Remember, remember: how education "beyond the seas" kept Catholicism alive

Bonfire night marks a plot in 1605 to burn down the Houses of Parliament. It's also a reminder of the ferocious divides that existed between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Historian Liesbeth Corens is researching the measures taken by English Catholics to educate their children in the 'true faith'. Education has long been a battleground between faiths with different beliefs and conflicting allegiances. Seldom has this been more striking than in 17th century England. Liesbeth Corens In 1698 a painter and his wife, William Seeks and Mary Brittell, appeared in court in central London. The crime for which they stood before the Middlesex Sessions in the borough of Clerkenwell was to have sent their nine-year-old daughter out of the country to be educated in a convent in France.