Description

*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.

Publisher Review

A triumph of story-telling, backed by first-rate research -- Antonia Fraser Absorbing, exciting and relevant -- Ben MacIntyre * The Times Book of the Week * Richly packed, absorbing... A parade of extraordinary characters -- Simon Callow * Guardian * Thrilling * New Statesman * God's Traitors, with its crisp prose and punctilious scholarship, brilliantly recreates a world of heroism and holiness in Tudor England... It is little short of a triumph -- Ian Thomson * Financial Times * Beautifully written... Hollywood could not have made it up -- Professor JJ Scarisbrick Brilliant * Wall Street Journal * Truly excellent... God's Traitors crosses the divide between popular and academic history. It raises issues of some real historical importance -- Michael Questier * Spectator * This vivid, minutely researched and brilliantly original history is a much-needed look at the dark side of the Elizabethan age -- Dan Jones * Sunday Times * Excellent... An engaging history of English papists, filled with memorable episodes * The Economist * In the quality of her research and sensitive handling of issues that remain raw to this day, Jessie Childs succeeds in evoking 'the lived experience of anti-Catholicism' as few have done before... Childs's language is lively and inventive... By picturing Elizabethan recusants in all their complexity, Jessie Childs has enabled them to speak for themselves at last -- John Cooper * Literary Review * Superb and groundbreaking... It isn't possible in the space of a review to do justice to the breadth and depth of Childs' research and insight; but they illuminate the entire landscape of English life...a superlative, flawlessly written book... Childs' description of an exorcism at Lord Vaux's house in Hackney...is one of the most extraordinary things I have ever read -- Matthew Lyons, author of The Favourite Plots and priest holes abound -- Caroline Sanderson * Bookseller * Childs is a lucid, passionate writer and she gets under the skin of her subject... It's not often that history books get the balance of expert research and storytelling with chutzpah just right but Childs has managed it with this informative and entertaining book -- Doug Johnstone * Big Issue * [A] moving historical account... Childs paints a vivid, sometimes even humorous picture of devout Catholics keeping up appearances -- Daisy Dunn * Daily Mail *