Searching for the Origins: Teutonic Past and Contemporary England in Verstegan’s Thought

The essay is introduced by a paragraph in which Restitution is shortly summarized. In order to define whether Restitution can be merely considered an antiquarian essay on Teutonic past, paragraph 3 investigates the main antiquarians’ theories about the origin of British population and the consequent implications for the ancient roots of Tudor’s dynasty. That analysis shows how every consideration on British past took into account the belonging of every authors to Protestant or Catholic party. Refusing the mainstream idea that Restitution is simply an antiquarian essay, in the fourth paragraph Vestegan’s essay slots into the Catholic thought of his times. It is finally concluded with the fifth paragraph in which the cultural and political relationship between Verstegan and other recusants in the years immediately preceding the composition of Restitution emerges. Those contacts connecting recusants in England and Flanders demonstrate how Restitution was conceived as a political pamphlet through which Verstegan wanted to assert the premiership of Catholicism in constituting both British and Saxon past of England.