While ML created no fictional protagonist who attends or seeks post-secondary education, she was eager to secure real women that right. Between 1884 and 1885 she corresponded with William J. Walsh , the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, arguing that he should establish a Catholic equivalent of Alexandra College (the Protestant institution she had attended years earlier, which educated women to the level of university entrance). Her letters claimed that the education of girls was essential to the development of Irish society. Her letter-writing campaign led Archbishop Walsh to grant her a meeting. However, although he did later act to promote the education of women, it was along the lines of recommendations by the Loreto and Dominican Nuns , rather than in accord with Laffan's suggestions.

That year, 1717, she was compelled as a Roman Catholic (a Papist) to register her ownership of her estate. Her niece's court case was aimed partly to make her surrender the custody of two girls she was bringing up as Catholics. A Catholic woman threatened with forcible removal from Wilsthorpe in 1709 may likely have been JB .

EC met Lady Powis , an active and prominent Catholic, who enlisted her in work on behalf of imprisoned co-religionists.

In Lichfield, with some local women, Susan Walker and Marie Noble , LED discussed resistance to Laud 's current reforms of the Church of England . At Lichfield Cathedral the altar had been moved away from the congregation and beautified with new hangings reminiscent of Catholic churches.

Richard Lovell Edgeworth , with ME and the rest of the family, were forced to leave their house to escape the Catholic rebels.

ER first stood for parliament in October 1922 as an Independent candidate for East Toxteth in Liverpool, a particularly deprived district in a city polarised between Orange Toryism and Catholic radicalism. An anonymous Tory leaflet did her great damage by equating family allowances with a tax on single men to support large (by implication, Catholic) families.

It was LLH who persuaded her sister Winifred to write out the full story of how she engineered her husband's escape from the Tower and who then preserved and apparently circulated the story. She no doubt understood the importance of her sister's account to Catholic recusant history. Nuns were accustomed to both writing and reading vivid accounts not only of their enclosed female communities but also of the struggles of women in the world to preserve the Catholic faith under persecution (often while their husbands were in prison). Scholar Isobel Grundy has suggested that in playing midwife to her sister's writing, LLH was helping to bring the convent historical tradition to the eyes of a secular readership.

LJL and her husband attended the coronation of Mary Tudor . As a Roman Catholic, John, first Baron Lumley , was a natural Mary supporter, while his wife was cousin to the recently deposed and arrested Lady Jane Grey .

When she settled with her husband in Dublin, Sydney Morgan became friendly with the United IrishmenHamilton Rowan and the nationalist lawyer John Philpot Curran . Her oppositional, liberty-loving opinions strengthened with her age. She was a staunch supporter of Catholic Emancipation, and the cause of Irish liberty was the great cause of her life. She entertained some reservations from the beginning about Daniel O'Connell 's leadership style in his Catholic Association , although he on his side expressed the greatest respect for her political influence. Her unfulfilled dream remained reconciliation between liberal Protestant and romantic Gael; she saw O'Connell's later agenda as sectarian.

FNBA 's husband not only attended the coronation of the Catholic monarch Mary Tudor on 1 October 1553 (while her eldest brother had just been imprisoned for supporting the rival Protestant candidate Lady Jane Grey ); he also played a key role early the next year in putting down Wyatt's Rebellion (named from Sir Thomas Wyatt , son of the poet of the same name) against Mary and her re-Catholicizing agenda. Such family division must have been an extreme form of something not uncommon; see, for example, Lady Jane Lumley . Years later Lord Abergavenny was one of those who tried Mary Queen of Scots and found her guilty of treason.

In spite of her Puritan convictions AB pledged her allegiance without delay to the Catholic Queen Mary and was later a gentlewoman of the privy chamber. She thus benefited the male members of her family, whose loyalty might well have been suspect, and enabled her husband to keep a low profile until the more congenial reign of Queen Elizabeth .

Setting out as a Whig, he became a radical, shocking the Lords with fiercely rhetorical speeches in support of Catholic emancipation and better treatment and remuneration for the new class of industrial workers.

Gyllenborg had spent most of the summer of 1716 staying with Charles and Mary Caesar at Benington. He and Charles Caesar were both arrested early in 1717, and Caesar once again incarcerated in the Tower. MC , his partner in these machinations, lent moral support to the families of his fellow-prisoners as well as her own. When government agents searched the house, she convinced one of them that there are Women that have as much Resolution as men. Since no incriminating papers were found, Charles Caesar was released on ten thousand pounds bail. Plans for the invasion then continued through summer 1717; Caesar had no doubt that the English people were tired of George I ; they would even no raise objection to Spanish, Catholic troops helping to effect a restoration of James III, since the new king would give assurances of the safety of the Church of England. James was so pleased with Charles Caesar's service that he sent a portrait of himself to MC , who treated it with the utmost reverence. The plot, however, failed.

In politics CC was conservative, horrified at the idea of Catholic Emancipation as mischievous & abominable.

MDF 's first publicised brush with politics involved her membership of the Protestant Association , her support for Lord George Gordon and her approval of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots.

The plotters had a pot (or bottle) made with a false bottom: the pewterer was told this was designed for smuggling jewels, but of course its contents were really to be letters. The warrant for ED 's arrest was followed three days later by another for a servant of hers. There is a rumour that she was sent to the Tower of London, but it is more probable that she fled directly abroad. Her involvement means that she, like her parents before her, was prepared to suffer hardship in the cause of the troubled house of Stuart. She became a Jacobite (though never a Roman Catholic) almost as soon as that designation acquired political currency.

AD held strong political views which were inextricably bound up with her religious position. She was a Protestant, therefore a supporter of Elizabeth I, who wanted her own country in turn to support Protestant minorities in Catholic Europe. Elaine V. Beilin notes that this kind of religious patriotism might well be particularly strong in people living near the West Country coast, where invasion scares occurred frequently even after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in August 1588.

AF was a conservative royalist who rejoiced repeatedly at the recovery of George III from his first bout of illness (and wrote a song for the local Sunday school pupils to rejoice too) and praised the Tory government in the persons of Lord Chancellor Thurlow and Prime Minister William Pitt . Despite her conservative patriotism, however, she was open-minded enough to acknowledge that religious faith can find different modes, and to write a warm lament at the death in early 1790 of James Robert Talbot , Vicar Apostolic of London, who had suffered for his Roman Catholic faith.

Although married to a member of the Established Church, AW was interrogated after Guy Fawkes attempted to overthrow the government, as a suspected Catholic activist.

Having been in his youth a kind of radical, a debunker of traditional holders of power and influence, EW veered to the right. He is remembered as a Tory (and before World War Two a sympathiser with fascism) as well as an upholder of the Catholic religion. In 1951 he wrote that he had never voted in a general election as I have never found a Tory stern enough to command my respect. In his later years he saw himself as a withdrawn and embittered critic of modern society.

In 1685, perhaps in connection with the death of Charles II and the succession of the openly Catholic James II , Anthony Walkersuffered some form of persecution for ten days and seems to have been sent to prison at Tilbury. Not surprisingly he welcomed the Glorious Revolution which saw James succeeded by the Protestant champion William III .

Lady Tyrwhit and her husband continued to prosper through the reign of Queen Mary . Susan M. Felch points out that long before she was a persecutor of Protestants, Mary had participated in the humanist reforms that had sought to make bible study central to the Christian life. When Elizabeth I came to the throne she seems to have favoured the Tyrwhits not more but less than did her Catholic half-sister, though Sir Robert Tyrwhit continued to hold important offices locally.

Although CET was fiercely anti-Catholic, she also took up the plight of the Irish factory workers; she remained deeply interested in the Irish people until her death. During her time in London she worked for improved living conditions for the Irish community.

Two plots, the Bye and the Main plots, followed James's accession. The Bye plot was a scheme by Catholic priests to kidnap James and force him to grant religious toleration. The Main plot, in which Walter Ralegh was implicated, aimed to replace James with LAS , and then to make peace with Spain and decree toleration for Catholics. Despite falling under suspicion of plotting and despite crippling expense, Arbella was able to remain at court for years.