aBurntShip

                      What was the real conspiracy ?                                                   Photo  of Westminster Hall kindly donated by  Gareth Nolan. Recently read  'Guy: The Truth About Guy Fawkes' by Michael Fitzalan  A long quite involved novel, with huge chunks of history thrown in. Based on the notion that the Gunpowder Plot did not occur as a hideous treasonous conspiracy with the intention of devastating Westminster.  In this novel, a group of Catholics facing huge fines for refusing to attend Anglican services, some of them already punished for taking part in the Essex Rebellion of 1601, launch a money making enterprise, partly centred at Westminster. A feasible notion as cellars and undercrofts by the Houses of Parliament were rented out for commercial purposes. They also have the use of Holbeche House in the West Midlands.  Robert Cecil , the Secretary of State, essentially manipulates the conspirators to further his own anti-Catholic agenda. There are n

                              Power Treason and Plot in Tudor England  The first non-fiction book from Tony Morgan who lives just outside York. Mr Morgan has already had three novels published. Two concern alternative history outcomes to the Gunpowder Treason, another 'Pearl of York', is a fictionalised life of Margaret Clitherow, which also features a youthful Guy Fawkes.   Margaret Clitherow is most known for her refusal to plead either guilty or not guilty to a charge of harbouring  Jesuit priests in York in 1586. Her sentence was to undergo a punishment known as Peine forte et dure  . This entailed being stripped naked, a stone placed behind her back, a door laid across her, then weights were added to it. Was all carried out on 25th March 1586 at Toll Booth, Ouse Bridge, in York.  Margaret Clitherow was declared a saint in 1970. It must be said that this was an exceptional punishment, and that there is no evidence that Elizabeth I was aware that this sentence was due to be