The Life Of A Conspirator Part 14

[283] _Ib._

[284] P. 111.

[285] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part II. No. 138.

Some time after sunrise, which does not take place at that time of the year till after seven o'clock, they drew near Alcester, and despatched their messenger to Coughton. The man chosen was Catesby's servant, Thomas Bates, the only menial who was a sworn conspirator. Besides the letter to Father Garnet, he was entrusted with one for Lady Digby, written by her husband.

The most trying part of Sir Everard Digby's long and gloomy ride must have been to pa.s.s within a couple of miles of his wife and children, as he went through Alcester in the early morning, without going to see them. Well-horsed, as he was, it might almost appear that he could have made time to visit them for at least a few minutes, and then ridden on to Huddington, where the expedition was to make a long halt. Did he hesitate to go to Coughton through fear of Catesby, or was he afraid to trust himself in the presence of his wife?

When Bates arrived at Coughton, he was taken at once to Father Garnet, who was in the hall,[286] and he handed the letter to the priest, who opened it and read it in silence.

[286] For accounts of Bates's visit to Coughton, see Bates's Examination, Jan. 13, 1605-6; Hall's Confession, Mar. 6, 1605-6; and Jardine's G. P., pp. 167-8.

I will give Father Garnet's own description[287] of this letter, which "was subscribed by Sir E. Digby and Catesbye." "The effect of this letter was to excuse their rashness, and required my a.s.sistance in Wales, and persuade me to make a party, saying that if I had scrupulosity or desire to free myself or my Order from blame and let them now perish, I should follow after myselfe and all Catholics."

[287] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xviii. n. 87; Exam. of H. Garnet, Feb. 13, 1605-6. See Records S. J., Vol. iv. p. 146.

While Father Garnet was reading the letter, Father Greenway came in and asked what was the matter. Thereupon Father Garnet read the letter in the hearing of Bates, and said to Greenway, "They would have blown up the Parliament House, and were discovered and we all utterly undone."

Father Greenway replied that in that case "there was no tarrying for himself and Garnet." Then Bates begged Father Greenway to go with him to Catesby, his master, if he really wished to help him. Father Greenway answered that he "would not forbear to go unto him though it were to suffer a thousand deaths, but that it would overthrow the state of the whole society of the Jesuits' order."

When Father Garnet had read the letter to Father Greenway, the latter exclaimed, "All Catholics are undone."

Father Garnet, in an intercepted letter, gives a pathetic account of the effect of her husband's letter upon Lady Digby.[288] "My Lady Digby came. What did she? Alas! what, but cry."

[288] "Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot," Pollen, p. 23.

He tells us, too, the answer which he gave to the messenger, Bates.

"That I marvelled they would enter into such wicked actions and not be ruled by the advice of friends and order of His Holiness generally given to all, and that I could not meddle but wished them to give over, and if I could do anything in such a matter (as I neither could nor would) it were in vain now to attempt it."

Then the two fathers drew aside and talked together for half-an-hour, while Bates walked up and down the hall. After this, Father Greenway went to prepare himself for his journey, and presently came out with Bates, mounted a horse, and rode with him to Huddington in order to see his penitent, Catesby.

Father Greenway's riding companion was not only one of the conspirators, but had helped[289] "in making provision of their powder."

He confessed in prison the whole matter of his having been sent by Catesby, his master, with a letter to Father Garnet at Coughton, and that Father Greenway had accompanied him from that house to Huddington in order to visit Catesby.

[289] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, Gerard, p. 84.

We must return to Sir Everard, as he rode from Alcester to Huddington.

One of his servants, named Hardy, came up to him, during this part of his journey, and asked him[290] what was to become "of him and the rest of his poore servants," who, as he pitifully protested, had not been "privy to this bloudy faction." Such a question, although it did not savour of mutiny, showed an inclination to defection, and must have added considerably to his master's discouragement. The answer which he gave to it was as follows:--"I believe you were not;" _i.e._, privy to the plot; "but now there is no remedy." The servant then let out that it was not solely on his own account that he had asked the question; for he went on to implore his master to yield himself to the king's mercy; whereupon Sir Everard said sharply that he would permit no servant to utter such words in his presence.

[290] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part II. No. 121.

Catesby and his band of warriors, brigands, horse-stealers, professors of physical force, or whatever else the reader may please to call them, reached Huddington about two o'clock on the Wednesday afternoon.[291]

The first thing they did was to place sentinels round the house,[292]

which was rendered suitable for defence by its moat.[293] Then they proceeded to take their first long rest, that is to say, until early on the following morning, a sorely needed period of refreshment and repose, especially for those who had ridden the whole way from London. Where so large a party can have been entertained and lodged at Huddington, it is difficult to understand, as the house, which is now used as a farm, rich as it is in carved oak, is not, and probably never was, a large one.

[291] The G. P., Jardine, p. 111.

[292] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part II. n. 121.

[293] "The mansion-house, which is moated round, but now in a very ruinous condition, having been much neglected ever since the gunpowder treason in 1606, in which plot the Winters were deeply concerned." _Nash's Worcesters.h.i.+re_, Vol. i. p. 592.

During the first few hours of their stay, however, the leading conspirators were awaiting the return of the envoy from Grafton with too much anxiety to be able to sleep or take their ease. Almost everything hung upon the reply of Talbot. The a.s.sistance of the large number of men and horses which it was in his power to supply was of the utmost importance at that very critical moment, and on his influence and example might depend the att.i.tude of all the Catholic gentry in Worcesters.h.i.+re, as well as in several of the counties adjoining it.

Just as it was beginning to grow dark, two hors.e.m.e.n rode up to the door of Huddington, and the amba.s.sadors, Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton, entered the house. Sir Everard Digby and Catesby eagerly went up to them and asked the result of their emba.s.sy; but, before they had had time to reply, it was evident from the expression of their faces that they brought bad news. On reaching Grafton, said Winter, they found that the report of the Gunpowder Plot and its failure had arrived there before them. Their approach had been observed, perhaps watched for, and, as they rode up to the curious "L"-shaped house, with its gothic chapel at one end of it, Sir John Talbot himself stood at its arched doorway,[294]

with a frown upon his countenance.[295] As soon as they were within earshot, he forbade them to enter his house. He then told them that he had already heard of the plot, which he condemned in the strongest terms, together with all that had been, or were, connected with it, whether personal friends of his own or otherwise. He was a very zealous Catholic, and he regarded the whole conspiracy as one of the worst evils that could possibly have befallen the Catholics of England, since it would bring scandal upon their very name, and increase the persecutions which they suffered.

[294] "Like the gateway of the schools of Oxford, but of much more antient date." _Nash's Worcesters.h.i.+re_, Vol. i. p. 258.

[295] Possibly he may have remembered that a former owner of Grafton, Sir Humphrey Stafford, had been executed at Tyburn for treason, rather more than a century earlier.

When Robert Winter not only defended the plot but urged Sir John to join the band of Catholics who intended to make a struggle for their freedom, his father-in-law threatened that, although he was a Catholic, a neighbour, and his son-in-law, he would have him arrested if he did not make off as quickly as his horse's legs could carry him.[296]

[296] The greater part of Grafton was burned down about 1710.

_Nash_, Vol. i. p. 158.

As soon as Robert Winter had finished his story, the conspirators were plunged into the deepest dejection. Not one of them would be more depressed by the bad news than Sir Everard Digby. The rest were all more or less of a wild adventurous spirit, and probably had realised sooner than he to what a desperate issue the conspiracy had already arrived; but Sir Everard had been deceived by Catesby into believing the king and Salisbury to be dead, and until now he had clung to the hope that the best Catholics in England, when they heard of what had been attempted, would unite with himself and his companions in a holy war. Sir John Talbot was the type of Catholic by whose side he had hoped to fight for the faith, a man full of zeal and unflinching energy for the Catholic cause, as well as an honourable English gentleman. It was chiefly on the guarantee of his adherence and a.s.sistance, too, that Sir Everard had consented to Catesby's entreaties to ride away from Dunchurch with the rest of the conspirators, and attempt to raise the Catholics against the Government; and now Sir John Talbot repudiated Sir Everard, his friends, and his actions.

A more gloomy party than that at Huddington can rarely have been a.s.sembled at an English country house. The hostess, Robert Winter's wife, was indeed to be pitied. In her presence there was[297] "no talk of rebellion," as she afterwards declared; but she must have known what was going forward, and have learned something of the disastrous failure of the appeal to her father, whose censure of her husband must have caused her the greatest pain. A few weeks later she was made to endure the distress of an examination before officials on the subject.[298]

[297] Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p. 245.

[298] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, n. 43.

In the course of the day, Father Greenway came to Huddington with Catesby's servant, Thomas Bates. Sir Everard does not appear to have seen him, for he wrote[299]:--"They said Mr Greenway came to Huddington when we were there and had speech of Mr" [probably Catesby], "but I told them it was more than I took note of, and that I did not know him very well."

[299] _Sir E. D.'s Letters_, paper 3.

Catesby, however, received Father Greenway with delight. On first seeing him, he exclaimed that "Here at least was a gentleman who would live and die with them."[300] But Greenway seems to have paid them a very short visit; and he was evidently commissioned by Catesby to go to a neighbouring landlord and enlist him to the cause; for he rode away the same afternoon to Henlip, or Hindlip,[301] a house about four miles off, belonging to Thomas Abington, or Habingdon, a man famed for his hospitality to priests flying from persecution. On arriving at Hindlip, Father Greenway told Abington that he had[302] "brought them the worst newes that ever they hade, and sayd they were all undone"; that "ther were certayne gentlemen that meant to have blown upp the Parliament house, and that ther plot was discovered a day or two before, and now ther were gathered together some forty horse at Mr Wynter's house, meaning Catesbye, Percye, Digby, and others, and tould them," _i.e._, Abington and his household, "their throates would be cutt unlesse they presently wente to joyne with them." Abington replied, "Alas, I am sorye;" but he said that he[303] "would never ioyne with them in that matter, and chardged all his house to that purpose not to goe unto them."

[300] Exam. of Bates, 13 Jan. 1606; G. P. Book, Gardiner's _Hist.

Eng._, Declaration of Morgan, 10 Jan.; G. P. Book; Vol. i. p. 260.

[301] A very curious house, said to have been built by John Habington, cofferer to Queen Elizabeth. _Nash's Worcesters.h.i.+re_, Vol. i. p. 585. This house has been pulled down, and a large modern mansion has been built in its place by the Allsopp family, the head of which, Lord Hindlip, takes his t.i.tle from it.

[302] G. P. Book, Vol ii. n. 197. Exam. of Oldcorne, Mar. 6, 1605, [6].

[303] Nevertheless, Abington was condemned to death, because Father Garnet was found in his house, a few weeks later. He was eventually reprieved; but his lands and goods were forfeited. See _Narrative of the G. P._, Gerard, p. 268. He was "confined to Worcesters.h.i.+re on account of the Gunpowder Treason Plot," and became "The first Collector of Antiquities for that County. Died Oct. 1647, aged 87."

_Nash's Worcesters.h.i.+re_, Vol i. Ill.u.s.trations to p. 588. His wife, sister to Lord Mounteagle, "is supposed to have wrote the letter which discovered the Gunpowder Treason Plot;" _ib._

Father Oldcorne, another Jesuit, was present at Hindlip[304] when this interview took place, and he also a.s.sured Father Greenway that[305] he would have nothing to do with the conspiracy or the insurrection. As we shall have little, if anything, more to do with Father Greenway, it may be worth observing here that he escaped from England[306] in "a small boat laden with dead pigs, of which cargo he pa.s.sed as the owner," and that he lived thirty years afterwards. A ridiculous story was reported from Naples, in 1610, by Sir Edwin Rich, that Father Greenway (alias Beaumont) was plotting to send King James some poisoned clothes, which would be death to the wearer.[307]

[304] Father Garnet was finally arrested at Hindlip, with several others. In their hiding-place their "maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through a whole in the chimney that backed another chimney into the gentlewoman's chamber, and by that pa.s.sage cawdles, broths, and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them." Ashmole MSS., Vol.

804, fol. 93, quoted by Nash, Vol. i. p. 586.

[305] Narrative of the G. P., Gerard, p. 268.

[306] _Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_, by Father John Morris, S. J., First Series, pp. 143-4.