Recusants, a name given to persons who refused to attend the services of the Established Church, on whom legal penalties were first imposed in Elizabeth's reign, that bore heavily upon Catholics and Dissenters; the Toleration Act of William III. relieved the latter, but the Catholics were not entirely emancipated till 1829.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Rector * Red Cross Knight