Recusancy was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
William Shakespeare came from a family background of English Catholic recusants.
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of Englan
A late 17th- or early 18th-century report of the plot
Elizabeth I, queen from 1558 to 1603
King James's daughter Elizabeth, whom the conspirators planned to install on the throne as a Catholic queen; portrait by Robert Peake the Elder, National Maritime Museum
Engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by Crispijn van de Passe. Missing are Digby, Keyes, Rookwood, Grant, and Tresham.