God's Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot

"God's Secret Agents" is an interesting narrative covering Catholic priests in Elizabethan England. Alice Hogge draws an excellent portrait of a number of the leading Catholic figures in England during that period and provides a solid description of their lives, deaths and motivation. It's a complex story and to Hogge's credit she is able to provide a clear, if dry, narrative. Two caveats. Anyone looking for a rousing take on the Gunpowder Plot will have to look elsewhere. While the book provides a good background to the Fifth of November, the title is somewhat misleading. The other problem with the book is Hogge tries too hard to compare Catholics in England during the time of Elizabeth I and James I to Muslims in the West today especially with the specter of religiously motivated violence. It's tough to buy her line of thinking (Catholicism was more firmly established in England for centuries-see "The Stripping of the Altars" by Eamon Duffy-then Islam is in the modern West) and she tries too hard to make the comparison. Despite these problems, Hogge has provided a very clear and over all good if not especially gripping account of a complex and important subject.

You know the ship is going to sink, yet the story is still riveting. You know the Catholic mission in England is doomed to failure, yet this was an equally riveting book. I must confess I was expecting a wholly different book. As a Catholic who is regularly irked by how frequently the Catholic Church is slandered in the mainstream media, I was actually hoping for a book that would turn the tables and portray the English Protestants as inhuman savages. Shame on me. For my own edification, I am glad the book was far from that. The author did an astounding job of impartially covering the social, political and even theological complexities involving the Catholic-Protestant struggle in England during the sixteenth and and early seventeenth centuries. The author's evenhandedness is most evident in her treatment of Fr. John Garnet and his alleged role in the Gunpowder Plot. After reading this book, one can see that the evidence can be weighted equally towards his guilt or innocence. I personally can't decide. Although she describes in detail the persecution of Catholics, she does so in a non-judgemental fashion and also makes clear that there were legitimate reasons to fear Catholics being a Fifth Column: the Northern Rebellion, the Ridolfi and Babington plots, and finally the Gunpowder Plot itself. One can only wonder how different history might have been if Pope Pius V had not issued the bull of deposition. Although subsequent Popes rescinded that bull and clearly instructed that Catholics were not to participate in acts of sedition, the damage to Catholic credibility was irreparable. Having said that, by the time of the Northern Rebellion (which really was started by nobles for whom religion was unimportant but who were disgruntled over Elizabeth's gentry upstarts), England's Catholics had been repressed by Elizabeth for over 10 years. I think most readers will be shocked to find just how devastating were the tribulations suffered by English Catholics. You probably will not read about this anywhere else. Finally, she concludes her book with a commentary about our present times and the lessons which we must learn from that tragic conflict. Every human being on Earth should read this final chapter.

Through the time of the Tudors and the Stuarts, England was in turmoil. While there were ethnic, econmic, and military pressures to be sure, one of the principle concerns of people high born and low was religion - this was the age of Reformation on the Continent, carried over to England by Henry VIII and various churchmen, resisted by his daughter Mary and other churchmen, reinstituted by his other daughter Elizabeth, and established more firmly by the coming of the Stuarts, who, while of Catholic background and sensibility, nonetheless recognised the political reality. If this seems convoluted and confusing, the reader can be forgiven, for such was the case. And this is but the barest outline. Into this highly contentious realm, author Alice Hogge has placed some order and explanation, making things more clear, within the limits of reason. This was a time when Catholics became Protestants and back again, where churchmen and laypersons swayed with the politico/religious winds (and those who stood firm sometimes were snapped by the winds). Part of the confusion was the deliberate attempt at this by what might qualify as the first concerted effort of spying, intelligence and counter-intelligence operations of the modern world. Sir Francis Walsingham, a key figure in Elizabeth's court and a primary character in Hogge's text, perhaps qualifies as the first spy-master in history, controlling networks of agents at home and abroad. Walsingham had need of this network, for his foes were many indeed. As the Protestant hold on Enlgand over time seemed more and more secure (it was a multi-generational shift), there were Catholics in exile on the Continent being supported by Rome with the intention of one day recapturing England for the Roman world. Priests were trained in Roman seminaries with the purpose of returning again as illicit missionaries. Sometimes they involved themselves in political intrigues, and other times suffered the fate of spies even when their actions were wholly religious in nature. Entire networks existed that included carpenters and craftsmen, public and court officials on local, regional and national levels, clergypersons and nobles, all committed to keeping the cause of Catholic resurgence a possibility. Perhaps the greatest expressions of this fervour include the assassination attempts against Queen Elizabeth, and the famous Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the Parliament building during the State Opening, in which the king - James by this time - would be present with virtually the entire House of Lords and House of Commons. (It is a testimony to this event that Tower of London guards still troop through the Palace of Westminster in anticipation of the State Opening each year.) Hogge's narrative is done in a popular and interesting style. It is not too heavily annotated, with reference notes positioned as endnotes, and explanatory notes as footnotes (but there aren't too many of those, Hogge preferring to

"Remember Remember the Fifth of November The Gunpowder Treason and Plot I'll tell you a reason why Jesuit Treason Should never be forgot "If there hadn't been given protection from Heaven To the Parliament Houses and Throne When the Pope to the flames had devoted King James They had all to destruction been blown "Then ever let England her gratitude show To the Power that averted that terrible blow, In thanksgiving to God our voices we'll raise To Him be the glory, to Him be the praise. "And thus was remembered the fifth of November The Jesuit Treason and Plot For should Popery reign we may have it again, So let Protestants say, IT SHALL NOT!! "Shout boys shout! let the ring bells ring-- Down with the Jesuits and GOD SAVE THE KING" Ah, but were the Jesuits really involved (as this English ditty sung for Guy Fawkes Day celebrations assumes) in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow away (literally) the Anglican government of England and restore Roman Catholicism as the true religion of the land? In GOD'S SECRET AGENTS, Alice Hogge sets forth a fascinating case that the plot by dissident Catholics, which was real enough, also provided the Anglican Protestant government with a marvelously effective propaganda tool with which to suppress English Catholicism in general and the Jesuit order in particular. Queen Elizabeth had, despite occasional protestations to the contrary, shown herself generally willing to suppress those of her subjects who professed to follow the Catholic faith, except when her government viewed them as "cash cows," fining them severely for failure to attend State-approved church services. As for priests who ministered to practicing Catholics, arrest, hanging, disemboweling, and drawing and quartering lay just behind discovery by the government priest-hunters, the pursuivants. In due course, Elizabeth dies and is succeeded by James, the Scottish king. Professing tolerance and seeking peace among his subjects, James nonetheless proves himself to be far more interested in reconciling the various Protestant factions than in extending the hand of tolerance to the papists in his kingdom. (The King James Version of the Bible is unabashedly a Protestant translation.) In their disappointment at James' failed assurances, several extremists stockpile gunpowder in a cellar under the House of Lords and are discovered only at the eleventh hour, leading, of course, to more hangings, disemboweling, etc. This, in a nutshell, is the history covered by Hogge's book, but this summation scarcely hints at the incredibly fascinating journey through the telling of that history: Plot and counter-plot. Stealth. Intrigue. Secret landings on the coast at night. Disguises. Government spies. Deceit. Concealed hiding places ("priest holes") artfully constructed in the walls, staircases and chimneys of houses. Thundering blows at the door in the middle of the night as the pursuivants close in. State-spo

Hogge is a terrific writer, and she tackles a subject that makes for edge-of-your-seat reading. This is the story of Elizabethan England's dark side. Even as Shakespeare created some of the world's greatest literature, a vast number of Englishmen lived in terror. Catholicism was outlawed. Catholic books weere banned and burned, Catholic citizens first fined, and later killed for daring to attend a mass. The fear of the times is palpable. Any servant, either out of spite or greed, could turn you in. A small and secret army of priests tended to recrusant Catholics. Priests, who, even if they had been born and educated in England, loved England, were branded the worst of felons and traitors. Many, if not most, would end up sent to grisly deaths, tortured for days before being hung and disembowled. All for believing in a religion that had once been taught throughout the land. Nothing could save you. Not money or connections. Elizabeth I, with all her glittering entourage, once watched Edmund Campion defeat all comers at an Oxford debate. She was dazzled. The brilliant Campion, deemed "one of the diamonds of England" (P 67) had a secure future. He threw it away to become a priest. Even then, he could have lived in safety in France. He chose to come back and serve God in England, knowing it would end in his death. Andit did, a cruel and prolonged death. The priests like Campion, mostly Jesuits, lived a precarious existence. Escher-like mazes and priest holes were built to hide them. But there was always a friend or servant who could be tempted to turn you in. Richard Topcliff, Elizabeth's chief priest hunter, swaggers through the book, a portrait of utter venality and indifference to suffering. He imprisoned Anne Bellamy and raped her, leaving her pregnant (p 178). He devised ever more vile methods of torture. He died at age 73, living in a manor he had extorted from one of his victims. It was a raw age, and a cruel one. The cruelty is embodied in the sad figure of Margaret Ward, who, crippled and half paralysed by torture, had to stagger clumsily to her gallows (p 96). Or in Margaret Clitherow, a young mother who was ordered pressed to death over three days. Without food or water she died by inches (p 210.) Yet most refused to recant. Any book on Elizabethan poets includes some by Robert Southwell. What few know is the fascinating story of his life. Southwell was born into one of the most famous and wealthiest families in England. He ended up becoming the Scarlet Pimpernell of his era. He dashed off poems and epistles as government spies sought him here, they sought him there, they sought him almost everywhere. He knew what was coming. "Rue not my death" he wrote in one of this poems. Even after Richard Topcliffe captured him he remained the perfect gentleman and Christian. He forgave the men who tortured and condemned him. He was so popular that at his execution the crowd insisted th