In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the English state sought to politically marginalize powerful families that did not adhere to the Protestant state religion. Through their religious dissidence and refusals to swear the Oath of Allegiance, Catholics and recusants implied disloyalty to the state. Beginning in the 1560s, Catholic men were removed from county political offices such as sheriff or justice of the peace and many Catholics were not elected to Parliament. Some Catholic men and women remained as courtiers, even in positions close to the monarch's body, which makes clear the complicated nature of assessing an individual's loyalty based solely on their religion. The musician William Byrd was known at court as a recusant Catholic yet suffered no detriment to his career because of it. For Catholics like Byrd, whose talents and otherwise loyal, honorable behavior offset their religion, rich participation in political life was possible. Yet for most Catholics, traditional pathways to power and articulations of citizenship were narrowing, if not closing.

Despite being disenfranchised from traditional positions of political authority, Catholics participated in political life in ways that revealed not only their sense of agency and civic consciousness, but also of nascent citizenship formation. Catholics remained politically integrated to the state through activities such as office holding, military service, and petitioning. The metrics of individual political allegiance, the relationship between an individual and a polity, and exercise of rights, indicate that citizenship formation was evident in the late medieval period.