God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England (78 page)

Wilson, D.,
Sir Francis Walsingham: A Courtier in an Age of Terror
(2007)

Woodall, J., ‘Recusant Rowington’,
Worcestershire Recusant
31 (1978)

Wormald, J., ‘Gunpowder, Treason, and Scots’,
Journal of British Studies
, 24/2 (1985)

Younger, N., ‘If the Armada Had Landed: A Reappraisal of England’s Defences in 1588’,
History
, 93/311 (2008)

Acknowledgements

I owe a great deal to the many works of the many scholars listed, with gratitude, in the Notes and Bibliography. I would particularly like to salute the Dominican friar, Godfrey Anstruther, who first wrote about the Vaux family in 1953, as well as the more recent scholarship of Alexandra Walsham, Peter Lake, Michael Questier and Thomas McCoog. I have benefited enormously from, and thoroughly enjoyed, numerous conversations with Antonia Fraser on ‘the recs’, for which my heartfelt thanks. Support and advice have also come from Saul David, William Dalrymple, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Adrian Tinniswood and Richard Foreman. John Holland helped with the Latin, George McPherson with the Spanish and Nicola Newson and Giovanni Gabassi with the Italian.

I am most grateful to the Trustees of the English Province of the Order of Preachers for allowing me to use Father Anstruther’s translation for
chapter 12
. Timothy Hacksley kindly permitted me to cite his thesis on the poems of Henry Vaux; the Revd Thomas McCoog, S.J., graciously did the same with his doctoral thesis on the Society of Jesus. I am also indebted to Father McCoog and his colleague at Farm Street, Anna Edwards, for their warm welcome to the British Jesuit archives and their determined help sourcing manuscripts for me there.

Thanks, too, to the talented and friendly librarians and archivists who have lent assistance at the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the National Archives, the College of Arms, the Inner Temple Library, the London Library, Northamptonshire Record Office, Leicestershire Record Office, the Shakespeare Centre, Westminster Diocesan Archives and the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.

I am immensely grateful to Jan Graffius for showing me the remarkable
collections at Stonyhurst; to David Waite, Managing Director of Wellingborough Golf Club, for heroically shifting the office furniture so I could peer at the Harrowden Hall priest-hole; and to the staff at Rushton Hall Hotel, who kindly showed me the Tresham oratory and priest-hole. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the owners and custodians of the various historic houses whose priest-holes are on public view. Mentioned in this book, but by no means the only ones, are Baddesley Clinton and Coughton Court in Warwickshire and Harvington Hall in Worcestershire. Every school trip should include one of these places.

Anthony Gilbey, the current Lord Vaux, was kind enough to encourage my pursuit of his ancestors and answer all my queries. Tom Baring of Baring Fine Art went out of his way to hunt the provenance of the third Lord and Lady Vaux’s portraits. Jo Baring and Sarah Keller read the typescript with eagle eyes and generous hearts.

My deepest gratitude to my super agent, Andrew Lownie, and to Will Sulkin, an inspirational publisher, who always knew I would get there in the end, despite the babies and his own – richly deserved – retirement. His successor at Bodley Head, Stuart Williams, instantly knew what we were trying to achieve with the book and did not blink in his commitment to it: faith indeed. I am delighted to have the opportunity to appreciate and thank every person at Bodley Head who made an improving mark on the book, namely: Julia Connolly for the jacket design, Darren Bennett for the map and family tree, Mark Handsley for the copy-edit, Jane Howard for the proofread, Ben Murphy for the index, Eoin Dunne, Katherine Ailes and Ruth Waldram. Kay Peddle guided the book through every process with sensitivity, passion and flair; it has been a complete joy to work with her.

My daughters, Isabella and Lara, made a considerable contribution to the delay in delivering this book, but also gave me the wonderful perspective of motherhood. I would like to thank them both, along with my nieces Matilda and Poppy, for our experiments in orange-juice writing; if only historical research and childcare were always so compatible. Fletch, you got me through it and I thank you for more than I can possibly put down here.

Extraordinary women lie at the heart of this book, so it is fitting that it should be dedicated, with love and thanks, to my mother, Jane Childs, and my sister, Anna Richards.

Index

The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

Entries in
italics
indicate illustrations.

A.B. (spy) 110–11

Abbot, George (later Archbishop of Canterbury) 217, 251

Agnus Dei (‘lamb of God’) 5, 5
n
, 30, 52, 68, 194

Alba, Ferdinand de Toledo, Duke of 33

Albert, Archduke 357

Alfield, Thomas 101, 102

Allen, Gabriel 56

Allen, William xviii, 23, 25, 29, 52, 69, 70, 71–2, 90, 90
n
, 93, 94, 95, 102–3, 104
n
, 117, 134, 149, 162, 180, 212

Almond, John 174

altars 13, 13
n
, 15, 16, 16
n
, 18, 21, 45, 50, 101, 172, 172
n
, 173, 175, 176–7, 177
n
, 178, 259, 261, 326

Anjou, Francis, Duke of 54, 59

Apethorpe, Northamptonshire 61, 76, 77, 78

appellants, archpriest controversy and 149, 212
n
, 213, 213
n
, 238, 277, 335

Aquaviva, Claudio, S.J. (Jesuit General) xviii, 134, 137, 177
n
, 186, 192, 198–9, 206, 207, 219, 278, 292, 340

Arden, John 246–7, 249

Armada, Spanish, 1588 xix, 156–7, 158–65, 160
n
, 187, 218
n
, 273, 323, 346

Arundel, Anne Howard, Countess of 168, 218, 218
n
, 263

Arundel, Philip Howard, Earl of 105, 162, 218
n

Arundell, Charles 104–5, 104
n

Ashby St Ledgers, Northamptonshire 271

Ashley, Ralph 325, 326–7, 349

Babington Plot, 1586 xvii, 125–32, 135, 136, 162, 198, 246, 278, 309, 346

Babington, Anthony xvii, 112, 123–4, 126–32, 135–6, 250

Bacon, Francis 22
n

Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire 166–7, 166
n
, 282, 339
n
, 383–4

Bagshaw, Christopher:
A Sparing Discoverie of Our English Jesuits
, 1601 214

Baldwin, William, S.J. 218

Ballard, John 101, 102, 126, 127, 128–30, 131, 132

Bancroft, Richard, Bishop of London 118, 120
n
, 121

Barlow, Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln 364–5

Barnwell, Robert 128

Bates, Thomas 186, 283, 299, 300, 307, 323, 324, 329

Batty, Matthew 304, 305, 309

Bayarde (priest) 89

Baynham, Sir Edmund 292, 323, 335

Beale, Robert 109

Beaumont, Elizabeth,
née
Hastings (grandmother of Henry, Eleanor and Anne Vaux) 32, 43–5, 73–4, 155–6, 165

Beaumont, Francis 44, 156, 215, 216

Beaumont, Henry 165

Beaumont, Sir John 19–20, 20
n

Bellamy, Anne 181, 199, 201, 202

Benedict XVI, Pope 150
n
, 364

Bentley family of Little Oakley, Northamptonshire 101, 152, 306

Beza, Theodore 55

Blackwell, George, Archpriest 149, 213, 213
n
, 277–8, 358–9

‘bloody question’ 103

Blount, Richard, S.J. 172
n
, 348

Boleyn, Queen Anne 8, 10, 228

Bond of Association, 1584 106–7

Boucher, Mary 263–4

Boughton (manor on the Vaux estate) 359–60

Boughton House (Montagu seat near Kettering) 38, 75, 77–8, 80, 81, 89, 259, 321, 359

Braddocks Manor, Essex 207, 209–10

Briant, Alexander 70, 71, 115

Bridge,
alias
Gratley (spy) 105

Brinkley, Stephen 48–9, 50, 51, 66–7

Bromley, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor 83, 88

Bromley, Sir Henry 325, 327, 332

Brooksby, Bartholomew 277

Brooksby, Dorothy,
née
Wiseman 219, 293, 333

Brooksby, Edward (husband of Eleanor Brooksby) 40, 44, 48, 56, 66, 73, 91, 145, 214

Brooksby, Eleanor,
née
Vaux (daughter of William, 3rd Baron Vaux): ‘the widow’ xvii, 146, 147, 256, 279, 341; Garnet and xviii, 146, 147, 150, 152, 166, 186, 217–18, 253, 275, 287, 333, 340, 347; ‘very learned and in every way accomplished lady’ 3, 145; birth 20; Campion praises 26–7, 140, 145; commitment to Catholic cause 27, 145, 146, 147; dowry 32, 91, 214, 232; marriage 40, 44, 48, 66, 73, 91, 145
see also
Brooksby, Edward; children 40, 145, 182, 219, 284, 351, 355
see also
Brooksby, Mary
and
Brooksby, William; dedication to English mission 44, 145, 186; death of husband and 66, 73, 91, 145; Francis Hastings suggests searching house of 73–4; Campion confessions and 73–4; widow’s jointure 91, 153, 271; death of Henry Vaux and 139; adopts late aunt’s five-year-old daughter, Frances Burroughs 145, 151, 182–3, 185; ‘rather timid’ 145, 194, 216; Wilson praises in translation
The Widow’s Glass
145, 167, 356; Thomas Tresham considers the dominant Vaux sister 147; aliases 153–4, 186; measure of protection from authorities 154, 155; household 165, 166–73, 182–96, 197; role in sending Catholic children out of England 183–4; religious instruction of children in household 185; role in Anne Vaux’s lawsuit against Thomas Tresham 214, 215, 216
n
, 295; Catesby as kinsman of 271, 273; link to Gunpowder Plot 271, 273, 277, 282, 283, 284, 287, 293; return to Harrowden Hall, 1605 295; death 355

Brooksby, Jane,
née
Beaumont 44

Brooksby, Mary (daughter of Eleanor and Edward Brooksby) 40, 145, 165

Brooksby, Robert 44

Brooksby, William,
alias
Mr Jennings (son of Eleanor and Edward Brooksby) 40, 145, 165, 219, 284, 293, 301, 333, 351

Browne, Francis 67, 89, 102

Browne, Robert 104

Brudenell family of Deene 5, 38, 114, 114
n
, 119, 123
n

Brudenell Manuscript 5, 114, 119, 123
n

Burroughs, Frances (niece of William, 3rd Baron Vaux, adopted by Eleanor Brooksby) xvii, 145, 151, 152, 182–5, 190

Butcher, Joan 19

Bye Plot, 1603 96
n
, 277–8, 291, 318

Byrd, William 45, 136, 136
n
, 190, 288

Campion, Edmund, S.J.: tutor at Harrowden Hall xviii, 7, 26, 44, 45, 53, 61, 140, 145, 340; launches Jesuit mission in England with Robert Persons, 1580 xviii, 7, 8, 25, 53–61, 64, 340; aliases 7, 56, 86; at Oxford University 7, 8, 25, 26, 70–1; Vaux family shelter in Northamptonshire, 1580 7–8, 25, 60, 61, 64–5; letter to Henry Vaux from Oxford, 28th July, 1570 7–8, 24–7, 44–5; praise for Lord Vaux 7–8, 12, 25; Earl of Leicester and 8, 25; on Elizabeth Beaumont 20, 44–5; leaves England for Ireland, 1570 25, 26;
Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland
25; training in priesthood 25; ‘suffered himself to be ordained’ into the Anglican Church 25; converts to Catholicism 25–6; praises Henry Vaux’s sister (probably Eleanor) 26–7, 140, 145; ‘Brag’, 1580 43, 58–60, 61; Synod of Southwark and 56–7, 70, 86; insistence on absolute recusancy 56–61, 62; agitates for public debate 61, 69, 142;
Rationes Decem
67; arrest and imprisonment 67–8; interrogation and torture 68, 71–3, 78, 84–5, 88; trial and charges 69, 70, 72, 83–4; execution 70, 71, 78, 346; relics of 71, 112, 115; confessions 73–4, 78, 83–4, 86, 88; Vaux and Tresham questioned on connection to 73–4, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85–6, 88, 99, 273; Weston alias as tribute to 109
n

Carrington, Anthony 64, 80, 162

Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa de 174, 265, 287–8, 316
n
, 327, 328, 334, 341, 342–3, 350, 351, 352, 353, 357