Abstract
Abstract Over the last twenty years, a wealth of studies on early modern exile movements across Europe have emphasised the many problems experienced by émigrés, in particular when justifying their flight in the eyes of their compatriots back home. However, most of these studies see such difficulties coming to an end upon the return of émigrés to their native lands. Homecoming exiles were supposedly treated as quasi-martyrs for the faith and lauded as heroes. Taking as its case-study those English Catholic émigrés from the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI who returned home following Mary I’s accession, this article challenges the idea that the difficulties of dislocation ended abruptly upon repatriation. It shows that, while on the face of it they were awarded unparalleled levels of patronage for their sacrifices for the faith, being appointed to positions of power and influence within the Marian Church and state, former émigrés continued to grapple with the baggage of exile status long after they set foot on English soil. In this way, this study not only highlights the need to reconsider some recent assessments of the success of the Marian Counter-Reformation, but, more broadly, it suggests that prevailing narratives regarding the heroic homecomings of early modern exiles may be the legacy of the exiles’ own attempts to mitigate the lingering difficulties of dislocation.
Highlights
Nicholas Terpstra, in his Religious Exiles in the Early Modern World, has suggested that such widespread transplantation might even be seen as the defining feature of these centuries, the Reformation standing out as ‘Europe’s first grand project in social purification’
Of particular interest has been the psychological impact of exile
Accusations of disloyalty to one’s homeland were often levelled at exiles, spawning sometimes bitter polemical battles over the legitimacy of flight
Summary
Hugh Turnbull, canon of the 9th prebend, Canterbury, from March 1554, and dean of Chichester in 1558: FEA, iii. 32; FEA, ii. 6–7. Hugh Turnbull, canon of the 9th prebend, Canterbury, from March 1554, and dean of Chichester in 1558: FEA, iii. Seth Holland, canon of the 2nd prebend, Worcester, from April 1555, and dean of Worcester from September 1557: FEA, vii. Nicholas Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury from March 1554: FEA, iii. George Lily, collated to the prebend of Cantlers, St Paul’s, in November 1556, and the 1st prebend of Canterbury in March 1558: FEA, i. John Boxall, archdeacon of Ely by February 1557, dean of Norwich in December 1557, and held a number of other important prebends: FEA, vii. John Boxall, archdeacon of Ely by February 1557, dean of Norwich in December 1557, and held a number of other important prebends: FEA, vii. 13, 42
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