He put in force the recusancy laws, thus breaking the solemn promise which he had made only a few months before to a brother-sovereign, and inflicting an almost unbearable insult upon his young wife.
The recusancy fines, which were still exacted in a modified form, kept up a certain feeling of irritation, but on the whole the Catholics were loyal.
Dispensations from the action of the recusancy laws were given by the Crown in such numbers as to alarm the Puritans.
Charles found himself embarrassed by a request to put in force the recusancy laws, while at the same time he was angered by an open attack upon his favourite.
The enforcement of the recusancy laws, wrung from Charles by the last parliament, had in the meantime been carried out, and fresh proclamations were issued as the day for the meeting of parliament (6 Feb.
In the spring of 1605 the exasperation of the Catholics was increased by James again imposing the recusancy fines, and the little band of plotters increased in numbers, although never allowed to become large.
James informs Rosny of his intention to remit the Recusancy fines.
On June 17 he informed Rosny, the French ambassador, of his intention to remit the recusancy fines, and, after some hesitation, he resolved to put his engagement in execution.
James orders that theRecusancy Act be fully executed.
Hence those excuses that, in enforcing the Recusancy laws against the Catholic laity, and, in putting Catholic priests to death as traitors, Elizabeth and her ministers were actuated by purely political motives.
When matters had come to this pass, in 1580, the first penal laws were issued, against recusancy and seditious publications.
Early in 1604, all Jesuits and seminary priests were banished; the recusancy fines and arrears were soon after stringently exacted, and many Roman Catholic families almost reduced to beggary.
In July 1603 the fines for recusancy were remitted.
But the execution of priests and of other catholics became on the contrary more frequent, and the fines forrecusancy exacted as rigorously as before.
The penalties of recusancy were particularly hard upon women, who, as I have observed in another place, adhered longer to the old religion than the other sex; and still more so upon those who had to pay for their scruples.
The rich catholics compounded for their recusancy by annual payments, which were of some consideration in the queen's rather scanty revenue.
He laughed and cried: "Thou hast a ready tongue, young mistress; and when tried for recusancy I warrant thou'lt give the judge a piece of thy mind.
When I had satisfied him thereon, he asked if the report was true which he heard from a prisoner for recusancy in Wisbeach Castle, concerning my troth-plight with Mr. Rookwood.
All such as were convicted ofrecusancy were put in prison.
The fines for recusancy were levied with the utmost rigour, L20 per lunar month being the legal sum, so that many gentlemen were fleeced of their entire income.
In the spring of =1605= James increased the exasperation of the plotters by re-imposing the recusancy fines on the Catholic laity.
In =1581= Parliament, seeing nothing in what had happened but a conspiracy against the Crown, passed the first of the acts which became known as the Recusancy laws.
In the first year of his reign he remitted the recusancy fines (see p.
It would probably have been difficult for him to obtain the repeal even of the Recusancy Laws which punished Catholics for acting on their religious belief.
Sempill of the King's two parts of the site of the late dissolved monastery of Grace-Dieu, and other lands in Leicester, in the hands of the Crown by the recusancy of John Beaumont.
