God’s Traitors

God’s Traitors

Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England

Summary

*Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize*
*Longlisted for The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction*
*A Sunday Times Book of the Year*
*A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year*
*A Times Book of the Year*
*An Observer Book of the Year*

A woman awakes in a prison cell.

She has been on the run but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London - where she is interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot.

The woman is Anne Vaux - one of the ardent, brave and exasperating members of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

Through the eyes of this remarkable family, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England - an age in which their faith was criminalised and almost two hundred Catholics were executed.

From dawn raids to daring escapes, stately homes to torture chambers, God's Traitors exposes the tensions masked by the cult of Gloriana - and is a timely reminder of the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

Reviews

  • A triumph of story-telling, backed by first-rate research
    Antonia Fraser

About the author

Jessie Childs

Jessie Childs is the award-winning author of God's Traitors (PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History) and Henry VIII's Last Victim (Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography). She has written and reviewed for many papers, including the Sunday Times, Guardian and London Review of Books, and is an editorial adviser of History Today. Her TV contributions include the BAFTA-nominated Elizabeth I's Secret Agents (BBC 2 & PBS) and two BBC series on Charles I.
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