God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England
Read God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England Online
Authors: Jessie Childs
Contents
Prelude: The Calm before Campion
7
Atheistical Anthony Babington’s Complotment
17
Long John with the Little Beard
22
Strange and Unlooked for Letters
About the Book
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 Elizabeth’s 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.
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 timely story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.
About the Author
Jessie Childs won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography with her first book
Henry VIII’s 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.
ALSO BY JESSIE CHILDS
Henry VIII’s Last Victim:
The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
God’s Traitors
Terror and Faith in Elizabethan
England
JESSIE CHILDS
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 man’s 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
Author’s Note
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.
List of Illustrations
Main Text
Elizabeth I, Armada Portrait, 1588, attr. to George Gower. Bedfordshire, Woburn Abbey
© akg-images
Map of Tower of London
© Historical Royal Palaces
Anne Vaux’s signature
© The National Archives, ref. SP 14/216/201
Plate Section 1
1
. Thomas, second Lord Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2
. Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
3
. Harrowden Hall, courtesy of Wellingborough Golf Club
4
. William, third Lord Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (1548–1616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / The Bridgeman Art Library
5
. Mary, Lady Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (1548–1616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / The Bridgeman Art Library
6
. The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1572. Painting by François Dubois © akg-images / Erich Lessing
7
. Woodcut from
The Fierie Tryall of Gods Saints
© British Library Board (1019.i.18.(2.))
8
. ‘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)
9
. Giovanni Battista de Cavalleriis: Pope Gregory XIII ‘commends his
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
10
. 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
11
. Campion on the rack. Engraving after a lost fresco by Niccoló 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
12
. Campion’s Rope © Jesuit Institute
13
. 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
14
. Mary Queen of Scots’ cipher endorsed by Anthony Babington © The National Archives, ref. SP 12/193/54
15
. Aerial view of The Triangular Lodge at Rushton, Northamptonshire ©
www.skyscan.co.uk
16
. Aerial view of Lyveden New Bield, Northamptonshire © National Trust Images/Paul Wakefield
17
.
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
.1603–56) (engraving) (b&w photo), English School, (17th century) / Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library
Plate Section 2
18
. Elizabeth 1, Armanda Portrait, 1588, attr. to George Gower. Bedfordshire, Woburn Abbey © akg-images
19
. Philip II of Spain, artist unknown © National Portrait Gallery, London
20
. Portrait of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–98) Lord High Treasurer (oil on panel), by or after Arnold von Brounckhorst (
c
.1560–70) / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
21
. Portrait of Sir Robert Cecil (1563–1612) 1st Viscount Cranborne and 1st Earl of Salisbury (oil on panel), studio of John de Critz (
c
.1555–
c
.1641) / Private Collection / Photo © Bonhams, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
22
. Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, author’s photo, courtesy of English Heritage
23
. The manacles, English 17th century (XVI.15) © Royal Armouries
24
. The Family Range, or West side, seen across the moat at Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire © National Trust Images/Robert Morris
25
. Harvington Hall, Swinging Beam Hide, Dr Dodds Library, 2004, Kidderminster © The Francis Frith Collection
26
. Pedlar’s chest © by permission of the Governors of Stonyhurst College
27
. A scene from
The Painted Life
of Mary Ward, panel 9 © Congregatio Jesu MEP – Zentrum Maria Ward
28
. The Wintour White Chasuble, by permission of the British Jesuit Province
29
. The thumb of Robert Sutton, from
Forgotten Shrines: An Account of Some Old Catholic Halls and Families in England and of Relics and Memorials of the English Martyrs
, by Domm Bede Camm (London, MacDonald & Evans, 1910)
30
. Engraving of the gunpowder plotters by Crispijn va de Passe the Elder, 1606 © National Portrait Gallery, London
31
. ‘Portrait of Sir Everard Digby’, Thomas Athow, WA.C.IV.I.18.8 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
32
. St Winifred’s Well, Holywell, Flintshire, from John Gerard,
The Autobiography of an Elizabethan
, trans. P. Caraman (Longmans, 1951), wherein reproduced by permission of the Rector of Hawarden
33
. Coughton Court © National Trust, photograph by Claire Blackburn
34
. Henry Garnet, S.J., by Jan Wiericx © 2010 Getty Images
35
. Anne Vaux’s orange-juice letter to Henry Garnet in the Tower © The National Archives, ref. SP 14/216/244