Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England(ISBN=9780521068802)

Major contribution to the history of post-Reformation Catholicism ? Sheds light on Elizabethan politics, the accession of James VI, the Gunpowder Plot, religious toleration and the start of the Thirty Years War, the rise of Laudianism and the origins of the Civil War ? Will appeal to scholars of early modern British history, religious history and social history

This is a study of the political, religious, social and mental worlds of the Catholic aristocracy from 1550 to 1640. Michael Questier examines the familial and patronage networks of the English Catholic community and their relationship to the later Tudors and Stuarts. He shows how the local history of the Reformation can be used to rewrite mainstream accounts of national politics and religious conflict in this period. The book takes in the various crises of mid- and late Elizabeth politics, the accession of James VI, the Gunpowder Plot, religious toleration and the start of the Thirty Years War and finally the rise of Laudianism, leading up to the civil war. It challenges recent historical notions of Catholicism as fundamentally sectarian and demonstrates the extent to which sections of the Catholic community had come to an understanding with both the local and national State by the later 1620s and 1630s.

1. Introduction
2. The local setting
3. The emergence of a catholic dynasty: the Brownes of Cowdray
4. The Brownes, catholicism and politics until the Ridolfi Plot
5. The Brownes, catholicism and politics from the 1570s until the early 1590s
6. The entourage of the first Viscount Montague
7. The household at Battle Abbey and the Lady Magdalen's entourage
8. The 1590s to the Gunpowder Plot
9. Catholic politics and clerical culture after the accession of James Stuart
10. The household and circle of the Second Viscount Montague. 11. 'Grand Captain' or 'Little Lord': the second Viscount Montague as Catholic leader
12. The later Jacobean and early Caroline period
13. The second Viscount Montague, his entourage and the approbation controversy
14. Catholicism, clientage networks and the debates of the 1630s
15. Epilogue: the Civil War and after