John Inglesant

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John Inglesant is a celebrated historical novel by Joseph Henry Shorthouse, published in 1881, and set mainly in the middle years of the 17th century.

The eponymous hero is an Anglican, despite being educated partly by Jesuits, and remains so, despite strong temptations to convert to Roman Catholicism. Even so, he finds himself involved in intrigues between the Roman Catholic Church and the High Church party of the Church of England, and becomes a courtier of Charles I. He also spends some time at Nicholas Ferrar's community at Little Gidding, where he falls in love (the girl soon dies). He fights on the Royalist side in the English Civil War, and is wounded at the battle of Naseby. He then pursues his brother's murderer to Italy, and observes a Papal Conclave as it elects a new Pope in Rome.

Despite all the above, this is a book of ideas, not action, and religious ideas at that. Every page of brisk activity or intrigue is usually followed by at least two more of debate on such topics as Arminianism, Molinism, the Papacy, and the like. Even by the standards of its time, it is a wordy book, and at the opposite extreme from the preferred all-action mode of the 21st century. It nonetheless has what might be described as a cult following.

Its subtitle ('John Inglesant: a romance') may also be misleading to modern readers; it implies free invention, not love interest, and the book has little or nothing in common with the romance novel of the present day.