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    The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829
    Unavailable
    The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829
    Unavailable
    The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829
    Audiobook11 hours

    The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829

    Written by Antonia Fraser

    Narrated by Steven Crossley

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From beloved historian Antonia Fraser comes the dramatic story of how Catholics in the United Kingdom won back their rights after two centuries of official discrimination.

    In the summer of 1780, mob violence swept through London. Nearly one thousand people were killed, looting was widespread, and torch-bearing protestors marched on the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. These were the Gordon Riots: the worst civil disturbance in British history, triggered by an act of Parliament designed to loosen two centuries of systemic oppression of Catholics in the British Isles. While many London Catholics saw their homes ransacked and chapels desecrated, the riots marked a crucial turning point in their fight to return to public life.

    Over the next fifty years, factions battled one another to reform the laws of the land: wealthy English Catholics yearned to rejoin the political elite; the protestant aristocracy in Ireland feared an empowered Catholic populace; and the priesthood coveted old authority that royal decree had forbidden. Kings George III and George IV stubbornly refused to address the "Catholic Question" even when pressed by their prime ministers—governments fell over it—and events in America and Europe made many skeptical of disrupting the social order. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O'Connell and with the support of the Duke of Wellington, the Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed. It was a watershed moment, opening the door to future social reform and the radical transformation of the Victorian age.

    The King and the Catholics is a gripping, character-driven example of narrative history at its best. It is also a distant mirror of our own times, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned intolerance and showing how collective action and the political process can triumph over wrongheaded legislation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 25, 2018
    ISBN9781984840196
    Unavailable
    The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829
    Author

    Antonia Fraser

    Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works which have been international bestsellers. She was awarded the Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000 and was made a DBE in 2011 for services to literature. Her previous books include Mary Queen of Scots; King Charles II; The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England, which won the Wolfson History Prize; Marie Antoinette: The Journey; Perilous Question; The King and the Catholics; and The Wives of Henry VIII.  Must You Go?, a memoir of her life with Harold Pinter, was published in 2010, and My History: A Memoir of Growing Up  in 2015. Fraser's The Case of the Married Woman is available from Pegasus Books. She lives in London. 

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