The Women Who Saved Catholic England

Much has been written about the historical persecution of Catholics. Priests in particular became prime targets during the heightened tensions of the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot. But those whom they relied on for shelter have received little attention – until now. The underground network of lay supporters, the Catholic Resistance, mostly comprised courageous women of the great (and sometimes not so great) families of England, and their houses riddled with priest holes.

These women fought a cat-and-mouse game with spymasters like Walsingham and Cecil and their spider’s web of clandestine informants, knowing that one slip might lead to arrest, torture and execution.

The indomitable Anne Vaux and her sister Eleanor provide the focus of this story but there were others, including their niece Frances, who as an 11-year-old boldly confronted armed raiders in search of priests; and Margaret Clitherow of York, arrested during a similar search and ultimately pressed to death.

To escape the clutches of Elizabeth’s brutal torturer Richard Topcliffe and others like him, men like Father John Gerard, whose ‘zipwire’ escape from the Tower of London is the stuff of Tom Cruise films, and genius priest-hole creator ‘Little John’, turned to these sisters of mercy.