‘The deformed imp of the devil’: John Foxe and the Protestant fashioning of the Catholic enemy

Abstract

From the 16 th century onwards, anti-Catholicism has been an important characteristic of the religious and political thought in some strata and geographical areas of English society-the term anti-Catholicism refers to the polemical statement that the Roman Catholic Church is a doctrinally false and politically dangerous anti-Church (Streete 2017: 4). In the early modern period, one of the most striking features of 17 th century England is "the strength and persistence at all levels and among all classes of society of anti-Catholicism. […] Despite the growing strength of the intellectual case for toleration there is very little sign that popular hatred of popery diminished in the second half of the century." (Coward 2017: 353) The paradox is that this hatred turned into paranoia-as testified by the Titus Oates plot and the ensuing Exclusion Crisis in 1678-though there actually were very few Catholics in Auteur0000-00-00T00:00:00AEngland. The papist threat was a "minority challenge" indeed (Cottret 2013: 99), but "what people perceived to be the case was at least as important (and even more so) than historical reality" (Coward 2017: 323). This irrational attitude can be accounted for by real current or past events, both in England and Europe, such as the Sun King's expansion and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes