The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 45

[Footnote 135:--Catesby, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Thomas Percy were already dead; the two first were slain at Holbeach; Christopher Wright and Thomas Percy both were wounded unto death at the same place; but certainly Percy and possibly Christopher Wright actually breathed their last a day or two afterwards. Query--Where were the bodies of these four men interred? Were they first quartered as traitors according to law?

Tresham died in the Tower, but his body was quartered, and its members exposed at Northampton in the usual way.]

[Footnote 136:--Jardine's "_Criminal Trials_," vol. ii., p. 135. This of the learned Attorney-General reminds one of the late Lord Bowen's witty saying: "Truth will out; even in an Affidavit!"]

[Footnote 137:--Father Henry Garnet, the chief of the Jesuits in England, said that he considered the authors of the Gunpowder Treason were not only deserving of the punishment that some of them had undergone, but even a more severe one, if possible.--See Foley's "_Records_."]

[Footnote 138:--Fonblanque, in his "_Annals of the House of Percy_," in the chapter dealing with Thomas Percy, expresses the opinion that the Government's behaviour was comparatively mild, regard being had to the atrocious nature of the designment against the King and Parliament. Such is candidly my own opinion, and this, although I remember that James's Oath of Allegiance and very tyrannical anti-recusant legislation were the dire consequences of the Plot, which (_me judice_)--far more than the Marian burnings, the Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy, of Uniformity, Constructive Treason, and the Spanish Armada, all put together--led finally to England's being "bereft" of what to a Roman Catholic is "the one true faith."

In regard to James's Oath of Allegiance (1609), it is to be recollected that while strict Roman Catholics, whether "Jesuitized" or not, refused to take the oath, some Catholics thought they might lawfully take it. Among such was the Arch-priest, Blackwell, who, however, was deposed from his office, as, in general terms, Rome condemned the oath. "The sting" of this famous oath was "in its tail;" inasmuch as it not only contained a disclaimer of the deposing power of the Pope, but declared that the doctrine of the deposing power was "impious, heretical, and d.a.m.nable." It is remarkable that all the Roman Catholic peers took the Oath of Allegiance, except Lord Teynham, a collateral descendant of William Roper, the husband of Margaret More.

"An apostate" Jesuit, named Sir Christopher Perkins, aided in framing this searching test, so the Government knew exactly how to get the unhappy papist recusants tightly within their grip. (Perkins, like Sir Edwin Sandys, a philosophic friend of Sir Toby Matthews, was an incipient rationalist. Shakespeare may have known Sir Toby Matthews.)

For valuable information (derived from an unpublished ma.n.u.script) as to the working of this Oath of Allegiance, see the late Richard Simpson's Article, ent.i.tled, "A Glimpse of the Working of the Penal Laws," in "_The Rambler_," vol. vi., p. 401 (1856). If this Article has not been printed separately, it ought to be. In it occur the names Middleton, Gascoigne, Ingleby, Whitham, Cholmeley, Vavasour, Dolman, Mennell (or Meynell), and Catterick, of Yorkshire; Preston and Towneley, of Lancashire; Tichbourne, of Hampshire; Wiseman, of Ess.e.x; Gage, of Suss.e.x; Vaux, of Northamptonshire; Throckmorton, of Warwickshire; Tregean, of Cornwall; Plowden, of Shropshire; Morgan, of Monmouthshire; Edwards, of Flintshire; together with other English and Welsh names, which can be only described as synonymous with honour, high-mindedness, heroism, and all goodness.]

[Footnote 139:--James Usher[A] (1581-1656), Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, was an Anglo-Irishman, who was "learned to a miracle," so the great English Jurist, Seldon, said.--See "Usher," "_National Dictionary of Biography_."--Usher was, through his mother, who became a Roman Catholic, a grandson of James Stanihurst (Recorder of Dublin, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons), whose family were the patrons of Edmund Campion, when in Ireland. The great orator wrote his history of that country after leaving Oxford, and before going to Douay. Usher crossed over to England in 1602. He held in the University of Dublin, in 1607, a divinity professorship, worth 8 a year, which was founded by Mr. James Cotterell, who died in York. Now, I find from the Register of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, York, that there is a record of the burial of a "Mr. James Cotterell--in the mynster--the 29th day of August, 1595." This, I have no doubt, was the self-same gentleman as the "Mr. Cotterell," from whose house, on the 29th day of May, 1579, Thomas Warde made M'gery Slater "his true and honourable wife;" and the same Mr. James Cotterell as founded the Dublin divinity professorship. Dr. Usher knew personally Lord Mordaunt, the son of the Lord Mordaunt who died in the Tower in 1608; and also, according to the "_National Dictionary of Biography_," Father Oswald Tesimond. If so, it is _possible_ that Usher knew personally Lord Mounteagle and Thomas Warde, and it may be it was from them that he gathered hints upon which he founded his oracular statement. (I desire here to express my sense of obligation to the Rev. E. S. Carter, M.A., the Vicar of St.

Michael-le-Belfrey, York, who most kindly and generously gifted me with a copy of his singularly valuable "_Parish Register_" Part I., edited by Dr.

Francis Collins, from which I have obtained that item of domestic information so valuable as a leading clue for the purposes of this Inquiry, namely, the marriage of Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith.)]

[Footnote A: "_The Life of Archbishop Usher_" by Barnard (1656), however, does not bear out the statement of the Author of the Article on "Usher" in the "_National Dictionary of Biography_." For Barnard says that the Jesuit who debated at Drayton, in Northamptonshire, with Archbishop Usher, was called "Beaumond," but that his real name was Rookwood, and that he was a brother of Ambrose Rookwood, the Gunpowder plotter. The debate was arranged by Lord Mordaunt (afterwards the Earl of Peterborough), to the end that his wife, the Lady Mordaunt, a daughter of the Earl of Nottingham, might become convinced of the soundness of the exacting claims of the Church of Rome. The upshot was that not only was the Lady Mordaunt _not_ convinced, but that the Lord Mordaunt himself became a Protestant!

The topics for discussion were:--Transubstantiation, Invocation of Saints, Images, and the Visibility of the Church. According to Barnard, Beaumond at the third day of meeting sent to excuse himself, saying, "That all the arguments he had framed within his own head, and thought he had them as perfect as his _'Pater noster_,' he had forgotten and could not recover them again; that he believed it was the just judgment of G.o.d upon him thus to desert him in the defence of His cause for the undertaking of himself to dispute with a man of that eminency and learning without the licence of his superior."

If it were a Rookwood, probably it was Robert (S.J.)]

[Footnote 140:--The "_Oliver Cromwell_," by John Morley (Macmillan, 1900), contains a picture of Usher, taken from the original portrait by Sir Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery. The face is one of great keenness and power.]

[Footnote 141:--"Style" in handwriting is its genius, its ethos, its air, its aroma, its active, its essential principle. "Style is the man."]

[Footnote 142:--See the Rev. John Gerard's published fac-simile.]

[Footnote 143:--"Shift off," no doubt, is meant as "_The Kings Book_"

gives it. (I should like to say that a gentleman, a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Rev. Edmond Nolan, B.A., suggested to me in August, 1900, when I had the pleasure of meeting him in York, that probably "shift of" was really "shift off.")]

[Footnote 144:--This enigmatical sentence partook of the nature of a clever sleight of mental strategy or of a skilful manuvre of mental tactics. In the case of a man of Oldcorne's combination of the mystical and the practical, it is probable that there would be wheels within wheels, and depths below depths, which are beyond the reach of us ordinary mortals to detect or to fathom. But all this mystery would tend to grip hold of the attention of the reader by compelling him to peruse and weigh the doc.u.ment again and again, and so would tend to beat its warning message into his brains, and so impel beneficent action.]

[Footnote 145:--Gerard's "_Narrative_" likewise omits the word "good,"

which shows us that the Jesuit was indebted to the Royal Author for his copy of the doc.u.ment.]

[Footnote 146:--The Mounteagle Letter is a remarkably clever composition.

Its liveliness, its pithiness, its directness, and its force, in spite of its designed obscurity, gain upon one more and more the oftener one ponders it. But Father Oldcorne was a very clever man. His combination of qualities, theoretical and practical, shows him to have been a man of distinct genius.

In Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., there is, as has been already remarked, a portrait of this great Yorkshire Jesuit, showing a portion of Old Ouse Bridge, York, and St. William's Chapel in the left-hand corner. The face depicted betokens an intellect of great ac.u.men, a heart of great benevolence, both controlled by a will strong with the strength of persistent discipline. The keenness of the countenance portrayed struck a distinguished Oxford friend of mine forcibly the moment he beheld the picture, for he remarked forthwith, "He has an acute look!" The countenance, moreover, as another Protestant friend in effect observed, has that look of infinite patience, of calm resignation, and of sweet melancholy, which was so characteristic of the best of the old English Roman Catholics during "troublesome times."

This phrase, "troublesome times," was used in my hearing about the year 1890 by an ancient lady, the late Mrs. Ann Matterson, widow, of High-field, Bishop Thornton, near Ripon. Mrs. Matterson was an interesting specimen of the solid, calm, old, Garden-of-the-Soul type of English Catholic, or as they proudly and touchingly put it, "Catholics that have never lost the Faith." My informant said she was the daughter of one Francis Darnbrough--a family well known in that part of Yorkshire, a Darnbrough being Wakeman (or Mayor) of Ripon in 1542: that her father's branch of the Darnbrough family had regained the Catholic Faith through marriages with the Bishop Thornton Hawkesworths, hereditary Catholics, who were formerly tenants under the Lords Grantley and Markenfield, of Markenfield Hall. Mrs. Matterson furthermore told me on that occasion that she was distantly connected (through the marriage of her aunt with a Mr.

William Bickerd.y.k.e) with one of the York Catholic Martyrs, whose cause of canonization had been, in 1886, introduced at Rome, namely, with "the Venerable" Robert Bickerd.y.k.e, a gentleman born at Low Hall, near Scotton, in the Parish of Farnham, near Knaresbrough, and who suffered at the York Tyburn, in 1586, for being "reconciled to the Church of Rome." The aged lady also said that her uncle, William Bickerd.y.k.e, had lived at Brampton Hall, on the River Ure, close to Mulwith: that Brampton Hall had belonged to the ancient and now extinct Yorkshire Catholic family of Tankard, or Tancred--one branch of which had their seat at Whixley: and that at Brampton Hall there had been a place to hide the priest in during "troublesome times."

For an interesting work on priests' hiding-places see "_Secret Chambers and Hiding-places_," by Allen Fea (Bousfield, 1901).]

[Footnote 147:--The following letter (1599, probably), which ends with the words: "I comitte you to sweete Jesus his hole protection," etc., will be read with interest. It was written by Richard Collinge, Coolinge, or Cowling, a Jesuit, who was a native of York, being the son of a certain Raulf Cowling (then p.r.o.nounced Cooling), whose name appears in the York Elizabethan "Subsidy Roll for 1581" as of "St. Olave's parish and Belfray's without Bootham Bar," and as being a.s.sessed in goods at the sum of 3, which shows him to have been a well-to-do citizen. Raulf Cowling died a captive in York Castle for his profession of the Catholic Faith.

This valuable letter (for which I am indebted to the great generosity of Dr. Collins, of Pateley Bridge) was written probably in 1599, and intercepted by the Government. From the doc.u.ment we learn that Father Richard Collinge, S.J., was not only a cousin to Guy Fawkes, but also to the Harringtons, of Mount St. John. William Harrington, the elder, who harboured "the Blessed" Edmund Campion for ten days in the spring of 1581 at that secluded, tranquil, and lovely spot, Mount St. John, near the Hambleton Hills, Thirsk, Yorkshire, would be not only father to "the Venerable" William Harrington, the martyr for his priesthood at the London Tyburn, but uncle to Father Richard Collinge, and cousin once removed to Guy Fawkes himself. Guy's mother married for her second husband Denis Bainebridge, of Scotton, a Roman Catholic gentleman connected with the ancient and honourable Roman Catholic family of Pulleyn (Pullein, or Pulleine), of Killinghall and Scotton, by reason of the marriage of Denis Bainbridge's mother to Walter Pulleyn, Esq., as her third husband. We learn also from Father Collinge's letter that, belike, Mr. Denis Bainbridge, Guy Fawkes' step-father, was one of those gentlemen that are "ornamental" rather than "useful." He was, however, certainly a papist, and his name, together with that of his wife, occurs in Peac.o.c.k's "_List for 1604_," under the Parish of "Farnham." There is a blank left for the name of the wife of Denis Bainbridge, probably because Mr. Peac.o.c.k could not decipher the name indicated. I think that Mrs. Denis Bainbridge must have sprung originally from Nidderdale or Wharfedale, and that she was akin to the Vavasours, of Weston and Newton Hall, near Ripley; to the Johnsons, of Leathley; and the Palmes, of Lindley; both of the two last in that part of the Forest of Knaresbrough which is near to the town of Otley. But further researches may solve the problem as to the maiden name of her who gave birth to Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes called himself "John Johnson" when accosted by the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Mounteagle in the cellar under the House of Lords, on Monday, the 4th November. Possibly, therefore, his mother was a Johnson.

Query--Does the Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer, of Chicago, U.S.A., know of any tradition hereon?

"Good Sir,--I pray you lette me intreate y^{r} favoure and frendshippe for my Cosen Germane Mr Guydo Fawks who serves S^{r} William (Stanley) as I understande he is in greate wante and y^{r} worde in his behalfe may stande him in greate steede. I have not deserved aine such curtesie at y^{r} handes as for my sake to helpe my friendes but a.s.sure yrselfe that yf there be aine thinge I can doe for you, you may commande me for the respecte I beare to our ould friendshippe but also by this meanes you shalle bynde me more unto you. He hath lefte a prettie livinge here in his countre which his mother being married to an unthriftie husbande since his departure I think hath wastied awaye.[A] Yet she and the reste of our friends are in good health. I durste not as yet goe to them but this sommer I meane to see them all G.o.d willinge lette him tell my Cousin Martin Harrington that I was at his Brother Henries house at _the mounte_ but he was not then at home he and his wyfe are well and have manie prettie children. Mr D. Worthington's brother hath wrote a letter unto him desiringe a speedie answere he is a good honeste and devoute man I often mete with him for nowe I am residente at his Cozens house in that province which is fallen to my lotte they expecte therefor for some helpe nothinge is wanting but a beginner amonge them so they saye for the redemption of Israel. Remember I pray you my commendacons to my good and honourable G.o.dmother my L. Marie[B] (Percie) and the twoe devoute sisters in her companie. Mr Roberte Chambers[C]

writte to me for his mother, the charge is geven to Mr Duckette[D] to inquire for her for she is in his vicinitie tho four Sirsbies of his companie as [? are] here very well. Within this week I have sene both Cor^{n} & Gould and Batte, to-morrowe I shall mete w^{th} John La.s.sells. Thinges goe well forwarde here o^{r} enemies persecute us all more than ever and are in particulare feare or rather looke for some what more from o^{r} owne malcontents. Thus requesting y^{r} favoure in my suite and remembrance in y^{r} beste memories as you shall have myne _I comitte you to sweete Jesus his hole protection_ this St John Baps^{t} Eve.--Yours in Christe Richard Collinge.

"Lette D. Kellison know that his brother Valentine is in goode healthe and a well wisher but noe Catholike."

Addressed thus:--

"All Molto Mag^{co} Sig^{re} il Signiore Guilio Piccioli a Venezia" [_i.e._, Venice].

(Endorsed) Fugitives.

Vol. cclxxi., No. 21.

_Cf._ also a letter of Father Richard Holtby, S.J., of Fryton, Hovingham, North Riding of Yorkshire, to Father Parsons, dated 6th May, 1609, ending:--"_I commit you to our sweet Saviour His keeping._"--Foley's "_Records_," vol. iii., p. 9.]

[Footnote A: Guy Fawkes' little patrimony was situate in Gillygate and Clifton, then in the suburbs of the City of York.--See Robert Davies'

"_Fawkeses, of York_," and William Camidge's pamphlet, "_Guy Fawkes_"

(Burdekin, York).

Miss Catharine Pullein, of Rotherfield, Suss.e.x, and Edward Pulleyn, Esq., of York and Lastingham, I have reason to believe, likewise belong to this ancient family so long settled near Knaresbrough.--See Flower's "_Visitation of Yorkshire_," and Glover's "_Visitation_," for a pedigree of the family in the time of Elizabeth.]

[Footnote B: The Lady Mary Percy was niece to Francis and Mary Slingsby (daughter of Sir Thomas Percy), of Scriven Hall, whose monuments are still to be seen in the Knaresbrough Parish Church. Dr. Collins tells me that "Sirsbie" was then "a Knaresbrough name," and occurs in the Knaresbrough Parish Church Registers of that period. The name "Sizey," which is given in Peac.o.c.k's "_List_," under "Knaresbrough," is probably the way "Sirsbie"

was p.r.o.nounced, just as "subtle" is p.r.o.nounced "su(b)tle."]

[Footnote C: I incline to think that this Robert Chambers is the same as the Robert Chambers mentioned in the "_Douay Diary_," edited by Dr. Knox (David Nutt); the name, Robert Chambers, appears as one of the students at the English College, Rome. Gould and Batte (or Bates) were probably also the names of priests who had been at this College. Corn may have been Father Oldcorne, S.J., who came to England as a missionary in 1588 with Father John Gerard; or he may have been Father Thomas Cornforth, S.J., a native of Durham, and a great friend of Edward fourth Lord Vaux of Harrowden, whose mother was Elizabeth Roper, a daughter of Sir John Roper first Lord Teynham. Father Cornforth became a Jesuit in 1600. He was at the English College at Rome, and came to England in April, 1599.]

[Footnote D: The Duckette here mentioned was doubtless Father Richard Holtby, S.J., who succeeded Garnet as Superior of the English Jesuits.

Holtby was born at Fryton--in the Parish of Hovingham, in the Vale of Mowbray--between Slingsby and Hovingham, where his brother, George Holtby, lived.--See Peac.o.c.k's "_List of Roman Catholics in Yorkshire in 1604_;"

also Foster's Edition of Glover's "_Visitation of Yorkshire_."--It was Richard Holtby, then a secular priest, who found for Campion secluded, lovely Mount St. John. I think it is probable that, after being harboured by Sir William Babthorpe, at Babthorpe Hall or OsG.o.dby (or both), Campion would proceed through the Vale of Ouse and Derwent to Thixendale, in the Parish of Leavening, to the house of a Mrs. Bulmer; thence, I opine, to Fryton, in the Parish of Hovingham; thence to Grimston Manor, in the Parish of Gilling East; thence through the Vale of Mowbray, by c.o.xwold, to Mount St. John, the home of the Harringtons, who seem to have quitted the place soon after the year 1603, because the Gregory family are found recorded in the Parish Registers shortly after that date, and they certainly resided at Mount St. John. (Communicated to me by the Rev. Henry Clayforth, M.A., Vicar of Feliskirk, near Thirsk.) Near Mount St. John are Upsal Castle, magnificently situated, and Kirby Knowle Castle (commonly called New Building). These were ancient Catholic houses, formerly of a branch of the Constable family. In Kirby Knowle Castle, embosomed in trees, is still to be seen a priests' hiding-place. During the early part of the nineteenth century a skeleton was found in this hiding-place--possibly that of a priest. (Communicated to me by the late Very Rev. Monsignor Edward Canon Goldie, of York, about the year 1889.) George S. Thompson, Esquire, now lives at Kirby Knowle Castle, or New Building. This gentleman married a Miss Elsley, of York, whose family, I believe, formerly owned Mount St. John, through their relatives, the Gregories, who seem to have succeeded the Harringtons, harbourers of the great Campion, whom Lord Burleigh himself styled "one of the diamonds of England." Campion's guides through Yorkshire were Mr. Tempest (probably of Broughton Hall, near Skipton-in-Craven), Mr. More (probably of Barnbrough Hall, near Doncaster, which came to the descendants of Sir Thomas More, through the Cresacre family), Mr. Smyth (brother-in-law of William Harrington, the elder), and Father Richard Holtby.--See Simpson's "_Life of Campion_," second Edition (Hodges, London).--In recent years the Walker family have owned Mount St. John, but I believe that to-day (1901) Sir Lowthian Bell is the owner. When I visited this historic and ravishing spot, the Honourable Mrs. Bosville was the lessee, and the writer has a pleasant recollection of that lady's gracious courtesy (1898).]

[Footnote 148:--Jardine, in his "_Narrative_" p. 37, has the following exceptionally interesting paragraph: "Sir William Waad in a letter to Lord Salisbury, reporting a conversation with Fawkes, says, 'Fawkes's mother is alive and re-married, and he hath a brother in one of the Inns of Court.

John and Christopher Wright were school-fellows of Fawkes and neighbours'

children. Tesimond, the Jesuit, was at that time schoolfellow also with them. So as this crew have been brought up together.'"--State Paper Office, Add. Papers No. 481, Jardine (now Record Office).

Probably what Fawkes said was that _he_ (Fawkes) _and Tesimond_ were neighbours' children; for John and Christopher Wright's parents were of Plowland Hall, in the Parish of Welwick, in Holderness, as we have seen.

Two explanations, however, are possible, which will reconcile this statement that, after all, Fawkes may have _said that he and the Wrights were neighbours' children_. One is that possibly the young Wrights boarded with some citizen dwelling in St. Michael-le-Belfrey's Parish, York, whilst they were at the Royal School of St. Peter, then in the Horse Fayre, Gillygate (but now in Clifton), York; the other explanation is that possibly a portion of the fourteen years during which the mother of John and Christopher Wright was (as we have seen already _ante_) imprisoned for her resolute profession of the Catholic religion was spent in company with her husband, Robert Wright, in some private gentleman's house in the Belfrey Parish, in the City of York--a thing then very common. For example, Dr. Thomas Vavasour, a physician, of Christ's Parish, who--_or whose wife_, Mrs. Dorothy Vavasour--favoured Campion, and probably harboured him in 1581, was for a time imprisoned in the house of his brother. This was probably Mr. Edward Vavasour, a Protestant gentleman, who resided in "the Belfray" Parish, and was a freeman of York and one of its tradesmen, being, I find, a hatter. In the York "Subsidy Roll for 1581" Edward Vavasour's name appears as being a.s.sessed in goods at 8. Dr.

Thomas Vavasour's name does not appear in the Subsidy Roll. I believe he was then in prison, at Hull, for his persistent refusal to conform to the Queen's demands in matters of faith.

Query--Did Father Oldcorne learn his "medicine" from Dr. Vavasour, of the Parish of Christ? What was the system of medical training in the "golden days"?]

[Footnote 149:--As revealing the interior state (1) of Oldcorne's mind in relation to the Gunpowder enterprise, and (2) of Tesimond's mind, respectively, the former stands in sharp contrast with the latter, and must be pregnant with significance to the discerning and judicious reader.]

[Footnote 150:--Vol. ii., pp. 285, 286.]