The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 9

The fourth Duke of Norfolk's head fell on the scaffold, by reason of the Duke's aspiring to the Royal hand of Mary Queen of Scots.[B]

[Footnote B: Slingsby Castle, 28 miles north-east of York (now dismantled), is a.s.sociated with the Mowbrays Dukes of Norfolk, they giving the Vale near the Howardian Hills and Rydale the t.i.tle, Vale of Mowbray.

While Sheriff Hutton Castle, 10 miles north-east of York (rebuilt by the first Earl of Westmoreland), is a.s.sociated with the Howards Dukes of Norfolk; for the "old Duke" lived there for 10 years during the reign of Henry VIII. (The occupier of part of Sheriff Hutton Castle now (1901) is Joseph Suggitt, Esq., J.P.)]

The then Lord Dacres of the North, "who dwelt on the Border" at Naworth Castle,[A] near Carlisle, was likewise a sharer in the renowned laurels of Flodden Field.

[Footnote A: The Howards Dukes of Norfolk give their name to the Howardian Hills, through Lord William Howard, who married the Honourable Anne Dacres, of Naworth Castle and Hinderskelfe Castle, now Castle Howard.

Historic Naworth and that veritable palace of art, Castle Howard, belong to that cultivated n.o.bleman, Charles James Howard ninth Earl of Carlisle, whose gifted wife, Rosalind Countess of Carlisle (_nee_ Stanley of Alderley), is akin to the famous William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle, of the days of James I.]

This before-mentioned Sir Edward Stanley, the fifth son of Thomas Stanley first Earl of Derby, was created by Henry VIII. Baron Mounteagle, and he was the great-great-grandfather of William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle, who married Elizabeth Tresham.

The story of the battle of Flodden Field[86] and its famous English archers must have been familiar to Mounteagle from his earliest years. And he, doubtless, would have learned from maternal lips that, in consequence of his ancestor's prowess in that historic fight, his mother's family received from Henry VIII. the famous t.i.tle whereby he himself had the good fortune to be known to his King and his fellow-subjects.

I find from Baines' "_History of Lancashire_," vol. iv., ed. 1836, that Hornby Castle, in the Vale of the Lune, in the Parish of Melling, did not pa.s.s out of the family of the Lords Morley and Mounteagle until the reign of Charles II. (1663), when it was sold to the Earl of Cardigan: that James I. confirmed to William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle certain ancient rights and privileges, such as court view of frankpledge, etc.: and that James stayed at the Castle in the year 1617, on his return from Scotland to London through Lancashire. Baines also says that Sir Edward Stanley first Lord Mounteagle (who married Anne Harrington, daughter of Sir John Harrington) successfully pet.i.tioned Henry VII. for the Hornby Estates, in consequence of the attainder of James Harrington, apparently his wife's uncle.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The first Lord Mounteagle left Hornby Castle to his son Thomas second Lord Mounteagle.

William third Lord Mounteagle, the son and heir of Thomas the second Lord Mounteagle, died in 1584, and is buried in the Parish Church of St. Peter, Melling.

Lady Mary Brandon,[A] the eldest daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, was the first wife of Thomas second Lord Mounteagle, whose second wife was Ellen Leybourne (_nee_ Preston), the mother of Anne, the wife of William third Lord Mounteagle, who died in 1584.

[Footnote A: Lady Mary Brandon was the daughter of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, who was married four times, one of his wives being a sister of Henry VIII. The Duke of Suffolk was grandfather of Lady Jane Dudley, commonly called Lady Jane Grey, one of the finest moral characters Protestantism has produced.--See Spelman's "_History of Sacrilege_"

(Masters, ed. 1853), p. 228.]

Ellen Preston's father was Sir Thomas Preston; her mother was a Thornborough, of Hampsfield Hall, Hampsfell, in the Parish of Cartmel, North Lancashire. The Thornboroughs (or Thornburghs) had held some of the following manors from the time of Edward III.:--Hampsfield Hall, Whitwell, Winfell, Fellside, Skelsmergh, Patton, Dallam Tower, Methop, Ulva, and Wilson House, all either in North Lancashire or Westmoreland.

In the parish church of Windermere, at Bowness, near Lake Windermere, there is a window containing, besides royal arms (possibly those of Henry V.), the arms of Harrington, Leybourne, Fleming de Rydal, Strickland, Middleton, and Redmayne, most of which houses of gentry of "the North Countrie" were more or less allied to the fourth Lord Mounteagle.

Sir Edward Stanley first Lord Mounteagle was in possession of Hornby Castle and its broad acres at the date of Flodden Field, 1513.[A] This is interestingly evidenced by the two following stanzas from the old "Ballad of Flodden Field":--

[Footnote A: In the battle of Flodden Field, which caused such lamentation, mourning, and woe in Edinburgh, several citizens of York behaved themselves valiantly under Sir John Mounville. Among English lords in this fight were the Lords Howard (Edmund Howard), Stanley, Ogle, Clifford, Lumley, Latimer, Scroope (of Bolton), and Dacres; among knights were Gascoyne, Pickering, Stapleton, Tilney, and Markenfield; and among gentlemen were Dawney, Tempest, Dawbey, and Heron.--See Gent's "_Ripon_,"

p. 143.

It is said that the gallant Northumbrian Heron knew all the "sleights of war."]

"Most lively lads in Lonsdale bred, With weapons of unwieldly weight; All such as Tatham Fells had bred, Went under Stanley's streamers bright.

From Silverdale to Kent Sand Side,[87]

Whose soil is sown with c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.ls; From Cartmel eke and Connyside, With fellows fierce from Furness Fells."

Now, the fourth Lord Mounteagle would, almost certainly, know that among the many valiant knights that fought with his forbear, Sir Edward Stanley, was Sir Christopher Ward, who led the Yorkshire levies to the victorious field, and who came of the great family of Ward (or Warde), long famous in the annals of the West Hiding of Yorkshire about Guiseley, Esholt, and Ripon.

For, as the grand old "Ballad of Flodden Field" again tells us, the English arms were reinforced

"With many a gentleman and squire, From Rippon, Ripley, and Rydale, With them marched forth all Ma.s.samshire, With Nosterfield and Netherdale."

The honourable fact just mentioned concerning the valiant Yorkshire knight, Sir Christopher Ward, together with the fact of the relationship, whatever was its precise degree, between the families of Mounteagle and Ward, through the Nevilles and, almost certainly, other ancient houses besides, would tend to cement the bond of union betwixt William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle and his private secretary or gentleman-servant, who--as we have proved by evidence and inevitable inferences therefrom--it is all but absolutely certain must have been Thomas Warde,[A] of Mulwith, the brother of Marmaduke Ward, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale.[88]

[Footnote A: Sir Edward Hoby is the only contemporary, so far as I know, that has written in English the name of Lord Mounteagle's gentleman-servant as such who read the Letter on the 26th of October, 1605.

Now, Hoby writes Ward without the final "e." If this be borne faithfully in mind there is no objection to my writing the name either "Ward" or "Warde" indifferently.

To write Thomas Warde as well as Thomas Ward helps the mind, I think, to realize the force of the evidence and arguments of this Inquiry; hence my so doing. But, of course, I wish to make it clear that it is _inference_ only, _not direct proof_, that supplies the missing link in identifying Thomas Ward.]

With the consequence that both Lord Mounteagle and his older--almost certainly diplomatist-trained--Elizabethan kinsman would share the lofty traditions, memories and ways of looking at things common to both, which would characterize an historic race that had been of high "consideration"

long before the sister Kingdom of "bonnie Scotland" gave to her ancient foe a King from her romantic and fascinating but ill-fated Stuart line.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Having then thus established the point that if Christopher Wright and his conjectured Penman of the Letter wished to put themselves into communication with the King's Government, Christopher Wright himself had family connections in Mounteagle and Ward, who were pre-eminently well qualified--from their Ja.n.u.s-like respective aspects--for the performance of such a task, let us proceed with our Inquiry.

For there is Evidence to lead to the following conclusions:--

(1) That the revealing conspirator (whoever he was) had arranged beforehand that Mounteagle should be at Hoxton on the memorable Sat.u.r.day evening, the 26th day of October, 1605, at about the hour of seven of the clock.

Moreover, my strong opinion is that this arrangement was made through the suggestion of Thomas Ward, the diplomatic intermediary, with the express consent of Mounteagle himself.

The suggestion, I think, may have been made by Thomas Ward at Bath,[A] a town which Ward possibly took on his leaving Lapworth, in Warwickshire, whither, I surmise, he repaired some time between the 11th of October and the 26th of that month.

[Footnote A: It is possible that Mounteagle and Catesby may have been together at Bath between the 12th of October, 1695, and the 26th October.

See a curious letter dated 12th October, but without date of the year, from Mounteagle to Catesby ("_Archaeologia_," vol. xxviii., p. 420), discovered by the late Mr. Bruce.

There is a copy of this "_Archaeologia_" in the British Museum, which I saw in October, 1900.]

(2) That Thomas Ward's was the guiding mind, the dominant force, or, to vary the metaphor, the central pivot upon which the successful accomplishment of the entire revelation turned, inasmuch as, I submit, that Ward must have received from the conscience-stricken conspirator a complete disclosure of the whole guilty secret, with full power, moreover, to make known to Mounteagle so much of the particulars concerning the enterprise as in the exercise of his (Ward's) uncontrolled diplomatic discretion it might be _profitable_ to be made known to Mounteagle, in order that the supreme end in view might be attained, namely, the entire spinning round on its axis of the prodigious, diabolical Plot.

(3) That Thomas Ward (or Warde) was the diplomatic go-between, the trusty mentor, and the zealous prompter of his master throughout the whole of the very difficult, delicate, and momentous part that Destiny, at this awful crisis in England's history, called upon this young n.o.bleman to play.

If Ward (or Warde) were born about the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, in the year 1605 he would be well-nigh in the prime of life, namely, forty-six years of age; whereas Mounteagle, we know, was just about thirty. Hence was Warde, by his superior age and experience of men and things, well fitted to play "the guide, philosopher, and friend" to Mounteagle in the matter.[A]

[Footnote A: If Thomas Warde were sent to the Low Countries, as I think it almost certain he was sent, although I cannot prove it, belike he may have been one of those Elizabethan gentlemen Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona":

"Yet hath Sir Proteus ...

Made use and fair advantage of his days: His years but young, but his experience old: His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe; And, in a word (for far behind his worth Come all the praises that I now bestow) He is complete in feature and in mind, With all good grace, to grace a gentleman."

It sheds some very faint corroborative light on the supposal that Thomas Ward was the "Mr. Warde" mentioned by Sir Francis Walsingham in the "_Earl of Leicester's Correspondence_" (Cam. Soc), that Sir Thomas Heneage, a trusted diplomatist of Queen Elizabeth in the Low Countries, married Anne Poyntz, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Poyntz and Margaret Stanley, a daughter of Edward Stanley Earl of Derby, especially when it is recollected that the Poyntz and the Wards, of Mulwith, were related.--See "_Life of Mary Ward_" (Burns & Oates, 2 vols.)