Thoroughly updated with newly discovered archival material, this second edition of The Trials of Margaret Clitherow demonstrates that the complicated and controversial life story of Margaret Clitherow is not as unique as it was once thought. In fact, Peter Lake and Michael Questier argue that her case was comparable to those of other separatist females who were in trouble with the law at the same time, in particular Anne Foster, also of York. In doing so, they shed new light on the fascinating stories of these unruly women whose fates have been excluded from Catholic and women narratives of the period.
The result is a work which considers the questions of religious sainthood and martyrdom through a gender lens, providing important insights into the relationship between society, the state and the church in Britain during the 16th century. This is a major contribution to our understanding of both English Catholicism and the Protestant regime of the Elizabethan period.
Acknowledgments
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface
Abbreviations
1. The Controversial Mrs. Clitherow
2. The Radicalisation of the Mid-Elizabethan Catholics
3. Mrs. Clitherow, her Catholic Household and her Catholic Enemies
4. The Quarrels of the Catholic Community
5. Recusancy and its Discontents
6. Thomas Bell and his Enemies
7. Christianity sans Eglise: The Religion of the Heart among Catholics and Puritans
8. Fainthearted Catholics and Real Catholics: Mrs. Clitherow and the Local Politics of Conformity
9. The Reckoning: Arrest, Trial and Execution
10. Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know?
11. Appealing to the Court of Public Opinion
12. Endgame: From Life to the Quisling
15. Between Resistance and Compromise?: Thomas Bell's Revenge and the 1591 Proclamation
16. Thomas Bell Changes Sides
17. Acting on Information Received
18. Reading against the Grain; or What Thomas Bell had Really been Doing in Lancashire
19. Clitherow Vindicated: The Church under the Cross and the Resort to the Public
20. Thomas Bell and the Politics of Failure
21. Mrs. Clitherow Entirely Vindicated as the Epitome of Catholic Order
Aftermath
Bibliography
Index
