Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589-1597
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English Catholic voices, once disregarded as merely confessional, are now acknowledged to provide important perspectives on Elizabethan society. Based on extensive archival research, this book builds on previous studies for the first thorough investigation of the Jesuit mission to England during a critical period between the unsuccessful armadas of 1588 and 1597, a period during which the mission was threatened as much by internal Catholic conflict as it was by the crown. To address properly events in England, the study fully engages with the situation in Ireland, Scotland and the continent so as to contextualize the ambitions, methods and effects of the Jesuit mission. For England felt threatened not only by the military might of Spain but also by any assistance King Philip II might provide to Catholics earls and a vindictive James VI in Scotland, powerful nobles in Ireland, and English Catholics at home and abroad. However, it is the particular role of the Jesuits that occupies central place in the narrative, highlighting the way in which the Society of Jesus typified all that Elizabethan England feared about the Church of Rome. Through an exhaustive study of the many facets of the Jesuit mission to England between 1589 and 1597, this book provides a fascinating insight not only into Catholic efforts to bring England back into the Roman Church, but also the simmering tensions, and disagreements on how this should be achieved, as well as debates concerning the very nature and structure of English Catholicism. A second volume, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1598-1606 will continue the story through to the early years of James VI & I's reign.
Thomas M. McCoog, S.J. is editor and author of numerous books and articles on the early history of the Society of Jesus and in particular of Jesuit involvement in the British Isles. He is Curator of the Avery, Cardinal Dulles Archives at Fordham University and Jesuit-Regent of Fordham's London program, and archivist of the British Province of the Society of Jesus (London).