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God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England 1st Edition

by Jessie Childs (Author)

4.1 210 ratings

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For many Catholics, the Elizabethan "Golden Age" was an alien concept. Following the criminalization of their religion by Elizabeth I, nearly two hundred Catholics were executed, and many more wasted away in prison during her reign. Torture was used more than at any other time in England's history. While some bowed to the pressure of the government and new church, publicly conforming to acts of Protestant worship, others did not - and quickly found themselves living in a state of siege. Under constant surveillance, haunted by the threat of imprisonment - or worse - the ordinary lives of these so-called recusants became marked by evasion, subterfuge, and constant fear.

In God's Traitors, Jessie Childs tells the fascinating story of one Catholic family, the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall, from the foundation of the Church of England in the 1530s to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and their struggle to keep the faith in Protestant England. Few Elizabethans would have disputed that obedience was a Christian duty, but following the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth by Pope Pius V in 1570 and the growing anti-Catholic sentiment in the decades that followed, it became increasingly difficult for English Catholics to maintain a dual allegiance to their God and their Queen. Childs follows the Vauxes into the heart of the underground Catholic movement, exploring the conflicts of loyalty they faced and the means by which they exerted defiance. Tracing the family's path from staunch loyalty to the Crown, to passive resistance and on to increasing activism, Childs illustrates the pressures and painful choices that confronted the persecuted Catholic community. Though recusants like the Vauxes comprised only a tiny fraction of the Catholic minority in England, they aroused fears in the heart of the commonwealth. Childs shows how "anti-popery" became an ideology and a cultural force, shaping not only the life and policy of Elizabeth I, but also those of her successors.

From clandestine chapels and side-street inns to exile communities and the corridors of power, God's Traitors exposes the tensions and insecurities that plagued Catholics living under the rule of Elizabeth I. Above all, it is a timely story of courage and concession, repression and reaction, and the often terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

ISBN-10

0199392358
ISBN-13

978-0199392353
Edition

1st
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

September 1, 2014
Language

English
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches
Print length

472 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[B]rilliant..."--Wall Street Journal

"This vivid richly packed, absorbing book presents the human truth of all these momentous events. Apart from anything else, it is a parade of extraordinary characters and a banquet of Elizabeth and Jacobean prose. As you read, you marvel."--Simon Callow, The Guardian (Book of the Week)

"A tale of spies and skulduggery, of casuistry and unshakable belief, of torture, martyrdom, and the ferocious collision and confusion of politics and religion. God's Traitors is scholarly, absorbing, even-handed and relevant."--Ben MacIntyre , The Times (Book of the Week)

"A superb account of cloak-and-dagger religious intrigue in Tudor England. God's Traitors describes a John le Carré-like world of political double-dealing and 'spiery' as a mainstream history it is little short of a triumph."--Ian Thomson, Financial Times

"[An] excellent new book...Ms. Childs has written an engaging history of English papists, filled with memorable episodes."--The Economist

"In considering the fundamentalisms of today, it's as well not to forget our own gruesome and intolerant past, and Childs has employed her impressive research skills and storytelling verve to bring that past vividly to life."--Daily Telegraph

"This vivid, minutely researched and brilliantly original history is a much-needed look at the dark side of the Elizabethan age."--Sunday Times

"God's Traitors is both a dramatic and thrilling story of fear, faith, courage, and deceit and an important exposé of the terror of life as a Catholic in Elizabethan England."--The New Statesman

"Truly excellent....Jessie Childs tells an exciting story....[H]er research is really very thorough God's Traitors crosses the divide between popular and academic history. It raises issues of some real historical importance, not least of how much archival material, more often glimpsed than analysed, might still be out there which has things to tell us about the period but which is often excluded from mainstream versions of it."--Professor Michael Questier, The Spectator

"[T]his is a fine book: extraordinarily learned, exciting (most of the time), and beautifully written....And what a story it tells: plots and counterplots, assassinations and Armadas, horrendous torture and unspeakably gruesome executions, stinking prisons, secret messages written in orange juice (invisible until heated), spies and traitors and clandestine printing presses. Hollywood could not have made it up."--J.J. Scarisbrick, The Weekly Standard

"A triumph of storytelling, backed by first-rate research."--Antonia Fraser

"A riveting account of resistance in an age of intolerance, God's Traitors brings alive the story of the men and remarkable women of a defiant family."--Leanda de Lisle, author of Tudor: The Family Story

"Jessie Childs brings to us, with vivid storytelling and in-depth scholarship, the heroic witness to Catholic faith in a time of persecution."--Kenneth J. Zanca, The Catholic Historical Review

Book Description

A gripping account of religious conflict in Elizabethan England seen through the eyes of a single Catholic family

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 472 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199392358
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199392353
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.86 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #532,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #744 in England History
- #13,217 in World History (Books)
- #17,181 in Unknown

Customer Reviews:
4.1 210 ratings

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Jessie Childs

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Jessie Childs is an award-winning author and historian. Her first book Henry VIII’s Last Victim won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, and her second, God’s Traitors, won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History in 2015. It was also longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and selected as a Book of the Year in the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Observer and BBC History Magazine.

Jessie’s latest book The Siege of Loyalty House tells the story of the heroic resistance of a royalist mansion in the English Civil War. It is getting rave reviews and has been hailed by Simon Schama as ‘extraordinary, thrilling, immersive… at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power’.

Jessie frequently appears on radio (Front Row, Start the Week etc.) and TV, including the RTS Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated Elizabeth I’s Secret Agents (BBC 2 & PBS), and BBC Four’s two recent series on Charles I: Downfall of a King and Killing a King.

She has written and reviewed for many publications, including The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Financial Times, Literary Review, TLS and LRB. She was one of the judges of the 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman History Prize and the 2021 HWA Non-Fiction Crown, and is on the editorial advisory board of History Today.

She lives with her husband and two daughters in Hammersmith, not far from a brewery, a distillery and the River Thames.

Website: www.jessiechilds.co.uk

Twitter: @childs_jessie

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

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testtesttest

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024

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I highly recommend this book as a well written account of the Recusancy in 16th Century England. It was a very engrossing book.

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2014

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Narrowly focused on one family and issues of religion, this book nevertheless provides many more general insights into sixteenth century social history.

5 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

One of the best books on this topic I have ever read

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2016

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Religious turmoil was ubiquitous in sixteenth century England. In fact, the entire continent of Europe was a roiling cauldron of ecumenical and dogmatic crazy-sauce. The question of who had the “correct” form of Christianity – the Catholics or the Protestants – was so controversial and important that people were burned to death over their answer, and chose to be martyred in such a painful fashion rather than recant. Even death itself could not excuse you from choosing sides, inasmuch as corpses were exhumed and burned as traitors or exhumed and given monuments.

All in all, it was a difficult time to be devout, and this is one of the best books encapsulating the troubles that I’ve ever read. I was impressed beyond the telling with Childs’s writing, her in-depth research, and her ability to use the microcosm of a family to reflect and explain the macrocosm of history. The book manages to be both sympathetic to the plight of the Catholic populace, encouraging you to genuinely empathize with the choices the Vauxes made, and yet also frame the topic by the harsh realities of governing a state that has rebellion constantly fomenting within a particular segment of society, rendering Elizabeth's choices comprehensible within the context of their time and place. If you really want to understand one of the main driving forces between sociopolitical action and reaction in Elizabethan England (and incidentally why there are still bonfires on November 5th) then I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

9 people found this helpful

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hank hassell

I simply cannot recommend this book too highly

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2017

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Jessie Childs has produced a masterpiece of historical writing focusing on a period of English history which has too long been minimized and ignored. Rather than provide a chronological history, Ms. Childs rather chose to focus on the efforts of one family in this epic struggle between Church and state, the Vauxes and their near relations in the English midlands.The particular focus is on the the female members of the family, who provided vital logistical, financial, and moral support to the English Catholic mission in its quest to keep alive the flickering flame of Catholicism in an age of bloody persecution and outright terror. Upon finishing Ms. Childs' narrative one feels in intimate terms with this heroic family and acquires a deep and abiding respect for the sacrifices all of them made for the sake of the ancient faith. This is a worthy companion to Alice Hooge's "God's Secret Agents," which covers the same historical period only with a more orthodox historical treatment. Reading both together gives on a thorough understanding of what was at stake in this titanic struggle between state-sponsored terror and faith and what commitment to God and Church meant in an age when established verities of life and faith were suddenly turned upside down. I simply cannot recommend this book too highly.

6 people found this helpful

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Shaun Dally Underhill

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2015

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Historically well researched.

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2019

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Excellent book, well researched and compelling. I learned so much about Catholicism and Elizabethan England.

One person found this helpful

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Bookworm Pat

I hadn't known what "recusant" meant until I read their story and didn't realize how great a penalty the family and others like

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2016

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I might be prejudiced as I found the Vaux family among my ancestors. I bought the book after thinking their surname was familiar. I hadn't known what "recusant" meant until I read their story and didn't realize how great a penalty the family and others like them suffered but they never faltered in keeping their faith.

2 people found this helpful

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Henry Averette

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2014

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A little too detailed, more for the proffessors

One person found this helpful

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creamblay1

Excellent book

Reviewed in France on April 27, 2021

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The history of recusancy through the Vaux family, a family of Recusant. Extremly interesting, well researched.

Hans-Joachim Ringelstetter

Das Leben von Katholiken nach der Reformation in England zur Zeit von Elizabeth I

Reviewed in Germany on June 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England
Am Beispiel einer katholischen Familie werden die Möglichkeiten und Restriktionen für Katholiken im reformierten England gezeigt. Insbesondere die Auswirkungen der Eingriffe äußerer Mächte, wie des Papstes, werden veranschlaulicht.

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Mrs. Doreen Agutter

A book you should read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2014

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After buying and reading Jesie Childs' excellent first book at Christmas 2006, I looked forward hopefully to her next publication. Imagine my pleasure when reading the 'Times' on 1st March to find an article on 'God's Traitors', her latest work, the perfect gift for my 40th wedding anniversary.You may ask why acquire another book on a well-trodden path: the background and events leading to the Gunpwder Plot. Superficially I might have thought that myself for I already own no less than six detailed accounts of the Plot not to mention a wide range of material on the religious history of the period, collected over 50 years, from standard works to specialist volumes of local and Roman Catholic history. So why might I advocate Ms Childs' contribution to the story?
She has chosen to put centre stage one significant Northamptonshire family: the Vaux of Harrowden near Wellingborough( adding a thoughtful note on its pronunciation) and its personal connections. In an age when the State dominated all actions, this family was divied from many others by its religious beliefs as adherents of the forbidden Roman Catholic Church. In vain would members stress this did not make them traitors to Queen and country, but did it? We are asked to reflect on how they might have reacted if the Spanish Armada had successfully invaded our shores or the terrorist Gunpowdrer Plotters' scheme come to fruition.
In addition it has a strong feminist angle for the principal personalities linking the narrative are three ladies: the Vaux sisters, Eleanor and Anne and their sister in law Eliza and this in a patriarchal age though widows like Eleanor( Brooksby) and Eliza ( Vaux) and spinsters like Anne Vaux did have far more autonomy than their married counterparts, Their self- imposed task was supporting the mainly Jesuit priesthood who in turn were charged with strengthening and developing the Catholic Faith in England where it was dwindling as, 'old Massing priets' from pre Reformation days, died. In following many family exploits, we learn of its loyalty, its and the priests' astonishing courage in the face of terrible punishments: torture and death; how they financed the 'Mission' and a miscellany of social history from bearing children annually to the normality of dying in your 20s; the tensions of hiding in specially designed priests' holes or escaping through a rear door and happy times too; celebrating Mass in a beautiful garden probably to the music of William Byrd.
Why do I consider my evaluation has any significance? Why should my opinions count? As a graduate historian of long standing who has spent many years studying and teaching this period, I can set this volume's content against other works but I also have one special qualification not given to many I suspect. Part of my ancestry lies in a recusant, gentry family also from Vaux' county. So many characters that go to make up this story are well- known to me through personal exploration. Here are some relatives, some friends who come alive in her account. I can vouch for its special resonance.

25 people found this helpful

Venyhamin

Highly engaging historical narrative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2014

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God’s Traitors’ by Jessie Childs tells the story of Catholic recusancy in the Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods through the prism of the Vaux family. Ever since the break from Rome during Henry VIII’s reign Catholics were faced with swearing a dual loyalty to their monarch and the Pope with many unable to swear the former. The execution of Protestants during the country’s brief swing back to Catholicism under Mary I did not help their cause under the long reign of Elizabeth I. During that time and following Elizabeth’s excommunication by the Pope Catholics also faced ever increasing hefty fines and punishments for refusing to attend Anglican services. The beginnings of the Jesuit mission and various abortive plots meant that Catholics came under immense pressure to conform and anyone found to be harbouring priests in the ingeniously devised Nicholas Owen hides could expect severe penalties including the ultimate sanction.

How complicit the leader of the Jesuit mission, Henry Garnet, was in the Gunpowder Plot will probably never be fully known but Childs makes a good case for him to be aware of it if somewhat naive in his equivocation although he was bound by the confessional. Childs has written a highly intelligent and readable historical narrative that gives a real flavour of how it must have felt to be living in those times. It was an age when tolerance was an anathema to the authorities as there could only be one true religion. Discovery and disclosure was an ever present danger with people prepared to go to extremes in order to protect their threatened religion. In her epilogue Childs without overstating the case makes the allusion to how religion and politics are still mixed up with fundamentalism, persecution, martyrdom and fanaticism and how plots and conspiracies still abound. After the Gunpowder Plot was discovered Robert Wintour told Guy Fawkes about a dream that tormented him of a “scarred city with steeples blown ‘awry’ and charred, disfigured faces.”

7 people found this helpful

BN

Fascinating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2023

Verified Purchase

Great book, loved the in-depth look at this period of history

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