Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Recusant is the riches-to-rags story of a long- standing loyal English family who lost their position as landed gentry and fell into obscurity. The violent brutal separation of England from the Roman Catholic faith under King Henry VIII is well-documented in English history. Much less well-known is how far Henry’s daughter Queen Elizabeth I was willing to go to repress those who refused to attend services of the Church of England. Such individuals were known as recusants for they refused to accept or obey the authority of Henry’s newly established religion. The Rookwoods were an ancient Saxon family with established estates and manor houses who had converted to Roman Catholicism and married into prominent families in East Anglia. They served their monarchs well and defended England during periodic conflicts with her European neighbors. During the Tudor and Stuart reigns after a thousand years of prosperity and loyalty to the Crown recusancy destroyed the Rookwoods and they fell into ruin. Edward Rookwood was imprisoned by Elizabeth I on charges of forbidden worship his property was confiscated by the Crown. His cousin Ambrose became involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and by the early 1600s all the major branches of the Rookwood family in England had lost their status. Recusant explores the intimate ties between the Rookwoods and two other prominent Catholic families the Brownes and the Tyrwhitts who shared the fate of poverty imprisonment and ostracism. Many famils had the misfortune of being caught up in the political warfare between Elizabeth I and her sister Mary and it led to the downfall of an entire class of individuals. Recusant continues the story