Sir Everard Digby had rented Coughton, near Alcester, in Warwickshire,
from Thomas Throckmorton, Esquire, as a base for the warlike operations,
which were to be conducted in the Midlands as soon as intelligence had
arrived from London that the King, Lords Spiritual and Temporal, together
with the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, “were now no more.”
On Sunday, the 3rd of November, the young knight rode from Coughton to
Dunchurch, near Rugby.
Robert Winter the same day left Huddington and, sleeping on the Sunday
night at Grafton, at the house of his father-in-law, John Talbot, Esquire,
rode on to Coventry, in company with the younger Acton, of Ribbesford, and
attended by several servants.
At Coventry, Robert Winter was joined by Stephen Littleton, of Holbeach
House, in Staffordshire, just over the borders of Worcestershire; and also
by his cousin, Humphrey Littleton, brother to the then late John
Littleton,[A] of Hagley House, Worcestershire, who had been engaged in the
Essex rising.
[Footnote A: All the Littletons were descended from the great Judge
Littleton, author of “_Littleton on Tenures_.” The present Lord Lyttelton
belongs to the same family.]
On the following Tuesday, November the 5th, the whole party proceeded
towards Dunchurch, the armed cavalcade continually increasing in numbers.
The plan was, that at Dunsmore Heath, under a feigned hunting or coursing
match, there should be a gathering of the Midland Catholic clans, then
very numerous and powerful. Dunsmore Heath, in fact, was to be the
rendezvous of the insurgents.
Robert Winter left the cousins Littleton at “the town’s end” of Dunchurch,
and rode on to Ashby St. Legers, the ancestral seat of the Catesbies,
where, indeed, the Dowager Lady Catesby was then residing.
Here Robert Winter hoped to meet Catesby, with whom, after the latter had
reported progress with reference to things done in London on that Tuesday
morning, Winter purposed to gallop off to the rendezvous at Dunsmore
Heath.
Ambrose Rookwood was one of the latest to leave for the provinces. He
owned many fine horses; and he had placed relays of horses all the way
from London to Dunchurch. Rookwood rode one horse at the rate of fifteen
miles an hour. Riding for dear life, he overtook Catesby, Percy, and the
two Wrights, near Brickhill. Percy and John Wright cast off their cloaks
and threw them into the hedge to ride the more swiftly.[155]
About six o’clock in the evening of Tuesday, just as Lady Catesby, Robert
Winter, and some others were about to sit down to supper in the old
mansion-house, there fell upon their ears a mingled din, occasioned by
horses’ feet and men’s excited voices.
Soon in rushed, with scared faces and travel-stained garb, grievously
fatigued and intensely agitated, the son of the house (Robert Catesby),
Thomas Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Ambrose Rookwood. Their
announcement was the capture of Guy Fawkes early that Tuesday morning.
After holding a short council of war, the whole band of conspirators,
snatching up all the weapons of warfare they could lay their hands on,
took horse again and rode off to Dunchurch.
Sir Everard Digby, his uncle (Sir Robert Digby, of Coleshill), Stephen
Littleton, Humphrey Littleton, and many others were awaiting their arrival
at Dunchurch, in an inn.
The six fugitive conspirators, all bespattered with the mire of November
high roads, with dejected looks and jaded aspect, arrived in due time to
tell their tale.
Soon Sir Robert Digby departed with one of his sons, then Humphrey
Littleton, and speedily many others of the hunting party.
It was determined by the ringleaders to make for Wales; for the Catholics
of the Principality were then very strong,[A] and the Counties of Warwick,
Worcester, and Stafford were to be traversed, from all of which valuable
reinforcements were expected.
[Footnote A: It is a curious fact that in the reign of Elizabeth, Father
Weston, S.J., specially spoke of Wales, along with the counties bordering
on Scotland, as being firm in its attachment to the Church of Rome. It was
the lack of a Welsh College in Rome which, causing the supply of priests
to fail, gradually caused the interesting Cymric people to lose the Faith
which they of all the inhabitants of the British Isles were the first to
embrace.
It is to be remembered, however, that there has always been a remnant in a
few of the valleys of Wales faithful to the See of Rome; and Dr. Owen
Lewis, the Bishop of Cassano, a Welshman, aided Cardinal Allen to found
Douay College, in 1568. Several of the Martyrs of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, too, were Welsh.
At the English College at Rome the Welsh and the English students had
violent and, to read of, amusing quarrels. Evidently the Welsh, students
looked down upon their Anglo-Saxon compeers as belonging to a
comparatively inferior race.]
About ten o’clock on Tuesday night the full company, now about thirty
strong, set out for Norbrook,[A] the house of John Grant.
[Footnote A: At Warwick, _en route_ for Norbrook, they took some horses
out of a stable near the Castle, and left their own steeds in exchange
therefor. They arrived at Warwick at about three o’clock on Wednesday
morning.]
Thence, it will be recollected, Bates was sent with a note from Catesby
and Sir Everard Digby to Father Garnet, at Coughton, urging Garnet to join
the rebels in Wales.
Lady Digby had also a letter from her husband, but the poor young wife, we
are told, could, alas! do naught but cry.
After a halt of about two hours for refreshments and the procuring of more
arms, the insurgents once more slipped their feet into the stirrups, and
on they rode for Huddington, near Droitwich, where they arrived at two
o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 6th. Sentinels were posted at
the passage of every way at Huddington, possibly by the order of John
Winter, half-brother to Robert and Thomas Winter.
Here they were joined by Thomas Winter, who had come down from London with
the latest news; also by the Jesuit, Father Tesimond, whom Catesby hailed
with joy.
They rested for a good few hours at Huddington; and, as we have seen
already, at about three o’clock in the morning of Thursday all the
gentlemen assisted at Father Nicholas Hart’s Mass, went to Confession, and
received, at the Jesuit’s, hands, what most of them from their childhood
had been taught to believe was “the Bread of Angels,” and “the Food of
Immortality.”[B]
[Footnote B: Certainly Man’s nature _needs_ these things; but the question
is: Can it get them? “Aye, there’s the rub.”]
Before daybreak of Thursday the fugitives were on the march north-westward
again. For “there is no rest for the wicked.”
The rebels made for Whewell Grange, the seat of the Lord Windsor, one of
the numerous Worcestershire Catholic families.
At Whewell Grange the traitors helped themselves to a large store of arms
and armour.
Then they sped on towards Holbeach House, near Stourbridge, in
Staffordshire. Their number was then about sixty all told, although
earlier in the march it had increased to about a hundred. In two days they
had traversed about sixty miles, “over bad and broken roads, in rainy and
inclement weather.”
To the dire disappointment of Catesby, Sir Everard Digby, and the rest,
John Talbot, of Grafton, drove Thomas Winter and Stephen Littleton from
his door when they sought his aid for the rebellion.[A]
[Footnote A: See Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 112, to which I am indebted
for this account; also Handy’s evidence, Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_,”
vol. ii., pp. 165, 166.]
And Sir Everard was constrained to avow that of the wealthy Catholic
gentry “not one man came to take our part though we had expected so
many.”[B]
[Footnote B: Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 112. Holbeach House is no longer
standing.]