Worth reading

God's Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England - Jessie Childs

 

Disclaimer: ARC read via Netgalley.

 

                Let’s get it out there.  What’s not to like about a book with a chapter entitled Hot Holy Ladies?

                Right?

                God’s Traitors covers much of the same ground that God’s Secret Agents did - the activities in Tudor and Early Stuart England of Catholic spies, worshippers, and rebels.  Traitors is different from Agents in that it ties the famous people like Campion to a family – the Vaux.  Particularly interesting in this family are the women who seemed far more involved in the movement.  This includes three daughters, one of whom eloped.

  

              Childs’ use of a family to help to illustrate a larger history is particularly apt. 

The Vaux family was a Catholic family who responded to the demands made upon in a variety of different ways.  This including one girl running off with a man who works for her uncle.

 

                Yep. 

 

                Childs covers the movement from its infant beginnings under Edward and culminates in the Gunpowder Plot.  At times, when the family takes a backseat to the national plots, the history drags, just a little, and at all times, for instance with the Gunpowder Plot, more background, at least for some readers, would be helpful.  It helped, for instance, that I had about the Gunpowder Plot prior to reading this book.  Childs’ book isn’t a generalized history but more specific.  Having some knowledge of the time period would undoubtedly help when reading the book.

 

                The second problem is that like God’s Secret Agents, it almost feels like the book is longer than it has to be.  The use of a family’s personal history and in fighting between members does somewhat solve this problem, but not entirely.  It is not surprising that the place of the book picks up as the women begin to take more central stage.

 

                Yet, if you are interested in the time period or the issue, this is a good book to read.