The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589–1597: Building the Faith of Saint Peter upon the King of Spain's Monarchy, by Thomas M. McCoog, S.J., is the second in what is currently projected to be a three-volume study of post-Reformation Jesuit missions to the British Isles and Ireland. The first volume, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1540–1588: Our Way of Proceeding? (Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 1996), explored pastoral versus political conflicts in early efforts by the Society of Jesus to adapt its Formula to “the precarious situation” of Catholics in the three kingdoms, citing early papal recognition that the Society's general mission was not just “the propagation of the faith and the good of souls,” but also, more pointedly, “the defense” of that faith—and presumably of those souls as well—against the growing threat posed by the Reformation (Julius III, Exposcit debitam). A projected third volume will extend this study to the early years of the reign of James I/VI and the immediate aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. The present volume, however, maintains a very tight focus on the period between the two failed Armadas of 1588 and 1597, situating Jesuit efforts “within the early modern cultural, diplomatic, and political history not just of Ireland, Scotland, and England but of the continent” as well.

As director of publications for the Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu in Rome for ten years prior to the publication of this volume, Thomas McCoog had sustained access to centuries of Jesuit records preserved in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI). The resulting wealth of primary sources assembled here in one volume, in many cases for the first time, makes this a valuable resource not only for scholars in the more immediately relevant fields of theology, politics, or history per se, but also for those of us drawn more recently to the study of the Society of Jesus as we attempt to trace its influence—often deliberately obscured—in a wide variety of early modern literary and cultural fields, such as music, art, literature in all its forms, and not least in a number of still-emerging fields, such as the study of early modern English women as readers, writers, political agents, and members of religious orders.

Readers are warned in the introduction that, because of “the formation of distinct communities of religious exiles and the foundation of colleges and seminaries on the continent,” English Catholicism in this period became “increasingly bi-polar” and to reflect this the book's perspective will be somewhat bi-polar as well, “oscillat[ing] between events within the three kingdoms” and those on the continent. Thus, chapters 1, 3, and 5 deal primarily, though not exclusively, with Ireland, Scotland, and England, collectively, while the intervening chapters revert back to the continent. The story is narrated primarily via excerpts from letters written by Robert Parsons on the continent, and by Henry Garnet in England, addressed in almost all cases to the Jesuit Superior General, Claudio Acquaviva, whose voice thus serves as a kind of ideological through-line tying together not only these two primary narratives, but also the wider activities of Jesuits on both sides of the channel. Additional voices emerge from the archives throughout (from the ARSI as well as many other repositories), all carefully documented, including Jesuits, their lay supporters, political sponsors, and opponents.

Some voices, however, have yet to be woven fully into this narrative, particularly those of the many lay and religious women whose role in the success of these missions receives only brief mention. Given the attention in this volume to Jesuit involvement in the English Colleges, we are justified in raising a question recently asked by the reviewer of a history of the Benedictines during this period: ubi sorores? To their lasting credit, Jesuits were instrumental in establishing the first religious institution for English women on the continent, the Abbey of the Glorious Assumption of Our Lady, founded in Brussels in 1598. As early as 1596, however, several Jesuits in Brussels (all mentioned frequently in this volume in other contexts) were providing spiritual instruction and other forms of support to several of the women who would later profess in the new convent, and in Rome Parsons himself was obtaining the necessary Papal briefs for the proposed foundation. As the first of twenty such convents to emerge on the continent before the end of the next century, this seminal event is perhaps better dealt with in the projected companion volume (1598 to 1606), but it is nevertheless important to note here that, even in the earlier years of these missions to the three kingdoms, daughters as well as sons of English Catholics were seeking spiritual as well as physical harbor on the continent, and Jesuits were never far to seek.

In terms of the book's overall structure, a clear chronological progression links the six chapters, each of which possesses a brief introduction and conclusion, along with helpful political summaries interspersed throughout. As noted in the general introduction, however, the “oscillating” perspective results in a chronology that is not always seamless, and it remains the reader's task to follow the secondary narratives that often emerge briefly only to disappear again for many pages. As the years progress from 1589 toward the second failed Armada of 1597, these secondary narratives become more numerous and interrelated, echoing a similar progression on the ground, so to speak, whereby the experiences of Catholics in exile and those at home become more tightly interwoven (stirs in Wisbech, for example, embolden student protests in the English Colleges, while invasion plots among the ever-increasing numbers of English exiles result in increased reprisals against Catholics back in the three kingdoms). Excerpts from primary sources also become more substantial in the later chapters. By giving voice, as well as considerable substance, to a variety of contemporary perspectives on the multifaceted roles played by Jesuits during this period of confessional and national restructuring, McCoog's timely study also gives shape to a phenomenon recently referred to as the “internationalization” of early modern English Catholicism.