God's Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot
by Alice Hogge
This book was recommended multiple times by a friend of mine (Sally Thomas) so I was thrilled when I was offered a copy on PaperBackSwap.com (not an affiliate link).
How could you tell apart the man who behaved like a secret agent and was a secret agent, from the man who behaved like a secret agent, but was a man of God (even if you, yourself, had forced that mode of behaviour upon him by your laws)? (p. 296)
The answer, according to God's Secret Agents, is not very well.
This book thoroughly explores the context and conditions of the Catholic priests of the English Reformation. The extensive research reveals thoughts and declared intentions of Catholics in England, government officials, Queen Elizabeth, and the priests caught between them all. It's an invaluable book for anyone interested in the Catholic Reformation, and an excellent background for books like Edmund Campion by Evelyn Waugh. The Gunpowder Plot is actually only a small part of the book, though as an American Catholic, I found those chapters as enlightening as the rest.
One of the interesting things I have noticed about English history and literature is how often being Catholic is just unacceptable to proper Englishmen. For example, Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples seems to frown worriedly at any Catholic he mentions. According to Ms. Hogge, it began centuries ago, as a Catholic invasion from Spain was thwarted on their very shores.
What remained unclear, though, was how many of their countrymen would still be prepared to welcome them in, now that Catholicism had been linked so strongly with un-Englishness in the public consciousness. For if to be Catholic was to be an unnatural Englishman, then to draw attention to that unnaturalness in the weeks and months following the Spanish Armada was tantamount to signing your own death warrant. (p. 98)
Late in the book, she argues such bias continues today. She recounts how newspapers published a flurry of worrying articles when the Prime Minister was spotted in a Catholic cathedral in 1998.
It was as though the voices of long dead Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian MPs, churchmen, and pamphleteers had suddenly crackled into life again and centuries on were venting their old bias. (p. 391)
The author did a magnificent job presenting all sides of the issues arising in the course of the book. The martyrs are heroic in their service to their countrymen, the politicians are often simply trying to make peace and smooth things over, and the pope doesn't always ease the situation.
Pope Pius V, responsible for excommunicating Elizabeth in 1570, and releasing her subjects from their allegiance to her. This act, more than any other single event, defined the English Catholic dilemma of divided loyalty. (second photo insert)
It was a time when men and women of much and little learning were working out their salvation amidst uncertainty, mortal and immortal, with wise and trusted individuals often disagreeing about not just the proper response to questions, but the relative importance of the questions themselves. It is a reminder not just of the danger of easily vilifying (or idealizing) people of the past, but of the present as well.
St. Nicholas Owen was one of the most fascinating people in the book. A brilliant carpenter and devoted Catholic, he designed and crafted priest holes all over England. Eventually, he was captured and martyred under torture, apparently without divulging any of his secrets.
In life he had saved them, in death he would too: not a single name escaped him. (p. 365)
I love his example of humble craftsmanship in service to God, and he's now one of my new favorite saints. (Coincidentally, an artist recently recommended in the Mater Amabilis Facebook group, offers a lovely icon of him with St. Joseph.)
There are graphic depictions of torture and gruesome deaths, not for the faith of heart, though many of these public executions led to conversions of heart also described in the book.
I do wish there had been some sort of a list of people in the back of the book to reference. Many men appear and reappear in the pages, sometimes with different names (those English have a distressing habit of becoming Lords or something and getting a new name). If I had known how very many there were, I would have made my own list as I read.
I wouldn't assign this book to a high school student, but only because it's rather long. You would have to dedicate a substantial amount of time to the English Reformation to justify it. I will definitely include it on a list of recommended reading for an interested student.
I have received nothing in exchange for this post. I received this book from PaperBackSwap.com (not an affiliate link). Links to Bookshop are affiliate links.
