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.

In 1815 the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, William Poynter, became embroiled in a case of alleged demonic possession. In the face of considerable pressure from the family of Peter Moore, the alleged demoniac, Poynter prevented a proposed exorcism on the grounds that it would bring adverse publicity to the still fragile Catholic Church in England. Drawing on the surviving correspondence between Poynter and his officials and Peter Moore’s family, this article examines the stance adopted by Poynter on the issue of exorcism within the wider context of ‘Catholic Enlightenment’ thought on demonic possession, and argues that the political circumstances of Catholics in England ensured that Poynter’s cautious approach to exorcism ultimately won out against the desire of other Catholics—including another Vicar Apostolic, John Milner—to publicise the rite as a means of promoting the Catholic faith.

The tomb of Mary Queen of Scots is widely recognized as one of the most important visual symbols of dynastic power that can still be viewed in Britain today. Although art historians had originally regarded the strongly Catholic depiction of Mary in captivity, the so-called Sheffield portrait, as the model for the effigy, for more than a century the consensus is that it was based on one of Nicholas Hilliard’s miniature portraits. In this essay a study of the images as well as related documents in the exchequer and Hardwick Hall accounts reestablishes that the Sheffield type was indeed the specific model for the tomb. This does more than simply settle a long-standing question. It also opens the way for an exploration of the content of this most popular portrait of Mary, which was fraught with significance not only for King James VI, Mary’s son, but also the crypto-Catholic nobleman Henry Howard, first earl of Northampton, who was in charge of the tomb’s completion.

This essay illuminates a little-known chapter in the history of English Catholicism by examining the controversies among the English Benedictine convent at Brussels between 1620 and 1623. The disputes began as a simple clash of personalities between Abbess Mary Percy and the house’s ordinary confessor Robert Chambers, and they culminated in allegations by pro-Jesuit nuns and confessors that Francis Ward, a second ordinary confessor, was attempting to seduce one of his penitents. These early clashes illustrate the cultural and gender politics of the Continental convents established for Englishwomen during the seventeenth century. By nature a female-oriented institution, the cloister encouraged women to attain monastic versions of stereotypical feminine virtues. Gender consequently provided a convenient means of understanding, evaluating, and politicizing monastic piety. As this paper will show, individuals who held little to no official power at Brussels used gender stereotypes to legitimize their interventions in the convent’s affairs. Nuns, confessors, and anonymous outsiders attempted to diminish the spiritual authority of Percy and Ward by raising the spectre of traditionally feminine vices. Within the woman-centred space of the Brussels convent, gender thus became an essential means of claiming moral authority and addressing larger concerns over monastic order and spiritual direction.1

This article examines the role of Protestant-Catholic conflict in the English town of Hartlepool, a hitherto unknown centre of religious conflict during the nineteenth century. It will demonstrate how a combination of unique structural forces and the conduct of religious ministers created a culture which, in terms of ferocity and longevity, rivalled other sectarian centres in Britain. It also provides an important case study for examining the role of Catholics themselves in generating anti-Catholicism. It therefore has important implications for understanding the nature of religious conflict, how it develops, and how it is sustained over the longue durée.