This week's Wednesday Wonders is part of the blog tour for
Born to Treason
by E.B. Wheeler
Book description:
It's 1586, and
Queen Elizabeth I has declared war on Catholics, making it illegal to befriend
a priest, read foreign books, or even own a rosary. Joan Pryce is not only
Catholic, but also Welsh, a people stripped of their rights by their English
overlords. Smuggling pages from a forbidden book is a small act of defiance
against the queen, but it entangles Joan in a plot that may cost her heart and
her life.
Excerpt:
I, Joan Pryce, was born to treason. If I did not choose
between betraying my country and betraying my conscience, I would betray them
both. Just as my father had.
Shovelfuls of mud thumped on his coffin. Each thud
resonated in my aching chest, burying me, smothering me. I pulled the hood of
my cloak lower to hide my anger and grief. They were a window into my
traitorous thoughts, and anyone might be a spy for Queen Elizabeth.
Her law condemned my father to a Protestant funeral—laid to
rest in holy ground but unshriven, without the benefit of a priest or last
rites. Some of the other mourners owned the implements to give my father a
proper Catholic burial, bring peace to his soul and mine, but they were too
frightened to bring the bells and candles from their hiding places. Too
frightened to sing or pray. I glared at them from the safety of my hood, but
none even glanced at me. Cowards, cowards: white-livered cowards, every one.
And I the greatest coward of all, for I said nothing. The
thought of the gallows choked off my protests. Where was my loyalty?
Blessed Mary, forgive me.
My Book Review:
Born to
Treason deals with the difficult issue of the role religion can
play in politics and subjection of classes of people. Henry the VIII had
renounced the Catholic Church and established a protestant religion. His
daughter, Elizabeth, continued the religion and sought to wipe out Catholicism
and its followers, not so much out of devotion to the state religion but to control
and destroy the language and ethnic identity of the Welsh, traditional enemies
of the English.
This book once again reminded me of how fortunate I feel to live
in a nation that does not have a state religion, and does not impose that state
religion on its subjects through seizing their property, imprisonment, torture
and death. That was the situation facing the Welsh at the time of this story.
Some chose to change to the state church to avoid persecution. Some still
favored Catholicism, but paid lip service to stay safe. Others practiced
Catholicism in secret, and were constantly at risk of exposure and arrest. This
was the days of homes built with hiding places known as “priest holes.”
These were the choices facing the strong-willed heroine of
this book, Joyce Pryce. She was a devout Catholic frustrated over what she not
allowed to do given the limitations put on women in her day. After her father had
been tortured before renouncing his faith, only to die shortly after, she was
disenfranchised as a male relative took over her home and sent her to live with
her godparents—lukewarm Catholics who paid lip service to the protestant faith.
One priest strongly encouraged her to flee to Italy and join a convent,
devoting her personal wealth to the church. She felt she was destined to marry
and have a family. She found herself facing three choices for a husband: one, a
handsome, charming rebel who worked to publish in the Welsh language, transport
priests so they could perform services and recruited her to help transport
Welsh language documents to a printer. Another man she had known as a child, who
had been disfigured while serving as a soldier for the crown, who opposed
rebellion against the crown, but did not go out of his way to turn in those who
favored Catholicism. The third choice she considered was to flee the country to
live in a Catholic nation where she could meet and marry a man of her faith. I
had to wait to the end to discover her final choice.
The author has Welsh Catholic ancestors and has studied this
period extensively. I found the story she wove based on her understanding of
this period in Great Britain’s history interesting and exciting. The story was
well written. I highly recommend this book.
About the Author:
E.B. Wheeler grew up in Georgia and California. She earned her BA
in history from BYU and has graduate degrees in history and landscape
architecture from Utah State University. With Welsh ancestors on one side of
her family and crypto-Catholics on the other, she’s been fascinated by the
story of Welsh Catholics since writing about them in her master’s thesis. She’s
the award-winning author of The Haunting of Springett Hall and lives in
northern Utah with her family.
Connect with E.B. Wheeler:
Purchase Links:
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