Also in Northamptonshire is Holmby House, where King Charles I. was
captured by the army previous to his trial. It was built by Sir
Christopher Hatton in Queen Elizabeth's time, but only the gates and
some outbuildings remain. After the battle of Naseby the king
surrendered himself to the Scots, and they, through an arrangement with
the English Parliament, conducted him to Holmby House, where he
maintained something of sovereign state, though under the surveillance
of the Parliamentary commissioners. He devoted his time to receiving
visitors, the bowling-green, and the chess-table. This continued for
some months, when a struggle began between the army and the Parliament
to decide whose captive he was. The army subsequently, by a plot, got
possession of Holmby, and, practically making prisoners of the garrison
and the commissioners of Parliament, they abducted the king and took him
to a house near Huntingdon. Fairfax sent two regiments of troops thither
to escort him back to Holmby, but he had been treated with great
courtesy and declined to go back. Thus by his own practical consent the
king was taken possession of by Cromwell, Fairfax, and Ireton, who were
in command, although they denied it, and put the whole blame on one
Cornet Joyce who was in command of the detachment of troops that took
possession of Holmby. The king was ultimately taken to London, tried,
and executed in Whitehall. At Ashby St. Leger, near Daventry, in
Northamptonshire, is the gate-house of the ancient manor of the
Catesbys, of whom Robert Catesby was the contriver of the Gunpowder
Plot. The thirteen conspirators who framed the plot met in a room over
the gateway which the villagers call the "Plot-room," and here Guy
Fawkes was equipped for his task, which so alarmed the kingdom that to
this day the cellars of the Parliament Houses are searched before the
session begins for fear a new plot may have been hatched, while the
anniversary is kept as a solemn holiday in London. The lantern used by
Guy Fawkes is still preserved in the Oxford Museum having been given to
the University in 1641.