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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 942.061
EAN num: 9780385471909
ISBN number: 0385471904
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: October 13, 1997
Publishing house: Anchor
Release Date: October 13, 1997
Sale Popularity Level: 53839
Studio: Anchor
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Product Description:
The New York Times bestselling author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII uncovers the gripping true story behind one of the most famous conspiracies in British history: the endeavor in 1650 to blow up the House of Parliament and King James I along with it. In Faith and Treason, Fraser unravels the exciting tale of religion, politics, and personalities surrounding this infamous act of terrorism. of photos.
Amazon.com Review:
Our term 'guy,' slang for any man, comes from the name of Guy Fawkes, the alleged ringleader of the bungled plot to blow up King James I and the subject of Bonfire Night, the odd English holiday celebrated on November 5 by burning the execrable Guy in effigy. This and other facts tumble from the pages of this fascinating account of the Gunpowder Plot, written by the distinguished novelist and historian Antonia Fraser. Fraser delves into English religious history to show the harsh persecution of Roman Catholics under Jacobean rule and how James I disappointed those Catholics who hoped for a more liberal reign.
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Rated by buyers -
Interesting read, recommended by someone who celebrates a holiday in it's honor. You will have to read to find out more, crazy, but something to talk about subsequent year.
Rated by buyers 
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While reading this book I was insistently reminded of Margaret Thatcher, not by the politics but by the bullying, hectoring tone. Fraser will describe some ambiguity in the evidence, describe various possible interpretations, and then decisively choose one. After that, her favored interpretation is taken as established fact: "As we have seen, ..." She's a guide who firmly tells you which fork in the road to take, and immediately afterward denies there was ever a choice.
That's my allergy to the writer. Obviously many people don't mind that quality in Fraser's writing. As to the book, the great peculiarity is that she refuses to take religion seriously. She sees the Catholic heroes of her book as members of a persecuted minority, period. But what if - just what if - they and their persecutors really thought they were fighting a battle of ultimate good against ultimate evil? What if the aggressively secular Vatican during this era - not just the headquarters of a great religion but the capital of an independent state in central Italy - actually was a political as well as religious enemy of the English monarchy? What if the English authorities rationally viewed Catholic conspirators as people who had committed themselves, as a matter of religious duty, to weakening the English state? What if they were right?
What if, in short, the people of that era took religion a lot more seriously than a somewhat supercilious wealthy left-wing English aristocrat of the late 20th century takes it? The story wouldn't serve so neatly as a parable of our times then, but it would make for genuine history.
Rated by buyers 
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Guy Fawkes Day is still celebrated in England with fireworks and mock burnings of him in effigy. I wondered about this celebration and this book was recommended. I find Tudor and Stuart England absolutely fascinating and this book shed light on an incident that is little known and not taught in the States. English recalcitrant Catholics hoped James I's reign would usher in more tolerance. However, it was abundantly clear that tolerance would not be forthcoming from the King and Parliament continuing the oppression from Elizabeth's reign. The Catholics did themselves no favor in trying to blow up Parliament and kill the king. The immediate consequences were severe - there are details about what hung, drawn, and quartered really means - and an even deeper distrust of Catholics was ingrained into the English psyche. This is a great read!
Rated by buyers -
Antonia Fraser may be an odd choice at very 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.
Rated by buyers -
Antinia Fraser writes a comprehensive history of teh Gunpowder plot and spends a few chapters on the history of Elizabeth I and what lead up to the Plot taking places under James I, Elizabeth's successor. Ms. Fraser has a tendency to be a bit dry and load you with facts. However, on the whole, it certainly covers a subject I knew subsequent to nothing about and I was very satisfied in the end. A slow read, but an interesting one.
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