Life After Exile: Former Catholic Emigres and the Legacy of Flight in Marian England
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jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pOver the last twenty years, a wealth of studies on early modern exile movements across Europe have emphasised the many problems experienced by émigrés, in particular when justifying their flight in the eyes of their compatriots back home. However, most of these studies see such difficulties coming to an end upon the return of émigrés to their native lands. Homecoming exiles were supposedly treated as quasi-martyrs for the faith and lauded as heroes. Taking as its case-study those English Catholic émigrés from the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI who returned home following Mary I’s accession, this article challenges the idea that the difficulties of dislocation ended abruptly upon repatriation. It shows that, while on the face of it they were awarded unparalleled levels of patronage for their sacrifices for the faith, being appointed to positions of power and influence within the Marian Church and state, former émigrés continued to grapple with the baggage of exile status long after they set foot on English soil. In this way, this study not only highlights the need to reconsider some recent assessments of the success of the Marian Counter-Reformation, but, more broadly, it suggests that prevailing narratives regarding the heroic homecomings of early modern exiles may be the legacy of the exiles’ own attempts to mitigate the lingering difficulties of dislocation.</jats:p>
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1477-4534