Elite Catholic families in late medieval and early modern England inhabited networks of kin, friends, and patrons that provided the social, political, and cultural connections that were integral to gentry and noble life. Those relationships, rooted in the century prior to the Reformation, helped Catholics to navigate the increasingly hostile legislation aimed at curbing their religious practice and their political influence in the century after the Reformation. Kinship and social networks built and maintained by men and women provided opportunities for sociability within and advancement of the family. Family networks and women's networks, which overlapped at points but did not replicate the other, provided the horizontal and vertical apparatus that provided for a kinship group's survival through generations. Family networks and women's networks were social organisms designed to encourage ties between individuals. Yet they were also political, especially for post-Reformation Catholics whose religious practices were themselves political actions. The multiple networks to which one belonged provided individuals and their families access to a patronage network and the patron– client relationships that ensured their survival. Those patronage relationships shaped the application and enforcement of antirecusancy laws as they applied to individual Catholics or Catholic families. Through patrons, Catholics and the state related to one another and remained bound to one another. Through clientage, Catholics continued to wield influence, both in their local communities and at the national level.

The networks and activities detailed throughout this book emphasize how crucial social worlds were to Catholics during the long period of Reformations. Families relied on their relationships with close and extended kin, friends, neighbors, and patrons as a network from which they drew various forms of support. Ties were strengthened by the families’ shared adversity in facing penalties levied for religious practice, and also by the families’ shared interest in preserving the patrilineal line to which they were all attached and from which they all drew wealth and prestige. Catholics relied on their networks for the usual aristocratic concerns of advancement, promotion, wardship, and marriage, and for more pressing needs related to their religious disobedience. Catholic families relied on the networks built and maintained by men and women, rooted deep in the past and nurtured over generations, for survival.