Jessie Childs - God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England

PART ONE
William and Henry

PART TWO
Eleanor and Anne

PART THREE
Eliza

PART FOUR
Powder Treason

The year is 1606. A woman awakes in a prison cell. She has been on the run, changing her lodging every few days but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London. She is placed in solitary confinement and interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot. The woman is Anne Vaux one of several ardent, extraordinary, brave and, at times, utterly exasperating members of the Vaux family.

In this superb history, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. Elizabeth I criminalised Catholicism in England: for refusing to attend Protestant services her subjects faced crippling fines and imprisonment; for giving refuge to outlawed priests they risked death. Almost two hundred Catholics were executed in Elizabeths reign. Ordered by the Pope to resist the Queen and by the Queen to renounce the Pope, they faced an agonising conflict of loyalty. In an age of assassination and Armada, Catholics, like the Vauxes, who chose faith were increasingly seen as the enemy within.

Gods 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 timely story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

Jessie Childs won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography with her first book Henry VIIIs Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. She has written and reviewed for several newspapers and magazines, including the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Literary Review. She took a First in History from the University of Oxford and lives in London with her husband and two daughters. This is her second book.

www.jessiechilds.com

@childs_jessie

Henry VIIIs Last Victim:
The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

To my mother and sister

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends, or of thine own were; Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
17 Meditation, sig. T4

Two calendars were in use in this period: the Gregorian (or New Style) and the Julian (or Old Style). In 1582, Spain, Italy and France adopted the former, which put them ten days ahead of Protestant England, which kept the latter until 1752. Unless otherwise stated, I give Old Style dates, but take the year to begin on 1 January, instead of Lady Day (25 March), which was also retained in England until the eighteenth century.

In this pre-decimal period, a shilling was twelve pence and a pound was twenty shillings. The mark was worth two-thirds of a pound and there were six Dutch florins to one pound sterling.

The letters S.J. after a name denote a member of the Society of Jesus.

Spelling and punctuation have, for the most part, been modernised.

akg-images

Historical Royal Palaces

The National Archives, ref. SP 14/216/201

. Thomas, second Lord Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

. Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

. Harrowden Hall, courtesy of Wellingborough Golf Club

. William, third Lord Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (15481616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo Christies Images / The Bridgeman Art Library

. Mary, Lady Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (15481616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo Christies Images / The Bridgeman Art Library

. The Massacre of St Bartholomews Day, 24 August 1572. Painting by Franois Dubois akg-images / Erich Lessing

. Woodcut from The Fierie Tryall of Gods Saints British Library Board (1019.i.18.(2.))

. Certaine of the Popes Merchandize latly sent over into Englande, print issued in A New Years Gifte, dedicated to the Popes Holiness (London, 1579) British Library Board (3932.dd.15)

alumni to Christ, from Ecclesia Anglicanae Trophaea (Rome, 1584), P.2.33(2) plate 31. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library

. Edmund Campion, S.J. Engraving from A Particular Declaration or Testimony of the Undutifull and Traiterous Affection Borne Against her Maiestie by Edmond Campion Jesuite, and Other Condemned Priestes (London, 1582) Jesuit Institute

. Campion on the rack. Engraving after a lost fresco by Niccol Circignani commissioned by George Gilbert for the English College in Rome, from Ecclesia Anglicanae Trophaea (Rome, 1584), P.2.33(2) plate 36. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library

. Campions Rope Jesuit Institute

. The pressing to death of Margaret Clitherow, 25 March 1586, from Richard Verstegan, Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum Nostri Temporis (Antwerp 1587) The British Library Board. G.11732

. Mary Queen of Scots cipher endorsed by Anthony Babington The National Archives, ref. SP 12/193/54

. Aerial view of Lyveden New Bield, Northamptonshire National Trust Images/Paul Wakefield

. Popish Plots and Treasons from the Beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Illustrated with Emblems and Explained in Verse, engraved by Cornelis Danckerts (c.160356) (engraving) (b&w photo), English School, (17th century) / Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

. Elizabeth 1, Armanda Portrait, 1588, attr. to George Gower. Bedfordshire, Woburn Abbey akg-images

. Philip II of Spain, artist unknown National Portrait Gallery, London

. Portrait of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (152098) Lord High Treasurer (oil on panel), by or after Arnold von Brounckhorst (c.156070) / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library

. Portrait of Sir Robert Cecil (15631612) 1st Viscount Cranborne and 1st Earl of Salisbury (oil on panel), studio of John de Critz (c.1555c.1641) / Private Collection / Photo Bonhams, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library

. Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, authors photo, courtesy of English Heritage

. The manacles, English 17th century (XVI.15) Royal Armouries

. The Family Range, or West side, seen across the moat at Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire National Trust Images/Robert Morris

. Harvington Hall, Swinging Beam Hide, Dr Dodds Library, 2004, Kidderminster The Francis Frith Collection

. Pedlars chest by permission of the Governors of Stonyhurst College

. A scene from The Painted Life of Mary Ward, panel 9 Congregatio Jesu MEP Zentrum Maria Ward