| Chapter 1: | The Traditional Story, the Revisionist Story, and the Story |
|
|
Chapter 1
The Traditional Story,
the Revisionist Story,
and the Story
Since the early 1960s, there have been two rivalrous stories—the story told by mainstream historians and the story told by (some) Jesuit historians and their followers.
Traditional
The mainstream view of specialist historians runs as follows. Starting around 1590, the leading Catholic exiles abroad began to entertain serious thoughts about replacing Queen Elizabeth with a Catholic successor—no matter what it took. They knew that if they waited until her natural death, she would have by then named a non-Catholic successor. Thus, they turned to thoughts of assassination and the Queen’s replacement by a Catholic monarch of their choice. The laws governing both the Catholic