The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 21

Poor Henry Garnet, a sorry, pathetic figure in the history of his Country, surely. Yet, because _much_ was lost, he knew that it did not therefore follow that _all_ was lost. For this gifted, distraught, erring man still held "something sacred, something undefiled, some _pledge_ and keepsake of his better nature."

_That something was his point of honour as a Priest of the Catholic Church._[A]

[Footnote A: How many a gallant soldier and sailor in our own day, young and old, has been sustained in life and death by the consoling _infinite thought of fidelity to the commands of a lawful superior_; by the comforting _transcendental thought of duty done_! _Cf._, Frederic Denison Maurice's fine pa.s.sage on the inspiring and enn.o.bling idea of Duty, in his "_Lectures on the Epistles of St. John_ (Macmillan); also Wordsworth's magnificent "Ode to Duty."]

CHAPTER LIII.

Sir Everard Digby had rented Coughton, near Alcester, in Warwickshire, from Thomas Throckmorton, Esquire, as a base for the warlike operations, which were to be conducted in the Midlands as soon as intelligence had arrived from London that the King, Lords Spiritual and Temporal, together with the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, "were now no more."

On Sunday, the 3rd of November, the young knight rode from Coughton to Dunchurch, near Rugby.

Robert Winter the same day left Huddington and, sleeping on the Sunday night at Grafton, at the house of his father-in-law, John Talbot, Esquire, rode on to Coventry, in company with the younger Acton, of Ribbesford, and attended by several servants.

At Coventry, Robert Winter was joined by Stephen Littleton, of Holbeach House, in Staffordshire, just over the borders of Worcestershire; and also by his cousin, Humphrey Littleton, brother to the then late John Littleton,[A] of Hagley House, Worcestershire, who had been engaged in the Ess.e.x rising.

[Footnote A: All the Littletons were descended from the great Judge Littleton, author of "_Littleton on Tenures_." The present Lord Lyttelton belongs to the same family.]

On the following Tuesday, November the 5th, the whole party proceeded towards Dunchurch, the armed cavalcade continually increasing in numbers.

The plan was, that at Dunsmore Heath, under a feigned hunting or coursing match, there should be a gathering of the Midland Catholic clans, then very numerous and powerful. Dunsmore Heath, in fact, was to be the rendezvous of the insurgents.

Robert Winter left the cousins Littleton at "the town's end" of Dunchurch, and rode on to Ashby St. Legers, the ancestral seat of the Catesbies, where, indeed, the Dowager Lady Catesby was then residing.

Here Robert Winter hoped to meet Catesby, with whom, after the latter had reported progress with reference to things done in London on that Tuesday morning, Winter purposed to gallop off to the rendezvous at Dunsmore Heath.

Ambrose Rookwood was one of the latest to leave for the provinces. He owned many fine horses; and he had placed relays of horses all the way from London to Dunchurch. Rookwood rode one horse at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. Riding for dear life, he overtook Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights, near Brickhill. Percy and John Wright cast off their cloaks and threw them into the hedge to ride the more swiftly.[155]

About six o'clock in the evening of Tuesday, just as Lady Catesby, Robert Winter, and some others were about to sit down to supper in the old mansion-house, there fell upon their ears a mingled din, occasioned by horses' feet and men's excited voices.

Soon in rushed, with scared faces and travel-stained garb, grievously fatigued and intensely agitated, the son of the house (Robert Catesby), Thomas Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Ambrose Rookwood. Their announcement was the capture of Guy Fawkes early that Tuesday morning.

After holding a short council of war, the whole band of conspirators, s.n.a.t.c.hing up all the weapons of warfare they could lay their hands on, took horse again and rode off to Dunchurch.

Sir Everard Digby, his uncle (Sir Robert Digby, of Coleshill), Stephen Littleton, Humphrey Littleton, and many others were awaiting their arrival at Dunchurch, in an inn.

The six fugitive conspirators, all bespattered with the mire of November high roads, with dejected looks and jaded aspect, arrived in due time to tell their tale.

Soon Sir Robert Digby departed with one of his sons, then Humphrey Littleton, and speedily many others of the hunting party.

It was determined by the ringleaders to make for Wales; for the Catholics of the Princ.i.p.ality were then very strong,[A] and the Counties of Warwick, Worcester, and Stafford were to be traversed, from all of which valuable reinforcements were expected.

[Footnote A: It is a curious fact that in the reign of Elizabeth, Father Weston, S.J., specially spoke of Wales, along with the counties bordering on Scotland, as being firm in its attachment to the Church of Rome. It was the lack of a Welsh College in Rome which, causing the supply of priests to fail, gradually caused the interesting Cymric people to lose the Faith which they of all the inhabitants of the British Isles were the first to embrace.

It is to be remembered, however, that there has always been a remnant in a few of the valleys of Wales faithful to the See of Rome; and Dr. Owen Lewis, the Bishop of Ca.s.sano, a Welshman, aided Cardinal Allen to found Douay College, in 1568. Several of the Martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, too, were Welsh.

At the English College at Rome the Welsh and the English students had violent and, to read of, amusing quarrels. Evidently the Welsh, students looked down upon their Anglo-Saxon compeers as belonging to a comparatively inferior race.]

About ten o'clock on Tuesday night the full company, now about thirty strong, set out for Norbrook,[A] the house of John Grant.

[Footnote A: At Warwick, _en route_ for Norbrook, they took some horses out of a stable near the Castle, and left their own steeds in exchange therefor. They arrived at Warwick at about three o'clock on Wednesday morning.]

Thence, it will be recollected, Bates was sent with a note from Catesby and Sir Everard Digby to Father Garnet, at Coughton, urging Garnet to join the rebels in Wales.

Lady Digby had also a letter from her husband, but the poor young wife, we are told, could, alas! do naught but cry.

After a halt of about two hours for refreshments and the procuring of more arms, the insurgents once more slipped their feet into the stirrups, and on they rode for Huddington, near Droitwich, where they arrived at two o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 6th. Sentinels were posted at the pa.s.sage of every way at Huddington, possibly by the order of John Winter, half-brother to Robert and Thomas Winter.

Here they were joined by Thomas Winter, who had come down from London with the latest news; also by the Jesuit, Father Tesimond, whom Catesby hailed with joy.

They rested for a good few hours at Huddington; and, as we have seen already, at about three o'clock in the morning of Thursday all the gentlemen a.s.sisted at Father Nicholas Hart's Ma.s.s, went to Confession, and received, at the Jesuit's, hands, what most of them from their childhood had been taught to believe was "the Bread of Angels," and "the Food of Immortality."[B]

[Footnote B: Certainly Man's nature _needs_ these things; but the question is: Can it get them? "Aye, there's the rub."]

Before daybreak of Thursday the fugitives were on the march north-westward again. For "there is no rest for the wicked."

The rebels made for Whewell Grange, the seat of the Lord Windsor, one of the numerous Worcestershire Catholic families.

At Whewell Grange the traitors helped themselves to a large store of arms and armour.

Then they sped on towards Holbeach House, near Stourbridge, in Staffordshire. Their number was then about sixty all told, although earlier in the march it had increased to about a hundred. In two days they had traversed about sixty miles, "over bad and broken roads, in rainy and inclement weather."

To the dire disappointment of Catesby, Sir Everard Digby, and the rest, John Talbot, of Grafton, drove Thomas Winter and Stephen Littleton from his door when they sought his aid for the rebellion.[A]

[Footnote A: See Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 112, to which I am indebted for this account; also Handy's evidence, Jardine's "_Criminal Trials_,"

vol. ii., pp. 165, 166.]

And Sir Everard was constrained to avow that of the wealthy Catholic gentry "not one man came to take our part though we had expected so many."[B]

[Footnote B: Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 112. Holbeach House is no longer standing.]

CHAPTER LIV.

The High Sheriffs of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, with their _posse comitatus_, were in pursuit of the fugitives, who arrived at Holbeach House at ten of the clock on Thursday night.

At Holbeach they prepared to make their last stand. And alack! never more were the brothers John and Christopher Wright destined to behold Lapworth, Twigmore, Ripon, Skelton, Newby, Mulwith, York, or Plowland,[A] nor any of those scenes around which must have clung so many endearing a.s.sociations and sacred memories.[156]

[Footnote A: For an account of recent visits to Mulwith and Plowland, see Supplementum IV. and Supplementum V.

To the generosity of my friend, Miss Burnham, the lady of Plowland, my readers owe the view of the present Plowland House, which forms the Frontispiece to this Book. The old Hall occupied the site of the present dwelling, and faced the river Humber towards the south. The gabled buildings in the rear are ancient, and behind them are a few mossy Gothic stones, evidently belonging to the old chapel. Behind the ancient buildings is a willow-fringed remnant of the old moat. George Burnham, Esq., brother to Miss Burnham, is the owner of this historic spot. Edward Wright Burnham, Esq., of Skeffling, Holderness, is their brother. The names _Edward Wright_ suggest descent from Edward Wright, the son of Christopher Wright, the revealing conspirator.]

Early in the morning of Friday some of the company went out to descry whether or not reinforcements were in sight. Others began to prepare their shot and powder.