Love is the Fire

Love is the Fire is a fiction based in history of a time when people were prepared to die for their faith. It was a time when young men travelled to the Continent to study with passionate teachers before returning to England to work undercover. It follows the life of the Southwells to Robert’s martyrdom. Stolen by Gypsies as a baby and rescued by his loyal nurse, Robert Southwell lived in an age when it was illegal to train as a Catholic Priest and return to England. Having left his family to study in France, he returned to England. Moving in darkness from house to house, living in priest-holes, constantly hunted, he managed to evade the authorities - until he was betrayed by a young Catholic woman to the dreaded priest hunter, Richard Topcliffe. He was accused of treason, hounded down, tortured, then hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1595. A kinsman of Shakespeare and fine poet, Robert Southwell was Cannonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970