Dear me, Joel, I didn't mean any of those analogies. I was indeed
thinking a little of the old Soviet preoccupation with encirclement -
and modern Russian fear, as we speak - and wondering whether the Irish
ever appeared part of an encirclement. I accept that I may be hopelessly
out-of-date in my view of Elizabeth's Catholic policy, but I know that
there were many fanatical families in the West of England who believed
unconditionally in her time that the anglican church was founded there
by Joseph of Arimathea before the "later" catholic church by Peter in
Rome. I have always seen these traditions as entirely lunatic, and
merely exploited by the Court, but they should not be denied. (I was
even taught them as still valid in my childhood!) The discussion has
wisely skirted the Rosicrucian elements in the Faerie Queene, but
perhaps, I wished delicately to suggest, at the price of not asking
important questions about the Irish as part of an encirclement.
I would be grateful for modern work on British Catholic policy after the
fall of Leicester and his minions.
Rob Dyer
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