The Wisbech Stirs was a divisive quarrel between English Roman Catholic clergy held prisoner in Wisbech Castle in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I of England. It set some of the secular clergy (not members of a religious institute) against the regular clergy represented by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), the religious institute that was emerging as clerical leaders, and who wished for a more ordered communal life in the prison.
The arguments came to a head during 1594–5, and were then patched up, but distrust continued; the Stirs foreshadowed two generations of conflict, including the Archpriest Controversy, and the troubles over the Old Chapter, which likewise set part of the Catholic secular clergy against some of the Jesuit missioners concerned with England. In fact there was a long period, from 1587 well into the 17th century, when this division among Catholic priests in England was prominent.[1] The idea that there was a continuous strand of anti-Jesuit agitation in these troubles was launched early by Jesuit Robert Persons, but is not now accepted in unqualified form.[2]