This book reassesses the religious politics of Elizabethan England through a study of one of its most unusual figures. Sir Christopher Hatton, a royal favourite turned senior minister, was unique among Elizabeth’s leading ministers in being a consistent supporter of English Catholics and perhaps even some kind of Catholic himself. His influence over the queen was a significant factor in restraining the policy preferences of Elizabeth’s more strongly Protestant advisors, particularly as regards the regime’s religious policy. The book traces Hatton’s life and career, his relationship with Elizabeth, his networks and his involvement in politics. It argues that Hatton’s career casts doubt on claims that Elizabeth’s regime was exclusively Protestant in character and suggests that Catholics and Catholic sympathisers retained a voice in Elizabethan politics.

Explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of one remarkable family: the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

This work offers the first full-length study of the only armed rebellion in Elizabethan England. Addressing recent scholarship on the Reformation and popular politics, it highlights the religious motivations of the rebel rank and file, the rebellion's afterlife in Scotland, and the deadly consequences suffered in its aftermath.

A Will to Believe is a revised version of Kastan's 2008 Oxford Wells Shakespeare Lectures, providing a provocative account of the ways in which religion animates Shakespeare's plays.

The plight of Catholics in Elizabethan England has long attracted the interest of historians and it has long been appreciated that the key to understanding their position lies partly in the voluminous polemical literature which they published. Nearly three hundred tracts were printed in English and Latin and more circulated in manuscript. The purpose of this book is to use such material as a source for understanding the political ideas of this religious minority in the age of the Wars of Religion. Dr Holmes concentrates on the two principal dilemmas which faced Catholics: whether they should remain loyal to the Queen or might resist her government and how far, if loyal, they might accommodate themselves to the religious laws she imposed on all Englishmen. He sees the Catholic response to both these problems as being in essence an interplay between the desire to resist and the need to find compromise or some means of peaceful accommodation with the political and religious status quo.

Susan Doran describes and analyses the process of the Elizabethan Reformation, placing it in an English and a European context. She examines the religious views and policies of the Queen, the making of the 1559 settlement and the resulting reforms. The changing beliefs of the English people are discussed, and the author charts the fortunes of both Puritanism and Catholicism. Finally she looks at the strengths and weaknesses of Elizabeth I as royal governor, and of the Church of England as a whole.

Although the varying attitudes toward the English crown and the order of English society were central to the differences between the loyalists and the militants, disagreements involved many questions other than political ones, including the role of the Jesuits in the English mission and the nature of church government. This first work to concentrate on the Elizabethan Catholic church relates party thought to the quarrels with the Catholic community during Elizabeth's reign. Originally published in 1979. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.