Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614), the aristocratic “jesuitina” carrying the counter-reformation into the heart of Gunpowder Plot London, affected poverty in her garb, lifestyle and demeanour, while never missing an opportunity to influence events through her lofty connections. An inveterate letter-writer, she discarded her surnames but eventually found her true voice as a political lobbyist – a perpetual thorn in the side of those of her compatriots she judged to be appeasers of the heretical English and Dutch.
In Luisa’s Letters, from extracts translated by David McGrath (Manchester University and King’s College, London) the audience is invited to hear an account in her own words of Luisa’s tribulations and imprisonment, as read by KCL post-graduate MA student Sophie Stevens, who has also helped devise and edit the performance. The performance is staged in association with the Out of the Wings project at KCL, and funded by the AHRC through Manchester University (where David is a Post-doctoral Researcher).
