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