The mission of Ambassador Paweł Działyński to Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1597, conducted on behalf of Sigismund III, King of Poland, and the City of Gdańsk, is usually presented by scholars relying exclusively on English records as an embarrassment to Poland-Lithuania. However, the Polish point of view, expounded at length in the Ambassador’s account of the embassy, gives an entirely different picture and interpretation of the events, far more consistent with the practical outcome for relations between the two states in the following years. The full original manuscript of Mercurius Sarmaticus survives in a major Polish library, and copies are extant elsewhere in Europe. Of particular interest are Działyński’s observations on Elizabeth and the religious situation in her realm. Mercurius Sarmaticus also throws light on the Isle of Dogs incident in the history of the Elizabethan theatre and may be regarded as a Shakespeare source. This article will provide an introduction to the manuscript source, a synopsis of its content, and English translations of selected passages.

Protestant and Catholic martyrologies evolved in dialogue; however, they did not articulate a common conception of martyrdom. Viewing Protestant and Catholic martyrologies and notions of martyrdom as essentially similar obscures highly significant confessional differences, which generated fiercely opposed constructions of martyrdom. This argument is examined through an analysis of the treatment of martyrs’ blood in English martyrological texts, since this encapsulated core confessional theologies.

The Archpriest Controversy, a dispute that took place from 1598 to 1602 over the necessity for an archpriest to enforce moral discipline among the English Catholic clergy, has been traditionally seen either as a struggle for hierarchical order within the Catholic Church or a serious ideological breach between the Jesuit faction and the Appellants. In contrast to recent historiography, this paper argues that the Appellants, secular clergy that opposed the archpriest, represented views of conservative English Catholics who believed they could reconcile their political loyalty to their monarch with their Catholicism. The Archpriest Controversy should be reconsidered as a critical moment in a chain of important events from the English Mission of 1580–81 to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that reaffirmed the inherently traditionalist nature of the Catholic community in England.

This article explores the possibility that poems preserved in the recusant coterie collection, Tixall Poetry may include verses written both by and for the Augustinian canonesses of St Monica’s, Louvain, and provide evidence for the cultural life of the convent. It then turns to a consideration of evidence for the cultivation of music, and argues for the practical importance of music to the lives of the canonesses. It explores the intense significance which the canonesses attached to the clothing ceremony, and suggests that one of the Tixall poems, ‘The Royal Nun’, an adaptation of two lyrics from Nathanael Lee’s play Theodosius (1680), perhaps by Herbert Aston, might have been used as the libretto for the music which, when possible, covered the hiatus in the clothing ceremony when the nun took off her bridal garments and assumed her habit.

Mrs Helena Aylward, as a Catholic merchant and investor, enriches the literature on both female Catholicism and on the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade. Recent historiography has stressed the importance of women in business, but Catholic women have been overlooked in the mercantile world and in the British fiscal-military economy. I contend that female Catholics were accustomed to their husband’s dealings, and after bereavement, took financial responsibility for the family’s business. Helena was proactive and did not limit herself to the exchanges already established by her husband. She moved independently and diversified her trade with financial investments. Mrs Aylward’s involvement in business challenges the prevailing image of Catholic women as wives, patrons or nuns. She suggests a new economic role for British female Catholics: entrepreneurs that succeeded in a Protestant and patriarchal maritime world.1

In eighteenth-century law and print, English Catholics were portrayed as entirely untrustworthy, and their exclusion from all aspects of English society encouraged. Yet, as many local studies have shown, there were numerous individual cases of relatively peaceful coexistence between Protestants and Catholics in this period. This article explores why this was the case by examining how Catholics overcame labels of untrustworthiness on a local level. Using the remarkable political influence of one high-status Catholic in the first half of the eighteenth century as a case study, it questions the utility of “pragmatism” as an explanation for instances of peaceful coexistence in this period. Instead it focuses on the role that deliberate Catholic resistance to legal disabilities played in allowing them to be considered as trustworthy individuals in their localities. The resulting picture of coexistence points towards a moderation of the historiographical emphasis on mutual compromise between confessions in favour of attention to the determined resilience of minority groups. In explaining this, this article makes the broader point that the influence of trust, long important in studies of early modern economic, political, and social relationships, is ripe for exploration in the context of interconfessional relations.