Chapter 16

wrong, by saying that in Queen Elizabeth's time he had consulted him as to the lawfulness of the "powder action," which was "most untrue;" but after the preceding extracts, who could believe their writer on his oath? Poor Anne Vaux, who undoubtedly meant to excuse and save him, urged that he used to say to the conspirators in her hearing, "Good gentlemen, be quiet; God will do all for the best:" and Garnet's own last confession admitted that "partly upon hope of prevention, partly for that I would not betray my friend, I did not reveal the general knowledge of Mr Catesby's intention which I had by him." (_Domestic State Paper_, volume 20, article 12.) He allowed also that about a year before the Queen's death, he had received two briefs from Rome, bidding him not consent to the accession of any successor to her who would not submit to the Pope: he had shown them to Catesby, and then burned them. Catesby, said Garnet, considered himself authorised to act as he did by these briefs; but he had tried vainly to dissuade him from so doing, since the Pope had forbidden the action. (_Ibidem_, volume 18, articles 41, 42.) In September, 1605, Garnet led a pilgrimage of Roman Catholics to Saint Winifred's Well, in returning from which, he and Anne Vaux visited Rushton, the seat of Francis Tresham. Sir Thomas, his father, was then just dead, and the widowed Lady Tresham "kept her chamber" accordingly. They stayed but one night (Examination of Anne Vaux, _Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 212), and then returned to Goathurst, where they remained for some weeks, until on the 29th of October they removed, with the Digbys and Brooksbys, to Coughton, the house of Mr Thomas Throckmorton, which Sir Everard had borrowed, on account of its convenient proximity to Dunchurch, the general rendezvous for the conspirators after the execution of the plot. This journey to Coughton was considered strong evidence against Garnet; and his meaning has never been solved, in writing that "all Catholics know it was necessary." (_Domestic State Papers_, volume 19, article 11.) At Coughton was the Reverend Oswald Greenway, another Jesuit priest, who has left a narrative of the whole account, wherein he describes the conspirators and their doings with a pen dipped in honey. In the night between November 5th and 6th, Bates arrived at Coughton with Digby's letter, which afterwards told heavily against Garnet. Garnet remained at Coughton until about the 16th of December, when at the instigation of his friend Edward Hall (alias Oldcorne) he removed to Hendlip Hall. Garnet and Hall made up between them an elaborate story describing their arrival at Hendlip, and immediate hiding, on Sunday night, January 19th; but this was afterwards confessed both by Hall and Owen to be false, and Garnet was overheard to blame Hall for not having kept to the text of his lesson in one detail.

Nicholas Owen, Garnet's friend and servant, committed suicide in the Tower, on March 2nd, from fear of further torture. Mr Abington, who had "voluntarily offered to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house or in that sheire," was condemned to death, but afterwards pardoned on condition of never again quitting the county. Made wiser by adversity, he spent the rest of his life in innocent study of the history and antiquities of Worcestershire.

The remainder of Garnet's story is given in the tale, and is almost pure history as there detailed. In his conferences with Hall, he made no real profession of innocence, only perpetual assurances that he "trusted to wind himself out" of the charges brought against him; and when Lord Salisbury said--"Mr Garnet, give me but one argument that you were not consenting to it [the plot], that can hold in any indifferent man's ear or sense, besides your bare negative,"--Garnet made no answer. He persistently continued to deny any knowledge of White Webbs, until confronted with Johnson; and all acquaintance with the plot before his receipt of Digby's letter at Coughton, until shown the written confession of Hall, and the testimony of Forset and Locherson concerning his own whispered admissions. When at last he was driven to admit the facts previously denied with abundant oaths, he professed himself astonished that the Council were scandalised at his reckless falsehoods. "What should I have done?" he writes. "Why was I to be denied every lawful [!] means of escape?" That the Government did not deal fairly with Garnet--that, as is admitted by the impartial Dr Jardine, "few men came to their trial under greater disadvantages," and that "he had been literally surrounded by snares,"--may be allowed to the full; but when all is said for him that honesty can say, no doubt remains that he was early acquainted with and morally responsible for the Gunpowder Plot. The evidence may be found in Jardine's Narrative of the Plot; to produce it here would be to swell the volume far beyond its present dimensions. One point, however, must not be omitted. There have been two raids on the Public Record Office, two acts of abstraction and knavery with respect to these Gunpowder Plot papers; and it can be certainly stated, from the extracts made from them by Dr Abbott and Archbishop Bancroft, that the stolen papers were precisely those which proved Garnet's guilt most conclusively. A Manuscript letter from Dr Jardine to Mr Robert Lemon, attached to the _Gunpowder Plot Book_, states that Mr Lemon's father had "often observed to me that `those fellows the Jesuits, in the time of the Powder Plot (not the Gunpowder Plot) had stolen away some of the most damning proofs against Garnet.' That thievery of some kind abstracted such documents as the Treatise of Equivocation, with Garnet's handwriting on it--the most important of the interlocutions between Garnet and Hall in the Tower--and all the examinations of Garnet respecting the Pope's Breves, is quite clear. _The first thievery I have proved to have been made by Archbishop Laud_; the others probably occurred in the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second, when Jesuits and `Jesuited persons' had free access to the State Paper Office." An old proverb deprecates "showing the cat the way to the cream;" but there is one folly still more reprehensible--placing the cat in charge of the dairy. Let us beware it is not done again.

JOHN GRANT.

Of this conspirator very little is known apart from the plot. His residence was at Norbrook, a few miles south of Warwick,--a walled and moated house, of which nothing remains save a few fragments of massive stone walls, and the line of the moat may be distinctly traced, while "an ancient hall, of large dimensions, is also apparent among the partitions of a modern farmer's kitchen." Before May, 1602, he married Dorothy Winter, the sister of two of the conspirators. He had been active in the Essex insurrection, for which he was fined; and with his brother-in-law, Robert Winter, he was sent for by Catesby, in January, 1605, for the purpose of being initiated into the conspiracy: but he was not sworn until March 31. Greenway describes him as "a man of accomplished manners, but of a melancholy and taciturn disposition;" Gerard tells us that "he was as fierce as a lion, of a very undaunted courage," which he was wont to exhibit "unto poursuivants and prowling companions" when they came to ransack the house--by which dubious expression is probably intended not burglars but officers of the law. "He paid them so well for their labour, not with crowns of gold, but with cracked crowns sometimes, and with dry blows instead of drink and good cheer, that they durst not visit him any more, unless they brought great store of help with them." Mr Grant appears to have anticipated some tactics of modern times. All else that is known of him will be found in the tale. His wife Dorothy seems to have been a lady of a cheerful and loquacious character, to judge by the accounts of Sir E. Walsh and Sir R. Verney, who thought she had no knowledge of the conspiracy. (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, articles 75, 90.) It is, however, possible that Mrs Dorothy was as clever as her brothers, and contrived to "wind herself out of" suspicion better than she deserved.

John Grant had at least two brothers, Walter and Francis, the latter of whom was apprenticed to a silk-man; the relationship of Ludovic Grant is less certain. He had also two married sisters, Mrs Bosse, and Anne, wife of his bailiff Robert Higgins. (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, articles 34, 44, 68, 90.) His mother, and (then unmarried) sister Mary were living in 1603.

ROBERT KEYES.

This man, who appears to have been one of the most desperate and unscrupulous of the conspirators, was the son of a Protestant clergyman in Derbyshire, who is supposed to have been the Reverend Edward Kay of Stavely, a younger son of John Kay of Woodsam, Yorkshire. His name is variously rendered as Keyes, Keis, and Kay; he himself signs Robert Key. His mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, a very opulent Roman Catholic gentleman of Lincolnshire, and through her he was cousin of Mrs Rookwood. The opulence of the grandfather did not descend to his grandson, whose indigence was a great cause of his desperate character. He lived for a time at Glatton, in Huntingdonshire, but afterwards entered the service of Lord Mordaunt as keeper of his house at Turvey, his wife being the governess of his Lordship's children. He is described as "a young man with no hair on his face." (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 808.) It was about June, 1605, when Keyes was taken into the plot, and his chief work thereafter was the charge of the house at Lambeth "sometimes called Catesby's, afterwards Mr Terrett's, since Rookwood's," (_Ibidem_, folio 62), where the powder was stored. His only other service was the bringing of the watch from Percy to Fawkes just before the discovery of the plot. Keyes left one son, Robert (Foley's _Records_, volume 1, page 510), who was living about 1630, and was then a frequent visitor of his relatives the Rookwoods (_Domestic State Papers_, Charles the First, 178, 43).

HUMPHREY AND STEPHEN LITTLETON.

These cousins belonged to the family of the present Baron. Sir John Littleton of Hagley had with other issue two sons, of whom Gilbert, the eldest, was the father of Humphrey, while Sir George Littleton of Holbeach, the third son, was the father of Stephen. Humphrey was known as Red Humphrey, to distinguish him from another of his name, and one of these two was a University man, of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree 29th January 1580, and his M.A., 2nd July, 1582. His cousin Stephen was born in 1575. With the plot Humphrey at least was but partially acquainted, for Catesby "writ to Mr Humphrey Littleton [from Huddington] to meet him at Dunchurch, but he, being then destitute of a horse, returned written answer that he could not then meet him, in regard of his unfurnishment before remembered: whereupon Mr Robert Winter sent a good gelding to Mr Humphrey Littleton, whereon he rode away to Dunchurch, and (saith himself) demanding of the matter in hand, and what it might be, Mr Catesby told him that it was a matter of weight, but for the especial good of them all, which was all he would then disclose to him." (Harl. Manuscript 360.) The account given in the text, from this volume, of the escape and wanderings of Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton is somewhat varied by another narrative in the same manuscript, according to which Humphrey "bade the officers begone, or he would fetch that should send them packing." He affirmed in his confession, 26th January 1606, that he "had intention to apprehend" the refugees, "in regard of the odiousness of their treasons and the horribleness of the offence, which this partie in his heart detested," and that he deferred doing so "out of love to his cousin and affection to their religion," until he should be able to obtain counsel of Hall. (_Ibidem_.) Mrs John Littleton, the lady of Hagley Park, was Muriel, daughter of Sir Thomas Bromley, and a Protestant; though renowned for her hospitality and benevolence, she contrived to pay off 9000 pounds of debt left by her father-in-law and husband.

WILLIAM PARKER, LORD MONTEAGLE.

Lord Monteagle was of very distinguished and ancient race, being the eldest son of Edward third Baron Morley of his line (heir of a younger branch of the Lovels of Tichmersh) and Elizabeth, only daughter and heir of William Stanley, Lord Monteagle. Born in 1574, he succeeded his mother as Lord Monteagle, and his father in 1618 as Lord Morley. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham, and his sister Mary was the wife of Mr Thomas Abington of Hendlip Hall.

The chief interest attaching to Lord Monteagle concerns the famous letter: and the two questions requiring answer are--Who wrote it? and, Was the recipient a party to the plot?

The second question, which may be first dealt with, must be answered almost certainly in the affirmative. Nay, more, Lord Monteagle was not only a party to the Gunpowder Plot, but there is strong reason to believe that in conjunction with Lord Salisbury and others, he got up a counter-plot for its discovery. The laying of the letter before Lord Salisbury on the night of October 24th [Note 1], was probably not the first intimation which Salisbury had received, and assuredly not the first given to Lord Monteagle. The whole catena of circumstances, when carefully studied, shows that the episode of the letter was a cleverly-devised countermarch, designed at once to inform the public and at the same time to give a warning to the conspirators. The party got up at Hoxton, where Lord Monteagle was not living; the mysterious delivery of the letter; the placing of it in the hands of Thomas Ward, a known confidant of the conspirators: these and other circumstances all tend to one conclusion--that Monteagle was acting a part throughout, and that it was in reality he who gave warning to them, not they to him. If the conspirators had taken his warning, they might all have escaped with their lives; for the vessel designed to bear Fawkes abroad as soon as he should have fired the mine was lying in the river, and there was abundant time for them all to have made good their escape, had they not foolishly tried to retrieve their loss at Dunchurch. This is made more certain by the fact that the Government were, as Garnet remarked, "determined to save Lord Monteagle," and that any reference in the confessions of the prisoners which tended to implicate him was diligently suppressed. In one examination, the original words ran, "Being demanded what other persons were privy [to the plot] beside _the Lord Mounteagle_, Catesby," etcetera. The three words in italics have been rendered illegible, by a slip of paper being pasted over them, and a memorandum in red ink made on the back. Time, however, has faded the red ink, and the words are again visible. (Criminal Trials, page 67.) Garnet, too, confessed that "Catesby showed the [Pope's] breves to my Lord Mounteagle at the time when Mr Tresham was with him at White Webbs." (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 161.) These facts raise a doubt whether the whole story of Tresham's anxiety to warn Lord Monteagle was not false, and a mere blind to cover something else, which perhaps is not now to be revealed. It remains to inquire, Who wrote the letter? It has been ascribed to three persons beside Tresham: Percy, Mrs Abington, and Anne Vaux. If it really were a part of the Government counterplot, as is very probable, it was not likely to be any of them. If not so, Tresham seems the most likely, though it is customary to charge Mrs Abington with it. Lord Monteagle would at once have recognised his sister's writing, and perhaps that of her intimate friend, his wife's cousin, Anne Vaux. Why Percy should be supposed to have written it is a mystery. The handwriting is undoubtedly very like that of Anne Vaux; indeed, for this reason I suspected her as the writer on the first investigation, and before I knew that she had ever been charged with it. Dr Jardine votes decidedly in favour of Tresham. The real truth respecting this matter will in all probability never be known in this world.

Lord Monteagle was in the Essex rebellion, for which he was fined and imprisoned until the end of 1601; but he was in high favour with King James, probably owing to his strenuous efforts to secure his succession. He died in 1622, leaving three sons and three daughters.

A characteristic letter from this nobleman is yet extant, which shows his style and tone, and has not, I believe, been printed. It is that summoning Catesby to Bath, and if it were written in 1605, rather confirms the supposition that the writer was an accomplice. Dr Jardine and others suppose it, I know not why, to belong rather to 1602. It runs as follows:--

"To my loving kinsman, Rob Catesbye Esquire, give these. Lipyeat. If all creatures born under the moons sphere cannot endure without the elements of aier and fire In what languishment have we led our life since we departed from the dear Robin whose conversation gave us such warmth as we needed no other heat to maintain our healths: since therefore it is proper to all to desire a remedy for their disease I do by these bind the by the laws of charity to make thy present aparance here at the bath and let no watery Nimpes divert you, who can better live with[out] the air and better forbear the fire of your spirit and Vigour then we who accumpts thy person the only sone that must ripen our harvest. And thus I rest. Even fast tied to your friendshipp, William Mounteagle." (Cott. Manuscript Titus, B. 2, folio 294.)

THOMAS PERCY.

The exact place of this conspirator in the Northumberland pedigree has been the subject of much question. He is commonly said to have been a near relative of the Earl; but Gerard thinks that "he was not very near in blood, although they called him cousin." Among the various suggestions offered, that appears to be the best-founded which identifies him not with the Percys of Scotton, but as the son of Edward Percy of Beverley, whose father, Joscelyn, was a younger son of the fourth Earl. The wife of Joscelyn was Margaret Frost; the wife of Edward, and mother of the conspirator, was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Waterton of Walton, Yorkshire--of the family of the famous naturalist, Charles Waterton, of whom it was said that he felt tenderly towards every living thing but two--a poacher and a Protestant. The character of Percy, as sketched by one of the Jesuit narrators, is scarcely consistent with that given by the other. Greenway writes of him, "He was about forty-six years of age, though from the whiteness of his head, he appeared to be older; his figure was tall and handsome, his eyes large and lively, and the expression of his countenance pleasing, though grave; and notwithstanding the boldness of his mind, his manners were gentle and quiet." Gerard says, "He had been very wild in his youth, more than ordinary, and much given to fighting--so much so that it was noted in him and in Mr John Wright... that if they heard of any man in the country more valiant than the others, one or other of them would pick a quarrel to make trial of his valour... He had a great wit, and a very good delivery of his mind, and so was able to speak as well as most in the things wherein he had experience. He was tall, and of a very comely face and fashion; of age near fifty, as I take it, for his head and beard was much changed white." The proclamation for his apprehension describes him as "a tall man, with a great broad beard, a good face, the colour of his beard and head mingled with white hairs, but his head more white than his beard. He stoupes somewhat in the shoulders, well coloured in face, longe foted, smale legged." Percy was steward and receiver of rents to his kinsman the Earl, whose rents he appropriated to the purposes of the plot--without the owner's knowledge, if his earnest denial may be trusted. Percy married Martha, sister of John and Christopher Wright, by whom he had three children: Elizabeth, who died young, and was buried at Alnwick, 2nd February 1602; a daughter (name unknown), who married young Robert Catesby; and Robert Percy, of Taunton, who married Emma Meade at Wivelscomb, 22nd October 1615, and was the founder of the line of Percy of Cambridge. Percy's widow lived privately in London after his execution.

AMBROSE ROOKWOOD.

Second son of Robert Rookwood of Stanningfield, by his second wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawkstead; he became eventually the heir of his father. Ambrose was born in 1578, and was educated in Flanders as a Roman Catholic. According to Greenway, he was "beloved by all who knew him;" Gerard describes him as "very devout, of great virtue and valour, and very secret; he was also of very good parts as for wit and learning." He was remarkable for his stud of fine horses. Coldham Hall, his family mansion, built by his father in 1574, is still standing, and is a picturesque house, about four miles from Bury Saint Edmunds. Very reluctant at first to join the plot, (March 31st, 1605), when arrested he "denied all privity, on his soul and conscience, and as he was a Catholic." He was drawn into it by Catesby, with whom he had long been acquainted, and whom he said that he "loved and respected as his own life." Objecting that "it was a matter of conscience to take away so much blood," Catesby replied that he was "resolved that in conscience it might be done," whereon Rookwood, "being satisfied that in conscience he might do it, confessed it neither to any ghostly father nor to any other." (Exam, of Rookwood, _Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 136.) Sir William Wade writes that "Rookwood can procure no succour from any of his friends in regard of the odiousness of his actions," (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 34). He seems to have been fond of fine clothes, for he not only had a "fair scarf" embroidered with "ciphres," but "made a very fair Hungarian horseman's cote, lyned all with velvet, and other apparel exceeding costly, not fyt for his degree," (_Ibidem_, folio 86). His wife, who was "very beautiful" and "a virtuous Catholic," was the daughter of Robert Tyrwhitt, Esquire, of Kettleby, county Lincoln. They had three children: Sir Robert Rookwood, who warmly espoused the cause of Charles the First, and was buried 10th June, 1679; he married Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Townsend of Ludlow, and left issue: Henry: and Elizabeth, wife of William Calverley, Esquire. The Rookwoods of the Golden Fish, in the story, are all fictitious persons. The real brother of Ambrose was the Reverend Thomas Rookwood of Claxton, the correspondent of Garnet.

FRANCIS TRESHAM.

Sir Thomas Tresham, the father of Francis, had suffered much in the cause of Rome. Perverted by Campion in 1580, he was repeatedly imprisoned for recusancy and harbouring Jesuits, but remained the more resolutely devoted to the faith of which he speaks as "his beloved, beautiful, and graceful Rachel," for whom his "direst adversity" seemed "but a few days for the love he had to her." By his wife Muriel, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, he had two sons, of whom Francis was the elder. He was educated at Gloucester Hall; and having been very actively participant in the rebellion of Essex, was on his trial extremely insolent to the Lord Chancellor. His life was saved only by the intercession of Lady Catherine Howard, whose services were purchased apparently for 1500 pounds. Catesby never ceased to regret the admission of Tresham to the conspiracy: but if as is probable (see _ante_, Monteagle), Lord Monteagle were himself a party to the plot, the much-vaunted earnestness of Tresham to save him is in all probability a fiction, and a mere piece of the machinery. Gerard says that he was "of great estate, esteemed to be worth 3000 pounds a year. He had been wild in his youth, and even till his end was not known to be of so good example as the rest." Jardine says, "He was known to be mean, treacherous, and unprincipled." He vehemently denied, however, the charge of having sent the warning letter to Lord Monteagle, of which he was always suspected by his brother conspirators. Catesby and Thomas Winter had determined to "poniard him on the spot" if he had shown any hesitation in this denial. He escaped the gallows by dying of illness in the Tower on the 23rd of November. Lord Salisbury has been accused of poisoning Tresham because he knew too many State secrets. But why then did he not poison Lord Monteagle for the same reason? The fact that Tresham's wife and servant were admitted into his prison, and allowed to nurse him till he died, is surely sufficient answer. By his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir John Tufton, Tresham left no issue. He "showed no remorse, but seemed to glory in it as a religious act, to the minister that laboured with him to set his conscience straight at his end: had his head chopped of and sent [to] be set up at Northampton, his body being tumbled into a hole without so much ceremony as the formalitye of a grave." (_Domestic State Papers_, 17; 62.)

ROBERT, THOMAS, AND JOHN WINTER.

The Winters of Huddington are a family of old standing in Worcestershire; and Anne Winter, sister of the great grandfather of these brothers, was the mother of Edward Underhill, the "Hot Gospeller." His grandson, George Winter of Huddington and Droitwich, was a "recusant," yet was High Sheriff of his county in 1589. He married, first, Jane, daughter of Sir William Ingleby of Ripley, in Yorkshire, and secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Bourne. By the first marriage he had issue two sons--Robert and Thomas; by the second, John, Dorothy, and Elizabeth.

Robert, the eldest son, was born in or soon after 1565. Gerard describes him as "a gentleman of good estate in Worcestershire, about a thousand marks a year (666 pounds, 13 shillings 4 pence)--an earnest Catholic, though not as yet generally known to be so. He was a wise man, and of grave and sober carriage, and very stout (i.e., courageous), as all of that name have been esteemed." He joined the conspirators, March 31st, 1605; but he, like others, objected at first to the "scandal to the Catholic cause," and was a half-hearted accomplice to the end. He is said to have been terrified by a horrible dream on the night of November 4th, which made him more willing to desert the cause. He married Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Talbot (of the Shrewsbury line) and of Katherine Petre, by whom he had four children,--John, who died in 1622, leaving issue; Helen, of Cooksey, died 5th May 1670; Mary, a nun; and Catherine, died before 1670. All the daughters were unmarried.

Thomas Winter, one of the chief actors in the plot, was probably born about 1570, and seems to have died a bachelor. He may have been the "Thomas or William Wynter," apparently of Bradgate Hall, Oxford, who took his B.A. degree on 29th January 1589. He had served in the Dutch army against Spain, and quitted it on account of religious scruples, but so long afterwards as 1605, he is spoken of as Captain Winter (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 62). After this he was secretary to Lord Monteagle. He was, says Greenway, "an accomplished and able man, familiarly conversant with several languages, the intimate friend and companion of Catesby, and of great account with the Catholic party generally, in consequence of his talents for intrigue, and his personal acquaintance with ministers of influence in foreign Courts." Gerard adds that his "elder brother, and another younger, were also brought into the action by his means. He was a reasonable good scholar, and able to talk in many matters of learning, but especially in philosophy or histories, very well and judicially. He could speak both Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French. He had been a soldier, both in Flanders, France, and I think against the Turk, and could discourse exceeding well of those matters; and was of such a wit, and so fine carriage, that he was of so pleasing conversation, desired much of the better sort, but an inseparable friend to Mr Robert Catesby. He was of mean stature, but strong and comely, and very valiant, about thirty-three years or more. His means were not great, but he lived in good sort, and with the best. He was very devout and zealous in his faith, and careful to come often to the Sacraments, and of very grave and discreet carriage, offensive to no man, and fit for any employment." His "living was eight score pound by the year, by report of his man," (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 41); namely, his annual income was about 160 pounds. Several letters of his are still extant; three have been published in Notes and Queries (3rd Series, one; 341), and are all addressed to Grant. One written to Catesby has not seen the light hitherto, and as it is characteristic, I append it. (Cott. Manuscript Titus, B. two; folio 292.)

"To my loving friend, Mr Robert Catesby.

"Though all you malefactors flock to London, as birds in winter to a dunghill, yet do I, Honest man, freely possess the sweet country air: and to say truth, would fain be amongst you, but cannot as yet get money to come up. I was at Asbye to have met you, but you were newly gone; my business and your uncertain stay made me hunt no further. I pray you commend me to other friends. And when occasion shall require, send down to my brother's or Mr Talbott's; within this month I will be with you at London. So God keep you this 12th of October. Your loving friend, Thomas Wintour."

John Winter, the youngest brother, seems to have had very little share in the plot, and most fervently denied any knowledge of it whatever. Gerard (see _ante_) asserts that he was engaged in it, and Gertrude Winter bore witness that he came to Huddington with the other conspirators on November 7th. His own amusing narrative is to the effect that Grant asked him on the 4th of November, if he would go to a horse-race, and he answered that he would if he were well; that on the 5th, he went to "a little town called Rugby," where he and others supped and played cards; that a messenger came to them and said, "The gentlemen were at Dunchurch, and desired their company to be merry;" that at Holbeach he "demanded of Mr Percy and the rest, being most of them asleep, what they meant to do," and they answered that they would go on now; and shortly afterwards he left them. (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 110). John Winter was imprisoned, but released. There is no evidence to show that he was married.

JOHN AND CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT.

Concerning the parentage of these brothers, I can find no more than that they were of the family of Wright of Plowland, in Holderness, Yorkshire. They were cousins of Robert Winter, perhaps through his mother; were both schoolfellows of Guy Fawkes, and "neighbours' children." John Wright originally lived at Twigmore, in Lincolnshire, and removed to Lapworth, in Warwickshire, when he became a party to the plot. He was the first layman whom Catesby took into his confidence, Thomas Winter being the second, and Fawkes the third. Like so many of the others, the brothers were involved in Essex's rebellion. They were perverts, and since their perversion John had been "harassed with persecutions and imprisonment." Greenway says he was one of the best swordsmen of his time. Gerard describes him as "a gentleman of Yorkshire, not born to any great fortune, but lived always in place and company of the better sort. In his youth, very wild and disposed to fighting... He grew to be staid and of good, sober carriage after he was Catholic, and kept house in Lincolnshire, where he had priests come often, both for his spiritual comfort and their own in corporal helps. He was about forty years old, a strong and a stout man, and of a very good wit, though slow of speech: much loved by Mr Catesby for his valour and secrecy in carriage of any business." Of Christopher he says that "though he were not like him [John] in face, as being fatter, and a lighter-coloured hair, and taller of person, yet was he very like to the other in conditions and qualities, and both esteemed and tried to be as stout a man as England had, and withal a zealous Catholic, and trusty and secret in any business as could be wished." But little is known of the relatives of these brothers. John Wright's wife was named Dorothy, and she was "sister-in-law of Marmaduke Ward of Newby, Yorkshire, gentleman;" they had a daughter who was eight or nine years old in 1605, and probably one or more sons, as descendants of John Wright are said still to exist Christopher's wife was called Margaret, but nothing is known of his children. The brothers had two sisters,--Martha, the wife of their co-traitor, Percy; and another who was the mother of a certain William Ward, spoken of as Wright's nephew. (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, articles 44, 47, 52, 90.)

By Greenway, Gerard, or both, it is asserted of nearly every one of the conspirators that they were very wild in youth, and became persons of exemplary virtue after their perversion to Popery.

Note 1. "Thursday, 24th October," (not 26th, as usually stated), is the endorsement on the letter itself (_Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 2), and also the date given in the official account (_Ibidem_, article 129).

THE END.