Given the obsessive interest of the North-East Welsh gentry in domestic and international news, and the geographical proximity of the region to Ireland, their attitude towards Catholics was fairly relaxed. Geraint Jenkins claims that there was an ‘irrational, almost pathological, fear of Catholics in Wales’ but such a fear is difficult to identify in the North-East. In fact, outside periods of national crisis the attitude of the North-East Welsh gentry to Catholic worship in the region was remarkably flexible. Even during the Irish Rebellion in 1641, or the revelation of the Popish Plot in 1678, the Protestant gentry of North-East Wales remained comparatively measured in their response. Chapter 6 will propose two reasons for this. First, Catholics were part of the pattern of sociability and neighbourliness in the region. There is evidence of interconfessional social relationships in many English counties before the Civil War, but in North-East Wales they continued throughout the period 1640 to 1688. Once again, Welsh historical culture and kinship traditions were of paramount importance. In Flintshire and Denbighshire Catholics of gentry status remained part of a community of honour and lineage. Their history and ancient respectability as members of Welsh gentry families overrode any potential threat they might pose. The continuity of these relationships from the mid-seventeenth century onwards sets the region apart from most English communities.

Second, Catholicism was not generally perceived as a serious political threat. Mark Goldie has observed of Tories in 1680 that they did not believe Catholicism posed a fundamental threat in so Protestant a nation. In North-East Wales yr Hen Ffydd, or the ‘old faith’, was respected for its ancientness, and even during the Long Parliament it was not seen as a threat to the antiquity or the local political authorities. Welsh historical culture prioritised historical continuity and North-East Welsh Catholics had a significant claim to continuity, even considering the arguments of the British History that the Catholicism brought by St Augustine of Canterbury had corrupted the ancient Celtic Church. As long as Catholicism was a part of their continuous heritage, by the mid-seventeenth century it was almost admirable to respect and perpetuate the religion of one’s family.