My American Revolution historical fiction trilogy, “All Ye That Pass By,” is thematically centered upon the pros and cons of oath-taking. Although the topic has been very much on my mind during the researching and writing process, I think many people who engage with the American Revolution on a popular level forget about the profound moral quandary of making and breaking solemn declarations before God and Man.

When the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to the cause of rebellion, there could not help but be an element of contradiction, for they were committing an act of treason against the King to whom they had previously sworn fealty. Too often we reduce this decision to a test of courage, necessary to take the risks and face the consequences that accompany defying one’s sovereign. We get a certain thrill from the idea of defiance because it fits a certain popularized narrative framework. But perhaps this is partly because we have forgotten the rubrics of more religious ages in which hierarchies represented divine realities that dignified mankind.

Swearing oaths to kings and queens was a grave matter in both a spiritual and interpersonal sense. Most oath-taking rituals involved placing one’s hand (and often lips) upon the Cross on the Holy Bible, the symbol of salvation, and in the old rendering of such vows, wishing that one’s heart be cut out if proven false to the liege lord or lady, who would henceforth be held higher than family ties or even one’s own life. Calling down the heart-cutting curse was both a literal reference to execution and a symbolic statement of self-destruction, for what was a man’s heart if his word was worthless to the one you had sworn to defend by your life or death?

By contrast, unwavering zeal for one’s royal master may lead to one’s early demise, but that is not merely tolerable, but glorious, indeed, the most glorious hour of one’s life (as Major John Andre declared before minutes before his own life was taken), because it proved the depths of one’s ability to be a good and faithful servant, and what is a man without a lord to serve? What liberty can a knight enjoy if he will not swear his sword and be chained? These perennial questions hearken back to the Anglo-Saxon epic of the Men of Maldon, who preferred death to abandoning their lord, even as he lay slain by Norsemen upon the field. It is no small irony that one of Maldon’s other famous sons was General Horatio Gates, whose trajectory runs in quite a different direction.

On that note, it is worth turning to the various figures in the long history of the British Isles and her overflowing empire who chose to break their oaths to reigning sovereigns by way of rebellion, from Lord Brooke (who fought in The English Civil War against Charles I), to the Duke of Marlborough (who took part in The Glorious Revolution against James II), to Lord Murray (who fought in The Second Jacobite Rebellion against George II). To justify themselves under God and before Man, they usually appealed exception clauses based on a higher religious obligation or a superior royal claim. For Brooke and Marlborough, it was because the kings were leaning too Catholic for their Protestant convictions; for Murray, it was because the Stuarts were the rightful rulers, unlawfully sent into exile.

Even in these cases, however, there is a sense that the participants never fully managed to escape the shadow over their broken oaths. Yes, they might appeal to those “rare cases” brought forward by philosophers and theologians from Thomas Aquinas to Samuel Rutherford, but they had still committed what Dante deemed the most mortal of sins in the depths of his inferno. Bearing that weight is exhausting for any mortal man, doomed to make constant self-defenses while knowing the world will never truly trust them again. It is, in effect, to be branded by the mark of Cain, for one who breaks his oaths has murdered the worth of his own word, a nearer thing than even his own brother.

Jumping forward in time, the American Revolution is a unique case in that it was not fundamentally grounded in either a doctrinal nor a dynastic dispute. One would have to squint incredibly hard to make the arguments of either Aquinas or Rutherford translate neatly into a stamp of approval for the American Revolution. This is not to say the revolutionaries did not borrow from the rhetoric of past uprisings, especially regarding the curbing of royal prerogative (albeit colonial complaints were more directed at Parliament than at the King, even though the King upheld his Parliament). But humanistic philosophies that flourished during the Enlightenment introduced rubrics for revolution based on the will of the people. This, in turn, started the domino effect that established the modern consensus of Democracy being inherently positive, even though General Thomas Gage’s warning about the effects of “democratic despotism” is perhaps more relevant than we wish to admit.

Coming back to my own literary exploration, I strive to cast a particular light upon the experiences of Catholic recusants in the British Isles and North America from the 16th-18th centuries, who found themselves between a rock and a hard place in terms of oath-taking. This was especially the case for English Catholics of prominent lineage, who were forced to pay taxes and tithes for refusing to conform to the Anglican Church, leaving their resources drained and their status diminished. By the latter part of the 18th century, following multiple failed Jacobite risings in favor of Catholic claimants, most were eager to dispel accusations of disloyalty to the established government from their Protestant peers for the old faith they keep against the odds. Even the pope acknowledged the House of Hanover by 1766. But in order to participate fully in British society, it was mandatory to take the Test Act, an oath acknowledging the King as Governor of the Church in England, a claim inherently repugnant to Catholic consciences.

In my historical fiction trilogy, my main protagonist, Edmund Southworth, is a Catholic recusant from Lancashire in the north of England. Coming from old blood and knightly ancestry, he desperately wants to prove that he is neither a coward nor a traitor, and he has daydreamed since childhood about being a soldier for king and country. But so long as he refuses to take the Test Act, a British officer he cannot be. Over the course of the narrative, after being influenced by the charismatic General John Burgoyne, who had been a friend of his late father, Edmund succumbs to temptation, signing the dreaded oath with one hand, while his other hand is clamped over the Holy Cross on the Holy Bible.

This storyline is based heavily on real-world scenarios of the period; some Catholics valiantly resisted this temptation to conform, but others yielded to pressures and persuasions. One of the most famous cases of apostasy in the period pertains to General Thomas Gage’s father and his father’s cousin, both coming from a staunchly Catholic lineage, who took the Test Act when government officials came to confiscate their racing horses. That was the tip of the iceberg in terms of prohibitions, of course; Catholics were also forbidden from bearing arms, voting, holding most offices, attending universities, inheriting property, and of course, obtaining the military commission that would put the Anglican-educated Thomas Gage in history books.

The decision to conform to the religion of the state, though it opened many doors to earthly success, often haunted those who made it, causing the benefits to feel decidedly bittersweet and even unsavory. Edmund’s own internal conflict will be protracted across the plot. He has no illusions about the grave nature of oaths, especially those deriving from the ancient chivalric vows taken by his ancestors. By taking to the Test Act, he believes he has sworn his soul to something which puts him in a state of mortal sin. Yet…is not the breaking of an oath also considered to be a mortal sin? It seems whatever he does will be a slap in the face to saints and martyrs from his tradition, such as Thomas More and Edmund Campion, who took oaths so seriously they preferred to died rather than sign the Oath of Supremacy. Nevertheless, they met their fates praying for the King and Queen who killed them, embodying fidelity under fire.

Another case honored by the oppressed Catholic community, especially in northern England, was Lord Derwentwater, who rose up in the first Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, and preferred beheading to either recanting his faith or swearing an oath to the House of Hanover which he deemed to be illegitimate. Interestingly, it was said Derwentwater’s heart remained incorrupt, in counteraction to the curse of having it cut out. His story cannot help but remind us of the crushing effects of previous resistance and rebellion against the establishment, and it is hard not to once again call our minds to the original topic of the moral complexities and nuanced nature of the American Revolution, compared and contrasted to the history of civil wars in the British Isles that came before it.

As a staff officer under General Burgoyne, Edmund finds himself not only in distress over the price he paid to wear an officer’s prized gorget, but sucked under by the brutal undertow of the doomed Saratoga Campaign, in which he watches almost everyone he put faith in die or fail him. This colonial rebellion, predicted to be a flash in the pan, proves more successful than most ever imagined, shattering old structures in a manner which some will find terrifying and others liberating. In this new world, it is argued by the revolutionaries, seeking to swear disillusioned royalists over to their side, there is a chance to start over with a clean slate, having put distance between themselves and the stricter societal obstructions of the old world.

Edmund, like many people in real life presented such a choice, has no easy route to take. If he reverts to the faith of his fathers and breaks the law by going back on his religious oath as a soldier under arms in wartime, Edmund will be definitively branded a traitor, the word he has always dreaded. If he listens to those urging him to switch sides in the war, however, he will have truly trekked into uncharted territory, calling into question every aspect of his loyalty and identity, on earth as it is in heaven. He will be under the same shadow that covered Brooke, Marlborough, and Murray, yet of an even deeper shade in the eyes of those who look upon the revolution in America as particularly suspect due to its innovative elements. This unbecoming would mean shedding not just obligations to King George III, but to his commanders and comrades, living and dead, and struggling to replace their memory with different ideals.

As the drama of the British surrender unfolds, Edmund meets another Catholic, this time an ardent Patriot officer, Captain Charles Gardiner, who was mentored by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and served on George Washington’s staff. Like Edmund’s side of the story, Gardiner’s experiences are drawn heavily from historical data. Taking Carroll’s growing prominence as a sign of what might be possible for Catholics in America, Gardiner’s claim is that the King is a traitor to them rather than them being a traitor to him, and being placed under religious suppression of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws, his fellow Catholics have the right to seek alternative options for their own betterment as a community of faith. The outcome of the revolution may be a risk, and anti-Catholic prejudice may still be strong in the colonies, but he is sure the revolution itself will set off a chain reaction that will cause old obstacles to crumble. After all, Carroll has already overcome various civil disabilities against his faith in Maryland, the one-time Catholic colony laid low, and Washington, who once took the Test Act himself as a colonial officer under King George II, now shows willingness to uphold religious toleration in his revolutionary army.

Watching the world around him collapse due to the fatal ambition of the fatal ambition of his former mentor, General Burgoyne, being pushed away by his comrades for his religious convictions, and at risk of grievous punishment for being a “secret Papist,” Edmund will find his loyalties tested more intensely than ever before. He must make a decision from which there can be no turning back: Will he change his colors, or bleed to death along with them? As an author, I can say that bringing this inner conflict to life has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the creative process. I encourage you to read the first two books, already available on Amazon, “Gone for a Soldier” and “Kingdom of Wolves,” and keep an eye out for the grand finale next year, “Blood of the Martyrs.”