The 175th anniversary edition of The Tablet was magnificent, and no less magnificent was Edward Stourton's article on the "recusants". Only, from a historical point of view it left something to be desired.
Catholic "recusancy" dates back to the early years of Elizabeth Tudor, especially from the time the two Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were pushed through her first Parliament of 1559 by a very small majority - made possible by the stupidity of Pope Paul IV (Caraffa) in having kept so many dioceses in England vacant owing to his quarrel with Cardinal Pole.
The subsequent conformity of so many English Catholics was in turn made possible partly by the lack of any clear leadership, with so many of the Catholic leaders being confined to prison or house arrest, partly by the hope that Elizabeth might be no less short-lived on the throne than her half-sister Mary or her half-brother Edward - and then, they hoped, England would be Catholic again under the next in line of succession, Mary Stuart. Then it was chiefly Laurence Vaux with his publication in 1566 of the papal decree forbidding attendance at Anglican services and his subsequent catechism of 1567, as well as the visit of William Allen about the same time to Lancashire, that confirmed many Catholic families in that county in "recusancy".
But such promulgation, in newly Protestantised England, whether of the Tridentine or the Papal decree, was no easy matter. And it was made even more difficult by Pope St Pius V when he excommunicated Elizabeth, calling her many nasty names and forbidding English Catholics to obey her. Above all, it was the Jesuit Robert Persons, in his "Brief Discourse" (dedicated to the Queen herself), outlining the reasons which led the Catholics to refuse attendance at the new English services, and published in 1580, within the very year of his arrival (with Campion) in England, that finally established not only the raison d'etre of "recusancy" among English Catholics but also their reputation as "traitors" – in view of the fact that the arrival of these two Jesuits in England had been preceded by a military expedition sponsored by Pope Gregory XIII to Ireland with the purpose of invading England from that country. No wonder if from then onwards "Papists" and "Recusants" came to be regarded by English Protestants as "Traitors", not least from the time when a few disaffected Catholic gentlemen were detected in a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. From then onwards, it may be said, "the Catholic lot was not a happy one".
Fr Peter Milward SJ, Sophia University, Tokyo
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