This thesis considers the activities of William Blundell, a seventeenth century Catholic gentleman based in Lancashire. It is argued that Blundell was neither the passive victim nor the entirely loyal subject that he and others have claimed. Blundell actively defended his family from the extremes of the penal laws, particularly through creating sprawling kin and social networks that offered him protection. These networks consisted of both Catholics and Protestants. The relative freedom that this support offered Blundell allowed him to patronise other Catholics. In his locality he ensured that the township of Little Crosby was populated almost entirely by his co-religionists, on a national level he structed and circulated arguments supporting the removal of the penal laws, and on an international level he worked as an agent for the Poor Clares of Rouen.