Now, as somewhat slightly confirming this statement of Lathbury, is the
fact that in an old print published soon after the discovery of the Plot,
which shows the conspirators Catesby, Thomas Winter, Percy, John Wright,
Fawkes, Robert Winter, Bates, and Christopher Wright, Christopher Wright
is represented as a tall man, in the high hat of the period, facing
Catesby, and evidently engaged in earnest discourse with the
arch-conspirator. Christopher Wright to enforce his utterance is holding
up the forefinger of his right hand. Catesby’s right hand is raised in
front of Christopher Wright, while Catesby’s left hand rests on the hilt
of the sword girded on his side.[125]
(Of course the evidence in paragraphs (2) and (5) of the last chapter may
have emanated from one and the same source; but the great point is that it
_has emanated from somewhere_.)
In connection with Christopher Wright’s propinquity to Thomas Ward
possibly, and to Thomas Winter possibly likewise, on the Sunday
immediately previous to the “fatal Fifth,” the two following items of
evidence are of consequence:——
(1) In Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 98, we are told: “On Sunday, the 3rd of
November, the conspirators heard from the same individual who had first
informed them of the Letter to Lord Mounteagle, that the Letter had been
shown to the King, who made great account of it, but enjoined the
strictest secrecy.”
_This individual was Thomas Ward._——(Jardine.)
Now, we have seen already that Stowe’s “_Chronicle_” records “the next day
after the delivery of the Letter” there was a conjunction of the
planets——Thomas Winter and Christopher Wright.
This conjunction at or about this period I hold to be a very significant
fact, tending to show that _either_ the one or the other must have sought
his confederate out, as has been remarked already.
But from the following important Evidence of William Kyddall, servant to
Robert Tyrwhitt, Esquire,[A] brother of Mrs. Ambrose Rookwood, and kinsman
of Robert Keyes, it is evident that it was physically impossible for
Christopher Wright to have met Thomas Winter on Sunday, the 27th of
October; inasmuch as Christopher Wright was then at Lapworth, only twenty
miles distant from Hindlip Hall.[B]
[Footnote A: Robert Tyrwhitt and William Tyrwhitt and one of Thomas
Winter’s uncles, David Ingleby, of Ripley (who married Lady Anne Neville,
a daughter of Charles fifth Earl of Westmoreland), along with “Jesuits,”
were, about the year 1592, great frequenters of Twigmore, in Lincolnshire,
twelve miles from Hull by water. John Wright afterwards lived at Twigmore.
Father Garnet is known to have been at Twigmore.]
[Footnote B: For the information as to the distances between Coughton and
Hindlip; and Stratford-on-Avon and Hindlip; also between Lapworth and
Hindlip, I am indebted to Charles Avery, Esq., of Headless Cross, near
Coughton; the Rev. Father Atherton, O.S.B., of Stratford-on-Avon; and
George Davis, Esq., of York.]
Yet this does not disprove the material _fact_ of the meeting itself, the
date or circumstance of time not belonging to the essence of the
assertion. (See Appendix.)