Jessie Childs

*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.

Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England

God's Traitors

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was one of the most flamboyant and controversial characters of Henry VIII’s reign.

The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry VIII's Last Victim

An immersive and electrifying account of a defining episode in the English Civil War that illuminates the human experience—and human cost—of this devastating war. It was a time of puritans and populism, witch hunts and civil war. Between 1643 and 1645, Basing House in Hampshire, England, was besieged three times. To the parliamentary Roundheads, the house symbolized everything that was wrong with England: it was the largest private residence in the country, a bastion of royalism and excess. Its owner, the Marquess of Winchester, reportedly had the motto Love loyalty etched into the windows. Winchester refused all terms of surrender. When he discovered his brother plotting to betray the house, he forced him to hang his accomplices. When the garrison divided along religious lines, Winchester expelled all the Protestants. As royalist strongholds crumbled around the country, the Winchesters—and Basing House—stood firm. The famed architect Inigo Jones designed fortifications; gamekeepers became snipers; and the women hurled bricks at the besiegers. 'Loyalty House', as it was known, became the king's principal garrison. But the drum of the parliamentary army beat ever louder—and closer—and in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolled in the heavy guns. The Siege of Loyalty House tells the story of these dramatic events, not only recounting the sallies and skirmishes, but the experiences of the men, women, and children caught in the crossfire. What was it like to be under siege, lying in bed with shells crashing through the window? What was it like to conduct a siege, sleeping on frosty fields, receiving news of sick children at home from desperate wives? Ultimately, the story of Basing House is the story of England in the 1640s: a tale of brother against brother, of women on the frontline, of radicalism, iconoclasm, and fanaticism. It is a tale of destruction and derring-do, courage and cowardice, and a house on fire—the true end of an era.

A Story of the English Civil War

The Siege of Loyalty House

'Extraordinary, thrilling, immersive ... at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power' Simon Schama 'Compellingly readable... [a] beautifully written and lucid account' Mail on Sunday __________ It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war. A greater proportion of the British population died in the civil wars of the seventeenth century than in the world wars of the twentieth. Jessie Childs recovers the shock of this conflict by plunging us into one of its most extraordinary episodes: the siege of Basing House. To the parliamentarians, the royalist stronghold was the devil's seat. Its defenders called it Loyalty House. We follow artists, apothecaries, merchants and their families from the revolutionary streets of London to the Marquess of Winchester's mist-shrouded mansion. Over two years, they are battered, bombarded, starved and gassed. From within they face smallpox, spies and mutiny. Their resistance becomes legendary, but in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolls in the heavy guns and they prepare for a last stand. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of men, women and children caught in the crossfire, Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilisation. The Siege of Loyalty House is an immersive and electrifying account of a defining episode in a war that would turn Britain - and the world - upside down. __________ 'Brilliant. Original. Gripping.' Antonia Fraser 'Beautifully written and gripping from first page to last. A sparkling book by one of the UK's finest historians' Peter Frankopan 'The Siege of Loyalty House is not only deeply researched. Childs has composed a wonderfully poetic narrative and adds a touch of the gothic' The Times 'Successfully brings the ghastliness of the period to life, dramatically, vividly and with pathos' Charles Spencer, Spectator

A new history of the English Civil War

A Civil War Story

Siege of Loyalty House

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was one of the most flamboyant and controversial characters of Henry VIII's reign. A pioneering poet, whose verse had a profound impact on Shakespeare, Surrey was nevertheless branded by one contemporary as 'the most foolish proud boy that is in England'. He was the heir of England's premier nobleman, first cousin to two of Henry VIII's wives - Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard - and best friend and brother-in-law to the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. Celebrated for his chivalrous deeds both on and off the battlefield, Surrey became, at only twenty-eight, the King's Lieutenant General in France. But his confident exterior masked insecurity and loneliness. A man of intriguing contradictions, Surrey was both law enforcer and law breaker, political conservative and religious reformer and his life, replete with drunken escapades, battlefield heroics, conspiracy and courtroom drama, sheds new light on the opulence and artifice of a dazzling, but deadly, age.

Jessie Childs

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