CHAPTER VI. 19

Sir William Catesby (father of the arch-conspirator Robert Catesby) and Sir Thomas Tresham (father of Francis Tresham), fine old English gentlemen——Types of best class of Elizabethan Catholic gentry——Both persecuted by Government——Sir Thomas Tresham for more than twenty years pays for Fines equal in our money to £2,080 a year, as a “popish recusant”——Sir Thomas suffers imprisonment for at least twenty-one years after being Star-Chambered——Such transactions account for phenomenon of Gunpowder Treason Plot.