In 1559 the last Bishop of Bath and Wells in communion with Rome was deprived; nearly three hundred years later the first Bishop of Clifton, of the Roman Catholic hierarchy restored in 1850, was appointed to a diocese which included the same area. During the long interval the Catholics of Bath, as of England generally, laboured under difficulties which had much diminished by the later date and which had ebbed and flowed under Elizabeth I, the Stuarts and the Hanoverians.
This Introduction outlines the fortunes of Catholics in Bath during the period 1559 to 1850 and seeks to provide a background for the documents printed in this and the succeeding volume.
