Catholic Fiction

Reviewed by Christine J. Murray

Robert Hugh Benson’s historical novel about the persecution of Catholics under the rule of Elizabeth I is one of his more popular even to this day. He wrote Come Rack! Come Rope! after being invited to preach at a retreat held at Padley in 1911—the site of a hidden chapel used during the persecutions. He read an account of the Fitzherbert family while at Padley that Dom Bede Camm had recently written.

The story’s drama was ripe for a novel about the period, especially for a recent convert who was so familiar with what the Catholics had endured under Elizabeth. The book was published a year later.

While the real Fitzherbert family members have secondary roles in the story, the primary characters, young lovers Robin Audrey and Manners, are said to be fictitious. Audrey loves his dear Marjorie, but she senses a secre—that Our Lord is calling her lover to the priesthood. She also knows it is highly likely Audrey will someday die for the “Old Faith.”

The young woman could have easily persuaded Robin not to take the more difficult road. Instead, she sacrifices her lover for God and for Mother Church. She realizes it is better to live and die as an outlaw for the Faith than to reject the call of Christ. This is reminiscent of St. Margaret of Scotland, who is said to have preferred to have her sons die than to commit a single mortal sin.

Audrey becomes a priest and returns to an England that is not so merry for the Catholics being persecuted, tortured and martyred for their faith. Some of the most moving passages detail the inner emotional turmoil of a man experiencing physical torture. How a man of strong faith handles this physical torture provides an interesting juxtaposition to a man who experiences torture, not from without, but strictly from within, as in the case of young Audrey’s father, who turns to the Church of England at the beginning of the novel.

When one decides to take the easier way, one often comes into conflict with those who choose the more difficult road. Because of his choice, the elder Audrey finds himself facing an even more dreaded decision later—one that, however much it might hurt his son, would hurt him more. This image provides evidence of the truth that sin not only betrays the Head of the Mystical Body of Christ, but affects the members as well. The accompanying guilt and (one could say) interior torture can be more excruciating than the physical kind.

The secondary characters range from Mary, Queen of Scots to St. Edmund Campion and the whole Fitzherbert family. Although Benson says Robin Audrey is fictitious, there was a priest in real life who ministered to Queen Mary incognito while she was imprisoned in the Tower of London before her decapitation.

While the Fitzherbert family generally remains strong during the persecutions, one member does “switch sides” and helps betray the rest of the family. Like Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, we should not be surprised when the people around us, the people we love, betray us. One Fitzherbert, Thomas, deserts his Church and his family because he finds it more expedient, more comfortable, and because he wants to get the homestead Padley, only to lose it again.

In the end, only One will stay by us, whether we sense it or not.

Let Thomas Fitzherbert be a lesson to us to pray for strength of faith and perseverance always, especially in difficult times. In the end, those who withstand persecution and suffer martyrdom get everything – the pearl of great price.