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Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

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Few tales better illustrate the old saw, "truth is stranger than fiction," than the story of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1605, Catholic militants disappointed by James I's failure to move towards toleration (allegedly) tried to blow up Parliament by piling gunpowder in a basement. The (purported) plot was discovered in the nick of time. England still celebrates Guy Fawkes' Day to celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot and, among other things, Beefeaters still search the basements of Westminster (in full regalia, no less).

The Gunpowder Plot has long been highly controversial. Catholic apologists have claimed that the whole thing was invented by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, King James' chief minister, and master of a vast intelligence network, with the assistance of Sir Edward Coke as Crown Prosecutor. Protestant apologists claim the Plot was real, the danger was real, and only narrowly averted (by God's special favor).

Antonia Fraser is a leading popular historian of the Tudor and Stuart periods of English history, as well as an accomplished novelist. She writes well, tells stories lucidly, and has a demonstrated command of the period. In "Faith and Treason," she strikes a balanced note. Yes, there was a plot. But the danger was not very real--Salisbury discovered the plot early, the gunpowder was defective, and Salisbury left it in the basement to be dramatically discovered so that the discovery would have maximum political effect. She makes a compelling case.

Fraser is sympathetic to the Catholic plotters, recognizing that they had been pushed too far, but she also doesn't hesitate to call them traitors and terrorists. Contrary to what some reviewers have said, she is not an apologist for either side. Instead, this is a fair and balanced account, written with the verve and style of a novel. Highly recommended.

This is a fascinating book. Antonia Fraser has examined most of the old evidence afresh, has weighed up the arguments of the "pro-plotters" (historians who believe there actually was a plot by Catholic terrorists) and "no-plotters" (historians who believe that - like the Babington Plot before it - the Plot was a government conspiracy) and has produced a sort of compromise between these opposing views: a reasonably plausible pro-plot version with Catholic sympathies. It's a well written account, and has marvellous character studies, but unfortunately Fraser's version does stretch the reader's credulity somewhat.

She doesn't adequately explain why the English government, in the person of chief minister Robert Cecil, sits on the information and does absolutely nothing when he learns of the plot. Surely if there were 30 barrels of live gunpowder hidden under the House of Lords, Cecil might want it removed? But he doesn't even arrange a search for ten days or so. Fraser hints that one of the plotters, Francis Tresham, may have been a government spy, and therefore that Cecil knew of the plot from its inception, but she doesn't carry this idea through to its conclusions. Furthermore, she hasn't explored the possibility that plot leader Robin Catesby was an agent provacateur who deliberately set up the Jesuit priests by telling them about the planned explosion under the seal of the confessional. Nor does she question why the powder delivered to the Tower was all decayed and wouldn't have exploded anyway. Nor does she explain why 36 desperate armed men fail to harm a single member of the government's forces sent after them.

As a result Fraser's book seems somewhat naive to me. Her young Catholic terrorists are handsome swashbuckling cavaliers who die heroically clutching pictures of the Virgin Mary. She seems to have little sense of the level of espionage and double-dealing that flourished in England at the time. (See Charles Nicholl's 'The Reckoning - the Murder of Christopher Marlowe' for a vivid account of this shadowy underworld).

What Antonia Fraser does achieve though, is a vivid picture of English (aristocratic) Catholic recusant life at the end of the sixteenth century, with its stately homes riddled with priest-holes, and the brave women who sheltered the hunted priests. She also draws a very sympathetic portrait of Fr Henry Garnet, the head of the Jesuits' mission to England. Henry was an honest man in a world of double dealers, who naively and bravely defends his Faith to the last. I was very surprised to find out afterwards that Garnet hasn't yet been canonised.

There are two types of history books nowadays: the popular versions which use a readable style and concentrate on events; and the academic style which are less digestible and more demanding of the reader. With this book Ms Fraser has plotted a central path which has produced a very readable book (indeed, I read it on a succession of plane flights) yet conceded nothing to popular history.

The style is exciting and intriguing, which provokes that rare desire to keep on reading. The book is written with a clear aim of showing how and why the Gunpowder Conspirators found themselves acting as they did and it shows the many flavours of opinion which existed at the time. Most intriguing is the way Ms Fraser reveals the opposition the plotters faced from the Catholic establishment and the extent to which the King and Government created the situation in which some people felt driven to attempt Regicide on a grand scale.

An exciting read with strong academic value.

In addition to being a great account of an historical incident from the early C17, this book lays a foundation for understanding English history into the 20th Century.

The first chapters deal with the succession of James IV of Scotland to the English crown (the start of union between England and Scotland), and how this was engineered to avoid a catholic monarch. The book clearly articulates how the rights of the Roman Catholic minority were suppressed (Fraser's other books, recounting the lives of Mary and Elizabeth put this in context. Catholic suppression of Protestants under Mary was far more brutal and resulted in more executions).

The policy of religious intolerance resulted in the emergence of a complex terrorist plot. The book leaves a fascinating question unresolved - was the plot portrayed from within?

The end of the plotters is recounted in gruesome detail, from their initial interrogation (the impact of torture on Guy Fawkes is clearly evidenced by the degeneration of his flowing signature to a mere scrawl) to ritual execution.

This text also provides an excellent backdrop to understanding some of the events that lead to the English Civil war. Further suppression of religion (this time the Puritans, who resented any hint of a return to catholic practices (the pilgrim farthers immigrated to America), and ongoing resentment of the Catholic faith in England.

The actions of the plotters had a lasting impact on Catholics in the UK. Catholic men could not hold office (even an army commission) and were not given the vote until the 19th Century. Edward VIII had to abdicate (in part) for marrying a catholic in the 20th century!

This book covers a key period of English history (transition from Tudor to Stuart) in an exciting way and provides a foundation for a better understanding of the next several hundred years.

Antonia Fraser is an excellent writer and this is just another example of her amazing ability to write in such a way that hooks her readers and pulls them into the story she so adeptly tells. "Faith and Treason" is just another exapmle of her masterful telling of British History. Every time I read one of her books, I wish that she had written the history books I read in school.

This books tells the tale of a group of men who tired of waiting for religious freedom and decided to take matters into their own hands. They plotted to blow up the Parliament building, with the Parliamanet and King James I inside, in a rather dramatic attempt to regain the right to practice their religion, presumably at the expense of no longer permitting Protestants to do so. Fraser examines the plot from start to finish, tracing it back to the beginning of the Reformation and the frustration Catholics felt throughout the reign of Elizabeth I.

Fraser packs her book with facts, m! aking it a little slow-going at times, but it's worth it. It's probably not something you'll read in an afternoon, but it will captivate from the start.

Antonia Fraser may be an odd choice at first for writing about the infamous Gunpowder Plot. After all, among "popular" historians (a term I use with affection), Fraser is known for her judiciousness and fair-mindedness. This makes her almost unique in all the historiography of the Plot, which has been dominated by emotional tirades and a-historical screeds on all sides for centuries. Some place blame for "Satan's policy" on the entire Catholic faith, whereas apologists for the plotters claim this was a set-up masterminded by the King's intelligence services.

Fraser, fortunately for us, tries to tell the straight story. She goes to great lengths to show the surprisingly wide-spread anti-Catholic sentiment in England during the last years of Queen Elizebeth's reign. (I say surprising because, to modern eyes, Elizabeth is often held up as a paragon of religious tolerance.) In the England of the coronation of King James I, it was a crime to be Catholic, and being caught with a rosary was enough for whopping fines and jail time. The Catholics prayed that James I would be their deliverer - probably not to a fully-Catholic England, but at least to an era of tolerance.

Fraser also goes to great lengths to show the devoted support provided the plotters by the women in their lives. Far from being a sex-filled cauldron of sin, the plotters and their women often enjoyed deeply spiritual relationships, and these relationships provide "Faith and Treason" with some of its most moving passages.

And while Fraser considers the plotters to be "terrorists," she also refuses to place some blame at the feet of the King's men. For various reasons, Lords Coke and Salisbury and their cohorts bring many innocent - or at the very least only loosely-connected - men and women to misery as they "bring down the plot." The Gunpowder Plot may have been stymied by the King's agents, but they do not emerge with clean hands.

While at times "Faith and Treason" can get bogged down in the who's who of the era, in general Fraser keeps the story going with a fair amount of zest, and the reader's interest will only flag on rare occasions. While not a "Great History," (there are only a few of those) this is a well-balanced, highly readable, well-reasoned take on an event that, if you will pardon the pun, has been blown out of all proportion by most previous historians. Well worth a look.

My review of this book consists of three major elements:

First, the story and the history is much more interesting than I had anticipated. I've been sort of "grazing" British history and got this book because it certainly qualified. As Fraser notes, Bonfire night isn't much in the U.S. having been usurped by Halloween and Thanksgiving, and I'd only vaguely heard of Guy Fawkes. The "true" story isn't as simple and uninteresting as "Disgruntled Guy Fawkes tries to blow up Parliament and gets caught," as per some popular stories. I've read a lot about Henry VIII and this story very much complements his story- Henry separates the English church from the one in Rome, setting off a chain of events that lasted for years (even to this day)- This book is about one of those events. If you are at all interested in following the consequences of actions through history, you'll like this.

Which leads to my second point- Fraser does a wonderful job of putting the story in perspective. Not only does she inform you as to the history, culture, sociology (role of women in particular) and the religious environment that led to the plot to blow up James I, his heirs, and Parliament (and likely some innocent pigeons), but she also indicates how the plot still affects current thinking and events (citing such examples as Nelson Mandela).

Finally, she does a great job with the story itself. Given the large cast of characters, the fact that I said "Wait, who is that again?" only a few times is very much to her credit. The story is very thorough with numerous citations and explanations of her interpretations of historical actions.

This book is about the gunpowder plot and not generally about James I- it is more about the effect that his broken promises had on the plot's development.

As a side note- if Mel Gibson ever read this book, he'd make a movie out of it- I just can't figure out who he'd play... Not Guy Fawkes. Maybe Garnet? Maybe Cecil (but only if Gibson made him a complete good guy). Maybe Catesby (but have to make him a good guy, and change the story a bit...)

As usual, Lady Antonia Fraser has written another historical masterpiece - but this is no news concerning this most gifted writer and biographer. And, as in other works, the author manages to convey people's flaws and even cruelty from a compassionate standpoint. After all, telling a story about a minority - any minority - more often than not brings us close to the darkest aspects of human behavior (that of the majority). I knew very little about the Gunpowder Plot and therefore this amply researched and superbly written book proved truly enlightening. That is why I was amazed at a review which states - in prejudiced and chauvinistic terms - that it is obvious the book was written by a woman, and one with Roman Catholic sympathies, at that! The mere fact that the review refers disparagingly to the writer's sex should be enough to disqualify it for publication. In fact, it constitutes a bias much graver than the one wrongly attributed to Lady Antonia Fraser. In any case, her above mentioned compassionate and erudite narrative of the moving and heart-rending plight of the Catholic minority in England is what makes the book outstanding. Man or woman, Catholic or not, you cannot help feeling deep emotion at the troubled lives and ends of these unfortunate characters, many of them innocent. It is to Lady Antonia's great credit that she has managed to vindicate these much-maligned people, at last. Legend is now history.

This book is nothing less than what we have come to expect from Lady Antonia Fraser. It is historically accurate down to the last detail, it is awfully interesting, it is learned and readable, it is food for thought - serious thought. At the end of the book, I wept - the story is so terrible and so moving. Living, as we are, in a time where racial and religious intolerance still thrive, these men's plight, their desperate (if morally questionable) course of action, and the utter misery in which their fellow Catholics were living, should make us all think. In superbly depicting for us this terrible and fascinating episode, Antonia Fraser leads us to further depths of understanding.

Though not a novel, it reads smooth and easy for an historical work. Fraser's great strength is examining all aspects and leaves no stone unturned, especially looking at the aftermath and its legacy. The "plot" begins with the head of the nation being deceitful and ends with his aides putting the right "spin" on events.