Lively interest in the Tudor and Elizabethan ages have been stimulated in recent years by the histories and popularisations of David Starkey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Starkey) and Hilary Mantel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel). Should you wish to immerse yourself further into this world you’ll find an excellent new book in God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England.
The Catholics of Elizabethan England did not witness a golden age. Their Mass was banned, their priests were outlawed, and their faith was criminalised. In days of assassination and the Armada, those Catholics who clung to their faith were increasingly seen as the enemy within. In this superb history, award-winning author Jessie Childs (http://jessiechilds.co.uk/) explores the Catholic predicament through the eyes of one remarkable family: the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. God’s Traitors is a tale of dawn raids and daring escapes, stately homes and torture chambers, ciphers, secrets and lies. From clandestine chapels and side-street inns to exile communities and the corridors of power, it exposes the tensions and insecurities masked by the cult of Gloriana. Above all, it is a story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide. You’ll be informed but also warm to this tale because it’s ‘human, all too human’.
Enquire at your local library or consult http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Traitors-Terror-Elizabethan-England/dp/1847921566/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp for full bibliographic details.
464 pages in Bodley Head
First published 6 March 2014
ISBN 978-1847921567
Jessie Childs