Love is the Fire is a fiction based in history. 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 was born at a time when it was illegal to train as a Catholic Priest and return to England. Having left his family to study in France, Robert Southwell returned to England undercover. Moving 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