Appropriating History: Catholic and Protestant Polemics and the National Past

Felicity Heal examines the ways in which Catholic and Protestant controversialists in the second and third generations of the English Reformation used both universal history and the specific history of the British nation to demonstrate the truth of their causes. To reclaim the past, especially important after the Elizabethan Settlement, was to prove legitimacy, second only to the authority of Scripture itself. On the Protestant side, Matthew Parker and his circle were strongly committed to tracing the story of the continuity between early British Christianity and the new establishment. Even writers such as Jewel or Foxe, who sought to demonstrate continuity through universal history, could not ignore the national past. They were answered first by the Louvain Catholics, led by Stapleton, who translated Bede, and then by Parsons and other Jesuits. These men confidently claimed Joseph of Arimathea and St. Augustine of Canterbury as part of the Catholic and papalist heritage. 115. See John Spurr’s essay in the present volume. Milton, in Catholic and Reformed, also shows how the questions asked of historical sources began to change markedly with the coming of “Laudian” ideology. 116. Kidd, British Identities, 99–122. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.86 on Wed, 20 Apr 2016 06:41:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms