The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 4

Let us deal with the inferences from the Evidence, and ascertain to what further suggestions those inferences give rise.

Now, among the first things that must strike the reader of the list of actors in the Gunpowder tragedy is the large number that were, directly or indirectly, connected with the far-stretching, prolific province of Yorks.h.i.+re. Of the whole thirteen conspirators, four first drew the breath of life in that grandest and fairest of English Counties, namely: Thomas Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Guy (or Guido) Fawkes. While five of the other intending perpetrators of an action which, if consummated, would have indeed "d.a.m.ned them to everlasting fame,"

indirectly had relations with it.

Nay, more; of the four members of the clerical profession whom the Government sought to charge with complicity in this nefarious designment, namely: Fathers Garnet, Tesimond, Gerard, and (subsequently) Oldcorne--two out of the four, Oswald Tesimond and Edward Oldcorne, were likewise Yorks.h.i.+remen.[A]

[Footnote A: The late Bishop Creighton, in his fine ill.u.s.trated work ent.i.tled, "_The Story of some English s.h.i.+res_" (Religious Tract Society), says:--"Yorks.h.i.+re is the largest of the English s.h.i.+res, and its size corresponds to its ancient greatness."]

Edward Oldcorne was certainly a native of the City of York, and it is very likely indeed that Oswald Tesimond was a native also.[34]

Moreover, Oswald Tesimond, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Guy Fawkes were all educated at the Royal School of Philip and Mary in the Horse Fayre, at the left-hand side going down Gillygate, York, where Union Terrace is now situated, just outside Bootham Bar, and not far from the King's Manor, where Henry Hastings Earl of Huntingdon, or his preceding or succeeding Lords President of the North, presided in State over the Council of the North and the Court of High Commission.[A]

[Footnote A: Lord Strafford, the representative of Charles I. in Ireland, was in after years Lord President of the North. In his day the King's Manor was known as the Palace of the Stuart Kings, for both James I. and Charles I. sojourned there. It is now used as a beneficent Inst.i.tution for the Blind, as a memorial to that ill.u.s.trious Yorks.h.i.+reman, William Wilberforce, M.P., the immortal slave emanc.i.p.ator. One of the rooms in the old Palace is called the Earl of Huntingdon's room to this day. William Wilberforce's direct heir, William Basil Wilberforce, Esquire, resides at Markington Hall, near Ripon.

The Earl of Huntingdon was a scion of the House of York, and had Elizabeth become reconciled to the Church of Rome the Puritans would have probably rallied round Lord Huntingdon as their King. The Honourable Walter Hastings, the Earl's brother, was a Roman Catholic. They were, of course, akin to Queen Elizabeth, and were descended from the "Blessed" Margaret Plantagenet Countess of Salisbury.]

It is more than probable that Edward Oldcorne also quaffed his first draught of cla.s.sical knowledge at the same "Pierian spring;" for we are told that his parents "in his young years kept him to school, so that he was a good grammar scholar when he first went over beyond the seas."[35]

Before going to Rheims and Rome Edward Oldcorne had studied medicine.

Who among these unparalleled conspirators is then the most likely, either through fear or remorse or both feelings, to have first put into motion the stupendous machinery whereby the Gunpowder conspiracy was revealed?

Only an energy practically superhuman would be, or could be, sufficient for the accomplishment of such an end, as--well-nigh at the eleventh hour--speedily to swing round on its axis a project so diabolical and prodigious as the Gunpowder Plot.

For the pa.s.sion--the concentrated, suppressed, yet volcanic pa.s.sion--that had purposed so awful a catastrophe was deep as h.e.l.l and high as heaven.

And well might it be, regard being had to the indisputable facts of English History from the year 1569--the year of the Rising of the North, which was stamped out with such cruel severity--down to the year 1605.

Truly, the measure of the Gunpowder conspirators' personal guilt was the measure of their representative wrongs. Yet this, in itself, for these wrong-doers was no ground of pardon or release: for, by a steadfast decree of the universe, "The guilty suffer."

CHAPTER X.

Now, according to the laws which govern human nature, a subordinate conspirator, introduced late into the conspiracy, whose early training was such as to lead him, on reflection, to regard as morally unlawful the taking of a secret oath, such as the Gunpowder conspirators had taken: a conspirator in whose heart emotions, not only of compa.s.sion but also of compunction, were likely to be awakened by the remembrance of that training, as the day was about to dawn and as the hour was about to strike when would be consummated one of the bloodiest tragedies that had ever stained an evil world: a conspirator answering to this, I say, was the most likely to be the conspirator who revealed this purposed appalling ma.s.sacre, the bare thought of which causes strong men to shudder, even to this day.

Still more likely would be a conspirator who, fulfilling the description just mentioned, adds to that the following, namely--that he possessed an entirely trustworthy friend who would act as penman of any doc.u.ment he might wish to use as a means of communicating a secret yet warning note to a representative of the intended victims.

And yet still more likely would be a conspirator who, to the descriptions of the two preceding paragraphs, added a third, namely--that he possessed a second entirely trustworthy friend who would act as an "_interpres_"--a go-between--to drive home the full intended effect of the doc.u.ment penned by the hand of the first; and this with the express knowledge and consent of that first.

Hence, such go-between would be the agent common to both the revealing conspirator and his scribe, and would be informed, directed and controlled by them.

Regard being had to the fixities of thought or self-evident fundamentals which in the introduction to this Inquiry were enunciated, these two friends, these two confidants must have been bound to the revealing conspirator by bonds, ties, obligations, "light," indeed, "as air, yet strong as iron," which were the outcome of kins.h.i.+p, friends.h.i.+p, or business (in a superlatively wide sense), possibly of all three.

Now the inference that I draw, from a reviewing and weighing of the Evidence to-day available in relation to this matter, is this, that _Christopher Wright_ was the conspirator who revealed the Plot, and that his worthy aiders and honourable abettors were, first, _Thomas Ward_, the gentleman-servant (and almost certainly kinsman) of Lord Mounteagle himself, _amicus secundum carnem_; and, secondly, _Edward Oldcorne_, Priest and Jesuit, _amicus secundum spiritum:--friends according to the flesh and to the spirit respectively_.

CHAPTER XI.

Let us proceed to support these statements with Evidence and with Argument.

(1) Now was Christopher Wright a subordinate conspirator, introduced late into the conspiracy? It is plain that he was, from "_Thomas Winter's Confession_," where he says: "About Candlemas we brought over in a boat the powder which we had provided at Lambeth and layd it in Mr. Percy's house, because we were willing to have all our danger in one place. We wrought also another fortnight in the mine against the stone wall which was very hard to beat through, at which time we called in Kit Wright (sometime in February, 1605), and near to Easter as we wrought the third time, opportunity was given to hire the cellar in which we resolved to lay the powder and leave the mine."

Again, in the published "_Confession_" of Guy Fawkes (17th November, 1605), Fawkes says, that a practice "in general was first broken unto me against his majestie, for releife of the Catholique cause, and not invented or propounded by myself. And this was first propounded unto me about Easter last was twelve-month,[36] beyond the seas, in the Low Countries of the Archdukes' obeyance by Thomas Wynter."

Fawkes says, in his "_Confession_" further on: "Thomas Percy hired a howse at Westminster ... neare adjoyning the Parlt. howse, and there wee beganne to make a myne about the XI. of December, 1604. The Fyve that entered into the woorck were Thomas Percye, Robert Catesby, Thomas Wynter, John Wright, and myself, and soon after[37] we tooke another unto us, Christopher Wright, having sworn him also, and taken the sacrament for secrecie."[38]

Therefore Christopher Wright must have become a confederate about ten months after Fawkes himself and the other prime movers in the nefarious scheme, and his services were requisitioned--as the modern phrase goes--primarily for the purpose of adding to the amount of manual labour available for the digging of the mine, which was afterwards abandoned for the cellar as the receptacle for the gunpowder that was to effect the explosion purposed.

(2) Now, was Christopher Wright a conspirator whose early training was such as to lead him, on reflection, to regard as morally unlawful the taking of a secret oath such as the Gunpowder conspirators had bound themselves by, and one in whose heart emotions, not only of compa.s.sion but also of compunction, were likely to be awakened by the remembrance of that training as the day was about to dawn and the hour was about to strike when the awful tragedy would be consummated?

If a man's character may be presumptively known by his friends, still more may it be presumptively known by his progenitors; and in the light of this principle I therefore answer the foregoing question emphatically in the affirmative.

But what was the form of the oath taken by all these conspirators save one, namely, Sir Everard Digby, who was _specially_ "sworn in" on the hilt of a poniard?

It was this:--"You shall swear by the Blessed Trinity and by the Sacrament you now propose to receive, never to disclose, directly or indirectly, by word or circ.u.mstance, the matter that shall be proposed to you, to keep secret nor desist from the execution thereof until the rest shall give you leave."

This oath was administered to the conspirators by each other in the most solemn manner--"kneeling down upon their knees with their hands laid upon a primer."[39]

Immediately after the oath had been taken,[40] we are told, Catesby explained to Percy, and Winter and John Wright to Fawkes, that the project intended was to blow up the Parliament House with gunpowder when the King went to the House of Lords.[41] This would include the Queen, the Commons, Amba.s.sadors, and spectators who would be present during the King's Speech.

From Fawkes' "_Confession_," already quoted, it would seem probable that all five prime conspirators imparted their prodigious designment of sacrilegious, cold-blooded murder to the conspirator Christopher Wright.

CHAPTER XII.

Who and what then, with more particularity, was Christopher Wright?

He was the third son of Robert Wright and Ursula his wife, who was the daughter of Nicholas Rudston, Esquire (of the Rudstons, Lords of Hayton,[A] near Pocklington, in the East Riding of the County of York, since the reign of King John). Ursula Rudston's mother was Jane, the daughter of Sir William Mallory, of Studley Royal, near Ripon.[42]

[Footnote A: It is gratifying to the historic feeling to know that the Manor of Hayton is still owned by a member of this ancient family, the present possessor being T. W. Calverley-Rudston, Esquire, J.P., of Allerthorpe Hall, Pocklington.]

Christopher Wright was born about the year 1570, the year after the Rising of the North[43] under "the Blessed" Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland, and Charles Neville Earl of Westmoreland, in which movement many of Christopher Wright's mother's relatives and connections (notably "old Richard Norton," his sons, and the Markenfields) were implicated.[44]

Plowland (or Plewland) Hall, in the Parish of Welwick, in Holderness, was doubtless where Christopher Wright first beheld the light of the sun.

Plowland Hall, or Great Plowland as it is sometimes called, is situated on the left of, and a little distance from, the high-road, on slightly rising ground, between the ancient town of Patrington and the pretty village of Welwick. When Robert Wright and Ursula, his wife, and their sons, John and Christopher, and their daughters, Ursula and Martha, knew the place, now so historic, Plowland Hall was a fortified dwelling, surrounded by a deep moat and approached by a drawbridge, much after the fas.h.i.+on of Markenfield Hall, in the Parish of Ripon, the ancestral seat of the Markenfields, heroes of Flodden and kinsmen of the Wrights, Wards, Nortons, Mallories, and numberless others amongst the ancient and wealthy Yorks.h.i.+re gentry.

Christopher Wright and his elder brother John were educated, along with Guy Fawkes and Oswald Tesimond, at the Royal Grammar School (as we have already stated) in the Horse Fayre, Gillygate, in the City of York.

Their master was the Reverend John Pulleyn, who probably belonged to the ancient and honourable West Riding family of the Pulleyns (or Pulleines), of Killinghall, near Bilton-c.u.m-Harrogate, and of Scotton, in the Parish of Farnham, near Knaresbrough.