London

So how would you define a Londoner, then?” Lady Penny asked curiously. “Someone who lives here. It’s like the old definition of a cockney: someone who’s born within hearing distance of Bow bells. And a foreigner,” he added with a grin, “is anyone, Anglo-Saxon or not, who lives outside.

When a voyager begins a journey, he prepares his ship, decides upon his course and sets sail. What else can he do? But he cannot know the outcome – what storms may arise, what new lands he may find, or whether or not he will return. That is destiny, and you must accept it. Never think you can escape destiny.

And in busy London there now grew up one of the greatest gifts that the English genius was to leave the world. For in the reign of Elizabeth I began the first and greatest flowering of the glorious English theatre.

These are graven images – idolatry. A sin.” He knew it was true. This was a love of worldly beauty utterly at odds with all he knew to be Puritan and holy.

No one there could possibly have missed its significance. No church in England had ever been disgraced with such a thing. From the shape of the dome, the Corinthian columns – every detail had suddenly fallen into place – this was clearly, if not a copy, then the very brother of that infamous dome that hung over what every Puritan knew was the great house of iniquity itself. “Dear Lord!” he cried. “It’s just like St Peter’s – at the Vatican. It’s the church of Rome.” And, in terror, he ran out of the workshop.

An unexpected guest, enjoying such lavish hospitality, should expect to sing for his supper.

Only one thing, in those years, drew from her a cry of fury. This was the publication, in 1563, of a single, stout book. It was known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; and it was an astonishing feat of propaganda. For this book, carefully written to evoke every man’s pity and rage, described in detail the martyrs of England – by which it meant those Protestants who had perished under Bloody Mary. Of the Catholics who had suffered martyrdom before then, it said not a word. That some of these Protestants, like vicious old Latimer, had been burners and torturers themselves, it conveniently forgot. The sale of the book was prodigious. Soon, it seemed, only Catholic persecution of Protestants had ever existed. “ ’Tis a lie,” Susan would protest. “And I fear it will persist.” It would indeed. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was destined to be read in families, to give warning to children, and to shape English people’s perception of the Catholic Church for generations.

The old man had smiled kindly. “It is in their nature, child. God has made woman the weaker vessel.” It was an old belief, dating back to St Paul himself. “It is man who is made in God’s image, my child. Man’s seed produces his perfect likeness. Woman, being only the container in which the seed matures, is therefore inferior. She may still reach heaven, but, being inferior, it is harder.

England’s Protestant,” they declared. “Why else did we throw out the Stuarts? The government and their placemen are selling us down the river. If they’ll give way over Catholics, what will they give way over next?

King Charles I of England believed in the compromise worked out under Queen Elizabeth – that the Church of Rome had fallen into evil ways, that the English Church was purified Catholicism, and that it was the Anglican bishops, nowadays, who were the true inheritors of the apostles.

What has he done?” he asked. The young man himself began to respond, but the youths cut him off. “He started the Fire of London, sir,” they cried. Even the day before, the rumours had begun. A fire like this could not be the work of chance. Some said it must be the Dutch. But most – perhaps half the good people of London – had a sounder suspicion by far. “It’s the Catholics,” they said. “Who else would do such a thing?

The whole area, manor house, Clink, all eighteen brothels and the handsome profits therefrom, belonged to and was ruled by the bishop.

And whether they were saintly or corrupt, scholars or scarcely able to get through the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, all society’s educated men had the Church to thank for their learning.

«¿Pero la desearías si no te rehuyera? Ésa es la pregunta que cabe hacerse sobre una mujer.»

he observed, “they’re sure to go off whoring and get into trouble.

cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los

historia, desde los Ducket hasta la familia de Penny, son ficticias, al igual que el papel que cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los

historia, desde los Ducket hasta la familia de Penny, son ficticias, al igual que el papel que cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los siglos,

London es, antes que nada, una novela. Todas las familias cuya suerte sigue esta historia, desde los Ducket hasta la familia de Penny, son ficticias, al igual que el papel que cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los siglos, he

London es, antes que nada, una novela. Todas las familias cuya suerte sigue esta historia, desde los Ducket hasta la familia de Penny, son ficticias, al igual que el papel que cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los siglos, he tratado

London es, antes que nada, una novela. Todas las familias cuya suerte sigue esta historia, desde los Ducket hasta la familia de Penny, son ficticias, al igual que el papel que cada uno de ellos desempeña en los hechos históricos que se describen. Al seguir la historia de estas familias imaginarias a lo largo de los siglos, he tratado de