trennels | catholic question?

So good to find this site, full of other people who share a passions for the Marlows Fascinating that people have such very different responses. Never occurred to me that you could love the books but not Nicola, or that anyone actually liked Patrick Merrick….

So I’d like to ask opinions about something I find puzzling. All the obits/biogs say Antonia Forest was such a strong catholic, and yet why (to my mind) are her noncatholic/nonreligious characters so much more appealing? And her catholic characters so strongly unappealing. Mme Orly is a nightmare –fun to read about, but a nightmare – and then there’s Patrick… I suppose he is the major example. To me he always seems both arrogant and a prig, and his religious certainties always seemed a big part of this. He is just way too certain of himself and his beliefs.

Some examples: In conversation with Rowan, he states that of course he never has any difficulties at all in believing in God (End of Term). Nicola, following a conversation with him, reflects that she hopes her ancestors were genuine believers in Protestantism, as anything else would seem so inferior to the Merricks, with their acceptance of possible martyrdom. (interesting: she seems to detect in his religion a kind of dynastic superiority rather than a personal spirituality!) In the same conversation Patrick makes clear that he sees the whole of English history through a Catholic prism – completely writing off the Tudors and the Restoration, and stating that of course his family supported Charles not ‘Orrible Oliver during the Civil War. (And more fool them, as Oliver Cromwell’s regime was notable for its toleration towards Catholics – far more so than after the Restoration.) Patrick’s certainties (religious, social, intellectual) are not even much shaken up by his long talk with Jukie (Thuggery Affair) although he does at least find Jukie’s DIY theology baffling, rather than amusing (as we are told would usually be the case). Is such cast-iron certainty/superiority really an attractive feature in someone who is only fifteen/sixteen? Wouldn’t you want to shoot him for such smugness!

Most tellingly, I can’t think of any notable example of kindness or generosity by Patrick, religiously inspired or not. Quite the opposite, in the whole betrayal of Nicola for Ginty -which makes it all the more annoying she is just delighted to get him back!) (Oops – I suppose Patrick’s willingness to help Jukie – at some personal risk – is an example here. However, Jukie dies and the incident seems to have no lasting effect upon Patrick at all.)

ALSO I can’t help noticing that AF herself chooses for her main characters people who are both open-minded and reflective and generally of no strong religious conviction at all. (Does this mean she likes them best? Or she thinks they are more appealing to readers? )In End of Term, Nicola is both thoughtful and intrigued by the different religious beliefs she encounters, almost sociologically observant, but very far from expressing any particular belief herself. This makes Nicola a lot more appealing in my eyes…she is also generally a kinder person than Patrick, and far more reflective about herself and her own behaviour. For that matter, Lawrie (who states that she thought Christianity was some sort of mythology, like the Olympians, and even tries to make bargains with God) is a lot more appealing than Ann (full of conventional religious piety).

Then there’s Nicholas and Will (Player’s Boy/Rebels). AF’s Will is surely one of her most appealing characters: wise, ironic, shrewd, detached…and he has no interest in supporting the Old Religion. Furthermore, he believes Nicholas is right to betray the Essex plotters regardless of the fact that some of them are hoping to restore the Catholic faith. (He and Nicholas’s scruples and regrets about this are to do with personal loyalties/friendships, not religion.)

So what’s going on here? Am I misreading the books totally? So many things I like about AF’s writing – her subversiveness (especially in the school setting), her openness to paradox and alternative points of view, and her choice of open-minded, searching, pragmatic characters for her main narrative viewpoints – seem at odds with what I read on the AF web-sites – that AF was a strong catholic herself. (And monarchist for that matter.) Of course, I have to say it is decades since I read Attic Term – would that make things clearer? Do I simply not understand what AF was trying to do? Comments please!

Tags: nicola, patrick, religion

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I think you're spot on with this - that's why she's so attracted to the late Elizabethan period as well, because it makes it possible to combine so neatly being both very devout (as a Catholic) and very subversive indeed.

this is a really interesting suggestion. However, have to say, have been reading Player's Boy and the chapter with Anthony Merrick (which I'm guessing probably represents AF's favoured perpective on the recusancy issue). And he says firmly that he doesn't want to overthrow Elizabeth, and believes they should all wait patiently until Elizabeth decides to restore Catholicism. So not really very subversive at all...more "having your cake and eating it" in my view. (And also dodging the issue that the Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth I and thus had basically condoned attempts by English Catholics to get rid of her.)

Can't help feeling that although Patrick Merricks grandly writes off the Tudors as ghastly, AF, writing about the period, probably recognised their attributes as rulers, and is reluctant to take a hard-line stand against them...Furthermore Will in Rebels tells Nicholas clearly that his first duty, however unpleasant, is to the state, and I'm sure the reader is meant to go along with this (it is pretty much at the conclusion of the book, and Will is such a wise and sympathetic character). So that too seems to go against the idea that AF is embracing subversiveness in this period - she seems to me to be embracing the status quo.

AF's Will (whether this was true of the real one or not) had fought in the Low Countries against Parma. Anyone who'd ever been up against Parma and his terceiros, by all accounts, would have smoked his grandmother and sold her in rashers rather than encourage that sort of thing.

In historical terms "subversive" and "maverick" is too mild a term for the Essex plotters; we're talking terrorism (inept terrorism, but terrorism nonetheless). By way of example, the BBC considered in conjunction with the Institute of Physics a couple of years ago what would have happened if Guy Fawkes had succeeded. Given the timber construction of the local buildings, the amount of gunpowder used, and the scenario estimates suggested that the damage would have been equivalent in scale to the 11th September bombing - assuming, of course, that Bush, Cheney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House of Representatives happened to have been in the World Trade Centre at the relevant time.

I guess this is a time when the catholic/protestant divide is beginning to yawn nastily wide...and all those (like Elizabeth I, and maybe AF's Antony Merrick) who prefer to take a position somewhere in the middle, are finding it more and more difficult...

What I find interesting is that AF seems to come down on the side of the pragmatic Will - position of ironic detachment, contrast Patrick's very unnuanced historical views (evil Tudors, evil reformation etc)in End of Term.

By the way, were the Essex rebels really equivalent to terrorists? Weren't they more a standard power-grab coup attempt?

Well, it was so inept it's difficult to know what to describe it as, but I expect if one tried to re-enact it these days it'd be the Prevention of Terrorism Acts they'd bang you up under. And quite a number of the people associated with the plot did go on to get involved with Fawkes's lot.

And as I said, Patrick's a 15 year-old boy who's led a remarkably secluded (I won't say sheltered) life whereas AF's Will has knocked around a fair bit, including fighting in the Low Countries. It's always possible that when Ronnie gets back from Ulster (if he does) he might have a few useful points to make to Patrick about the dangers of unnuanced historical views, for a similar reason.

I haven't read AF's Player's Boy (I've read Bryher's novel of the same name, which is, um, interesting...) so I can't comment much. I would say that AF is less trying to have her cake and eat it there than trying to represent the extent to which conflicts of loyalty were simply part of the lives of English Catholics in the period. And - maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject could correct me - but I think Anthony Merrick represents majority Catholic opinion there - most English Catholics did not support the violent overthrow of Elizabeth, which makes ~~the regime's treatment of them as ipso facto traitors all the more unfair~~. *stuffs inflammatory sectarian language back up jumper*

disentangling religion from politics was extremely hard in this period and for some time to come...Elizabeth I did her best, she famously did not want "to make windows in men's souls". the position of english catholics was jeopardised to a large extent by the actions of their own church hierarchy

catholic question?

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