God’s Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Jessie Childs

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  List of Illustrations

  Map

  Family Tree

  Principal Characters

  Introduction

  Prelude: The Calm before Campion

  PART ONE

  William and Henry

  1The Enterprise is Begun

  2To be a Perfect Catholic

  3Lying Lips

  4Worldly Woes

  5Refuse of the World

  6Flibbertigibbets

  7Atheistical Anthony Babington’s Complotment

  8Lambs to the Slaughter

  PART TWO

  Eleanor and Anne

  9The Widow and the Virgin

  10Fright and Rumour

  11Mrs Brooksby’s Household

  12Virgo Becomes Virago

  13Hurly Burly

  14Hot Holy Ladies

  PART THREE

  Eliza

  15Brazen-faced Bravados

  16Assy Reprobateness

  17Long John with the Little Beard

  18St Peter’s Net

  PART FOUR

  Powder Treason

  19This Stinking King

  20Desperate Attempts

  21Quips and Quiddities

  22Strange and Unlooked for Letters

  23In the Hole

  24Two Ghosts

  25That Woman

  26Yours Forever

  Epilogue

  Plate Section

  Abbreviations

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The year is 1606. A woman awakes in a prison cell. She has been on the run, changing her lodging every few days but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London. She is placed in solitary confinement and interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot. The woman is Anne Vaux – one of several ardent, extraordinary, brave and, at times, utterly exasperating members of the Vaux family.

  In this superb history, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. Elizabeth I criminalised Catholicism in England: for refusing to attend Protestant services her subjects faced crippling fines and imprisonment; for giving refuge to outlawed priests they risked death. Almost two hundred Catholics were executed in Elizabeth’s reign. Ordered by the Pope to resist the Queen and by the Queen to renounce the Pope, they faced an agonising conflict of loyalty. In an age of assassination and Armada, Catholics, like the Vauxes, who chose faith were increasingly seen as the enemy within.

  God’s Traitors is a tale of dawn raids and daring escapes, stately homes and torture chambers, ciphers, secrets and lies. From clandestine chapels and side-street inns to exile communities and the corridors of power, it exposes the tensions and insecurities masked by the cult of Gloriana. Above all, it is a timely story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

  About the Author

  Jessie Childs won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography with her first book Henry VIII’s Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. She has written and reviewed for several newspapers and magazines, including the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Literary Review. She took a First in History from the University of Oxford and lives in London with her husband and two daughters. This is her second book.

  www.jessiechilds.com

  @childs_jessie

  ALSO BY JESSIE CHILDS

  Henry VIII’s Last Victim:

  The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

  God’s Traitors

  Terror and Faith in Elizabethan

  England

  JESSIE CHILDS

  To my mother and sister

  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends, or of thine own were; Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

  John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

  17 Meditation, sig. T4

  Author’s Note

  Two calendars were in use in this period: the Gregorian (or New Style) and the Julian (or Old Style). In 1582, Spain, Italy and France adopted the former, which put them ten days ahead of Protestant England, which kept the latter until 1752. Unless otherwise stated, I give Old Style dates, but take the year to begin on 1 January, instead of Lady Day (25 March), which was also retained in England until the eighteenth century.

  In this pre-decimal period, a shilling was twelve pence and a pound was twenty shillings. The mark was worth two-thirds of a pound and there were six Dutch florins to one pound sterling.

  The letters ‘S.J.’ after a name denote a member of the Society of Jesus.

  Spelling and punctuation have, for the most part, been modernised.

  List of Illustrations

  Main Text

  Elizabeth I, Armada Portrait, 1588, attr. to George Gower. Bedfordshire, Woburn Abbey © akg-images

  Map of Tower of London © Historical Royal Palaces

  Anne Vaux’s signature © The National Archives, ref. SP 14/216/201

  Plate Section 1

  1. Thomas, second Lord Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

  2. Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, by Hans Holbein, Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

  3. Harrowden Hall, courtesy of Wellingborough Golf Club

  4. William, third Lord Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (1548–1616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / The Bridgeman Art Library

  5. Mary, Lady Vaux, 1575 (oil on panel), by Cornelis Ketel (1548–1616) (circle of) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images / The Bridgeman Art Library

  6. The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1572. Painting by François Dubois © akg-images / Erich Lessing

  7. Woodcut from The Fierie Tryall of Gods Saints © British Library Board (1019.i.18.(2.))

  8. ‘Certaine of the Popes Merchandize latly sent over into Englande’, print issued in A New Years Gifte, dedicated to the Popes Holiness (London, 1579) © British Library Board (3932.dd.15)

  9. Giovanni Battista de Cavalleriis: Pope Gregory XIII ‘commends his alumni to Christ’, from Ecclesia Anglicanae Trophaea (Rome, 1584), P.2.33(2) plate 31. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library

  10. Edmund Campion, S.J. Engraving from A Particular Declaration or Testimony of the Undutifull and Traiterous Affection Borne Against her Maiestie by Edmond Campion Jesuite, and Other Condemned Priestes (London, 1582) © Jesuit Institute

  11. Campion on the rack. Engraving after a lost fresco by Niccoló Circignani commissioned by George Gilbert for the English College in Rome, from Ecclesia Anglicanae Trophaea (Rome, 1584), P.2.33(2) plate 36. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library

  12. Campion’s Rope © Jesuit Institute

  13. The pressing to death of Margaret Clitherow, 25 March 1586, from Richard Verstegan, Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum Nostri Tempor
is (Antwerp 1587) © The British Library Board. G.11732

  14. Mary Queen of Scots’ cipher endorsed by Anthony Babington © The National Archives, ref. SP 12/193/54

  15. Aerial view of The Triangular Lodge at Rushton, Northamptonshire © www.skyscan.co.uk

  16. Aerial view of Lyveden New Bield, Northamptonshire © National Trust Images/Paul Wakefield

  17. Popish Plots and Treasons from the Beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Illustrated with Emblems and Explained in Verse, engraved by Cornelis Danckerts (c.1603–56) (engraving) (b&w photo), English School, (17th century) / Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

  Plate Section 2

  18. Elizabeth 1, Armanda Portrait, 1588, attr. to George Gower. Bedfordshire, Woburn Abbey © akg-images

  19. Philip II of Spain, artist unknown © National Portrait Gallery, London

  20. Portrait of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–98) Lord High Treasurer (oil on panel), by or after Arnold von Brounckhorst (c.1560–70) / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library

  21. Portrait of Sir Robert Cecil (1563–1612) 1st Viscount Cranborne and 1st Earl of Salisbury (oil on panel), studio of John de Critz (c.1555–c.1641) / Private Collection / Photo © Bonhams, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library

  22. Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, author’s photo, courtesy of English Heritage

  23. The manacles, English 17th century (XVI.15) © Royal Armouries

  24. The Family Range, or West side, seen across the moat at Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire © National Trust Images/Robert Morris

  25. Harvington Hall, Swinging Beam Hide, Dr Dodds Library, 2004, Kidderminster © The Francis Frith Collection

  26. Pedlar’s chest © by permission of the Governors of Stonyhurst College

  27. A scene from The Painted Life of Mary Ward, panel 9 © Congregatio Jesu MEP – Zentrum Maria Ward

  28. The Wintour White Chasuble, by permission of the British Jesuit Province

  29. The thumb of Robert Sutton, from Forgotten Shrines: An Account of Some Old Catholic Halls and Families in England and of Relics and Memorials of the English Martyrs, by Domm Bede Camm (London, MacDonald & Evans, 1910)

  30. Engraving of the gunpowder plotters by Crispijn va de Passe the Elder, 1606 © National Portrait Gallery, London

  31. ‘Portrait of Sir Everard Digby’, Thomas Athow, WA.C.IV.I.18.8 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

  32. St Winifred’s Well, Holywell, Flintshire, from John Gerard, The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, trans. P. Caraman (Longmans, 1951), wherein reproduced by permission of the Rector of Hawarden

  33. Coughton Court © National Trust, photograph by Claire Blackburn

  34. Henry Garnet, S.J., by Jan Wiericx © 2010 Getty Images

  35. Anne Vaux’s orange-juice letter to Henry Garnet in the Tower © The National Archives, ref. SP 14/216/244

  36. Henry Garnet’s last letter to Anne Vaux, 21 April 1606 © The National Archives, ref. SP 14/20, f.91

  Principal Characters

  Members of the Vaux Family

  William, 3rd Baron Vaux of Harrowden – the gentle patriarch. Father of:

  Henry Vaux – precocious child poet and Catholic underground operative, heir to the barony but ‘resolutely settled not to wife’

  Eleanor Brooksby – ‘the widow’

  Anne Vaux (alias Mistress Perkins) – ‘the virgin’

  Frances Burroughs – sprightly niece of Lord Vaux, adopted by Eleanor Brooksby upon the death of her mother

  Mary, Lady Vaux (née Tresham) – William’s second wife. Mother of:

  Ambrose Vaux – the black sheep

  Merill Vaux – youngest daughter of Lord Vaux, elopes with her uncle’s servant

  George Vaux – forfeits his right to the Vaux inheritance when he engages in a ‘brainless match’ with:

  Eliza Vaux (née Roper) – daughter of John Roper of Lynsted, Kent; possessor of ‘irresistible feminish passions’. Children include:

  Edward and Henry – the 4th and 5th Barons Vaux of Harrowden

  Kinsmen and Friends

  Anthony Babington – Vaux associate, conspires to assassinate Queen Elizabeth in 1586

  Robert Catesby – Vaux cousin and leader of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot

  Sir Everard Digby – glamorous Catholic convert, late recruit to the Gunpowder Plot

  Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall – brother-in-law of Lord Vaux, recusant spokesman, father of a gunpowder plotter, architect, theologian, serial litigant

  Priests

  William Allen – founder of the Douai/Rheims seminary and unofficial leader of the English Catholics in exile, supports the invasion of England by the powers of Catholic Europe

  Claudio Aquaviva, S.J. – Jesuit Superior General, based in Rome

  Edmund Campion, S.J. – former schoolmaster at Harrowden Hall, launches the Jesuit mission in England with Robert Persons

  Henry Garnet, S.J. – Jesuit Superior in England between 1586 and 1606; harboured by Anne Vaux and Eleanor Brooksby

  John Gerard, S.J. – ‘Long John with the little beard’, swashbuckling missionary harboured by Eliza Vaux

  Edward Oldcorne, S.J. – chaplain at Hindlip, Worcestershire

  Robert Persons, S.J. – first Jesuit missionary, later an exile agitating for a Catholic invasion of England

  Robert Southwell, S.J. – poet and polemicist, runs the London end of the mission, harboured by the Vauxes

  Oswald Tesimond, S.J. – confessor to several gunpowder plotters including the ringleader, Robert Catesby

  Heads of State and Foreign Dignitaries

  Elizabeth I – Queen of England and Ireland, ‘Defender of the Faith’, daughter of Henry VIII

  Guise, Henri, Duke of – cousin of Mary Queen of Scots, founder of the French Catholic League, keen to dethrone Elizabeth I, assassinated in 1588

  James VI and I – King of Scotland and (from March 1603) King of England and Ireland, Protestant son of:

  Mary Queen of Scots – great-niece of Henry VIII, Catholic pretender to Elizabeth’s throne

  Bernardino de Mendoza – Spanish ambassador in London, 1578–84

  Philip II – King of Spain, widower of ‘Bloody’ Mary Tudor, imperialist for whom ‘the world is not enough’, sends the Great Armada against England in 1588

  Pope Pius V (1566–72) – excommunicates Queen Elizabeth in February 1570; ‘Impious Pius’ according to English Protestants

  Pope Gregory XIII (1572–85) – founder of the Gregorian calendar, supporter of various plots against Queen Elizabeth, sends the Jesuits to England in 1580

  Pope Sixtus V (1585–90) – endorses the 1588 Armada

  Government Officials

  Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley – Lord Treasurer, Elizabeth’s chief minister and ‘spirit’. Father of:

  Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury – Secretary of State to Elizabeth and James

  Sir Edward Coke – Attorney General, leads the prosecution in the Gunpowder Plot trials

  Sir Walter Mildmay – Chancellor of the Exchequer, Vaux neighbour, no friend to the ‘stiff-necked Papist’

  Sir Francis Walsingham – Elizabeth’s Secretary and spymaster

  Richard Topcliffe – priest-catcher, torturer, lecher

  Richard Young – chief London justice, in charge of the raid on the Vaux house in Hackney in November 1586

  Others

  Maliverey Catilyn – government spy known as ‘II’

  Richard Fulwood – smuggler

  John Lillie – lay assistant to the missionary priests

  Nicholas Owen – ‘Little John’, builder of priest-holes

  Thomas Phelippes – Walsingham’s decipherer and forger

  Sara Williams – Lady Vaux’s teenaged maid, exorcised by the priests at Hackney in 1586, later Sara Cheney

  Introduction

  Four months after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Anne Vaux awoke in a prison cell. She had been on the run, changing her l
odging every two to three days. Her confessor had hoped that she would have ‘kept herself out of their fingers’, but the authorities had tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London. She was placed in solitary confinement and interrogated.

  There were three chief lines of enquiry, all concerning Anne’s fraternisation with known, or suspected, conspirators.1 The first focused on White Webbs, a house she kept in Enfield Chase. It had been used by her cousin, the plot’s ringleader, ‘Robin’ Catesby, as a rendezvous. One official called it ‘a nest for such bad birds’.

  Who had been paying for the house’s upkeep? Anne’s interrogators demanded.

  Who had visited?

  When?

  What had they talked about?

  Where else had she stayed and with whom?

  Anne was pressed about the pilgrimage she had recently undertaken with several of the conspirators and their families to St Winifred’s Well in Wales.

  When did she go?

  With whom?

  What had been the purpose of the trip and where had they lodged?

  Had she seen or heard anything to make her suspicious?

  And what had some of the wives meant when they had asked her where she would bestow herself ‘till the brunt were past, that is till the beginning of the Parliament’?

  Finally, Anne was asked about Garnet: Father Henry Garnet alias Measy, alias Walley, alias Darcy, alias Farmer, alias Roberts, alias Philips: the superior of the Society of Jesus in England.

  What advice had she heard him give the traitors?

  Why, after he had been proclaimed a ‘practiser’ in the plot on 15 January 1606, had she helped him evade arrest?

  Why, after his capture twelve days later, had she followed him to London and sent him secret letters etched in orange juice?

  And what was the nature of their relationship? Was she his sister? Benefactor? Confederate? … Lover?

  Anne’s nerve had been tested many times. She had faced down spies in her household, slurs against her name and raids on her home. She was well lessoned in the art of equivocation and had heard enough prison tales to have some expectation of her treatment. But nothing could prepare her for the indignity of incarceration, nor the odium concentrated upon those Catholics suspected of involvement in the plot to annihilate King James I, his family and the political and spiritual elite of the realm.