Father Thomas Wright: A Test case for toleration

Abstract

The struggle of the English Catholics during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I to achieve toleration has already proved itself a challenging feature of Renaissance culture. It is surprising, therefore, that few of the personalities in this conflict have been studied in detail, especially the Catholic leaders who facilitated rather than resisted the submission of the Catholic population to the government. Perhaps a study of these men, who were subject to correction by the forces at either extreme, would lend to our comprehension of the period a degree of objectivity not to be found among the deluge of partisan accounts. At least their careers can complement, as biography always does history, the existing surveys (1), giving them continuity and human significance.