ABSTRACT
It is possible to discern two major changes in the historiography of post-Reformation England in recent years in which the theme of exile plays an important role. Firstly, there has been a greater emphasis on Catholics and Catholicism in England, to be studied not as a marginalized minority group or religion, but as part of the complex tapestry of lived religion in early modern England. In this approach, considering the many di erent encounters between ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’ can be a means of gaining a deeper understanding of post-Reformation religion and politics.1 Secondly, an attentiveness to the relationship between England and its neighbours, both within the British archipelago and within a ‘European’ context, has led to a discussion of the signi cance of these contexts for the story of religious change.2 ese shi s have o ered new insights in a number of areas, including that of religious exile to and from the Tudor realms.3 is helps to revisit a fairly deep-rooted tendency to Anglocentrism among historians of early modern England, and opens the eld to work of a more comparative nature. e English Catholics who went overseas, for example, can be usefully compared to their counterparts in continental Europe. Research on religious change in mainland Europe has resoundingly demonstrated that exile was a key constituent of Catholic as well as Protestant identity.4 e historiography of post-Reformation Catholicism in England now actively considers the signi cance of overseas links for Catholics in England, resisting the older assumption that English Catholics were inward looking and somehow isolated from Catholic Europe, where the vibrant and multifaceted Counter-Reformation church was ourishing.5
