Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Note on the text
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The local setting
- 3 The emergence of a Catholic dynasty: the Brownes of Cowdray
- 4 The Brownes, Catholicism and politics until the Ridolfi plot
- 5 The Brownes, Catholicism and politics from the 1570s until the early 1590s
- 6 The entourage of the first Viscount Montague
- 7 A period of transition
- 8 The 1590s to the Gunpowder plot
- 9 Catholic politics and clerical culture after the accession of James Stuart
- 10 The household and circle of the second Viscount Montague
- 11 ‘Grand captain’ or ‘little lord’: the second Viscount Montague as Catholic leader
- 12 The later Jacobean and early Caroline period
- 13 The second Viscount Montague, his entourage and the approbation controversy
- 14 Catholicism, clientage networks and the debates of the 1630s
- 15 Epilogue: the civil war and after
- Appendix 1 The Brownes in town and country
- Appendix 2 The families of Browne, Dormer, Gage and Arundell
- Index
- Titles in the series
2 - The local setting
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Note on the text
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The local setting
- 3 The emergence of a Catholic dynasty: the Brownes of Cowdray
- 4 The Brownes, Catholicism and politics until the Ridolfi plot
- 5 The Brownes, Catholicism and politics from the 1570s until the early 1590s
- 6 The entourage of the first Viscount Montague
- 7 A period of transition
- 8 The 1590s to the Gunpowder plot
- 9 Catholic politics and clerical culture after the accession of James Stuart
- 10 The household and circle of the second Viscount Montague
- 11 ‘Grand captain’ or ‘little lord’: the second Viscount Montague as Catholic leader
- 12 The later Jacobean and early Caroline period
- 13 The second Viscount Montague, his entourage and the approbation controversy
- 14 Catholicism, clientage networks and the debates of the 1630s
- 15 Epilogue: the civil war and after
- Appendix 1 The Brownes in town and country
- Appendix 2 The families of Browne, Dormer, Gage and Arundell
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
In what kind of environment did the self-consciously Catholic entourage of the Browne family originate and develop? What was the local context for the expression of the conservative and Catholic opinions and influence of the interrelated families grouped around the Brownes of Cowdray and Battle in Sussex? One of the consistent themes of the more recent tranche of local studies which deal with the English Reformation in the provinces is that the split between a supposedly more backward/conservative/Catholic North and a more progressive/Protestant South has been overdone. Put bluntly, what it means, according to Christopher Haigh, is that many English counties were more like Lancashire than everyone has thought. He suspects that ‘the contrast is between Lancashire and what the conventional wisdom tells us happened elsewhere, rather than between Lancashire and what actually took place in the rest of England’. And, indeed, we know from the famous 1564 survey of justices of the peace that there were significant numbers of mislikers, i.e. Catholics or conservatives, among many of the shires' natural governors. There were also widespread deprivations and resignations of conservative/Catholic clergy after the 1559 settlement. Even if the mislikers and malcontents were not going to turn the clock back to before 1559, things were unlikely to be reformed as fast as the reformers would have wished.
It may be worth reconstructing the local Reformation context of the aristocratic conservatism and Catholicism which form the focal point of this study.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Catholicism and Community in Early Modern EnglandPolitics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–1640, pp. 30 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006