Offers an understanding of English Catholicism in the early modern period through a series of interlocking essays on single family: the Throckmortons of Coughton Court, Warwickshire, whose experience over several centuries encapsulates key themes in the history of the Catholic gentry.
This volume advances scholarly understanding of English Catholicism in the early modern period through a series of essays addressing aspects of the history of the Throckmorton family. Despite their persistent adherence to Catholicism over several centuries, leading members of the family continued to be involved in politics on the national stage in the face of overt Protestant hostility. Leading historians of Catholic England investigate the strategies the Throckmortons employed in this difficult balancing act, and reflect on what this tells us, about both English Catholicism and wider English society. In so doing the volume contributes to recent efforts to integrate the study of Catholicism into the mainstream of English social and political history, transcending its traditional status as a 'special interest' category, remote from or subordinate to the central narratives of historical change.
'An invaluable resource for historians of the English Catholic community...' Times Literary Supplement '...a valuable resource to anyone with an interest in the developing historiography of early modern English Catholicism. Each chapter provides an interesting and distinct analysis of a particular aspect of the family's interaction with wider society, whether it be at home or abroad. It is also refreshing to see greater attention paid to women (including women religious) than is often the case in volumes which focus on a particular family.' Historians of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland '... this scholarly book comprises a series of interlocking essays on a single family: the Throckmortons of Coughton Court, Warwickshire. As such it makes an important contribution to regional as well as Catholic history.' Northern History 'There is a huge amount to admire in this book. The breadth and depth of scholarship in each of the chapters ensure that there will be something of interest and value here for students of all the periods covered.' Recusant History 'There is still remarkably fruitful scholarship to be made by tilting our angle of vision over recusant England away from the old idiom of seclusion or isolation. In charting the conflicts, compromises and contingencies that shaped recusant life up to the point of that high Victorian sea-change, this book offers a masterly example of all that can be achieved.' Archives 'This is a welcome publication because not only does it add to the growing body of research by early modern historians into the social, cultural and political interactions of English landed families at both local and national level, it also investigates these key relationships within a specifically Catholic gentry family.' History 'With the long-term historical approach and the extensive use of the Throckmorton family archive in the Warwickshire Record Office and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the contributors have suc
