By Carla Kelly

St. Andrews Church in Plymouth, England, has a distinguished past. The current building was constructed between 1370 and 1486, but there is evidence of a church there since 700 A.D.
Carved in stone over the door is the single word, “Resurgam,” Latin for “I will rise again.” After devastating air raids, courtesy of the German air force, on March 21 and 22, 1941, St. Andrews was reduced to its bell tower and four stone walls. On the morning after the raid that finished it off, someone wrote “Resurgam” on a board and placed it by the rubble.
In its distinguished history as Devonshire’s largest parish church, St. Andrews had some famous visitors, principal among them Catherine of Aragon. A Spanish princess, she knelt in prayer at St. Andrews on Oct. 2, 1501, to give thanks for safe passage from Spain to England. Shortly after, she was married to Prince Arthur, of the House of Tudor. When Arthur died, she was married to his younger brother, who became King Henry VIII.
She was the mother of Queen Mary. It was Catherine’s inability to produce a male heir that led to her divorce, which, in turn, led to Henry’s split from Rome, and the creation of the Church of England. I’m sure Catherine had high hopes when she arrived in Plymouth, but as all of us can probably testify, things don’t always turn out the way we plan.
Some of St. Andrews’ parishioners are well-known in history. They include Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, and Captain William Bligh of the ill-fated HMS Bounty. Sir Francis Chichester, who sailed his little kedge, the Gypsy Moth IV, around the world, prayed at St. Andrews before he embarked on his solo voyage in 1966. That was a good plan. St. Andrew is the patron saint of fishermen, and by inference, those who go to sea in small boats.
The earlier Sir Francis Drake was a parishioner, and a popular one. He returned from his successful privateering raid on Panama’s Nombre de Dios on Sunday, Aug. 9, 1573. When word of his return reached St. Andrews, the congregation left the church to welcome him home. That seems as good an excuse as any, to cut out on a boring sermon.
Drake’s contemporary and cousin, Sir John Hawkins, was also a member of the congregation. Hawkins was another privateer who harried the Spanish in the New World, while Queen Elizabeth I winked at his exploits and encouraged raids on the wealthy domains of her former brother-in-law, King Philip II of Spain.
I’m partial to Hawkins. His adventures in Mexico and on the Spanish Main, and subsequent redesigning of the Elizabethan navy were the subjects of my senior history paper at BYU. Nice to know he went to church now and then.
St. Andrews did rise from World War II ruin. From 1942 to 1949, it was known as the Garden Church. Worship services continued in the open air, with the space inside the walls laid out as a garden. In 1949, Princess Elizabeth placed the first foundation stone in the restoration of St. Andrews. It was completed in 1957 and rededicated.
“Resurgam,” indeed. Now the word is worked in stone over the church’s north entrance. It sounds a bit like a Harry Potter charm; maybe there is some magic in seeing a venerable church come to life again.
I was taken with the memorials inside the church to the ordinary folk who worshipped there. Eleanor Lockyer, Anne Raddon, and Deborah Tanner are remembered in stone. Who were they? Who knows? As the Spanish Armada approached Plymouth and prepared to sweep up the English Channel in 1588, how many parishioners and sailors crowded inside to say a prayer?  Probably quite a few.
We took a harbor tour and passed the royal naval base at nearby Devonport, with its ships moored there. The names of those modern ships were also names of much older ships: Splendid, Albion, Bulwark, Sutherland, Roebuck, Somerset, Tireless, Black Rover.
I “borrowed” the name of the Tireless for the novel I’m writing now. In my story, the Tireless is a frigate in the Channel Fleet in 1808. These were the wooden walls that protected England from Napoleon’s path to world domination.  In real life, the Tireless is a Trafalgar Class nuclear-powered submarine of the hunter/killer variety.    
I like to think I borrow from the best, and from a town I hope to revisit some day.