An interesting account of the lives, work and fates of Catholics in Elizabeth's reign. Not just the standard story of Mary Queen of Scots, but accounts also of those Catholic priests trained abroad and who infiltrated into England to support domestic Catholics, continue to spread the Word and, latterly, also to support indirectly at least the efforts of Catholic powers to overthrow Elizabeth. Undoubtedly many of these priests were personally brave, and no doubt many ordinary Catholics in England wanted to be loyal to their country while still resenting the fines and loss of property or liberty for attending Mass. Equally one can see why Elizabeth's government regarded them with suspicion, considering the priests traitors and the ordinary Catholic Englishmen a potential fifth column, especially following the Papal Bull Regnans in Excelsis, which excommunicated Elizabeth and not only absolved English Catholics from their duty of allegiance to the Queen, but even specifically required them not to be loyal to her - a serious misjudgement by the Vatican in that it put English Catholics into an intolerable dilemma and enabled them to be portrayed as potentially disloyal purely by virtue of their faith.

Plowden is impartial throughout, though her use of anachronisms grates, especially her use of the term “left wing” to describe Protestants and “right wing” to describe Catholics, and one description of a place of not particularly bad imprisonment of Catholics as a concentration camp. In sum, a good read. ( )