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Recusancy (from Burton, Edwin. (1911). "English Recusants", The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company; retrieved 11 September 2013 from New Advent) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign of Elizabeth I, and temporarily repealed in the Interregnum (1649–1660), remained on the statute books until 1888. They imposed punishments such as fines, property confiscation and imprisonment on recusants.See for example the text of the Act of Uniformity 1559 The suspension under Oliver Cromwell was mainly intended to give relief to Nonconformist Protestants rather than to Catholics, to whom some restrictions applied into the 1920s, through the Act of Settlement 1701, despite the 1828–1829 Catholic emancipation.Wood, Rev. James. (1920) The Nutall Encyclopædia, London: F. Warne, p.537.
In some cases those adhering to Catholicism faced capital punishment, and some English and Welsh Catholics who were executed in the 16th and 17th centuries have been Canonization by the Catholic Church as martyrs of the English Reformation.
Today, recusant applies to the descendants of Catholic families of the British gentry and aristocracy.
The first statute to address sectarian dissent from England's official religion was enacted in 1593 under Elizabeth I and specifically targeted Catholics, under the title "An Act for restraining Popish recusants". It defined "Popish recusants" as those
Other Acts targeted Catholic recusants, including statutes passed under JamesI and Charles I, as well as laws defining other offences deemed to be acts of recusancy. Recusants were subject to various civil disabilities and penalties under English penal laws, most of which were repealed during the Regency era and the reign of George IV (1811–30). The Nuttall Encyclopædia notes that Dissenters were largely forgiven by the Act of Toleration under WilliamIII, while Catholics "were not entirely emancipated till 1829".Wood, Rev. James. The Nutall Encyclopædia, London, 1920, p.537.
Early recusants included Protestant dissenters, whose Creed derived from the Reformers or Radical Reformers. With the growth of these latter groups after the Restoration of CharlesII, they were distinguished from Catholic recusants by the terms "nonconformist" or "dissenter". The recusant period reaped an extensive harvest of saints and martyrs.
Among the recusants were some high-profile Catholic aristocrats such as the Howards and, for a time, the Plantagenet-descended Beauforts. This patronage ensured that an organic and rooted English culture continued to inform the country's Catholicism.
In the English-speaking world, the Douay-Rheims Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate by expatriate recusants in Rheims, France, in 1582 (New Testament) and in Douai, France in 1609 (Old Testament). It was revised by Bishop Richard Challoner in the years 1749–52. After Divino afflante Spiritu, translations multiplied in the Catholic world (just as they multiplied in the Protestant world around the same time beginning with the Revised Standard Version). Various other translations were used by Catholics around the world for English-language liturgies, ranging from the New American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible to the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition.
Some scholars also believe there is evidence that several members of Shakespeare's family were secretly recusant Catholics. The strongest evidence is a tract professing secret Catholicism signed by John Shakespeare, father of the poet. The tract was found in the 18th century in the rafters of a house which had once been John Shakespeare's and was seen and described by the reputable scholar Edmond Malone. Malone later changed his mind and declared that he thought the tract was a forgery.Quoted in Schoenbaum (1977: 49) "In my conjecture concerning the writer of that paper I certainly was mistaken". Although the document has since been lost, Anthony Holden writes that Malone's reported wording of the tract is linked to a testament written by Charles Borromeo and circulated in England by Edmund Campion, copies of which still exist in Italian and English.Anthony Holden. William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius . Little, Brown (2000). Other research, however, suggests that the Borromeo testament is a 17th-century artefact (at the earliest dating from 1638), was not printed for missionary work, and could never have been in the possession of John Shakespeare.Bearman, R. ( 2003) "John Shakespeare's Spiritual Testament, a reappraisal", Shakespeare Survey 56, pp. 184–204. John Shakespeare was listed as one who did not attend church services, but this was "for feare of processe for Debtte", according to the commissioners, not because he was a recusant.Mutschmann, H. and Wentersdorf, K., (1952) Shakespeare and Catholicism, Sheed and Ward: New York, p. 401.
Another notable English Catholic, possibly a convert,Harley, John. (1998) "New Light on William Byrd", Music and Letters, p.79 , pp. 475–488. was composer William Byrd. Some of Byrd's most popular were actually written as a type of correspondence to a friend and fellow composer, Philippe de Monte. De Monte wrote his own motets in response, such as the "Super Flumina Babylonis". These correspondence motets often featured themes of oppression or the hope of deliverance.
Dorothy Lawson was a Catholic noblewoman who used her autonomy, financial independence and social status as a widow to harbour priests in her household. She was a patroness of the Jesuits, who met yearly at her home to discuss the mission in England, employed Catholic servants, held religious services for the local community, and visited recusants who were imprisoned in gaol for their beliefs. Her children were raised in the Catholic faith. Three daughters entered convents on the continent and a son attended a seminary in Douai.
The Jacobean poet John Donne was another notable Englishman born into a recusant Catholic family. He later, however, authored two Protestant-leaning writings and, at the behest of King James I, was ordained into the Church of England.Kunitz, Stanley; Haycraft, Howard, eds. (1952). . New York: Wilson. pp. 156–158. .
Guy Fawkes, an Englishman and a Spanish soldier, along with other recusants or converts, including, among others, Sir Robert Catesby, Christopher Wright, John Wright and Thomas Percy, was arrested and charged with Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605. The plot was uncovered and most of the plotters, who were recusants or converts, were tried and executed.
Recusancy in Scandinavia is not considered to have survived much past the period of the Liturgical Struggle until anti-Catholicism lessened towards the end of the 18th century and freedom of religion was re-established in the mid-19th century (although there were individual cases of Catholic sympathies occurring even in the 17th and 18th centuries). Notable converts were Christina, Queen of Sweden,Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. daughter of Gustavus Adolphus; and Sigrid Undset, Nobel Prize-winning author of Kristin Lavransdatter. The number of ethnic Swedes who are Catholic is fewer than 40,000, and includes Anders Arborelius, a convert and the first Swedish Bishop since the Reformation. In 2017, he was made a cardinal.
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