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 fashion 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 Yorkshire 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-cum-Harrogate, and of Scotton, in the Parish
of Farnham, near Knaresbrough.
The two Wrights’ parents were stanch Roman Catholics, and their mother had
suffered imprisonment “for the Faith” in York for the “space of fourteen
years together,” during the time when Henry Hastings Earl of Huntingdon
was Lord President of the North, _i.e._, between the years 1572 and 1599.
(Henry third Earl of Huntingdon was one of the few members of the ancient
nobility who accepted whole-heartedly the Calvinistic Protestantism then
gradually taking root in England.)
One of Christopher Wright’s sisters, Ursula, was married to Marmaduke
Ward, Gentleman, of Mulwith, in the Parish of Ripon; another, named
Martha, was married to Thomas Percy, Gentleman, the Gunpowder
conspirator.
It is said of John Wright, Christopher Wright’s brother, and of his
brother-in-law, Thomas Percy, that they were formerly Protestant, and
became Catholic about the time of the rebellion of the Earl of Essex. But
it is certain John Wright and Thomas Percy[45] must have been both brought
up Roman Catholics in the days of their childhood; although they probably
ceased to practise their duties as such until about the year 1600. For it
is incredible that the son and son-in-law of Robert Wright and Ursula, his
wife, should have been brought up as children and youths anything other
than rigid Catholics, whatever else for a season they might, in the days
of their early manhood, have become, either from conscientious conviction
or reckless negligence, whereof the latter alternative is doubtless the
more probable.
From the account of the Gunpowder conspirators given by Father John
Gerard, the friend of Sir Everard Digby, and, it is highly probable, the
friend of the Wrights also, it would seem that Christopher Wright was a
taller man than his brother John,[A] fatter in the face and of a
lighter-coloured hair. “Yet,” says Gerard, “was he very like to the other
in conditions and qualities and both esteemed and tried to be as stout a
man as England had, and withal a zealous Catholic and trusty and secret in
any business as could be wished.”[46]
[Footnote A: It is, however, possible that John Wright may have come under
the influence of the Blessed William Hart (styled the Apostle of York and
the second Campion), a priest who suffered death at the York Tyburn in
1583. Because Hart was indicted for (amongst other things) “reconciling” a
“Mr. John Wright and one Cooling.”——See Challoner’s “_Missionary
Priests_.” If so, John Wright would then be about fourteen years of age.
It, however, may have been another John Wright; perhaps of Grantley and
one of the brothers of Robert Wright, the father of John Wright, the
conspirator. Cooling was probably Ralph Cowling, of York, a shoemaker, the
father of Father Richard Cowling (certainly of York), a Jesuit and
relative of the Harringtons, of Mount St. John, and, therefore, of Guy
Fawkes. See Note 147, where will be found a letter under the hand of this
Father Cowling (or Collinge) to a gentleman in Venice——possibly Father
Parsons or someone else of authority among the Jesuits——respecting the
Harringtons and Guy Fawkes. Ralph Cowling, the father, died in York Castle
a captive for his Faith, and was buried under the Castle Wall——I think
facing the Foss towards Fishergate.]
Christopher Wright was married. His wife’s name, we know, was
Margaret.[A][47] I strongly suspect that Mrs. Christopher Wright was a
sister of both Marmaduke Ward and Thomas Ward, of Mulwith, in the Parish
of Ripon; yet of this there is only, perhaps, slight evidence, so that no
positive argument can be grounded upon it, _considered by itself_; though
the evidence of Mistress Robinson, Christopher Wright’s landlady in
London, indirectly tends to confirm such a suspicion.——See Evidence of
Dorathie Robinson, _postea_, where she says that Wright had “a brother” in
London.
[Footnote A: See “_Life of Mary Ward_,” vol. i., p. 89.]
When Guy Fawkes was examined in the Tower of London, in the forenoon of
the 6th of November, he said, in answer to a question——“You would have me
discover my friends; the giving warning to one overthrew us all.”
Now, if Guy Fawkes eventually revealed the conspiracy by reason of the
agony caused by the _physical_ pains of the rack, when after the first
racking he was told he “must come to it againe and againe, from daye to
daye, till he should have delivered his whole knowledge,” is it, I ask, a
thing incredible that the son of a Yorkshire Catholic mother that had
spent fourteen years of her life in “durance” for her profession of her
forefathers’ ancient Faith, should have revealed the conspiracy itself, by
reason of the agony caused by the _moral_ pains of a pricking conscience,
goading him to madness for having committed _in act_ (in the case of the
unlawful oath), _in desire_ (in the case of the intended murder) most
horrible crimes against the offended Majesty of Heaven?
I think not.
_Therefore_ I conclude that it is antecedently probable that in the heart
of Christopher Wright, emotions, not only of compassion but also of
compunction, _were_ awakened by the remembrance of the early training he
had received at his mother’s knee: emotions which were potent enough,
under the wisdom and skill of one whose special duty it was to “work good
unto all men,” speedily to swing right round on its axis, though well-nigh
at the eleventh hour, the diabolical designment known to History as the
Gunpowder Treason Plot.
Had Christopher Wright any entirely trustworthy friend, one who not only
would prove a healing minister to a mind diseased with the leprosy of
crime, but also be an able and ready helper for giving effect to an all
but too late repentance? Was there anyone to whom he could have recourse,
who was at once wise of head, sympathetic of heart, and skilful of hand?
There was.