Finished: Column of Fire (Follett) Another great (and very long) Follett book...the third book in the Kingsbridge series which began with Pillars of the Earth, and continued with World Without End. Even though the book is hundreds of years apart from the other books, many of the characters are descendents of the characters from the first two books. The town, Kingsbridge, and it's incredible buildings, which were practically characters in the first two books, also remain in tact. Column of Fire centers around a few main characters who spring up out of Kingsbridge and become involved in various ways in world politics. Its is now the 1500's and the big battle of the times is between Catholics and Protestants, and the rulers who support each of those religions. The young Queen Elizabeth comes into power and believes in religious tolerance, to the point of keeping her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, a devout Catholic, who many consider the rightful heir to the throne, as a prisoner. Mary believes in killing Protestants who have broken from the Catholic faith. Elizabeth doesn't want people killing other people over religion. However, in trying to keep this ideal, she ends up being responsible for the death of nearly as many people as the Catholics had been. The main fictional characters end up being instrumental in the support of the various kings and queens. Ned Willard and his brother, Barney, are Protestants. Barney becomes a sailor and spends his life fighting in the open seas, even being part of the group led by Francis Drake who defeats the heavily favored Spanish Armada when it tries to invade England. Ned, after being spurned by the love of his life Margery, travels to London and becomes a right hand man to Queen Elizabeth, basically serving under the men who comprise her secret service, and becomes instrumental in foiling many plots to take her life. Margery Fitzgerald is a beautiful, feisty girl who is as in love with Ned Willard as he is with her. However, after they have declared their love and hope to marry, her father forces her to marry the local son of an Earl. Margery is also a devout Catholic, and so after she and Ned go their separate ways, Margery focuses on helping to smuggle Catholic priests into the country to be paired with wealthy Catholic-sympathizing families. Little does she know that her own brother, Rollo, who is particularly heartless and self-serving, and has ALWAYS been a bully and nemesis to Ned, has gone to work his own Catholic agenda...which actually involves murdering Queen Elizabeth and having Mary of Scots restored to the English throne. He's convinced then that his beloved Catholicism will come back into power, and that he will be made a Bishop at Kingsbridge. The fact that he's willing to kill anyone who foils his plan is beyond his moral comprehension. Ned spends years unmarried, his only devotion his work and Queen Elizabeth, when he meets Sylvie Palot...an equally feisty woman who is just as determined that Protestants be allowed to practice their own religion as Margery is about the Catholics. Ned and Sylvie meet and fall in love right before the horrific massacre of Protestants on what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Surviving the bloody day by the skin of their teeth, they realize they are in love and marry. They are happy for many, many years, even traveling back to Kingsbridge at times and seeing Margery and her family. Another major character, who is truly evil and does everything he does to promote himself higher in society is Pierre Aumande. As a young man, he courts Sylvie, then a very young, vulnerable woman, and works his way into her family, gathering information about her father, who is an illegal printer and seller of Protestant bibles. He amasses a huge list of secret Protestants, and on the day he is to marry Sylvie, he arranges for the power-hungry Duke of Guise, who he is working for, and his men to come and raid the wedding party and arrest all the Protestants. It is truly heartless, and Sylvie is heartbroken. Her father is executed and she and her mother become destitute. That is...until she realizes that no one ever found out where her father's secret warehouse of illegal bibles and other literature was! Sylvie takes over the clandestine spreading of "the word" and that is what she's doing when she meets Ned. Pierre is responsible for many other evil plots, and attempts on the lives of important people. He is also a nemesis of Ned's, who in the end, gets his satisfying just rewards...his death at the hands of another woman he has tortured and humiliated for years. The book is so long and detailed, that a more in depth recap would take forever! I did enjoy this book, as I have the others, and hope that Follett keeps writing more about characters from Kingsbridge!! Ned was still alive, and an old man, at the end of the book, and his great-grandson, Jack, has just informed him he'd like to be a builder. If you read Pillars of the Earth, you know that Jack the Builder, step-son of Tom the Builder, was one of the major characters! Love that full circle moment. :-)