The King and the Catholics

The King and the Catholics
Author: Antonia Fraser
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0525564837

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London—incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon—in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions. The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next fifty years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age. Gripping, spirited, and incisive, The King and the Catholics is character-driven narrative history at its best, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned oppression—and showing how sustained political action can triumph over injustice.

Catholic Social Networks in Early Modern England

Catholic Social Networks in Early Modern England
Author: DR. ENG SUSAN. COGAN
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-06-24
Genre:
ISBN: 9789463726948

Catholic Social Networks in Early Modern England: Kinship, Gender, and Coexistence explores the lived experience of Catholic women and men in the post-Reformation century. Set against the background of the gendered dynamics of English society, this book demonstrates that English Catholics were potent forces in the shaping of English culture, religious policy, and the emerging nation-state. Drawing on kinship and social relationships rooted in the medieval period, post-Reformation English Catholic women and men used kinship, social networks, gendered strategies, political actions, and cultural activities like architecture and gardening to remain connected to patrons and to ensure the survival of their families through a period of deep social and religious change. This book contributes to recent scholarship on religious persecution and coexistence in post-Reformation Europe by demonstrating how English Catholics shaped state policy and enforcement of religious minorities and helped to define the character of early models of citizenship formation.

Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England

Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England
Author: Professor Victor Houliston
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1409479803

During his lifetime, the Jesuit priest Robert Persons (1546–1610) was arguably the leading figure fighting for the re-establishment of Catholicism in England. Whilst his colleague Edmund Campion may now be better known it was Persons's tireless efforts that kept the Jesuit mission alive during the difficult days of Elizabeth's reign. In this new study, Person's life and phenomenal literary output are analysed and put into the broader context of recent Catholic scholarship. The book bridges the gap between historical studies, on the one hand, and literary studies on the other, by concentrating on Persons's contribution as a writer to the polemical culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As well as discussing his wider achievements as leader of the English Jesuits – founding three seminaries for English priests, corresponding regularly with Catholic activists in England, writing over thirty books, holding the post of rector of the English College in Rome, and being a trusted consultant to the papacy on English affairs – this study looks in detail at what is arguably his greatest legacy, The First Booke of the Christian Exercise (more commonly known as the Book of Resolution). That book, first published in 1582, was to prove the cornerstone of Persons's missionary effort, and a popular work of Catholic devotion, running to several editions over the coming years. Although Persons was ultimately unsuccessful in his ambition to return England to the Catholic fold, the story of his life and works reveals much about the ecclesiastical struggle that gripped early modern Europe. By providing a thorough and up-to-date reassessment of Persons this study not only makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the polemical context of post-Reformation Catholicism, but also of the Jesuit notion of the 'apostolate of writing'. This book is published in conjunction with the Jesuit Historical Institute series 'Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Iesu'.

Catholic Renewal and Protestant Resistance in Marian England

Catholic Renewal and Protestant Resistance in Marian England
Author: Vivienne Westbrook
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317169204

Mary Tudor's reign is regarded as a period where, within a short space of time, an early modern European state attempted to reverse the religious policy of preceding governments. This required the use of persuasion and coercion, of propaganda and censorship, as well as the controversial decision to revive an old statute against heresy. The efforts to renew Catholic worship and to revive Catholic education and spirituality were fiercely opposed by a small but determined group of Protestants, who sought ways of thwarting the return of Catholicism. The battle between those seeking to renew Catholicism and those determined to resist it raged for the full five years of Mary's reign. This volume brings together eleven authors from different disciplines (English Literature, History, Divinity, and the History of the Book), who explore the different policies undertaken to ensure that Catholicism could flourish once more in England. The safety of the clergy and of the public at the Mass was of paramount importance, since sporadic unrest took place early on. Steps were taken to ensure that reformist worship was stopped and that the country re-embraced Catholic practices. This involved a number of short- and long-term plans to be enacted by the regime. These included purging the universities of reformist ideas and ensuring the (re)education of both the laity and the clergy. On a wider scale this was undertaken via the pulpit and the printing press. Those who opposed the return to Catholicism did so by various means. Some retreated into exile, while others chose the press to voice their objections, as this volume details. The regime's responses to the actions of individuals and to the clandestine texts produced by their opposition come under scrutiny throughout this volume. The work presented here also offers new insight into the role of King Philip and his Spanish advisers. These essays therefore present a detailed assessment of the role of the Spanish who came with to England as a result of the marriage of Philip and Mary. They also move away from the ongoing discussions of 'persecution' seeking, rather, to present a more nuanced understanding of the regime's attempts to renew and revive a nation of worshippers, and to eradicate the disease of heresy. They also look at the ways those attempts were opposed by individuals at home and abroad, thereby providing a broad-ranging but detailed assessment of both Catholic renewal and Protestant resistance during the years 1553-1558.

God's Traitors

God's Traitors
Author: Jessie Childs
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199392358

Explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of one remarkable family: the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

Catholic Literature and Secularisation in France and England, 1880-1914

Catholic Literature and Secularisation in France and England, 1880-1914
Author: Brian Sudlow
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-07-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1847797849

This book is the first comparative study of its kind to explore at length the French and English Catholic literary revivals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It compares individual and societal secularisation in France and England and examines how French and English Catholic writers understood and contested secular mores, ideologies and praxis, in the individual, societal and religious domains. It also addresses the extent to which some Catholic writers succumbed to the seduction of secular instincts, even paradoxically in themes which are considered to be emblematic of Catholic literature. The breadth of this book will make it a useful guide for students wishing to become familiar with a wide range of such writings in France and England during this period. It will also appeal to researchers interested in Catholic literary and intellectual history in France and England, theologians, philosophers and students of the sociology of religion.

Reformation Divided

Reformation Divided
Author: Eamon Duffy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2017-02-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472934342

Published to mark the 500th anniversary of the events of 1517, Reformation Divided explores the impact in England of the cataclysmic transformations of European Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The religious revolution initiated by Martin Luther is usually referred to as 'The Reformation', a tendentious description implying that the shattering of the medieval religious foundations of Europe was a single process, in which a defective form of Christianity was replaced by one that was unequivocally benign, 'the midwife of the modern world'. The book challenges these assumptions by tracing the ways in which the project of reforming Christendom from within, initiated by Christian 'humanists' like Erasmus and Thomas More, broke apart into conflicting and often murderous energies and ideologies, dividing not only Catholic from Protestant, but creating deep internal rifts within all the churches which emerged from Europe's religious conflicts. The book is in three parts: In 'Thomas More and Heresy', Duffy examines how and why England's greatest humanist apparently abandoned the tolerant humanism of his youthful masterpiece Utopia, and became the bitterest opponent of the early Protestant movement. 'Counter-Reformation England' explores the ways in which post-Reformation English Catholics accommodated themselves to a complex new identity as persecuted religious dissidents within their own country, but in a European context, active participants in the global renewal of the Catholic Church. The book's final section 'The Godly and the Conversion of England' considers the ideals and difficulties of radical reformers attempting to transform the conventional Protestantism of post-Reformation England into something more ardent and committed. In addressing these subjects, Duffy shines new light on the fratricidal ideological conflicts which lasted for more than a century, and whose legacy continues to shape the modern world.

Firmly I Believe and Truly

Firmly I Believe and Truly
Author: John Saward
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 756
Release: 2011-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199291225

Firmly I Believe and Truly celebrates the depth and breadth of the spiritual, literary, and intellectual heritage of the Post-Reformation English Roman Catholic tradition in an anthology of writings that span a five hundred year period between William Caxton and Cardinal Hume.