Disciplined Disobedience? Women and the Survival of Catholicism in the North York Moors in the Reign of Elizabeth I

Abstract

The history of post-Reformation Catholicism in Yorkshire can be divided into two distinct periods: pre- and post-1570. Only in the aftermath of the 1569 Northern Rebellion did the Elizabethan government begin to implement fully the 1559 religious settlement in the north, and to take firm action against those who persistently flouted religious laws by continuing to practise the traditional religion of their forefathers. In the Northern Province, serious efforts to enforce conformity and to evangelize did not begin until the arrival of Edmund Grindal as Archbishop of York in 1571. He was joined a year later by the Puritan sympathizer Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, as President of the Council of the North and together they spear-headed the region’s first real evangelical challenge to traditional religion. 1571 also saw the enactment of the first real penal law against Catholics, although only in 15 81 was the term ‘recusant’ coined. Grindal and Huntingdon formed a powerful team committed to Protestant evangelization and the eradication of Catholicism in the North, however, in Yorkshire, their mission was not entirely successful. The North Riding consistently returned high numbers of recusants in the Elizabethan period, and was home to some well-established Catholic communities. In the West and East Ridings recusancy was not so widespread, although religious conservatism persisted, and Catholicism remained a much more significant force across Yorkshire than elsewhere.