From Reformation to Emancipation

Author: Tony Hadland
ISBN: 0 9507431 4 3
Publisher: Tony Hadland (November 1992)
Format: 230mm x 158mm hardback, bound in cardinal red with gold lettering and printed on art paper. 203 pages, 5 maps, 30 drawings.
Stockists: Oxfordshire Family History Society; Catholic Family History Society; Caversham Bookshop, Reading; Family Publications, Oxford.
Bookshop price: £10.00 (suggested for UK)
Mail order: This book is now out of print. However, you may be able to purchase the new paperback edition by mail from The Estate Office, Mapledurham House, Mapledurham, Reading RG4 7TR. Telephone Lola Andrews, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm on +44 (0)1189 723-350 or fax on +44 (0)1189 724-016. Alternatively, e-mail Mtrust1997@aol.com
On-line version: You can also access the on-line version of the book, with additional illustrations, free of charge by clicking here.

After the Reformation a minority of people in Berkshire and southern Oxfordshire remained Roman Catholic, despite social pressures and the attempts of the authorities to make them conform to Anglicanism. The proportion of the gentry that remained Catholic was higher than that of the general population. It was usually from the manor house of a Catholic squire that a priest of the old faith would exercise his secret ministry, often at great personal risk.

Thames Valley Papists is the first book to draw together the history of the clandestine Roman Catholics of the area from Henry VIII's break with Rome until the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. The foreword is by John Eyston of Mapledurham House, whose ancestors figure prominently in the book, along with the ancestors of other surviving local Catholic families such as the Stonors.

Introductory chapters set the scene by revealing how Christianity came to the Thames Valley from Rome, examining the Lollard legacy of religious dissent and describing the importance of the Thames as a transport route. The main story is then told through 21 concise chronological chapters. Heroic martyrs and mercenary informers, hidden treasure and priest holes, a secret printing press and a clandestine funeral, romantic ruins and hidden relics, occasional bigotry and frequent tolerance - all are to be found in the 203 pages of this fascinating book. Hardly a village in the area goes unmentioned. The text is complemented by five maps and 30 original drawings by the author, most of which depict local houses mentioned in the text, some well-known, others surprisingly secret.

The book is in no way polemical, nor is it a religious work. It has been favourably reviewed by BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Radio Berkshire, Open History (The Open University), Oxfordshire Family Historian (Oxfordshire Family History Society), Catholic Ancestor (Catholic Family History Society) and The Door (Church of England Diocese of Oxford).

Thames Valley Papists is comprehensively indexed and has four appendices, including a useful bibliography.

Some additional information and a list of corrections are available.