CHAPTER X.

Gothurst

GOTHURSTThe mark * shows the position of the secret room

Lipscomb thus describes them:—[209]“In one of the apartments was formerly shewn a movable floor, which, to ordinary observers, offered nothing remarkable in its appearance, but was made to revolve on a pivot, which, by a secret bolt, disclosed underneath it another room (receiving light from the lower part of a mullioned window, not discoverable exteriorily, unless at a very great distance).”From this secret room, he says “there were private passages of ingress and egress,”“almost impossible of detection, even by the occupiers of the Mansion. Here were also some remarkably ingenious cabinets and drawers, for the deposit of papers, &c.”Mr Walter Carlile, the son of the owner, and the occupier of Gothurst, or Gayhurst, as it is now called, informs me that Lipscomb’s description of the secret room is perfectly correct; that, although it was demolished twenty years ago, greatly to his own regret, there are still all the traces of where it was and how it was managed; and that the “priest’s hole”and some secret passages are yet in existence.

The secret room was not in the principal front,with its picturesque porch and gables; but at the end, at the right; that is to say, on the right as one stood facing the front. In the middle of this end of the house was a solid, square-headed projection, and it was the upper half of the room on the first floor of this projection which was converted into the secret room. The result was that, in this secret chamber the window came down to the floor, but did not rise to the top of the room, being in fact the upper half of the window which lighted the room beneath it. As the entire window was almost twice as high as it was broad, and divided into two equal parts, it was very well adapted for the purpose.

Lipscomb was probably right in calling this “a very artful contrivance for the concealment of the parties to the Gunpowder Plot”; there is certainly a tradition to the same effect, and, as will have been observed, I have adopted it; at the same time I will say candidly that I sometimes ask myself whether, after all, the “contrivance,”with its pivotted floor, may not have been only intended as a hiding-place for priests, and not for conspirators, a theory which is somewhat supported by the knowledge that Sir Everard Digby was going to leave and shut up Gothurst a few days before the explosion was to take place, and even still earlier was going to send his wife and children to Mr Throgmorton’s house at Coughton, which he had taken for them.

The energies of the conspirators, especially those of such an earnest Catholic as Sir Everard Digby, would be stimulated during October by the news that, that very month, two priests and a layman had been put to death for their religion.[210]“They were executed together with sixteen thieves and eight other malefactors; and their heads were placed on London Bridge.”A Spanish lady of high birth, who had come to England in the preceding May, wrote:—[211]“We can hardly go out to walk without seeing the heads and limbs of some of our dear and holy ones stuck up on the gates that divide the streets, and the birds of the air perching upon them; which makes me think of the verse in the Psalms, ‘They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be meat for the fowls of the air,’”etc. Admitting that there may have been some exaggeration in this statement, it was by no means devoid of foundation in fact. The reports of such things would give the conspiracy the colour of a crusade, to men anxious to see it assume that hue.

We shall presently see that Sir Everard intended to turn his steps towards Wales, when the blow should have been struck, making sure of the support of Catholics so persecuted as the Welsh and the inhabitants of the border counties. Here is something about them. Less than five months beforethe attempt to blow up the houses of parliament, the Protestant Bishop of Hereford wrote to Salisbury:—[212]“On Wednesday last, at evening, Sir James Scudamore and other justices of the peace, with such aid as I could give them, went unto the Darren and other places adjoining to make search and apprehend Jesuits and priests ... and did make diligent search all that night and day following, from village to village, from house to house, about thirty miles compass, near the confines of Monmouthshire, where they found altars, images, books of superstition, relics of idolatry, but left all desolate of men and women. Except here and there an aged woman or a child, all were fled into Wales, and but one man apprehended; all that circuit of rude barbarous people carried headlong into these desperate courses by priests (whereof there is great store) and principal gentlemen, lords of towns and manors there. They are all fled into the woods, and there they will lurk until the assizes be past.”Rumours of the searches on the part of the “justices of the peace,” “with such aid”as the Bishop of Hereford “could give them,”would reach Gothurst and provoke Sir Everard. They remind one of the remark made by Cardinal Bellarmine on the Gunpowder Plot:—[213]“I excuse not the crime, I loathe unnatural murders,I execrate conspiracies, but no one can deny that provocation was given.”

The plan of campaign was doubtless discussed at great length at Gothurst during the early part of the month of October. Parliament was to meet at the beginning of November, and the great attempt was intended to be made about the 5th. No time, therefore, was to be lost in making provision for every contingency. Sir Everard was still anxious as to whether all the Catholic peers, and those peers who were friendly to Catholics, could, with any certainty, be induced to absent themselves from the House at the time of the explosion.

“Assure yourself,”said Catesby to him, “that such of the nobility as are worth saving shall be preserved, and yet know not of the matter.”[214]As to the remainder of the lords, he declared that he regarded them as “atheists, fools, and cowards, and that lusty bodies would be better for the commonwealth than they.”[215]There was considerable wrangling as to which of the peers were to be saved, and there was some diversity of opinion on the question—whether this or that Protestant lord was well-enough disposed towards Catholics and their religion to be worth rescue. For instance, some would have it that the Earl of Northumberland was likely tobecome a Catholic; but his relative, Percy the conspirator, said that[216]“for matters of relligion”he “trobled not much himselfe.”Notwithstanding this statement, Percy earnestly begged that he might be one of the peers to be spared,[217]which was indeed only fair, considering that his rents were to be stolen for the purposes of the plot. Francis Tresham pleaded for his two brothers-in-law, Stourton and Mounteagle, both of whom were Catholics; Keyes for his great friend, Mordaunt; Fawkes for Montague, several for Arundel, and so on.

As to the plan of proceedings, when the explosion should have taken place with success, the great principle was to be to rally the Catholic gentry with their servants and retainers for a general rising in a central district. Gothurst was considered too far east for this purpose, and Warwickshire was selected as the base of operations for the volunteer Catholic army. It was true that that army did not yet exist; that the number of men at present initiated into the conspiracy was very small; and that the spirit in which the Catholics would receive the news of the wholesale massacre of the King and his Parliament remained to be proved; but Catesby and his confederates, Sir Everard apparently among the number, were very sanguine.

Catesby, the originator, organiser, and leader of the whole proceeding, was to have the managementof the grand explosion and the conduct of matters in London immediately afterwards, while Digby was to have the charge of the rising in Warwickshire, where Catesby was to join him, as occasion might serve. As a nucleus of his hoped-for army, Sir Everard was to take so many of his retainers as he could muster, with a quantity of arms in carts, to Dunchurch, a place very near Rugby, and to invite a large number of his trustworthy friends, likely to join in the cause, to come there with their horses and servants for a great “hunting-match”on Dunsmoor Heath.

Country gentlemen in our own times have often wondered what this “hunting-match”could be. Possibly it may have been a coursing meeting. The foundation of the rules of coursing, in its modern sense, was the code drawn up by the Duke of Norfolk in the reign of Elizabeth,[218]and as Sir Everard had been a good deal at the Court of that Queen, and was devoted to field sports, it is not unreasonable to infer that the so-called “hunting-match” may have been ostensibly what we should call a coursing-meeting, with, perhaps, some hawking added. It was arranged that on the arrival of the guests invited to take part in it at Dunchurch, Sir Everard was to hint to them that a decisive blow of some sort was about to be struck in London, although they were not to be enlightened as to itsnature until the news should arrive of its success. On the receipt of this news, Digby was at once to despatch a party to seize the Princess Elizabeth at the house of her governor, Lord Harington—he had been created Baron Harington of Exton in 1603—at his house near Coventry, and if Catesby should fail to secure the persons of the Prince of Wales or the Duke of York in the South, Digby was to proclaim her Queen. The little volunteer army in Warwickshire was then to seize the horses at Warwick Castle and the store of armour at Whewell Grange, Lord Windsor’s house in Worcestershire, “and by that time,”said Catesby, in unfolding his plan, “I hope some friends will come and take our parts.”[219]

Sir Everard was not going to leave his wife and children at Gothurst, between the great rallying centre of his expected army in Warwickshire and the possible opposing army which, in case of failure, might approach from London. On the contrary, he was anxious to place them on the further side of Warwickshire, so that the band of Catholic warriors might lie between them and the source of danger; at the same time he wished to have them within easy reach; and, for this purpose, he hired or borrowed from Mr Throckmorton, a house called Coughton (containing many “secret recesses”[220]), near Alcester, and abouttwenty-five miles from the primary rallying point at Dunchurch.

Sir Everard said in his examination in Nov. 1605, that he “did borrow a howse of Mr Thomas Throckmorton for one moneth, purposing to take it longer, or to enquire out some other if that were not to be had, if”his “wife should like to live there.”[221]

Being, in those days, a quadrangular house,[222]it could easily be defended in case of need. It is impossible that Sir Everard can have given Lady Digby the real reason for which he proposed to remove her there: the secret which he was keeping from her can scarcely have failed to cause some restraint between them, and it would be but natural that she should feel considerable uneasiness. Why, she would ask herself, should her husband, who had hitherto shared everything with her, now have something in hand which he was evidently concealing?

Another inmate at Gothurst was in a state of great anxiety, namely Father Garnet. The exertions to which his lay companion, “Little John,”was put, at his host’s request, to increase the secret passages and make a hidden room, may have aroused his suspicions still further; but, after all, Gothurst would be no more ramified with such places of concealment than certain other houses; for instance, at Hendlip Hall, about fourmiles from Worcester, a house to which Father Garnet was to go within two months, to spend several weeks, a house, moreover, of much the same date as Gothurst, there was[223]“scarcely an apartment that”had “not secret ways of going in or going out”; some had “back stair cases concealed in the walls; others”“places of retreat in their chimneys; some”“trap-doors, and all” presented “a picture of gloom, insecurity, and suspicion.” And well might the inmates of a Catholic family live in “gloom, insecurity, and suspicion,”in those days of pursuivants, fines, hangings, and quarterings.

Father Gerard, who was a frequent visitor at Gothurst, observed with surprise that Sir Everard had a far larger number of horses than he had been accustomed to keep;[224]but, when it occurred to him that this might be because he was, for some reason or other, better off than before, he found that, on the contrary, he had been selling his farm-stock, and even some land, which puzzled him much, particularly in so prudent and careful a man, and the more so since he was aware that Sir Everard was going to pay the fine required of recusants by the statute, and was therefore in no danger of having his stock taken from him compulsorily.

Although Sir Everard Digby had been led by Catesby to believe that some of the Jesuit Fathers had given their approval to the Gunpowder Plot, and had special reasons, as we have seen, for imagining Father Garnet to be one of these, he does not appear to have thought that Father Gerard knew anything about the matter, or would have consented to it if he had known of it: for, on his arraignment, he declared that Father Gerard was ignorant of it, and that he had never mentioned it to him,[225]“alleging the reason,”“because, he said, he feared lest” that Father “should dissuade him from it.”So here we find him acting in opposition to his greatest friend—his “brother,”as he called him—the priest who had received him into the Church, and was his chief spiritual adviser. A good Catholic might lawfully act in opposition to the opinion of his confessor or director in matters open to difference of view, especially when that opinion was only suspected, and had not been delivered; but on such an all-important question as this, he might have been expected to consult Gerard, although it must be remembered that he had been assured by Catesby that another Jesuit had approved of the plot.

There is one consideration on this subject which is of the highest importance, namely, that Garnet was the Provincial, that is to say the superior and the veryhighest authority among the Jesuits in England, at that time, and therefore the Jesuit of all others most in communication with Rome, and most likely to know the mind of the General of his Order as well as that of the Holy Father himself.

During October, not only Catesby, but other conspirators visited Gothurst. Among these was Fawkes, the adventurer who was intended to be actual perpetrator of the terrible deed. He was not altogether ill-born, being a member of an at least respectable family in Yorkshire, his father having been Registrar and Advocate of the Consistory Court of York Minster.[226]He was thirty-five years old, and he had seen much of the world, having entered the Spanish army in Flanders and been at the taking of Calais by the Archduke Albert in 1596.[227]He was a man, too, who made some profession of devotion as a Catholic.[228]Father Greenway describes him as[229]“a man of great piety, of exemplary temperance, of mild and cheerful demeanour, an enemy of broils and disputes, a faithful friend, and remarkable for his punctual attendance upon religious observances.” He had been to Spain, on the private embassy to Philip II. with Christopher Wright, and he had a brother then a barrister in one of the Inns of Court in London. Therefore he was not ill-fitted by his antecedents to be received as a guest at Gothurst, shrink as we mayfrom the idea of such a man being admitted to the house of the gentle Lady Digby.

This intending actor in a very dark deed arrived in dull, stormy, and gloomy weather. Much rain had fallen, and the dead leaves lay wet and dank about the gables and recesses of Gothurst. There were, then, none of the modern arrangements of hot-water pipes, or other contrivances for keeping out the cold in a large stone house, of which luxurious people avail themselves so freely in these days, and the long rooms must have felt chilly, on the October nights, beyond a certain radius from the piles of burning logs in the large open grates.

People talking secrets do not find the family or social circle round the fire a very convenient place in which to interchange their confidences, and Sir Everard Digby and Guy Fawkes had good reason one evening, when supper was ended, for withdrawing to a dark and distant corner to discuss the terrible scheme in which both were so deeply engrossed; neither Sir Everard’s wife nor his chaplain, nor Father Garnet, nor either of the ladies who were staying in the house, could be permitted to hear a word of their whisperings about the details and prospects of the fatal plot; so the two conspirators were obliged to forego the warmth of the cheerful fire until their conversation should be ended.

A damp chill, in spite of the flickering light from the burning wood, seems to have suggested to the host the probable condition of a certain fireless cellar inWestminster; for he muttered in a low tone to his guest[230]“that he was much afraid that the Powder in the cellar was grown dank, and that some new must be provided, lest that should not take fire,”words which show that, having once yielded to the temptations of Catesby, the ill-fated youth had thrown himself heart and soul into the diabolical conspiracy. The biographer of Sir Everard Digby may well wish that he had never been guilty of any such speech.

FOOTNOTES:[200]Thomas Winter’s Confession. S.P., Gunpowder Plot Book, n. 114.[201]See Dr Jessop, inOne Generation of a Norfolk House, p. 285.[202]Narrative of the G. P., Gerard, p. 92.[203]Life of Father J. Gerard, p. lvii.[204]Records, S. J.Series I., p. 297.[205]Ib., p. 675, footnote.[206]The Foot out of the Snare.By John Zee, London, 1624.[207]Gunpowder Plot, p. 188-9.[208]Collectanea S. J.SeeRecords of the Eng. Prov. S. J., Vol. iv. pp. 247, 248.[209]Hist. and Antiquities of the Co. of Bucks, Vol. iv. p. 159.[210]Before and after the Gunpowder Plot.By E. Healy Thompson, p. 4.[211]Life of Luisa de Carvajal.By Lady Georgiana Fullerton, p. 226.[212]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xiv. n. 52, June 22, 1605.[213]Reply to the King’sTriplici nodo triplex cuneus. SeeThe Month, No. 366, p. 501.[214]Digby’s Exam., 2nd Dec. 1605. S.P.O. Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, pp. 75-6.[215]Keyes’ Exam., 30th Nov. 1605. S.P.O. Jardine, p. 75.[216]Cal. Sta. Pa., 1603-10, p. 262.[217]Jardine, p. 74.[218]The Greyhound, by Hugh Dalziel, 1887.[219]R. Winter’s Letter to the Lords. S.P.O. 21st Jan. 1605. Jardine, p. 73.[220]Records of the Eng. Prov. S. J., Vol. iv. p. 34, footnote.[221]S. P. Domestic, James I., Vol. xvi. No. 94.[222]Gorton’s Topography, Vol. i. p. 518. The house at present belongs to Sir N. W. Throckmorton, Bart.[223]Beauties of England, Vol. xv., Part I., p. 184. Jardine, p. 182. Nash, in hisWorcestershire, quotes from Ashmole MSS., Vol. 804, fol. 93, the following:—“Eleven secret corners and conveyances were found in the said house, all of them having books, massing stuff, and popish trumpery in them, only two excepted.”[224]Life of Father J. Gerard, p. ccxxxvi.[225]Father Gerard’s letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon. SeeLife of Father Gerard, p. ccxxxviii.[226]Jardine’s G. P., p. 36.[227]Beeton’s Encyclopædia, Vol. i.[228]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, by J. Gerard, pp. 59, 60.[229]Jardine, p. 38.[230]Gunpowder Treason, Barlow, p. 68.

FOOTNOTES:

[200]Thomas Winter’s Confession. S.P., Gunpowder Plot Book, n. 114.

[201]See Dr Jessop, inOne Generation of a Norfolk House, p. 285.

[202]Narrative of the G. P., Gerard, p. 92.

[203]Life of Father J. Gerard, p. lvii.

[204]Records, S. J.Series I., p. 297.

[205]Ib., p. 675, footnote.

[206]The Foot out of the Snare.By John Zee, London, 1624.

[207]Gunpowder Plot, p. 188-9.

[208]Collectanea S. J.SeeRecords of the Eng. Prov. S. J., Vol. iv. pp. 247, 248.

[209]Hist. and Antiquities of the Co. of Bucks, Vol. iv. p. 159.

[210]Before and after the Gunpowder Plot.By E. Healy Thompson, p. 4.

[211]Life of Luisa de Carvajal.By Lady Georgiana Fullerton, p. 226.

[212]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xiv. n. 52, June 22, 1605.

[213]Reply to the King’sTriplici nodo triplex cuneus. SeeThe Month, No. 366, p. 501.

[214]Digby’s Exam., 2nd Dec. 1605. S.P.O. Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, pp. 75-6.

[215]Keyes’ Exam., 30th Nov. 1605. S.P.O. Jardine, p. 75.

[216]Cal. Sta. Pa., 1603-10, p. 262.

[217]Jardine, p. 74.

[218]The Greyhound, by Hugh Dalziel, 1887.

[219]R. Winter’s Letter to the Lords. S.P.O. 21st Jan. 1605. Jardine, p. 73.

[220]Records of the Eng. Prov. S. J., Vol. iv. p. 34, footnote.

[221]S. P. Domestic, James I., Vol. xvi. No. 94.

[222]Gorton’s Topography, Vol. i. p. 518. The house at present belongs to Sir N. W. Throckmorton, Bart.

[223]Beauties of England, Vol. xv., Part I., p. 184. Jardine, p. 182. Nash, in hisWorcestershire, quotes from Ashmole MSS., Vol. 804, fol. 93, the following:—“Eleven secret corners and conveyances were found in the said house, all of them having books, massing stuff, and popish trumpery in them, only two excepted.”

[224]Life of Father J. Gerard, p. ccxxxvi.

[225]Father Gerard’s letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon. SeeLife of Father Gerard, p. ccxxxviii.

[226]Jardine’s G. P., p. 36.

[227]Beeton’s Encyclopædia, Vol. i.

[228]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, by J. Gerard, pp. 59, 60.

[229]Jardine, p. 38.

[230]Gunpowder Treason, Barlow, p. 68.

Both Catesby and Fawkes left Gothurst as October wore on; so also did any other conspirators who may have visited it. Most of them betook themselves to White Webbs, a desolate, half-timbered house, with “many trap-doors and passages,”[231]on Enfield Chase, to the north of London, about ten miles from the cellar where their gunpowder lay.

This house had been taken, a long time before this, by Anne Vaux, and was rented by her[232]as a convenient place near London for the meeting of priests and the Catholic laity. Unfortunately, it had gradually got more into the hands of her relatives, who found it useful for other purposes. These relatives were Catesby and Tresham.

At one time White Webbs had been inhabited almost exclusively by Jesuits, being used as a centre for the renovation of vows, religious retreats, and conferences upon the affairs of their missions.[233]In his examination,[234]Father Garnet said “that it was aspacious house fitt to receave so great a company that should resort to him thither; there being two bedds placed in a chamber, but thinketh there have not been above the number of 14 Jesuits at one time there.”Disastrously for himself and his order, he was obliged to confess[235]that “Catesby and Wynter, or Mr Catesby alone, came to him to White Webbs and tould this examt. there was a plott in hand for the Cathc. cause against the King and the State,” assuring him that it was something quite “lawfull”; but that he had “dissuaded him,”and that “he promised to surceasse.”

It was no secret that White Webbs had been one of the principal meeting-places of the Jesuits; therefore, after they had given up going there, and it had got into the hands of Catesby and his band of conspirators, the Government, not altogether unnaturally, supposed that the Jesuits had purposely assigned it to the plotters as a convenient place from which to carry out their dread design.

This, however, was not the case; for, in October 1605, Father Garnet had intended to have gone thither, but finding that Catesby and his friends had established themselves in the house, most likely with the purpose of carrying out the “plott in hand,” which he so greatly feared, he did not dare to go there,[236]“and so accepted the offer of Sir Everard tobe his tenants at Coughton.”He felt the more anxious to go to Coughton because Catesby had promised to come there on the 31st;[237]and he says, “I assuredly, if they had come, had entered into the matter, and perhaps might have hindered all.”As the modern Jesuit, Father Pollen, says, “to be able to do this he would, of course, have to ask Catesby to allow him to open the matter, but of success in this, considering that Catesby had of his own accord offered to tell him, he did not much doubt, and, perhaps to make the negotiations easier, he had ordered Greenway to be there too.”The pity is that he had not “entered into the matter”earlier. Nervous and horror-stricken, he had refused to allow Catesby to tell him the details, when he had reason for believing a plot to be brewing; he was tongue-tied when he afterwards met Catesby, having heard those details in confession; yet, after being for some time at Gothurst with Catesby, it was not until Catesby had left that he came to the conclusion that he might, and that it was highly desirable that he should, beg Catesby’s leave to speak to him of a subject which had been transmitted to him through the confessional, at Catesby’s desire.

A zealous Catholic like Sir Everard would be comforted by learning that an envoy had been privately despatched to Rome, to explain everything to the Pope, from the point of view of the conspirators, as soon asthe great event should have taken place. The person selected for this purpose was Sir Edward Baynham, a member of a good Gloucestershire family, and an intimate friend of Catesby’s. He had started in September. Unluckily for himself, Father Garnet, on hearing that Baynham was going to Rome, as Catesby’s messenger, had encouraged it, believing,[238]“that he had procured Baynham’s mission in order to inform the Pope generally of the Plot, and that this was the reason why he so confidently expected from his Holiness a prohibition of the whole business.”Father Garnet’s approval of Baynham’s mission was thus capable of quotation, or rather misquotation, to Sir Everard Digby, and would naturally confirm the reports of his full approval of the conspiracy, as previously cited by Catesby.

This mission of Baynham to Rome was destined to bring trouble upon the conspirators, Sir Everard among them. In the indictment afterwards made against them, was the following Count.[239]“That after the destruction of the King, the Queen, the Prince, and the Royal Issue Male, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Knights and Burgesses; they should notifie the same to Foreign States; and therefore SirEdmund Bayham, an attainted person of Treason, and stiling himself prince of the damned crew, should be sent, and make the same known to the Pope, and crave his aid;an Ambassador fit, both for the message and persons, to be sent betwixt the Pope and the Devil.”

The last week of October must have been a time of great anxiety to Sir Everard. His companions at Gothurst appear to have been his wife and his two little children, Mrs Vaux, her sister-in-law, Anne Vaux, and Father Garnet. In the meantime he was making his preparations for the pretended coursing-meeting at Dunchurch. He was arranging how the arms, armour, and ammunition were to be conveyed in carts, covered over with other things to conceal them, and he was getting his men and horses ready for the start. He was also making preparations for the journey of his wife, children, and guests to Coughton, and for this party, alone, a good many servants and horses were required.

It is highly improbable that Catesby and the other conspirators at White Webbs kept up communications with their friend and ally at Gothurst; so most likely he was spared the anxiety of the news that on Saturday, the 26th, Lord Mounteagle had received, when at supper, an anonymous letter, warning him to “devyse some exscuse”for absenting himself from the “parleament,”and to “retyere”himself into the “contri”where he might “expect the event in safti for thoghe theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i saye they shall receyve a terribel blowe this parleament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them&c.”;[240]and that Lord Mounteagle[241]ordered a man in his service to read this letter then and there before the party assembled. Most likely, too, Sir Everard did not learn till much later that when, early in the following week, Catesby and Winter heard of the delivery of this letter of warning, they suspected Tresham of being its author; that, on Wednesday, the 30th, they summoned him, after he had been down in Northamptonshire for about a week, to come at once to White Webbs, with the full intention of poignarding him on the spot, if they could convince themselves that he had been guilty of writing and sending the warning, and that he denied it, with such firmness and so many oaths, that they hesitated to assassinate him, while still doubting his sincerity.

On Tuesday, the 29th of October, Lady Digby, her children, guests, and servants, started for Coughton, ajourney of some fifty miles. In mentioning Coughton, it may be worth noticing how many of those whose names are more or less connected, even indirectly, with the story of the Gunpowder Plot were related to each other. The owner of Coughton, Thomas Throckmorton, was a cousin both of Catesby’s and of Tresham’s, although he never had anything to do with the conspiracy. He was also a cousin of the Vaux family, his grandmother having been a daughter of a Lord Vaux of Harrowden.

It being known that Father Garnet was to be at Coughton for All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day, many Catholics in the neighbourhood came thither in order to attend mass and go to their religious duties.

The feast of All-Hallows used then to be kept with some solemnity, and it was Father Garnet’s custom on such occasions to sing the mass,[242]where it was practicable and safe to do so, and also to preach. Lingard[243]thought that it was “plain that Garnet had acted very imprudently at Coughton, probably had suffered expressions to escape him which, though sufficiently obscure then, might now prove his acquaintance with the plot; for he writes to Anne Vaux, on March 4th, ‘there is some talk here of a discourse made by me or Hall; I fear it is that which I made at Coughton.’—Autib. 144.”He certainly recitedthe prayer for the conversion of England, which had been authorised for that purpose by Cardinal Allen; and, although it was used that day throughout the world, being taken from the office of the feast,[244]his doing so was afterwards used in evidence against him as an act of treason. The words

“Gentem auferte perfidamCredentium de finibus,Ut Christo laudes debitasPersolvamus alacriter.”[245]

from a hymn in the Office, had certainly no reference to the Gunpowder Plot.

On Saturday, the second of November, Sir Everard was up early, superintending the arrangements for his start a day or two later, as well as the putting away of valuables at Gothurst, and the closing of the house in preparation for a long absence. Already some of his horses and men had been sent on to Dunchurch, together with his greyhounds, which were all-important for appearance sake.

Possibly my readers may have experienced the sensation caused by the unexpected and very sudden arrival of a hitherto invariably welcome friend at a moment when his presence was not exactly convenient. Now few men, if any, were so dear to Sir Everard as Father Gerard, and he used to be specially welcome when he occasionally rode to Gothurst earlyin a morning to say a mass in its chapel; but when Sir Everard saw “his brother,”as he usually called him, riding up to Gothurst on that particular Saturday morning, and when he was told by the Father that he had come to say his mass in his chapel on this All Souls’ Day, he wished, for the first time, that his favourite guest had not taken it into his head to come on that Saturday morning, “of all Saturday mornings.”He knew that all the chapel furniture, as well as the chalices, vestments, and other necessaries for saying mass, had been carefully hidden away, with the exception of those which had been sent on to Dunchurch with a view to having mass said during his stay there. Besides, everything was in a state of fuss and confusion in anticipation of the start; and, as his family were to remain for some time at Coughton, the house was on the point of being shut up. One reason why the presence of Father Gerard might be particularly unwelcome just then was that, about that time, Digby may have been superintending the “great provision of armour and shot, which he sent before him in a cart with some trusty servants”to Dunchurch.[246]

When told that it would be impossible to have mass at Gothurst that morning, Father Gerard, in addition to his expression of disappointment—for All Souls’ is a Feast upon which no priest likes to miss saying mass—may have shown signs of embarrassment;for the presence of a stranger prevented his asking his host the reasons. As soon as an opportunity offered itself, Father Gerard beckoned to Sir Everard to follow him into a room in which they would be alone.[247]There he told him that he could not understand the sudden alteration in the arrangements of his house, the putting away of so many things as if a long absence was contemplated, the removal of the family to Coughton, the preparations for a journey to Dunchurch with such an unusual number of men and horses, and—now that he came to think of it—the sales of land and stock, of which Sir Everard had spoken to him not long ago, as if to raise money for some special purpose. All this, as an intimate friend, Father Gerard was in a position to say to his so-called “brother”; and he ventured to go further and inquire whether he “had something in hand for the Catholic cause.”

Sir Everard’s answer was “No, there is nothing in hand that I know of, or can tell you of.”

Father Gerard then replied that he had some reason to feel anxious on the subject, as Sir Everard was much too careful a man to injure his estate by leaving it understocked, and by selling any portion of it in order to purchase horses, hire men, and spend money in other ways, unless he had some great object in view for what he believed to be the good of the Catholic cause; and, added the Father, “Look wellthat you follow counsel in your proceedings, or else you may hurt both yourself and the cause.”

Ah! if some such words as these had been addressed to him by Father Garnet at the time he first joined the conspiracy, how much misery he might have been saved.

Perhaps Father Gerard’s persistence in suspecting and implying that Sir Everard had “something in hand,”after he had avowed that he had “nothing” may have irritated him, for he replied, with dignity: “I respect the Catholic cause much more than my own commodity, as it should well appear whenever I undertake anything.”

Father Gerard was not to be put off in this manner, and he asked once more, “whether there were anything to be done,”and, if so, whether help was expected from any foreign power.

Sir Everard was becoming hard pressed, and raising one finger, he replied, “I will not adventure so much in hope thereof.”

Distressed and anxious, Father Gerard then said—“I pray God you follow counsel in your doings. If there be any matter in hand, doth Mr Walley know of it?”Walley was the name by which Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, was spoken of at that time.

Digby’s answer was a curious one, unless Catesby had not told him the name of the particular Jesuit whose approval he pretended to have obtained. “In truth, I think he doth not.”

Then, said Father Gerard, “In truth, Sir Everard Digby, if there should be anything in hand, and that you retire yourself and company into Warwickshire, as into a place of most safety, I should think you did not perform the part of a friend to some of your neighbours not far off, and persons that, as you know, deserve every respect, and to whom you have professed much friendship, that they are left behind, and have not any warning to make so much provision for their own safety as were needful in such a time, but to defend themselves from rogues.”

Sir Everard, who must have sincerely wished that his friend had stayed away, replied—“I warrant you it shall not need.”

At this assurance Father Gerard felt rather more satisfied, and shortly afterwards he rode away, much to the relief of his host, who at any other time would have pressed him to remain as his guest.

Sir Everard stayed at home over the Sunday—whether he rode to some other Catholic’s house to hear Mass on that day does not appear—and on the Monday[248]he started for Dunchurch, accompanied by his page, William Ellis, Richard Day, “his receaver,” and five servants.

He can scarcely have left Gothurst in the best of spirits, as he must have reflected that, for the first time, he had prevaricated and dissembled, if not actually lied, to the man he considered his best friend,the very priest who had received him into the Church; that he had parted with him on a far from satisfactory footing, and that he had been obliged to send him away from his house without saying Mass on a day of such importance to all good Catholics as that devoted to the memory of and intercession for the dead.

Besides these, he had other good reasons for depression as he rode away from his beautiful home; he must have known that, at best, he was starting upon a very perilous enterprise; whether it succeeded or failed, many of his party might fall on the field in prosecuting it, if nothing worse happened to them; and it may be that, as he caught a last glimpse of Gothurst in the distance, the thought occurred to his mind that he would never see it again.

The journey and his plans, however, would soon distract his thoughts. The plot itself, too, would occupy his mind above all other subjects. In each of the conspirators it seems to have produced a sort of intoxication. Stow says that,[249]“being drunke with the same folly,”Sir Everard Digby “went to the appointed hunting at Don-church.”

Then there were his arms and his followers to be thought of and looked after. It is difficult in these days to realise that, some three hundred years ago, the servants, retainers, and to some extent the tenants, of large landowners were expected to fight whenrequired by their lords. It is true that the feudal system had then almost ceased to exist; but although vassalage had been considerably limited more than a hundred years earlier by Henry VII., it was not abolished by statute until more than fifty years after the time of which I am writing.

To carry ourselves back to that period, we have to imagine our gardeners, under-gardeners, grooms, stable-helpers, gamekeepers, and perhaps footmen, strapping on broad-swords, carrying pikes, putting on such armour as could be provided, and going forth to possible battle, some on foot, and some mounted on hacks, coach-horses, cart-horses, and ponies, not a few of which would be taken up from grass for the purpose.

In this particular instance, the motley troop, with the exception of the seven men accompanying Sir Everard, had been already sent on, ostensibly to assist at the coursing and, perhaps, hawking, which was to take place at Dunchurch, while some of them were to attend to the wants of the guests. As to Sir Everard’s own journey, most of his attendants rode; but one of them, Richard Hollis, the under cook, walked, leading the “truncke-horse,” on which his master’s personal clothing was slung.[250]This trunk, wrote Sir Everard,[251]“had in it cloathes of mine, as, a white Sattin Dublet cut withpurple, a Jerkin and Hoase of De-roy colour sattin, laid very thicke with Gold-lace, there were other garments in it of mine, with a new black Winter Gown of my wife’s, there was also in the trunk £300 in money.”

On reaching Dunchurch, Sir Everard took his supper alone,[252]and it is not likely that his reflections as he did so were of the calmest or the happiest.

Now that it takes considerably less than a couple of hours to travel from London to Rugby, it seems curious that no news of the difficulties of the conspirators at White Webbs should have reached those at Dunchurch; but it would have been dangerous in the extreme to have sent a letter describing them, and neither of the principals concerned wished to go far from London until they had seen what would happen.

Their anxiety on Wednesday, the 30th of October, had been increased by Tresham’s eagerness in urging Catesby to give up the plot, which he said was discovered, and to leave England, promising that he should always “live upon his purse”;[253]and by his imploring Winter to begone, on Saturday, the 2nd of November. On the Saturday or the Sunday, Winter again met Tresham in Lincoln’s Inn Walks, when the latter declared that they were all lost men, unless they saved themselves by instant flight. Through another source, Catesby and Winter learned, on the Sunday,that the letter of warning which had been received by Lord Mounteagle had been shown to the king, who considered the matter of the highest importance, but enjoined the strictest secrecy. The leadingconspirators, therefore, were in a state of great consternation on the Sunday, two days before the explosion was to take place. Of all this, however, Sir Everard Digby knew nothing.

Either late on the Monday night, or early on the Tuesday morning, several of Sir Everard’s friends assembled at the Inn[254]where he was staying, at Dunchurch; among these were Throckmorton,[255]Sir Robert Digby of Coleshill, James Digby, George Digby, Stephen Littleton and Humphrey Littleton. On the Tuesday morning,[256]mass was said by Father Hart, a Jesuit, who had been a secular priest, and had been introduced to Fathers of the Society of Jesus by Father Strange,[257]Sir Everard Digby’s own chaplain. The party, after breakfast, hunted or coursed, so that, although the “hunting-match”was a mere cover for other designs, it actually took place for one day.

It seems that Sir Everard took opportunities of confiding to his friends the news that a scheme was on foot for asserting the rights of Catholics; that active measures of some sort were to be taken on their behalf immediately in London, probably on the following day,and that very possibly the sportsmen assembled at Dunchurch might receive a message, summoning them to arms about Thursday or Friday; to some he told more, and to some less, according to their dispositions and the spirit in which they received his information.

The sportsmen naturally conversed together upon the intelligence they had received, although a few of the more enlightened were to some extent tongue-tied, and the whole party gradually became in an anxious and excited state.[258]This was especially the case when they all met together at supper at the inn after hunting, and more particularly as they talked in groups over their tankards when supper was finished.

Sir Everard Digby, his relative, Sir Robert Digby, and one of the Littletons, withdrew from the rest of the party to play cards[259]together in a room by themselves.

A little distraction must have been very desirable for Sir Everard’s mind in its state of tension. As we know, he was usually an excellent card-player, but we may doubt whether he played his best on this occasion. He believed that the horrible catastrophe was either at that moment taking place, had just taken place, or was to take place immediately. Perhaps, as he sat quietly playing cards, numbers ofmen whom he had known personally, or at least by sight, had just been put to a horrible death, among them his king, who had knighted him. The poor princes, innocent boys, might be lying beside him, dead also, crushed and mangled. Many among the slain would be almost as innocent, so far as any desire to injure the Catholics was concerned. Of course, Digby had made up his mind that the explosion was a necessary and even a heroic undertaking; but, if bloodguiltiness there were in it, he could not help knowing that it rested on his own head. Can one help imagining that, while he played cards, he must have devoutly wished, now that it was too late, that he could prevent such a fearful slaughter, or that he had never heard of or conspired in the plot? Let us hope that the game of cards diverted such thoughts; yet who could blame him if, with such matters on his mind, he forgot to follow suit?

At any rate, while he shuffled the cards, grim realities would be apt to present themselves to his memory. When would he hear of the great event? It would only take place that afternoon or evening at soonest. Dunchurch was about eighty miles from London. Catesby would hardly despatch a messenger until he had something definite to relate as to the result of the catastrophe upon the minds of the populace, the officials, and the army; so it might be almost another twenty-four hours before Digbycould receive the news; yet such an appalling massacre would be talked about, right and left, and the intelligence would be passed on from one place to another very rapidly; it was possible, therefore, that tidings—most likely meagre, exaggerated, and untrustworthy tidings—might reach Dunchurch, in some form or other, on the following morning. As the day wore on they might, perhaps, see Rookwood himself, or one of his servants entrusted with a letter, for he had placed relays of horses on the road between London and Dunchurch.[260]Or Percy or Christopher Wright might appear, as Sir Everard had sent a servant with a couple of horses to meet them at Hockliffe.[261]

But it was useless to disturb the mind as to the particular moment at which the news could arrive; possibly there was not at present any to send; therefore it would be wisest, Sir Everard might tell himself, to divert his mind with his game, to go early to bed, and get a good night’s rest, so as to be fresh and ready for whatever might happen on the following day.

Suddenly there was a sound without of many and hurried footsteps; the door opened, and in rushed Catesby, Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, Rookwood, and Winter, mud-bespattered, heavily armed, and with grave faces. Acton and Grant came in after them.

It was clear, at a glance, that something waswrong; and Sir Everard looked eagerly to Catesby for information. Instead of speaking, Catesby took him by the arm and led him out of the room, saying nothing until he had found an empty chamber, which they both entered alone.

Exactly what was said to Sir Everard by Catesby can never be known; but what he had to tell him, if he chose to do so, was much as follows.

On the evening, or late in the afternoon, of the previous day (Monday, November 4th), Catesby, Rookwood, John and Christopher Wright, Thomas Winter, Percy, and Keyes, who formed the band of conspirators in and about London, received notice from Fawkes that the cellar in which their gunpowder was laid had just been visited by the Lord Chamberlain—the already mentioned Earl of Suffolk, and Lord Mounteagle. Catesby and John Wright immediately fled, and started for Dunchurch. Christopher Wright, Rookwood, Keyes, Winter, and Percy waited in London to observe what would happen. They hung about during the night, and at about four or five o’clock in the morning[262]they discovered that Fawkes had been arrested. Then Christopher Wright and Percy started for Dunchurch.

Only Rookwood, Winter, and Keyes now remained. They were staying in the same lodging, and they determined to wait and see what the morning wouldbring forth.[263]On going out early, they found the populace in a state of great consternation and terror.[264]“The news of Fawkes’s apprehension, and exaggerated rumours of a frightful plot discovered, were spread in every direction.”Guards and soldiers protected all the streets and roads leading to the palace, and no one, excepting officials, was permitted to pass them. The whole town was in a state of excitement. Keyes sprang on his horse and galloped after the other fugitives; but Rookwood, who had taken care to place relays of horses along the road to Dunchurch, remained longer, in order to carry the latest news to his fellow-conspirators in Warwickshire. At ten[265]o’clock it became evident that it would be dangerous to delay an instant longer, so he also mounted his horse and galloped away.

The last of all to fly was Thomas Winter.[266]Of his movements Catesby could have told Sir Everard nothing; but he left London very soon after Rookwood, and eventually joined his fellow-conspirators at Huddington.

When Rookwood had gone about three miles beyond Highgate, he overtook Keyes, and rodewith him into Bedfordshire, where Keyes took a different road, as is conjectured by Jardine,[267]for “Lord Mordaunt’s house at Turvey, where his wife resided.”Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Brick-hill, a place not far from Fenny Stratford, Rookwood overtook Percy, the two Wrights, and Catesby, after which these five rode together to Ashby St Leger, Lady Catesby’s place in Northamptonshire, which was very near to Dunchurch. Roughly speaking, the course of the fugitives had been not very wide of the route of the London and North-Western railway from Euston to Rugby, and while all did it quickly, Rookwood’s pace was exceptionally fast, as he rode about eighty miles between eleven in the morning and six in the evening, averaging more than eleven miles an hour, including stoppages to change horses. He himself stated that he[268]“rode thirty miles of one horse in two hours,”and that “Percy and John Wright cast off their cloaks and threw them into the hedge to ride the more speedily.”

The five fugitives entered Lady Catesby’s house just as she and her party, which included Robert Winter and Acton, were sitting down to supper. The news of the arrest of Fawkes and the failure of the main design having been announced by the new arrivals, who, as Jardine says, were[269]“fatigued andcovered with dirt,”—Father Gerard, again, in describing their ride, writes of[270]“the foulness of the winter ways”—no time was lost over the hurried meal, during which a short conference took place, ending in a decision that the whole party should ride off immediately to Dunchurch, taking with them all the arms that were in the house.

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