God's Secret Agents: by Alice Hogge.

When Catherine of Aragon was married to the heir to the English throne the hope, as usual in such marriages, was that the two kingdoms would unite or at least be on friendly terms, with peace and prosperity for both. With the untimely death of her husband, this hope seemed to end, and she was to return to her parents, but the English royals devised a way out of sending her away, by marrying her to the next heir, Henry the 8th, who was just about a teenager but precocious. This was against the English law which prevailed until a century ago (if it has been amended since Shaw wrote about it is rather irrelevant in this era except for the royals who need to be legitimate to inherit) so they asked for a special dispensation from the pope, with a declaration to the effect that Catherine's marriage with her first husband was never consummated. However, she did not have a son, while Henry did, and he finally was desperate to have a legitimate son, and grew to believe that he had sinned after all in marrying his brother's widow. The pope refused to cancel the annulment of her first marriage though or to grant another annulment, chiefly for the reason that Spain was too powerful now and besides Spain was closer and in a position to threaten the pope personally; besides, it was irksome to do a double annulment at England's behest, and be a far more ridiculous puppet of the royals of Europe, than digging heels in and refuse mulishly to please the English would be much marrying king.

Henry found a way out - seceding from the church of Rome, which had already happened in Germany with beginning and establishment of protestant church. The period that then followed in England until Elizabeth I came to power was filled with strife, intrigues, murders, plots, executions, threats, and much dark manipulation, which included Roman agents, priests secretly or openly arriving in England to turn back the tide. People were fed up with the strife by the time Elizabeth was the Queen, it is not for nothing Mary was called and is remembered as Bloody Mary with attempts to turn England back to Roman dominion. Hopes were pinned on Elizabeth, hopes for peace for people of England.

Elizabeth did achieve this and more, with Britain firmly established on path to prosperity and forging ahead, during her reign. She sacrificed a possibility of any personal life with happiness of motherhood by never marrying, and her first attempt to establish peace in realm of religion was by asking England to unite under one church for the nation, not aligned to either Rome or any protestant church abroad. Once this was granted she then refused to conform to either and much form of both was retained in the new church for comfort of people in devotion.

Rome refused to give up on power in Britain though and attempts on her life escalated with signed and sealed orders to murder her sent through priests from Rome travelling to England and attempts to restart civil wars, with much maligning of her person as well - nothing new, and not something that has stopped since either - and it took more than loyal subjects to deal with them, often with shrewd, wary and capable men of England helping her survive. The miraculous escapes she had, what with priests from Rome secretly crawling about the palace (with signed and sealed orders and weapons including daggers, ready to murder her and create havoc), were nothing short of Divine intervention on her behalf, and for the nation and the world.

Those emissaries of Rome with orders to murder a sovereign ruler for sake of reestablishment of power of Rome is what this book is about. To all those that equate the power of Rome with ultimate power above the title of the book is apt, but to all others it is nothing short of a parallel of jihadi tracts of today to demolish all powers not of Islamic nations, holding UK, US, India, Israel, Australia, Canada and other nations - especially those of Europe - as culpable and any propaganda against them claiming a torture of Muslim residents thereof as merely a valid weapon for the purpose of establishing kingdom of god.

England celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with fireworks officially - wonderful to enjoy especially when travelling on a dark night.