Introduction

Summary

Faith of our Fathers! living still

In spite of dungeon, fire and sword:

Oh how our hearts beat high with joy

Whene'er we hear that glorious word.

Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith!

We will be true to thee till death.

— Father Frederick Faber, ‘Faith of our Fathers’

[Persecuted] by the sword, the gibbet, the rack, and the flames … men, women, and children were burned [by Catholics] before slow fires, pinched to death with red-hot tongs, starved, flayed alive, broken on the wheel, suffocated, drowned, subjected to all kinds of lingering agonies.

— Henry H. Bourn, Words of Warning respecting The Jesuits

This book is about an imaginary landscape: a sensationalized ‘geography’ of Roman Catholicism constructed and widely circulated in Victorian culture. This is a contentious space. It is the site of Protestant defensive battles and Catholic countercultural skirmishes over denominational authority in a society outwardly aligned with Christian principles but increasingly reliant on science and material evidence to validate ‘truth’. This terrain of extremes is characterized by linguistic extravagances and plots of crime and violence, of persecution and intrigue. Its signposts are images of confinement, torture and deviance. It is a world peopled by victims and oppressors, law-givers and rebels. Many Janus-faced creatures are found there, too – the brave who are also sinister, the respectable who harbour malign and secret intent.