Skip to main content

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

$14.40 - $17.99
(No reviews yet) Write a Review
Bulk Pricing:
Buy in bulk and save
subtitle:
Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpower Plot
paperback:
true
min:
$14.40
title:
God's Secret Agents
pricing:
$14.40 - $17.99
Adding to cart… The item has been added

One evening in 1588, just weeks after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, two young men landed in secret on a beach in Norfolk, England. They were Jesuit priests, Englishmen, and their aim was to achieve by force of argument what the Armada had failed to do by force of arms: return England to the Catholic Church.

Eighteen years later their mission would be shattered by the actions of the Gunpowder Plotters -- a small group of terrorists who famously tried to destroy the Houses of Parliament -- for the Jesuits were accused of having designed "that most horrid and hellish conspiracy."

Alice Hogge follows "God's secret agents" from their schooling on the Continent, through their perilous return journeys and lonely lives in hiding, to, ultimately, the gallows. She offers a remarkable true account of faith, duty, intolerance, and martyrdom -- the unforgettable story of men who would die for a cause undone by men who would kill for it.

Format: Paperback book
Product code: HC542283
Dimensions: 5.31" x 8"
Length: 488 pages
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
ISBN: 9780060542283
1-2 copies $16.20 each
3-5 copies $15.30 each
6+ copies $14.40 each
Written by Alice Hogge

Praise

Hogge’s absorbing narrative of the experience of [Catholic] underground life reads like a historical novel.
The Guardian
Hogge deftly narrates the seething world of religious conflict in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England.
Publishers Weekly
An illuminating look at an often overlooked period of church-state turmoil . . . Draws surprising parallels with events today.
National Catholic Reporter
An exciting account of the Catholic resistance in England under Elizabeth.
New Statesman
Compelling storytelling.
The Observer
Alice Hogge’s vivid narrative culminates in a gripping account of the [Gunpowder] Plot and its disastrous denouement.
Eamon Duffy, New York Review of Books
A well-researched, skillfully crafted book that evokes the physical as well as the intellectual world of Renaissance English Catholicism.
Weekly Standard
A tense, taut, real-life political thriller.
Booklist
[A] vivid and moving portrait of the Counterreformation in the Elizabethan age.
The Spectator
Paints a vivid picture of the stresses of operating in secret, under false identities, in constant fear of betrayal.
London Times
The final chapters make moving, even tragic reading.
Evening Standard
Excellently researched and beautifully written.
Financial Times