- This article or section should be merged with Recusant
From Elizabeth I to George III laws in force in England required regular (annual?) attendance at services of the established Church of England. Conviction of failure to do so could lead to fines and imprisonment. The laws were not always enforced, but they were always a threat against Catholics.
Some of those convicted of recusancy were non-Catholic, but the term is in general use of the survival of a Catholic resistance to Protestantism in England. Protestants who refused to participate in the Church of England -- Puritans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and the later Methodists -- are more typically referred to as Nonconformists, that is those refusing to conform with the practices and beliefs of the Church of England.
There is a move among Catholics in England formerly known as sedevacantists to wish to be known as recusants.
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