Recusancy

In English recusancy was noncompliance with the establishment of the Church of England. From the 16th to the 19th century recusants were subject to civil penalties and also sometimes, especially in the earlier part of that period, also to criminal penalities. The first statute to address sectarian dissent was issued in 1593 under Elizabeth I and specifically targeted Roman Catholics, defining "Popish Recusants" as those "convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine Service there, but forbearing the same contrary to the tenor of the laws and statutes heretofore made and provided in that behalf." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12677a.htm

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Recusants were subject to various civil disabilities and penalties under English penal laws, most of which were repealed during the regency and reign of George IV in the early 19th century. The Nuttall Encyclopaedia notes that Dissenters were forgiven by the Toleration Act of William III, while Catholics "were not entirely emancipated till 1829".

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Early recusants included Protestant dissenters whose faiths derived from fundamentalist movements, although with their growth after the restoration of Charles II, these groups were later distinguished as nonconformist .

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Despite a move among English sedevacantists to appropriate the term, recusant today tends to apply to English Catholics who are neither converts nor descended from immigrants. The Dukes of Norfolk the most prominent recusant family.

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English: English in common usage may refer to:...

Church of England: The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion....

Elizabeth I: REDIRECT Elizabeth I of England...