Soon after Catesby, Rookwood, and Grant had been injured by the exploded
gunpowder at Holbeach House (as has been already mentioned in Chapter
LIV.), Robert Winter, the Master of Huddington, deeming discretion the
better part of valour, quitted the ill-fated mansion of Stephen Littleton.
Now, it so fell out that Robert Winter met with Stephen Littleton, the
Master of Holbeach, in a wood about a mile from Holbeach. And for no less
than two months these two high-born gentlemen were wandering disguised up
and down the country. Having plenty of money with them, the fugitives
bribed a farmer near Rowley Regis, in Staffordshire, a tenant of Humphrey
Littleton, cousin to Stephen Littleton, to grant them harbourage.
On New Year’s Day the rebels came very early in the morning to the house
of one Perkes, in Hagley. After an extraordinary adventure there (an
account of which may be read in Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_,” vol. ii.,
pp. 90-93), at about eleven of the clock one night, Humphrey Littleton
conveyed the two hunted delinquents to Hagley House, in Worcestershire,
the mansion wherein dwelt his widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. John
Littleton,[158] a Protestant lady, to whose children the place apparently
belonged.
Mrs. Littleton was herself either in, or on the way to, London at this
time, so the two traitors were harboured without the lady’s knowledge or
consent.
By the treachery, however, of the man-cook at Hagley, or rather, in
justice it should be said, by his diligent zeal in the service of his
sovereign lord the King, Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
by the lawful authorities, and forthwith conveyed to the Tower of London.
Now, some time during these two months of the wanderings of these two
gentlemen, with whose efforts to elude the vigilance of the law of the
land Humphrey Littleton had connived, this same Humphrey Littleton
repaired to Father Edward Oldcorne, probably at Hindlip, in order to be
resolved in respect of certain doubts which he (Humphrey Littleton) said
had entered into his mind as to whether or not the Gunpowder Treason Plot
were or were not morally lawful.
Now, although an English Roman Catholic gentleman, it is certain that
Humphrey Littleton, like a great many more of his co-religionists before
and since, was by no means perfect. Inasmuch as, first, we hear tell of “a
love-begot” boy of his (if Virtue’s pure ears can pardon the phrase), who
was to become a page of Robert Catesby, in the event of Catesby’s going in
command of that company of horse to Flanders to fight, with James’s
permission, in behalf of the Spanish Archdukes, whereof we have already
heard. And, secondly, Humphrey Littleton was plainly deemed by the astute
Edward Oldcorne to be what we should nowadays style “a dangerous fellow,”
who was capable, from various motives, of propounding a question of that
sort in order to entrap. That is to say, in order wantonly to cause
mischief, whatever might be the tenour or purport of Oldcorne’s
answer——mischief among either Catholics or Protestants.[159]
We will, however, let Father Oldcorne tell his own tale as to what took
place on the occasion of this momentous visit to him by Humphrey
Littleton. For the great casuist’s own words are contained in his
holograph Declaration of the 12th day of March, 1605-6, written by him
when a prisoner in the Tower, and which I beheld in the Record Office,
London, on the 5th of October, 1900.[160]