Recusant

Recusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican services during the history of England and Wales; these individuals were known as recusants. The term, which derives ultimately from the Latin recusare (to refuse or make an objection) was first used to refer to those who remained loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church and who did not attend Church of England services, with a 1593 statute determining the penalties against "Popish recusants".

The "Recusancy Acts" began during the reign of Elizabeth I and were repealed in 1650. They imposed various types of punishment on those who did not participate in Anglican religious activity, such as fines, property confiscation, and imprisonment. The repeal under Oliver Cromwell was mainly intended to give relief to nonconforming Protestants rather than to Catholics, and despite the repeal of the Recusancy Acts, restrictions against Roman Catholics were still in place until full Catholic Emancipation in 1829. In some cases those adhering to Catholicism faced capital punishment, and a number of English and Welsh Catholics executed in the 16th and 17th centuries have been canonised by the Catholic Church as martyrs of the English Reformation.

As far as the term is used in the present day, recusant applies to the descendants of Roman Catholic British gentry and peerage families. Catholicism was the majority religion in various pockets, notably in parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria, and in Scotland, in parts of the Highlands (i.e. the Rough Bounds and Banffshire) and the Southern Hebrides (i.e. South Uist, Benbecula, Eriskay, Barra and Vatersay).

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