Robin Tremayne, by Emily Sarah Holt.
________________________________________________________________________
Emily Holt was a historian of no mean calibre. Many of her books are
set in the Middle Ages or a little later. This one is set in the 1550s,
and a little before and after. This was the time when the Catholic Mary
was on the throne, and Catholicism was enforced as the official
religion. It was also the time when Protestantism, which had been on
the rise, was checked, and many Protestants burnt at the stake. When
Elizabeth came to the throne this was reversed, and Protestantism was
once more the official religion.
This book, which is quite largely based on well-researched fact, tells
of the family life of a few people who were Protestants, and who
preached the Gospel unerringly throughout, despite in the end some of
them being imprisoned, including Robin Tremayne himself. His account of
the prison in which he was held is quite amazing--how wickedly unkind
people can be to one another. At one stage in the story people were
being burnt at the stake quite wholesale. When Elizabeth came to the
throne all the Bishops were Catholic, and at first none could be
persuaded to officiate at the Coronation. Eventually the Bishop of
Carlisle agreed to do it, but as he hadn't any suitable vestments he
had to borrow some from Bonner, the Bishop of London, who wouldn't do
the Coronation himself.
Full of anecdotes like this, based on fact, the book is fascinating.
There is a watered-down version of Elizabethan speech, a few decades
before Shakespearean English, and so reasonably understandable. The
footnotes are there to explain the more unusual words and phrases.
________________________________________________________________________
ROBIN TREMAYNE, BY EMILY SARAH HOLT.