History Notes 32 the Gunpowder Plot

History Notes 32 The Gunpowder Plot The Gunpowder Plot is well known to all British school children. That it occurred is historical fact, but it has now descended into legend and is celebrated every year on November the fifth when effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on bonfires. Ashby St. Ledgers has the unenviable notoriety of being one of the places most intimately connected with the Gunpowder Plot. Robert Catesby, the original contriver of the treason, was heir to the estates at Ashby, where his widowed mother was at the time residing. He was an ardent convert to the Catholic faith, and a friend of Father Garnet, the Prefect of the English Jesuits. He inveigled, by his persuasive eloquence, several of the other twelve chief conspirators. They are believed to have met in the room over the gateway to the Manor House, and the apartment is still known by the villagers of the neighbourhood as the "Plot Room". The gate-house is the only part of the ancient manor of the Catesby family that still remains. The family of Catesby was an ancient one, and several of its members had made themselves politically prominent before the framer of the Gunpowder Plot had won his infamous notoriety. Sir William Catesby, who held half a manor in Crick, was one of the three favourites who ruled the kingdom under Richard III (the others being Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Viscount Lovell), on whom the following humorous rhyme was made: "The Rat, the Cat, and Lovell our dog, Rule all England under the Hog", alluding to the king's adoption of a boar as one of the supporters of the royal arms. After the battle of Bosworth, this Sir William Catesby was beheaded at Leicester, and his lands were seized; but Henry VII in 1496 restored them to Catesby's son George, from whom they descended in course of time to Sir William Catesby, who was convicted in 1581, during the reign of Elizabeth, of harbouring Jesuits at Catesby Hall and celebrating mass, which in consequence of the policy of the Church of Rome, were made penal offences. From 1570 to 1600 the queen and the Protestant religion were constantly exposed to the machinations of the active partisans of the Roman See, who were encouraged by the pope himself. Every pontiff pursued the same course; there was a settled purpose at Rome, if not throughout the entire Roman confederacy, to dethrone Elizabeth and overturn the Anglican Church. To root out heresy by any means within their reach was deemed to be a sacred duty incumbent on all true Catholics. The son and successor of this Sir William Catesby was Robert Catesby, the conspirator, who had severely suffered in Elizabeth's reign under the penal statutes, and in revenge had engaged in many plots against the crown. He took an active part in Essex's rebellion, along with his cousin Tresham, and suffered imprisonment with him in Wisbeach Castle in 1558. Subsequently Catesby endeavoured to bring about an invasion of England by the Spaniards. In his communications with Spain he was aided and abetted by Sir Francis Tresham, another of the conspirators. The death of Elizabeth (on the eve of Lady Day, 1603) overthrew the project of an invasion. A fresh attempt somewhat later ended equally fruitless. These failures, and the disappointment of their hopes in the tolerance of James I, drove the conspirators close to despair. Then in 1604 the idea occurred to Catesby of a general destruction of Parliament. He confided his scheme to Thomas Winter, the younger son of a small Worcestershire squire, and to John Wright, a fencing master. Thomas Winter was despatched, in furtherance of the plot, into the Low Countries, where he met with, and secured the services of Guy (aka Guido) Fawkes. Fawkes was a native of Yorkshire, and a schoolfellow of Bishop Morton at York. In the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, are preserved the rusty and shattered remains of the lantern that Fawkes carried when he was seized. On a brass plate fixed to one side of it is a Latin inscription to that effect, with the addition that it was given to the University in 1641 by Robert Heywood, Proctor of the University. Fawkes appears to have been a soldier of fortune in the Spanish service, and a mere hired servant of the rest of the conspirators, who were nearly all gentlemen of property. During Winter's absence Catesby had not been idle: he had secured a house adjacent to the Houses of Parliament in the name of Thomas Percy, who had married Wright's sister, and was in the service of the Earl of Northumberland; from this house it was intended to dig a mine under the House of Lords. A second house was then taken, at Catesby's suggestion, in Lambeth, and placed under the charge of Robert Keyes, another conspirator. But in February 1605, when Parliament was to have met, they were able to hire the cellar under the House of Lords, and so the mine, which had been steadily progressing, was discontinued. The meeting of Parliament, however, was postponed until October. Meanwhile John Grant, Robert Winter, and Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, had been added to the confederacy. By May all the preparations were made, the powder stored, and everything so arranged as to make the place look like a store-room. But again it was resolved to prolong Parliament, and the conspirators were afraid some discovery had been made; but one of the conspirators making it his business to be present at the ceremony of prorogation, discovered, by the demeanour of the Lords Commissioners, that they knew nothing of the plot. Their fears having been allayed, the conspirators resolved to invite several other gentlemen of means to join them, with a view to their helping to defray the expenses of the rising that was to follow the destruction of Parliament. In pursuance of this resolution, Sir Francis Tresham, Sir Everard Digby, and Ambrose Rookwood, were drawn into the conspiracy and sworn to secrecy. Sir Frances Tresham had, by the death of his father in the autumn of 1605, just become owner of the Rushton estate, and was in consequence able to offer two thousand pounds towards the purposes of the plot. The money thus obtained, or promised, was used in the purchase of arms etc. for the rising. Sir Edward Digby's estates were in Rutland, and there, when the time arrived, was to be a grand gathering as for a hunt. The discovery of the plot was ostensibly by a note to Lord Mounteagle, brother-in-law of Tresham, but also apparently by a previous communication to the Government. It is now generally believed that Tresham was the betrayer; although some believe Mrs. Abingdon of Hendlip Hall, Worcestershire was the writer of the letter to Lord Mounteagle. He was in Northamptonshire when the letter was delivered, but meeting Catesby and others soon after, he advanced them money, and urged them to leave the country as all was known. They would not believe, however, that the plot was discovered, because no search had been instituted, and thus they lost the ten days between the delivery of the note and the meeting of Parliament. Only when the official visit had been made to the cellar by the Lord Chamberlain did the conspirators resolve on flight. Then, headed by Catesby, they made for Ashby St. Ledgers, where they arrived at six o'clock in the evening, as Lady Catesby and her guests were about to sit down to supper. The old hall supplied them with arms; equipped with which, and accompanied by several gentlemen who were waiting for them at Ashby, they rode hotly to Dunchurch. There they found a large company assembled, but it became suddenly and considerably less when they heard the disastrous news that the arch-conspirators brought from London. They were now put to their last shift. Gathering as large a force as they could, they made for Wales, thinking to get the Catholic gentry to join them. Instead of receiving any increase however, their numbers were daily reduced by desertion. Driven to desperation by these disappointments and by the close pursuit of the sheriff, they at last determined to make a stand and fight for it, at Stephen Littleton's house at Holbeach, Worcestershire. Four of the chief conspirators were killed there, including Catesby. Bates, a Northamptonshire man, was taken next day in Shropshire, and was subsequently hanged. Fawkes' examination took place on the 7th of November, yet Tresham's name was not mentioned in the proclamation issued the same day for the apprehension of the conspirators. He was, however, arrested and committed to the Tower on the 12th of the same month and examined by the Council. He died in the Tower on the 23rd of December. Lord Mounteagle, to whom the letter betraying the plot was sent, was rewarded by a grant of Crown lands and a pension for life; while Lord Stourton, another brother-in-law, was condemned in the Star Chamber to a fine of six thousand marks on suspicion of participation in the plot. Alan Bale Crick History Society.

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