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THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR
[Illustration: SIR EVERARD DIGBY
_From a portrait belonging to W. R. M. Wynne, Esq. of Peniarth, Merioneth_]
THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR
Being a Biography of Sir Everard Digby by One of His Descendants
by the author of
"A Life of Archbishop Laud," By a Romish Recusant, "The
Life of a Prig, by One," etc.
With Illustrations
London
Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., Ltd.
Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road
1895
PREFACE
The chief difficulty in writing a life of Sir Everard Digby is to steer
clear of the alternate dangers of perverting it into a mere history of
the Gunpowder Plot, on the one hand, and of failing to say enough of
that great conspiracy to illustrate his conduct, on the other. Again, in
dealing with that plot, to condemn all concerned in it may seem like
kicking a dead dog to Protestants, and to Catholics like joining in one
of the bitterest and most irritating taunts to which they have been
exposed in this country throughout the last three centuries.
Nevertheless, I am not discouraged. The Gunpowder Plot is an historical
event about which the last word has not yet been said, nor is likely to
be said for some time to come; and monographs of men who were, either
directly or indirectly, concerned in it, may not be altogether useless
to those who desire to make a study of it. However faulty the following
pages may be in fact or in inference, they will not have been written in
vain if they have the effect of eliciting from others that which all
students of historical subjects ought most to desire--the Truth.
I wish to acknowledge most valuable assistance received from the Right
Rev. Edmund Knight, formerly Bishop of Shrewsbury, as well as from the
Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J., who was untiring in his replies to my
questions on some very difficult points; but it is only fair to both of
them to say that the inferences they draw from the facts, which I have
brought forward, occasionally vary from my own. My thanks are also due
to that most able, most courteous, and most patient of editors, Mr Kegan
Paul, to say nothing of his services in the very different capacity of a
publisher, to Mr Wynne of Peniarth, for permission to photograph his
portrait of Sir Everard Digby, and to Mr Walter Carlile for information
concerning Gayhurst.
The names of the authorities of which I have made most use are given in
my footnotes; but I am perhaps most indebted to one whose name does not
appear the oftenest. The back-bone of every work dealing with the times
of the Stuarts must necessarily be the magnificent history of Mr Samuel
Rawson Gardiner.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The portrait of Sir Everard Digby--Genealogy--His father a
literary man--His father's book--Was Sir Everard brought up a
Protestant?--At the Court of Queen Elizabeth--Persecution of
Catholics--Character of Sir Everard--Gothurst--Mary
Mulsho--Marriage--Knighthood 1-14
CHAPTER II.
Hospitality at Gothurst--Roger Lee--Sir Everard "Catholickly
inclined"--Country visiting 300 years ago--An absent
host--A good hostess--Wish to see a priest--Priest or
sportsman?--Father Gerard--Reception of Lady Digby--Question
of Underhandedness--Illness of Sir Everard--Conversion--Second
Illness--Impulsiveness of Sir Everard 15-32
CHAPTER III.
The wrench of conversion--Position of converts at different
periods--The Digbys as converts--Their chapel--Father
Strange--Father Percy--Chapels in the days of
persecution--Luisa de Carvajal--Oliver Manners--Pious
dodges--Stolen waters--Persecution under Elizabeth 33-48
CHAPTER IV.
The succession to the Crown--Accession of James--The Bye
Plot--Guy Fawkes--Father Watson's revenge on the
Jesuits--Question as to the faithlessness of
James--Martyrdoms and persecutions--A Protestant Bishop upon
them 49-69
CHAPTER V.
Catholics and the Court--Queen Anne of Denmark--Fears of the
Catholics--Catesby--Chivalry--Tyringham--The Spanish
Ambassador--Attitude of foreign Catholic powers--Indictments
of Catholics--Pound's case--Bancroft--Catesby and
Garnet--Thomas Winter--William Ellis--Lord Vaux--Elizabeth,
Anne, and Eleanor Vaux--Calumnies 70-96
CHAPTER VI.
Roger Manners--A pilgrimage--Harrowden--Catesby informs Sir
Everard of the Conspiracy--Scriptural precedents--Other
Gunpowder Plots--Mary Queen of Scots, Bothwell and
Darnley--Pretended Jesuit approval 97-113
CHAPTER VII.
A Latin Book--Immoderate friendships--Principles--Second-hand
approval--How Catesby deceived Garnet--He deceived his
fellow-conspirators--A liar 114-129
CHAPTER VIII.
Garnet's unfortunate conversation with Sir Everard--Garnet's
weakness--How Garnet first learned about the Plot--Secresy of
the Confessional--Catesby and the Sacraments--Catesby a
Catholic on Protestant principles--Could Garnet have saved
Sir Everard?--Were the conspirators driven to
desperation?--Did Cecil originate the Plot? 130-148
CHAPTER IX.
Financial aspects of the Gunpowder Plot--Sir Everard's
relations to his wife--Little John--Secret room at
Gothurst--Persecution of Catholics in Wales--The plan of
Campaign--Coughton--Guy Fawkes--His visit to Gothurst 149-168
CHAPTER X.
White Webbs--Baynham's Mission--All-Hallows at Coughton--All
Souls at Gothurst--An unwelcome Guest--The remains of
feudalism--Start from Gothurst--Arrival at Dunchurch--What
was going on in London--Tresham--The hunting-party--A
card-party--Arrival of the fugitives--The discovery in
London--The flight 169-191
CHAPTER XI.
Catesby lies to Sir Everard--Expected help from Talbot--The
hunting-party repudiates the conspirators--The future Earl of
Bristol--The start--Warwick--Norbrook--Alcester--Coughton--
Huddington--Talbot refuses to join in the Insurrection--Father
Greenway--Father Oldcorne--Whewell Grange--Shadowed--No
Catholics will join the conspirators--Don Quixote 192-218
CHAPTER XII.
Holbeche House--Sir Everard deserts--Sir Fulke Greville--The
Hue-and-Cry--Hunted--In cover--Caught--Journey to
London--Confiscation--The fate of the conspirators at
Holbeche--The Archpriest--Denunciations--Letter of Sir
Everard--Confession 219-236
CHAPTER XIII.
Threats of torture--Search at Mrs Vaux's house--Lady Digby's
letters to Salisbury--Sir Everard to his wife--Sir Everard
writes to Salisbury--Death of Tresham--Poem--Examinations 237-251
CHAPTER XIV.
Father Gerard's letter to Sir Everard--Sir Everard exonerates
Gerard--Sir Everard's letter to his sons 252-267
CHAPTER XV.
The trial--Appearance of the prisoners from different points
of view--Sir Edward Philips--Sir Edward Coke--His description
of the punishment for High Treason--Sir Everard's
speech--Coke's reply--Earl of Northampton--Lord
Salisbury--Sentence 268-288
CHAPTER XVI.
Waiting for death--Poem--Kind words for Sir Everard--The
injury he did to the Catholic cause--Two happy
days--Procession to the scaffold--Sir Everard's last
speech--Execution--Epilogue 289-306
CHAPTER I.
Nothing is so fatal to the telling of an anecdote as the prelude:--"I
once heard an amusing story," &c., and it would be almost as unwise to
begin a biography by stating that its subject was a very interesting
character. On the other hand, perhaps I may frighten away readers by
telling them at starting, this simple truth, that I am about to write
the history of a young man of great promise, whose short life proved a
miserable failure, who terribly injured the cause he had most at heart,
for which he gave his life, a man of whom even his enemies said, when he
had met his sad fate:--"Poor fellow. He deserved it. But what a pity!"
If the steady and unflinching gaze of one human being upon another can
produce the hypnotic state, it may be that, in a much lesser degree,
there is some subtle influence in the eternal stare of the portrait of
an ancestor. There is no getting away from it unless you leave the room.
If you look at your food, talk to a friend, or read a book, you know and
feel that his eyes are still rivetted upon you; and if you raise your
own, again, towards his, there he is, gravely and deliberately gazing at
you, or, you are half inclined to think, _through_ you at something
beyond and behind you, until you almost wish that you could be thrown
into some sort of cataleptic condition, in which a series of scenes
could be brought before your vision from the history of the long-dead
man, whose representation seems only to exist for the purpose of staring
you out of countenance.
In a large country house, near the west coast of Wales, and celebrated
for its fine library, hangs a full-length portrait which might well
impel such a desire. It represents a tall man, with long hair and a
pointed beard, in a richly-chased doublet, a lace ruff and cuffs, very
short and fringed trunk hose, and a sword by his side. He has a high
forehead, rather raised and arched eyebrows, a long nose, hollow cheeks,
and a narrow, pointed chin. His legs are thin; his left hand is placed
upon his hip; and with his right he holds a cane, which is resting on
the ground. At the bottom of the picture is painted, in Roman
characters, "Sir Everard Digby, Knight, OB. 1606."
Few people care for genealogies unless their own names are recorded in
them. The keenest amateur herald in matters relating to his own family,
will exhibit an amazing apathy when the pedigree of another person is
offered for his inspection; the shorter, therefore, my notice of Sir
Everard Digby's descent, the better. He was descended from a
distinguished family. It had come over from Normandy with William the
Conqueror, who had granted it lands at Tilton, which certainly were in
its possession in the sixteenth century, though whether the subject of
my biography inherited them, I am not quite sure. The first Sir Everard
Digby lived in the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen.[1] This powerful
family sided with Henry VII. against Richard III.; and on one occasion,
King Henry VII.[2] "did make Knights in the field seven brothers of his
house at one time, from whom descended divers houses of that name, which
live all in good reputation in their several countries. But this Sir
Everard Digby was the heir of the eldest and chiefest house, and one of
the chiefest men in Rutlandshire, where he dwelt, as his ancestors had
done before him, though he had also much living in Leicestershire and
other shires adjoining." He was the fourteenth in direct eldest male
descent from Almar, the founder of the family in the eleventh century.
Five of his forefathers had borne the name of Everard Digby, one of whom
was killed at the battle of Towton in 1641. Sir Everard's father had
also been an Everard, and done honour to the name; but literature and
not war had been the field in which he had succeeded. He published four
books.[3] The only one of these in my possession is his _Dissuasive from
taking the Goods and Livings of the Church_. It is dedicated "To the
Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord High Chancellor of
England, &c."
[1] Harleian MSS., 1364.
[2] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, Father Gerard, p. 87.
_N.B._--"The Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot," and "The Life of
Father John Gerard," are both published in one volume, entitled _The
Condition of Catholics under James I._, edited by Father John
Morris, S.J.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1871. It will be to this
edition that I shall refer, when I quote from either of these two
works.
[3] See _Bibliographia Britannica_, Vol. iii. p. 1697. The books
were:--I. _Theoria Analytica ad Monarchiam Scientiarum demonstrans._
II. _De Duplici Methodo, libri duo, Rami Methodum refutantes._ III.
_De Arte Natandi; libri duo._ IV. _A Dissuasive from taking the
Goods and Livings of the Church, &c._
The author's style may be inferred from the opening of his preface:--"If
my pen (gentle reader) had erst bin dipped in the silver streames
flowing from Parnassus Hill, or that Apollo with his sweet-sounding harp
would vouchsafe to direct the passage thereof unto the top of the high
Olympus; after so general a view of great varietie far and neere, I
might bouldly begin with that most excellent Poet Cicelides
Mus[e[ogonek]] paulo maiora canamus." I leave my readers to judge how
many modern publishers would read any further, if such a book were
offered to them in these days! Still, it is interesting as showing the
style of the times.
Father Gerard, an intimate friend of the Sir Everard Digby whose
life I am writing, mentions[4] "the piety of his parents," and that
"they were ever the most noted and known Catholics in that country"
(Rutlandshire); and Mr Gillow, in his _Bibliographical Dictionary of
English Catholics_[5], states that they "had ever been the most staunch
and noted Catholics in the county of Rutland." But here I am met with a
difficulty. Would a Catholic have written such a passage as the
following, which I take from the _Dissuasive_? It refers to that great
champion of Protestantism and Anglicanism, Queen Elizabeth.
[4] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
[5] P. 62.
"I cannot but write truely," he says, "that which the Clergie with the
whole realme confesse plainely: That we render immortell thankes unto
Almightie God, for preserving her most Roiall Majestie so miraculouslie
unto this daie, giving her a most religious heart (the mirror of all
Christian princes) once and ever wholly consecrated to the maintaining
of his divine worship in his holy Temple. From this cleare Christall
fountaine of heavenlie vertue, manie silver streames derive their
sundrie passages so happelie into the vineyarde of the Lorde, that
neither the flaming fury of outward enimies, nor the scorching
sacrilegious zeale of domesticall dissimulation, can drie up anie one
roote planted in the same, since the peaceable reigne of her most Roial
Majestie."
The writer of the notice of Sir Everard Digby in the _Biographia
Britannica_[6] appears to have believed his father to have been a
Protestant; but on what grounds he does not state. So familiar a friend
as Father Gerard is unlikely to have been mistaken on this point.
Possibly, however, in speaking of his "parents," he may have meant his
forefathers rather than his own father and mother. This seems the more
likely because, after his father's death, when he was eleven years old,
Sir Everard was brought up a Protestant. In those times wards were
often, if not usually, educated as Protestants, even if their fathers
had been Catholics; but if Sir Everard's mother had been remarkable for
her "piety" as a Catholic, and one of the "noted and known Catholics" in
her county, we might expect to find some record of her having
endeavoured to induce her son to return to the faith of his father, as
she lived until after his death. The article in the _Biographia_ states
that Sir Everard was "educated with great care, but under the tuition of
some Popish priests": Father Gerard, on the contrary, says that he "was
not brought up Catholicly in his youth, but at the University by his
guardians, as other young gentlemen used to be"; and in his own
_Life_,[7] he speaks of him as a Protestant after his marriage. Lingard
also says[8] that "at an early age he was left by his father a ward of
the crown, and had in consequence been educated in the Protestant
faith." I can see no reason for doubting that this was the case.
[6] Vol. iii. p. 1697.
[7] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clii.
[8] _History of England_, Vol. vii. chap. i.
At a very early age, Everard Digby was taken to the Court of Queen
Elizabeth, where he became "a pensioner,"[9] or some sort of equivalent
to what is now termed a Queen's page. He must have arrived at the Court
about the time that Essex was in the zenith of his career; he may have
witnessed his disgrace and Elizabeth's misery and vacillation with
regard to his trial and punishment. He would be in the midst of the
troubles at the Court, produced by the rivalry between Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount; he would see his relative, Cecil,
rapidly coming into power; he could scarcely fail to hear the many
speculations as to the successor of his royal mistress.
[9] S. P. James I., Gun. P. Book, Part II. No. 135, Exam, of Sir E.
Digby--"He confesseth that he was a pencon to Quene Elizabeth about
six yeres, and tooke the othe belonging to the place of a pencioner
and no other."
He may have accompanied her[10] "hunting and disporting" "every other
day," and seen her "set upon jollity"; he may have enjoyed the[11]
"frolyke" in "courte, much dauncing in the privi chamber of countrey
daunces befor the Q. M."; very likely he may have been in attendance
upon the Queen when she walked on[12] "Richmond Greene," "with greater
shewes of ability, than" could "well stand with her years." During the
six years that he was at Court, he probably came in for a period of
brilliancy and a period of depression, although there is nothing to show
for certain whether he had retired before the time thus described in an
old letter[13]:--"Thother of the counsayle or nobilitye estrainge
themselves from court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the
horse, vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appeare there."
If Lingard is right, however,[14] he gave up his appointment at Court
the year before Elizabeth's death, and thus luckily escaped the time
when, as he describes her, she was[15] "reduced to a skeleton. Her food
was nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage. Her taste for dress
was gone. She had not changed her clothes for many days. Nothing could
please her; she was the torment of the ladies who waited on her person.
She stamped with her feet, and swore violently at the objects of her
anger."
[10] Lord Henry Howard to Worcester.
[11] Letter of Lord Worcester, Lodge III. p. 148.
[12] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[13] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[14] History, Vol. vii. chap. i.
[15] _Ib._, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
One thing that may have had a subsequent influence upon Digby, while he
was at the Court of Elizabeth, was the violence shown towards Catholics.
In the course of the fourteen years that followed the defeat of the
Spanish Armada before the death of the Queen,[16] "the Catholics groaned
under the presence of incessant persecution. Sixty-one clergymen,
forty-seven laymen, and two gentlemen, suffered capital punishment for
some or other of the spiritual felonies and treasons which had been
lately created." Although he had been brought up a Protestant, "this
gentleman," says Gerard,[17] "was always Catholicly affected," and the
severe measures dealt out to Catholics whilst he was at Court may have
disgusted him and induced him to leave it.
[16] Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. iii.
[17] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
I have shown how Father Gerard states[18] that Sir Everard Digby was
educated "at the University by his guardians, as other young gentlemen
used to be." It is to be wished that he had informed us at what
University and at what College; when he went there and when he left; as
his attendance at Court, together with a very important event, to be
noticed presently, which took place, or is said to have taken place,
when he was fifteen, make it difficult to allot a vacant time for his
University career.
[18] _Ib._
The young man,--he did not live to be twenty-five,--whose portrait we
have been looking at, is described in the _Biographia Britannica_[19] as
having been "remarkably handsome," "extremely modest and affable," and
"justly reputed one of the finest gentlemen in England." His great
personal friend, the already-quoted Father Gerard,[20] says that he was
"as complete a man in all things that deserved estimation, or might win
him affection, as one should see in a kingdom. He was of stature about
two yards high," "of countenance" "comely and manlike." "He was skilful
in all things that belonged to a gentleman, very cunning at his weapon,
much practised and expert in riding of great horses, of which he kept
divers in his stable with a skilful rider for them. For other sports of
hunting or hawking, which gentlemen in England so much use and delight
in, he had the best of both kinds in the country round about." "For all
manner of games which are also usual for gentlemen in foul weather, when
they are forced to keep house, he was not only able therein to keep
company with the best, but was so cunning in them all, that those who
knew him well, had rather take his part than be against him." "He was a
good musician, and kept divers good musicians in his house; and himself
also could play well of divers instruments. But those who were well
acquainted with him"--and no one knew him better than Father Gerard
himself--"do affirm that in gifts of mind he excelled much more than in
his natural parts; although in those also it were hard to find so many
in one man in such a measure. But of wisdom he had an extraordinary
talent, such a judicial wit and so well able to discern and discourse of
any matter, as truly I have heard many say they have not seen the like
of a young man, and that his carriage and manner of discourse were more
like to a grave Councillor of State than to a gallant of the Court as he
was, and a man of about twenty-six years old (which I think was his age,
or thereabouts)." In this Father Gerard was mistaken. Sir Everard Digby
did not live to be twenty-six, or even twenty-five. Gerard
continues:--"And though his behaviour were courteous to all, and
offensive to none, yet was he a man of great courage and of noted
valour."
[19] Vol. iii. p. 180.
[20] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
[Illustration: GOTHURST
The home of Sir Everard Digby; now called Gayhurst
_Dawsons Ph. Sc._]
We began by examining a portrait: let us now take a look at an old
country-house. Turning our backs on Wales, a country which has little to
do with my subject, we will imagine ourselves in Buckinghamshire, about
half way between the towns of Buckingham and Bedford, and about three
miles from Newport Pagnell, a little way from the high road leading in a
north-westerly direction. There stands the now old, but at the time of
which I am writing, the comparatively new house, known then as Gothurst.
Perhaps one of the chief attractions in Elizabethan architecture is
that, by combining certain features of both classical and gothic
architecture, it is a result, as well as an example, of that spirit of
compromise so dear to the English nation. If somewhat less picturesque,
and less rich and varied in colour, than the half-timbered houses of
Elizabethan architecture, the stone buildings of the same style are more
massive and stately in their appearance, and the newly-hewn stone of
Gothurst[21] presented a remarkably fine front, with its pillared porch,
its lengthy series of mullioned windows, and its solid wings at either
side. It was built upon rising ground, which declined gradually to the
rich, if occasionally marshy, meadows bordering on the river Ouse.[22]
It was a large house, although, like many others built in the same
style, the rooms were rather low in proportion to their size.[23] The
approach was through a massive gateway,[24] from which an avenue of
yews--which had existed in the time of the older house that formerly
stood on the same site--led up to the square space in front of the door.
Near the gateway was the old church, which was then in a very
indifferent state of repair,[25] and below this were three pieces of
water. Beyond them ran the river Ouse, and on the opposite side stood
the old tower and church of Tyringham. If the house was new, it was very
far from being the pretentious erection of a newly-landed proprietor.
Yet the estate on which it stood had more than once been connected with
a new name, owing to failures in the male line of its owners and the
marriages of its heiresses, since it had been held by a De Nouers, under
the Earl of Kent, half-brother to William the Conqueror. It had
passed[26] by marriage to the De Nevylls in 1408; it had passed in the
same way to the Mulshos in the reign of Henry VIII., and I am about to
show that, at the end of the sixteenth century, it passed again into
another family through the wedding of its heiress.
[21] "Antiently Gaythurst," says Pennant in his _Journey_. It is now
called Gayhurst.
[22] See Pennant's _Journey from Chester to London_, p. 437, _seq._
Also Lipscomb's _History and Antiquities of Bucks_, Vol. iv. 158,
_seq._
[23] The house is still standing, and is the residence of Mr
Carlile. The further side was enlarged, either in the eighteenth or
very early in the nineteenth century, in the style of Queen Anne;
but this in no way spoils the effect of the remarkably fine old
Elizabethan front.
[24] This has disappeared.
[25] Poem on _Everard Digby_, written by the present owner of
Gothurst, and privately printed.
[26] See Pennant's _Journey_, p. 438.
Mary Mulsho, the sole heiress of Gothurst, was a girl of considerable
character, grace, and gravity of mind, and she was well suited to become
the bride of the young courtier, musician, and sportsman excelling "in
gifts of mind," described at the beginning of this chapter. It can have
been no marriage for the sake of money or lands; for Everard Digby was
already a rich man, possessed of several estates, and he had had a long
minority; moreover, there is plenty of evidence to show that they were
devotedly attached to one another.
The exact date of their marriage I am unable to give. Jardine says[27]
that Sir Everard "was born in 1581," and that "in the year 1596 he
married"; and, if this was so, he can have been only fifteen on his
marriage. Certainly he was very young at the time, and Jardine may be
right; for, at the age of twenty-four, he said that a certain event,
which is known to have taken place some time after their marriage, had
happened seven or eight years earlier than the time at which he was
speaking.[28] I have made inquiries in local registers and at the
Herald's College, without obtaining any further light upon the question
of the exact date of his wedding. One thing is certain, that his eldest
son, Kenelm, was born in the year 1603. In that same year Everard Digby
was knighted by the new king, James I. He may have been young to receive
that dignity; but, as a contemporary writer[29] puts it, "at this time
the honour of knighthood, which antiquity preserved sacred, as the
cheapest and readiest jewel to preserve virtue with, was promiscuously
laid on any head belonging to the yeomandry (made addle through pride
and contempt of their ancestors' pedigree), that had but a court-friend,
or money to purchase the favour of the meanest able to bring him into an
outward room, when the king, the fountain of honour, came down, and was
uninterrupted by other business; in which case it was then usual for the
chamberlain or some other lord to do it." It is said that, during the
first three months of the reign of James I., the honour of knighthood
was conferred upon seven hundred individuals.[30]
[27] _Criminal Trials_, Vol. ii. p. 30.
[28] S. P. Dom. James I., Gunpowder Plot Book, Part II. No 135, B.
[29] Osborne's _Traditional Memorials_, p. 468. I quote from a
footnote on page 147 of the _Somers Tracts_, Vol. ii.
[30] See Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
We find Sir Everard and Lady Digby, at this period of our story,
possessed of everything likely to insure happiness--mutual affection,
youth, intelligence, ability, popularity, high position, favour at
Court, abundance of wealth, and a son and heir. How far this brilliant
promise of happiness was fulfilled will be seen by and bye.