C. Southern, Elizabethan recusant prose, 1559–1582 (London, 1950), p. 60.

148 Karl Gunther, Reformation unbound: Protestant visions of reform in England, 1525–1590 (Cambridge, 2014), p. 191.

149 Wilson, Janet, ‘A catalogue of the “unlawfull” books found in John Stow's study on 21 February 1568/9’, Recusant History, 20 (1990), pp. 1–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 2–6.

150 Elisabeth S. Leedham-Green, ed., Books in Cambridge inventories: book-lists from Vice-Chancellor's Court probate inventories in the Tudor and Stuart periods (2 vols., Cambridge, 1986), ii, pp. 408, 423, 464, 717; Jennifer Loach, ‘Reformation controversies’, in T. H. Aston, ed., The history of the University of Oxford (8 vols., Oxford, 1984–94), iii, pp. 369–86, at p. 386; Alexander Nowell, A reproufe, written by Alexander Nowell… (London, 1565), fo. a 2r (qu. in Gunther, Reformation unbound, p. 193).

151 Thomas Stapleton, The fortresse of the faith (Antwerp, 1565), fos. 161v–162r, 158r.

152 Ibid., fo. 158v.

153 Ibid., fos. 159v–160r.

154 Ibid., fo. 162r.

155 Thomas Heskyns, The parliament of Chryste (Antwerp, 1566), bk 3, ch. 25, fo. 290r (John Damascene, Exposition of the orthodox faith, 4:13:16).

156 Ibid., bk 3, ch. 43, fo. 358r.

157 Ibid., bk 3, ch. 25, fo. 290v (1 Corinthians 5:11).

158 Nicholas Sander, A treatise of the images of Christ (Louvain, 1567), sig. A 4v.

159 Ibid., sigs. A 4r–v.

160 Ibid., sig. A 4v.

161 Ibid., sig. A 6v.

162 Diocesan return for recusants, 1577, printed in Catholic Record Society, Miscellanea XII, CRS 22 (Leeds, 1921), pp. 1–114, at p. 9.

163 See for example Elliot Rose, Cases of conscience: alternatives open to recusants and puritans under Elizabeth I and James I (London, 1975), p. 17; Francis X. Walker, ‘The implementation of the Elizabethan statutes against recusants’ (Ph.D. thesis, London, 1961), p. 7; T. E. Hartley, ed., Proceedings in the parliament of Elizabeth I (3 vols., Leicester, 1981–95), i, p. 202.

164 Haigh, Reformation and resistance, pp. 267–8.

165 Such growing concerns manifested themselves in increased fines for non-attendees in 1581 – see 23 Eliz. I c. 1, printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, p. 131.

166 Persons, ‘Domesticall difficulties’, p. 62.

167 This topic has received some notice in the work of Michael Questier, who sees kinship and cousinage as important factors in the spread and sustenance of recusancy –  Questier, Michael, ‘Catholicism, kinship and the public memory of Thomas More’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 3 (2002), pp. 476–509 Google Scholar, at pp. 482, 506. See also Underwood, Lucy, ‘Recusancy and the rising generation’, Recusant History, 31 (2013), pp. 511–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

168 Alban Langdale, ‘A discourse delivered to Mr Sheldon’, printed in Crosignani, McCoog, and Questier, eds., Recusancy and conformity, pp. 116–29; 1662 copy of an original report compiled for the earl of Derby giving evidence against individual recusants in the north of England between 1589 and 1591, London, Westminster Diocesan Archives, A IV, No. 38, p. 453. See also Walsham, Catholic Reformation, pp. 63ff.

169 See, for example, Walsham, ‘Supping with Satan's disciples’, pp. 33–4. Although I have disagreed with some of Walsham's conclusions, especially regarding John Morren (see above), she makes some important points here with regards to laypeople adopting a stance of partial conformity during the 1560s.