The Gunpowder Plot (History/16th/17th Century History) (12 page)

Fawkes returned to England in September 1605 while Catesby was still grappling with the continuing problem of finance.
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He had now sold Bushwood to Sir Edward Grevile in order to raise cash, but it cannot have been cheap to hire the ship of Henry Paris of Barking to take Fawkes over to Gravelines and then wait for weeks to bring him back in disguise with his companion. Besides, Percy had spent the others’ money quite lavishly and even paid a man called York to do alterations on his hired premises. There had been a topping-up delivery of gunpowder to pay for, and because the plotters had grown more reckless their efforts had nearly been disclosed early in September by a servant of Whynniard. What John Shepherd saw was ‘a boat lie close by the pale of Sir Thomas Parry’s garden and men going to and fro the water through the back door that leadeth into Mr Percy’s lodgings . . .’ Thomas Winter later explained Catesby’s hectic activity in town and country:

Now by reason that the charge of maintaining us all so long together, besides the number of several houses which for several uses had been hired, and buying of powder, etc, had lain heavy on Mr Catesby alone to support, it was necessary for to call in some others to ease his charge, and to that end desired leave that he with Mr Percy and a third whom they should call might acquaint whom they thought fit and willing to the business, for many, said he, may be content that I should know who would not therefore that all the Company should know their names. To this we all agreed.

In Winter’s testimony it was before Michaelmas that the meeting between Percy and Catesby, already mentioned, took place in Bath. Monteagle was expected to join them there, but there is no sign now that he did, although he wrote a rather swooning letter to Catesby as ‘the dear Robin’. During their meeting Percy and Catesby talked about money and planned the rising in the Midlands. No doubt the latter heard reports of the very public private pilgrimage to St Winifred’s Well, Holywell in Flintshire, organized by Father Garnet.
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His interest in the Jesuit’s effort would have been acute for in it Catholic wealth was on the move. In addition he might have noticed that Wales was stirring with sedition. From there the Bishop of St Asaph complained to Salisbury of ‘the unfortunate and ungodly increase of Papists in my diocese who within the last three years are become near thrice as many.’ A striking diminution of these numbers was achieved by Salisbury’s agent, John Smith, an apostate Catholic released from prison in June 1605 on the promise of good service. Remarkably Smith delivered on this, for by mid-October the authorities locally noted with pleasure a huge falling away in recusancy. The rump that remained was for the most part comprised of women, and there were many of them too in Garnet’s effort. No doubt he intended the pilgrimage to illustrate that the Jesuits still had some pull, but it is not inconceivable he hoped to get himself arrested sooner rather than later, hoping by imprisonment to escape the consequences of the dreadful secret vouchsafed him by Catesby. The news that Parliament was again prorogued from 3 October to 5 November seemed good, since delay might hinder the plot and give time for the anticipated interview between Baynham and the Pope.

Catesby’s initial choice of keeping the plot as a family affair had been vindicated by the general level of secrecy maintained. But seepages about it there had been; how could the mouths of servants be completely stopped, or those of their wives? The uncertainty about the plot led to speculation about a coming ‘stir’ during the next session of Parliament, but no one as yet could name the precise form. There was much expectancy and agitation among the leading Catholic families who eagerly threw open their houses to the pilgrims.
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Indeed, the relatives of those same Catholic peers whose lives were threatened joined the Garnet excursion which started from Gothurst (or Gayhurst) in Buckinghamshire, the handsome property of Sir Everard Digby’s wife. Their cover was a proposed otter hunt along the Ouse which flowed by the grounds. Digby was another cousin of Anne Vaux, and the house-party included her sister, Mrs Brookesby and her husband Bartholomew, whose death sentences for involvement in the Bye plot had been commuted; Ambrose Rookwood and his wife; Thomas Digby – Sir Everard’s brother – and other leading papists. Besides Garnet the party included Father Strange,* Digby’s chaplain, and that notorious lay brother (Garnet’s server), Nicholas Owen (nicknamed ‘Littlejohn’ because he was so tall), a man much admired for his genius in contriving priests’ holes. Altogether thirty persons started and rode by easy stages westward, being joined by others, and soon by Father Fisher. On the return journey they rested for a time at Huddington, the Worcestershire home of the Winter brothers, and also at Norbrook, the fortified home of John Grant. Salisbury did not attempt to disperse such a bold clan saying masses daily and passing through Shrewsbury with an ostentatious lack of discretion. When Holt had been reached a procession was formed, with the crucifix carried and led by the priests. The ladies of the party elected to walk barefoot the twenty miles to the shrine ‘where all remained a whole night’.

Someone who reached Norbrook before the pilgrims was Catesby, welcomed by Grant, who took the oath of the plotters at this time and promised horses for the cause. Catesby left before the party arrived, probably to avoid Garnet, but he was anxious to intercept Ambrose Rookwood of Coldham Hall in Stanningfield (near Bury St Edmunds), Suffolk. Like Digby he was a young man (
b
. 1574) of privilege, head of an ancient and wealthy family, who had suffered like his neighbours and had been cited for recusancy in February at the London and Middlesex sessions, but was still affluent.
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As a boy he had been educated by Jesuits at St Omer with his brothers Robert and Christopher who had become priests. Robert Rookwood was ordained in 1604 and had returned to England just recently – ‘a little black fellow, very compt and gallant’. Catesby and Grant expected Ambrose Rookwood to ride ahead and probably the encounter was contrived by Thomas Winter to take place at Huddington, with Rookwood detached from his new bride, Elizabeth (née Tyrwhitt), the sister of Lady Ursula Babthorpe. What made Rookwood so ready to believe the well-rehearsed assurances of Catesby? Perhaps it was a residual naivety but there was clearly a great affection for an older friend ‘whom he loved and respected as his own life’. Besides, Rookwood had often been in the convivial company at the Mermaid in Bread Street and lately both men had had adjacent lodgings in the Strand. Even so, at first the younger man baulked at ‘taking away so much blood’, for like other conspirators he was liable to ‘compunctious visitings of nature’. Catesby in his dominant mode was able to subdue such feelings in his friend by declaring that Catholic peers would be tricked out of attending Parliament, and besides, the priests had agreed to the lawful nature of the act. His Jesuit education having prepared the ground, Rookwood could not resist the seed.

Catesby’s rides that autumn were all to a purpose. Accompanied as ever by Bates he rode on to Bedfordshire and stopped at Turvey for a meeting with Lord Mordaunt. But the visit was brief and later on Catesby spoke scornfully of him. Whatever the reason for quitting Turvey, Catesby was soon on his way to Harrowden (South Buckinghamshire) the seat of young Lord Vaux, because Sir Everard Digby of Stoke Dry, Rutland, one of the greatest landowners in the eastern Midlands, was now there and Catesby wanted to talk man to man before the ladies returned with Garnet. By every objective reckoning – he was married with two young children – Digby ought to have been beyond the most artful persuasion of the turbulent plotter.* Especially so at this time because Lord Vaux, a boy of fourteen and the nephew of Anne, was just now betrothed. Digby’s ward was marked out for marriage to the daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, currently one of the most important figures of the Jacobean privy council. Catesby felt with a striking rush of tact that he could not immediately broach the plot to Digby at such a time; the juxtaposition of marriage and mass murder was too difficult even for him, but he stayed on at the house when entreated to do so. His presence was a shock to Garnet when within a few days the rest of the pilgrims returned, and Greenway must also have arrived separately since Bates later testified to seeing them ‘all together with my master at my Lord Vaux’s’. It was not a particularly comfortable house and somewhat dilapidated, so Digby in a buoyant mood invited the gathering to remove to Gothurst, a mere fifteen miles away, and he proposed that he and Catesby should ride ahead. The fine October morning gave the two renowned horsemen time to talk freely on dangerous topics out of hearing of all save perhaps Bates. Catesby was poised to reveal the plan.
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When they had gone some distance along the deserted road he told Digby that he had something important to say requiring an oath of the listener. Gentlemen of name and blood had been required to seal the oath with the sacrament, but Digby was known as so honourable a man that his simple corporal oath would suffice. Having flattered his companion (victim) Catesby drew his dagger and holding it out asked Digby if he would swear like the rest. Sir Everard agreed and repeated the oath of secrecy, expecting to hear of some attempt for the Catholic cause. Catesby then bluntly stated the whole matter and for a stomach-churning moment in silence Digby saw the true gap between reflection and intention. If he had not been seated on his horse it is not fanciful to suppose that his legs might have buckled with the buffet that took him to the edge. The anticipation of a fall into calamity made him fumble a response and he just managed to temporize when Catesby pressed for his consent and company in the project. As they approached Gothurst in silence Digby, who saw his comfortable future in brick and stone and glass as long as he did not deviate from the road before him, asked Catesby what would happen to their friends, the Catholic lords, if they took the other way. The reply had the authentic froideur of the enthralled fanatic. ‘Assure yourself that such of the nobility as are worth saving shall be preserved and yet know not of the matter.’

Digby too may have longed to know nothing of the matter, and he asked if Catesby had placed it before Garnet or other Jesuits. Catesby affirmed that he had indeed and would not have acted without their approval. Seeing Digby’s pained hesitation he then named the others in the plot, but his listener still felt he needed more time to consider such an extreme action. Feeling that Digby’s full consent to join was of vital importance Catesby said that when they reached Gothurst he would show him the texts of their religion which allowed acts of violence against heretic princes. This seemed one way to head off a possible approach to Garnet in confession, since the Provincial seemed bound to contradict him and express his disapproval of the plot. Listening to the highly charged arguments for violence Digby began to doubt now his own particular hesitations and perturbations. In his initial reaction he had registered horror but its fullness began to ebb a little, for though in his private life he was a kind, moral and chivalrous man, he was also the type of religious sentimentalist who when his scruples were subdued could become unfeeling and cold-blooded. Besides ‘his friendship and love to Mr Catesby prevailed’.
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When Catesby arrived back at his lodgings in the Strand for the beginning of Michaelmas term on 9 October, he gave a dinner at William Patrick’s ordinary a few doors along. The guests were Lord Mordaunt, Sir Josceline Percy (a brother of the Earl of Northumberland), Francis Tresham, Thomas Winter, John Ashfield (married to Anne Winter), the playwright Ben Jonson and an unknown who may well have been the latter’s close friend, Sir John Roe. A day or so after this Catesby and his associates rode off to Stratford, and their fortnight in the country was in part spent at Clopton by invitation of Ambrose Rookwood, who had moved there with his family because for strategic reasons his stable of quality horses had to be relocated to a position central to the plan. We know that Thomas Rookwood was there, as well as John Grant, one of the Winter brothers (possibly Robert) who helped Ned Bushell, also there, live impecuniously on an annuity of £50; one of the Wright brothers, Catesby and several more.
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Strong agitation was now manifesting itself among the women linked to these men, and among women quite remote from the projectors. Anne Vaux, for example, went to Garnet to make clear that she feared some trouble or disorder and that other wives and friends had already asked her where they could retreat in safety until the ‘burst’ (uproar) was over with the opening of Parliament. They had taken their hint not so much from people as from the horses in numbers far beyond domestic requirements at Huddington and Norbrook. When Catesby had arrived at Harrowden just before he prevailed over Digby, he had soothed her agitation by showing her a letter of introduction from Garnet to a Jesuit in the Spanish Netherlands where he claimed he intended to go. First deal with certain home matters and then obtain an exit permit such as had been given to Thomas Throckmorton. Such a thing would be worth the £500 he was prepared to spend. Once away with his troop of three hundred horsemen he would enter the service of the archdukes since recruitment by them was legal since the peace of the previous year. It was a most useful piece of dissembling he used with others. Stephen Littleton of Holbeach House and his cousin Humphrey Littleton, brother of John Littleton, MP of Hagley House, convicted of treason in the Essex conspiracy, and who had died in prison in July 1601, were prominent figures in the Catholic community in the Midlands. Though friends of the Winters they were not thought suitable for the engineering of the plot, but Catesby while staying with Robert Winter did regale the Littletons with talk of his troop and suggested they might join it. Since Stephen Littleton was financially secure he was promised a command post and Catesby even offered to take one of Humphrey’s illegitimate sons as his page. Then he invited them to the famous hunting party to meet at Dunchurch, where after sport he would tell them of the final plans for quitting the country.