The Life Of A Conspirator Part 15

[307] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. lvii. n. 92.

While at Huddington, Sir Everard and most of the other conspirators probably went to confession to Father Hart, the priest who had said ma.s.s for them at Dunchurch; for he was afterwards "charged with having heard the confessions and absolved the conspirators, two days after the discovery of the Plot,"[308] and this is confirmed by Sir Everard's servant, Handy, who said[309] "that on Thursday morning about three of the clock all the said companie as servaunts as others heard ma.s.se, receaved the sacrament and were confessed, w{ch}. ma.s.se was said by a priest named Harte, a little man, whitely complexion and a little beard." If the conspirators really made full confessions with true sorrow for their terrible sins, on this occasion, nothing could have been better or more opportune. If not,--well, the less said the better!

The same witness stated that on that Thursday morning, at about six o'clock, Sir Everard, who had had four fresh horses sent to him from Coughton,[310] and the rest of the party were again in the saddle, and the whole band started in a northerly direction for Whewell Grange, a house belonging to Lord Windsor, having added to the procession "a cart laden w{th}. trunckes, pikes, and other munition," from Huddington. On their way towards Whewell Grange "four of the princ.i.p.all gent."[311]

rode in front of the procession, and four behind it "to kepe the company from starting away," _i.e._, deserting.

[308] _Records S. J._, Series I., p. 173.

[309] S. P. Gunpowder Treason, Part II. No. 121.

[310] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part II. No. 135, D.

[311] _Ib._

They reached Lord Windsor's house,[312] about noon, and all dismounted, "saving some fewe whoe sate on their horses to watch whoe should come unto the howse." They then made their second raid. It was not for horses, as at Warwick; this time they sought for arms and armour, of which there was a large store at Whewell Grange. They appear to have met with no resistance, from which we may infer that, to use a modern and vulgar phrase, "the family were from home." When they had all armed themselves, they put the remainder into a cart, while they filled another with a quant.i.ty of powder. These two carts then formed part of the procession. Sir Everard Digby can scarcely have failed to feel shame at the plunder of Whewell Grange. What had Lord Windsor done that his house should be pillaged? He had served his country as a sailor, and he eventually became a Rear Admiral of the Fleet. Why should his things be taken feloniously from his home during his absence? His father had died only seven months earlier, and the funeral hatchment was most likely hanging over the doorway when these thieves entered. While the robbers were ransacking the house--I fear that Sir Everard Digby was among them--some of the neighbouring peasants and villagers came up, out of curiosity, to see what was going on. As he came out of the house, Catesby saw from twenty to thirty of them standing about.[313]

[312] Whewell, or Hewell Grange, had belonged to the Abbey of Bordesley, and had been given, soon after the dissolution of the monasteries, to Sir Andrew Windsor by Hen. VIII. in exchange for the manor of Stanwell in Middles.e.x. A new house was built at Whewell about 1712. "Here is a pleasant park having hills gently swelling, and a lake of clear water measuring above 30 acres." _Nash's Worcestershire_, Vol ii. p. 423.

[313] Thomas Maunder's Examination, Nov. 1605, and Ellis's Examination, Nov. 21, 1605. S. P. Dom. James I., Gunpowder Plot Bk., n. 62 and 108.

"Will you come with us?" said he.

"Maybe we would, if we knew what you mean to do," was the reply.

"We are for G.o.d and the country!" said Catesby.

Then one of the men, who was leaning with his back against a wall, struck the ground with his stick and cried, "We are for the King James, as well as for G.o.d and the country, and we will not go against his will."

And now, with their arms, armour, gunpowder, and horses, which had been for the most part begged, borrowed, or stolen, the little party of filibusters started again, in a northerly direction, towards Holbeche House, Stephen Littleton's place in Staffordshire. Although more soldierlike in appearance, owing to their armour--their want now was not of armour, but of men to wear it--they felt much less martial at heart than on leaving Dunchurch two days earlier. They were greatly discouraged at finding that no volunteers rallied to their ranks; that, when they rode up to the houses of any of the Catholic gentry, they were invariably driven with reproaches and ignominy from their doors as the greatest enemies of the Catholic cause, which they were told they had brought into disrepute by their misguided and iniquitous zeal.

[314] "Notwithstanding of their fair shews and pretence of their Catholick cause," says Bishop Barlow, "no creature, man or woman, through all that countrey would once so much as give them willingly a cup of drink, or any sort of comfort or support, but with execrations detested them." This not only chilled the hearts of the leaders, but also alarmed their followers, who saw them leaving one large Catholic house after another crestfallen in expression and without a single recruit in their train. To add to their depression, the roads were bad, and in many places deep with mud, and the weather was stormy and very wet.[315] Instead of increasing, as Sir Everard and his friends had hoped and expected, their numbers steadily diminished, and they were soon reduced to thirty-six or less.[316] Their men still further lagged behind and disappeared, and the leaders of the expedition threatened those who remained that the next man who attempted to desert should be instantly shot. When they rested, Sir Everard and his companions took it in turn to watch their men with a loaded pistol, determined to make an example of the first deserter they could get a shot at. When they rode on, they endeavoured to be equally vigilant; but with such a straggling, wearied, undisciplined cavalcade, in a wooded country like Worcestershire, on a dark and misty November afternoon, it was impossible to prevent men from sneaking away unperceived, and the desertions hourly continued.

[314] _Gunpowder Treason_, p. 67.

[315] Jardine, 112.

[316] Gardiner's Hist. Eng., Vol. i. p. 261.

Sir Everard's spirits drooped more and more. "Not one man came to take our part, though we expected so many,"[317] he says. As to the common people in the villages and the small towns through which the irregular train pa.s.sed, they merely stood and gazed at them without showing the least inclination to join them.

[317] Digby's Examination. S.P.O. James I. Dom., 2 Dec. 1605.

In the course of the day (Thursday, Nov. 7th), Sir Everard and his allies had a fresh cause of anxiety. On looking back, one of them descried a small body of hors.e.m.e.n in the distance. Filled with hope, thinking that it consisted of Catholics from the neighbourhood coming to join them, they halted, to enable the riders to come up, but, to their disappointment, the other party pulled up also. This was suspicious, and still more so when the mysterious group moved slowly after them on their starting again. Evidently the hors.e.m.e.n in their rear were watching their movements with no friendly intentions. To the conspirators, their distant but ever following figures must have produced sensations not unlike those caused to worn-out travellers by the appearance of vultures in the desert. So long as it was light, they kept catching occasional glimpses of them, and, worst of all, the band of "shadowers" was increasing in numbers and venturing nearer and nearer. The conspirators and their followers were not in actual flight; indeed, they professed to be recruiting for their "army"; but they were none the less steadily, if slowly, pursued by a body of hors.e.m.e.n exceeding their own in numbers, though not so well armed.

It would be difficult to imagine anything more wretched than the little band of conspirators as they wended their way through the Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire lanes and villages. f.a.gged and haggard were the men, on jaded and weary steeds, and their helmets, pikes, and pistols gave them an almost comical appearance of martial masquerade.

The cart-loads of unused armour and weapons were terribly suggestive of failure, and the conspirators' appeals to the able-bodied men, who stood gazing at them from the doors of wayside inns and from village cross-roads, were met either with insult, laughter, or stolid indifference.

To a man like Sir Everard Digby, who had been accustomed to meet with respect, honour, and deference wherever he went, all this must have been exceptionally galling, and it would be made the more bitter by his observing that several of his companions were pa.s.sing through a part of the country where they were well known and once honoured. He had expected to be received with cheers and enthusiasm at every Catholic house on his route for his attempt to better the condition of his co-religionists, and to see squires, yeomen, and peasants either hurrying to horse and to arms, or imploring for a headpiece and a sword or halberd from the store in the waggons of the little train; and what did he find?--the door of every Catholic house shut against him, or only opened for an out-pouring of reproaches and repudiations; the Catholics, from the highest to the lowest, shaking their heads at him and bidding him begone; and his carts of arms, armour, and gunpowder eyed with anger, scorn, and derision. Instead of regarding him as the best friend of their cause, the Catholic squires treated him as if he were its worst enemy; and, as they turned their backs upon himself and his friends and his followers, they gave him to understand that they considered the "powder-action," which he protested was intended for the relief of the professors of the ancient faith, one of the most madly-conceived, iniquitous, and prejudicial projects ever undertaken by people bearing the name of Christians.

When we think of Sir Everard Digby accoutred and armed as if he were the leader of an army numbered by thousands, but actually surrounded by little more than a couple of dozen bedraggled and disheartened hors.e.m.e.n, all heavily, indeed over-armed, yet weary and unmilitary-looking to the last degree, himself haggard and anxious in countenance, yet vainly endeavouring to keep up a martial, knightly, and prosperous bearing, under conditions that rendered any such attempt ridiculous, we are inevitably reminded of that famous character of fiction, Don Quixote de la Mancha.

CHAPTER XII.

Much time had been lost on the Thursday afternoon, in going hither and thither, on either side of the route, in the vain hope of persuading the Catholic knights and squires, who lived in the neighbourhood, to join the insurgents; even after dark Digby and his allies continued these fruitless endeavours, in defiance of the band of hors.e.m.e.n that was d.o.g.g.i.ng their footsteps at some distance in the rear; and it was nearly ten o'clock at night[318] before the rapidly diminishing and draggled party reached its destination at Holbeche House, the home of Stephen Littleton.

[318] S. P. Gunpowder Treason, Part I. n. 108; Exam. of Wm. Ellis, 20 Nov. 1605.

Holbeche was a large and handsome Elizabethan mansion[319] standing a little way over the South Border of Staffordshire; about four miles to the north of Stourbridge, and a trifle less to the West of Dudley, on what are now the outskirts of the great coal and iron district known as the "black country." It was a relief to find a resting-place of any sort; and, if the sensations of the conspirators and their followers had much in common with wild beasts tracked to their lairs, or foxes run to ground, they were, at any rate, within walls which would afford them a temporary protection, and enable them to take a little of the rest and refreshment which they now so much required.

[319] Jardine's G.P., p. 70.

They had not, however, much leisure for repose. They may have learned that the ominous band of hors.e.m.e.n, which had persistently shadowed their progress, had consisted of Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff of Worcestershire, a number of country gentlemen who had rallied to his a.s.sistance, and a _posse comitatus_. Although no enemy was any longer in sight, they knew that their position had been ascertained, that spies were probably on the watch for any attempted movement on their part, and that they were to all intents and purposes besieged. Worn out as they were with fatigue and anxiety, they set to work, therefore, to prepare the house to withstand an a.s.sault,[320] and spent most of the night thus occupied; so they cannot have had much sleep.

[320] Jardine, p. 114.

At last Sir Everard Digby had completely lost heart. Worse still, he felt that he had been deceived. "He began to suspect that" the stories which Catesby and Percy had told him of the a.s.sistance which Talbot and the Littletons would bring, were not so much mistakes as untruths "devised to engage him in theyr desperate cases."[321] During the night he still cherished the hope that some strong forces might come to their aid, a hope which he would hardly have entertained unless it had been encouraged by Catesby and the other conspirators; but when the day began to dawn and it was evident there were no "succors coming thyther," he "discryed the falshood of it."

[321] S. P. Dom. James I., Nov. 1605, Vol. 16. n. 94.

Whether he informed Catesby of his determination to throw up the whole undertaking does not appear. He may have made the excuse of going away to try to raise men for their help, or of ascertaining whether there were any symptoms of an approaching attack from without. To proclaim himself a deserter from the cause to Catesby would have been to risk a dangerous interview, in which the clinking of swords or the crack of a pistol would be likely to be heard above the interchange of bitter words; and judging from Catesby's and Winter's intentions in a certain interview with Tresham, it was more than possible that a sudden stab with a dagger might have given a practical demonstration of Catesby's opinion of renegades.

"About daie light,"[322] on the Friday morning, he sent his page, William Ellis, and another of his servants, named Michael Rapior, on before him, and presently followed them, accompanied by the rest of his men, with the deliberate intention "to have yealded him self," and I cannot but suspect that he did so without telling Catesby.

[322] S. P. Gunpowder Treason, 1605, I. n. 108; W. Ellis.

He overtook Ellis and Rapior within a mile of Holbeche, and, telling his servants how desperate he believed their case to be, he made them all a present of their horses and whatever money belonging to him they happened to have upon them; he then freed them from his service and advised them to make their escape as best they could.[323] William Ellis and one other, however, "said they would never leave him, but against their will." Sir Everard made up his mind to go to "Sir Foulk Greville"

and surrender himself, and he began to ask everybody whom he met on the road the way to his house.[324] As Sir Fulke Greville[325] had already obtained Warwick Castle, and was probably living there, Sir Everard must have expected to have a long ride before him.

[323] _Narrative of the G. P._, Gerard, p. 110. See also an account of the money Sir E. D. had taken with him; _ib._, p. 92,--"above 1000 in ready coin, as his servants since have averred, that did escape, and one of them delivered up great part of the money to the king's officers so soon as he saw his master had fallen into the lapse."

[324] Exam. of Sir E. D.

[325] "Sir Fulke Greville, a man of letters, and a distinguished courtier in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., who, at the coronation of the latter prince, was made a Knight of the Bath, and soon after was called from being Treasurer of the Navy to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was sworn of the privy council. In the 2nd of King James's reign he obtained a grant of Warwick Castle and other dependencies about it, and was elevated to the peerage, 29 Jan. 1620-1, by the t.i.tle of Lord Brooke, &c." _Burke's Peerage_, 1886, p. 1390. Sir Fulke Greville is represented by the present Earl of Warwick.

The three hors.e.m.e.n had been observed by some of the scouts who had been watching Holbeche House, and they gave the alarm to the body of men which had collected for the purpose of either attacking or hunting down the conspirators; the consequence was that Sir Everard, his page, and his servant had not proceeded more than a few miles when they heard shouts in the distance behind them, and on looking round, perceived that they were being pursued by that motley, but much dreaded, force known as the "hue and cry."

To say nothing of the indignity of being captured by a yelling mob, it would be infinitely more dangerous than a voluntary submission to some recognised authority; for this reason, Digby, with his two attendants, tried to escape, and, as they were riding three excellent horses, they had great hopes of succeeding in doing so.

Nor were these hopes altogether groundless; for, when they began to gallop, they soon widened the distance between themselves and their pursuers; but they observed that the peasants and wayfarers whom they pa.s.sed turned round to stare at them, which showed that their route would be pointed out to the "hue-and-cry." As Father Gerard says, "it was not possible for them to pa.s.s or go unknown, especially Sir Everard Digby, being so noted a man for his stature and personage, and withal so well appointed as he was."[326] He thought it wisest, therefore, to go into a large wood, and to hide there until the "hue-and-cry" should have pa.s.sed. In this fortune favoured them, for, on turning along a bye-path from the main track in the wood, they saw a dry pit, and down into this they rode.

[326] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 110.

They had not been very long concealed in it when they heard the distant thud of galloping horses, and every now and then the shouting of their riders. Nearer and nearer came the sounds, and, just as they grew loudest, to his great delight Digby heard them beginning to decrease in force, which showed that the galloping mob had pa.s.sed his retreat and was going on an objectless errand.

Presently the sounds ceased altogether, and Sir Everard and his two companions were on the point of emerging from their ambush, when they fancied they heard the footsteps of two horses proceeding at a walk. A voice confirmed them in this opinion. Once more there was silence, and once again there were sounds of horses' feet and men's voices.