Fifty pages from the end, and I've given up: the plot has been discovered, the main Plotters are dead, and there may only be the final details to tidy away, but I've finally had enough of Fraser's special pleading for these terrorists, and the Jesuits who enabled them.
Let's clarify a couple of things: the Gunpowder Plotters were NOT martyrs for religious freedom. They weren't fighting for freedom from persecution, but for freedom TO persecute anyone who disagreed with them. Sadly, that was the name of the game at the time: the Catholics tortured and executed the Protestants, the Protestants tortured and executed the Catholics, and the Inquisition tortured and executed the Protestants, Jews and free-thinkers. Seeing the actions of the Plotters through a rosy modern glow, as "fighters for freedom of conscience" is just wrong.
Second, the Plotters were, to a man, dumb as a bag of rocks. Your plot is revealed by an anonymous letter a couple of days before it's supposed to go ahead? No problem! You have failed miserably to enlist the support of foreign governments? They will surely see the light, when they see how well it's all going (in spite of the fact that the ambassadors of those governments, who usually attended the state opening of Parliament, would have been killed in the explosion ...). EVERYONE TELLS YOU IT'S A BAD IDEA. They're just spoilsports. Positive thinking, that's all you need ...
As always, Antonia Fraser's account of the Gunpowder Plot is well researched, detailed and well-written. However, as I commented in my recent review of her biography of Marie Antoinette, her devotion to her subject tends to result in claims that she doesn't even try to support -- her Plotters were wrong-headed and misguided, but they couldn't possibly have acted ignobly because ... well, just because.
Let's clarify a couple of things: the Gunpowder Plotters were NOT martyrs for religious freedom. They weren't fighting for freedom from persecution, but for freedom TO persecute anyone who disagreed with them. Sadly, that was the name of the game at the time: the Catholics tortured and executed the Protestants, the Protestants tortured and executed the Catholics, and the Inquisition tortured and executed the Protestants, Jews and free-thinkers. Seeing the actions of the Plotters through a rosy modern glow, as "fighters for freedom of conscience" is just wrong.
Second, the Plotters were, to a man, dumb as a bag of rocks. Your plot is revealed by an anonymous letter a couple of days before it's supposed to go ahead? No problem! You have failed miserably to enlist the support of foreign governments? They will surely see the light, when they see how well it's all going (in spite of the fact that the ambassadors of those governments, who usually attended the state opening of Parliament, would have been killed in the explosion ...). EVERYONE TELLS YOU IT'S A BAD IDEA. They're just spoilsports. Positive thinking, that's all you need ...
As always, Antonia Fraser's account of the Gunpowder Plot is well researched, detailed and well-written. However, as I commented in my recent review of her biography of Marie Antoinette, her devotion to her subject tends to result in claims that she doesn't even try to support -- her Plotters were wrong-headed and misguided, but they couldn't possibly have acted ignobly because ... well, just because.
