Jessie Childs – författare

*Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize**Longlisted for The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction**A Sunday Times Book of the Year**A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year* *A Times Book of the Year**An Observer Book of the Year*A woman awakes in a prison cell.She has been on the run but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London - where she is interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot. The woman is Anne Vaux - one of the ardent, brave and exasperating members of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. Through the eyes of this remarkable family, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England - an age in which their faith was criminalised and almost two hundred Catholics were executed. From dawn raids to daring escapes, stately homes to torture chambers, God's Traitors exposes the tensions masked by the cult of Gloriana - and is a timely reminder of the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was one of the most flamboyant and controversial characters of Henry VIII's reign. A pioneering poet, whose verse had a profound impact on Shakespeare, Surrey was nevertheless branded by one contemporary as 'the most foolish proud boy that is in England'. He was the heir of England's premier nobleman, first cousin to two of Henry VIII's wives - Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard - and best friend and brother-in-law to the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. Celebrated for his chivalrous deeds both on and off the battlefield, Surrey became, at only twenty-eight, the King's Lieutenant General in France. But his confident exterior masked insecurity and loneliness. A man of intriguing contradictions, Surrey was both law enforcer and law breaker, political conservative and religious reformer and his life, replete with drunken escapades, battlefield heroics, conspiracy and courtroom drama, sheds new light on the opulence and artifice of a dazzling, but deadly, age.

**A TIMES, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, THE CRITIC, MAIL ON SUNDAY, ECONOMIST AND PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR**'A gifted narrative historian, eloquent, graceful and witty; the stories she tells are the ones we all should know' Hilary MantelIt was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war . . .This is the story of a home that became a warzone. Basing House in Hampshire saw one of the longest and bloodiest sieges of the English Civil War. Defended for over two years by artists and aristocrats, actors and apothecaries, women and children, it became a symbol of royalist defiance and a microcosm of the wider conflict.Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of soldiers and civilians, award-winning historian Jessie Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilization.__________'Extraordinary, thrilling, immersive ... at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power' Simon Schama'Compellingly readable... [a] beautifully written and lucid account' Mail on Sunday'Brilliant. Original. Gripping.' Antonia Fraser'Beautifully written and gripping from first page to last. A sparkling book by one of the UK's finest historians' Peter Frankopan'The Siege of Loyalty House is not only deeply researched. Childs has composed a wonderfully poetic narrative and adds a touch of the gothic' The Times'Successfully brings the ghastliness of the period to life, dramatically, vividly and with pathos' Charles Spencer, Spectator