the title “_The Life of a Conspirator_,” by “One of his descendants”
(Kegan Paul & Co., 1895). The learned descendant of Sir Everard Digby,
however, evidently knows very much more concerning his gallant ancestor
than he knows about Guy Fawkes, who (excepting that “accident of an
accident”——fortune) was as honourable a character as the high-minded
spouse of Mary Mulsho himself——_honourable, of course, I mean after their
kind_.——Jardine’s “_Narrative of Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 67.]
[Footnote 29:——Sir William Catesby and Sir Thomas Tresham were excellent
types of the English gentry of their day. Each was “a fine old English
gentleman, one of the olden time.” They had both become “reconciled” Roman
Catholics——along with so many of the nobility, gentry, and yeomanry in the
Midlands——in 1580-81, through the famous missionary journey of the Jesuit,
Robert Parsons, probably forming with Edmund Campion two of the most
powerful extempore preachers that ever gave utterance to the English
tongue.
We may readily picture to ourselves “the coming of age” of the son and
heir of each of these gallant knights and stately dames. And we may easily
conceive of the bright hopes that either of the gentlewomen (especially
the two sisters), in their close-fitting caps, laced ruffs, and gowns
falling in pleated folds, must have cherished in their maternal hearts for
an honourable career for the child——the treasured child——of their bosom.
Alas! through the evil will of man, for the pathetic vanity of human
wishes.]
[Footnote 30:——Jardine, in his “_Narrative_,” p. 51, says that John
Grant’s ancestors are described in several pedigrees as of Saltmarsh, in
Worcestershire, and of Snitterfield, in Warwickshire; that Norbrook
adjoined Snitterfield, though it is not now considered locally situate
therein. Students of Shakespeare will be interested to learn that in the
Parish of Snitterfield, near Grant’s ancestral home, the poet’s mother,
Mary Arden——herself connected with the Throckmorton family——owned
property. Moreover, through his mother, Shakespeare was distantly
connected with several of the plotters. For Catesby and Tresham, as well
as Lady Wigmore, of Lucton, Herefordshire, were all first cousins to Lady
Mounteagle, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham. Sir Nicholas
Throckmorton (the father of Francis Throckmorton, who was executed in the
reign of Elizabeth) having three daughters whom he married to Sir William
Catesby, Sir Thomas Tresham, and Sir William Wigmore.——See Jardine’s
“_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 11; also Foley’s “_Records of the
Jesuits in England_” (Burns & Oates), vol. iv., p. 290.
Probably Shakespeare knew Grant personally, and not only Grant, but
Catesby, Percy, the Winters (Robert and Thomas Winter were likewise akin
to the Throckmortons), and Tresham. That the bard of Avon knew Lord
Mounteagle, the associate of his friend and patron the Earl of
Southampton, is even still more probable.
How is it that Shakespeare never in his writings sought to make political
capital (as the sinister phrase goes) out of the Gunpowder Plot? For
several reasons: first, his heart (if not his head) was with the ancient
faith he had learned in the old Warwickshire home; secondly, his large
humanity prompted him to sympathise with all that were oppressed. I hold
that in this studied silence, this dignified reserve of Shakespeare, we
may discern additional proof of the nobleness of the man, supposing that
he knew personally any of the plotters. He would not kick friends that
were down, when those friends were even traitors. He could not approve
their action——far from it. He might have condemned with justice, and with
the world’s applause. But upon himself a self-denying ordinance he laid,
tempting as it must have been to him to perform the contrary, especially
when we recollect the course then followed by his brother-poet——Jonson.
But Shakespeare would not “take sword in hand” with the pretence of
restoring “equality” between these wrong-doers and their country. He
deemed that the ends of justice——exact, strict Justice——were met in “the
hangman’s bloody hands”——“Macbeth,” 1606——and that sufficed for him.
Since writing the above note I find it stated in “_The Religion of
Shakespeare_,” by Henry Sebastian Bowden (Burns & Oates, 1899)——chiefly
from the writings of that great Elizabethan scholar, the late Richard
Simpson——that “among the chief actors in the so-called Gunpowder Plot were
Catesby; the two Bates; John Grant, of Norbrook, near Stratford; Thomas
Winter, Grant’s brother-in-law; all Shakespeare’s friends and benefactors”
(p. 103); so that my conjecture is, belike, warranted that the poet knew
Catesby, Winter, and Grant. Moreover, from the same work, it appears that
Shakespeare, through the Ardens and Throckmortons, was connected by family
marriages, not only with Catesby, the Winters, and Tresham, but distantly
with the Earl of Southampton himself, who was a relative of Lord
Mounteagle. Hence it is still more probable that Shakespeare knew
Mounteagle personally.
Again, Shakespeare probably was present as one of the King’s players in
1604 at Somerset House, on the occasion of the Constable of Castile’s
visit.——See Sidney Lee’s “_Life of Shakespeare_” (Smith & Elder), p.
233.——If this were so, then it is well-nigh certain that the poet must
have there beheld Mounteagle, who would be one of the Lords then present,
most probably in attendance on the Queen Consort. The festivities in
honour of the Spanish Ambassador Extraordinary wound up with a magnificent
banquet at the Palace of Whitehall, when the Earl of Southampton “danced a
correnta” with the Queen. This was August 19th, 1604.——_Cf._ Churton
Collins’s “_Ephemera Critica_” (Constable) as to religion of
Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 31:——The name is also spelt Tirwhitt. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, Lady
Ursula Babthorpe’s grandfather, had entertained Henry VIII. at the old
Hall at Kettleby. A new Hall was built in the time of James I., but this
was pulled down about 1691, I believe. The Tyrwhitts, of Kettleby, were
allied to such as the Tailboys, Boroughes, Wymbishes, Monsons, Tournays,
Thimbelbies, Thorolds, and other Lincolnshire houses. They were rigidly
Roman Catholic. The marriage between Sir William Babthorpe and Ursula
Tyrwhitt was one of those marriages “that are made in heaven.” The lovely
pathos of the lives of this ideal Yorkshire family is indescribable;
beginning with Sir William Babthorpe, who harboured Campion in 1581. It
was continued through Sir Ralph Babthorpe, who married that “valiant
woman” (the only daughter and heiress of William Birnand, the Recorder of
York), Grace Birnand by name, of Brimham, Knaresbrough, and York. Lady
Grace Babthorpe’s active and contemplative life was one long singing of
_Gloria in excelsis_. Sir William Babthorpe and Lady Ursula his wife, like
their noble parents, Sir Ralph Babthorpe and Lady Grace, “for conscience
sake” became voluntary exiles “and with strangers made their home.” Sir
William died a captain in the Spanish Army fighting against France. Lady
Ursula, his wife, died of the plague at Bruges. They had many children,
some of whom were remarkably gifted. Mary Anna Barbara Babthorpe, the
grand-daughter of Sir William Babthorpe, and great-great-grand-daughter of
the Sir William Babthorpe who harboured Campion, was the Mother-General of
the Nuns of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin, one of whose oldest
convents, St. Mary’s, is still situated near Micklegate Bar, York, on land
given by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Bart., of Barnbow Hall, near Aberford, in
the time of James II. In Ireland the nuns of this order are styled the
Loretto Nuns. The story of the Babthorpes is a veritable English “_Un
Récit d’une sœur_.”——See “_Life of Mary Ward_.”——The Wards——like the
Inglebies, of Ripley; the Constables, of Everingham;[A] the Dawnays, of
Sessay; and the Palmes, of Naburn——were related to this “family of
saints.”——See also “The Babthorpes, of Babthorpe” (one of whose ancestors
carried the sword before King Edward III. on entering Calais in 1347), in
the late Rev. John Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,”
first series (Burns & Oates).
For “the Kayes,” of Woodsome, see Canon Hulbert’s “_Annals of Almondbury_”
(Longmans).
“The Venerable” Richard Langley, of Owsthorpe and Grimthorpe, near
Pocklington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, who suffered at the York
Tyburn on the 1st December, 1586, for harbouring priests, was
great-grandson of one of the Kayes, of Woodsome. (Communicated by Mr.
Oswald C. B. Brown, Solicitor, of York.)]
[Footnote 32:——“_Greenway’s MS._,” quoted by Jardine, “_Narrative of the
Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 151.]
[Footnote 33:——Hawarde, “_Reportes of Star Chamber_.”
See “_The Fawkeses, of York_,” by Robert Davies, sometime Town Clerk of
York (Nichols, Westminster, 1850); and the “_Life of Guy Fawkes_,” by
William Camidge (Burdekin, York). Davies was a learned York antiquary.
William Harrington, the elder, first cousin to Edward Fawkes (Guy’s
father), and Thomas Grimstone, of Grimston, were both “bound over” by the
Privy Council, on the 6th of December, 1581, to appear before the Lord
President of the North and the Justices of Assize at the next Assizes at
York, for harbouring Edmund Campion.——See “_Acts of Privy Council, 1581_”
(Eyre & Spottiswoode), p. 282.——What was the upshot I do not know.
Their Indictments are probably still to be found at York Castle. And it is
a great desideratum that the old York Castle Indictments should be
catalogued, and a catalogue published. I believe such never has been done.
Since August, 1900, York Castle has been used as a Military Prison. All
the old Indictments that are in existence, whether at York, Worcester, or
other Assize towns, would be of interest and value re the Gunpowder Plot
_if the affair is to be thoroughly bottomed_.
The York Quarter Sessions’ Indictments appear to be irretrievably lost,
which is a great pity, as many of those of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries must have referred to Popish recusants, and those of the
seventeenth century probably to Puritan sectaries, and, later, to Quakers
as well——the latter being punished under the Popish Acts of Supremacy and
Allegiance. Indeed, the barrister, William Prynne (seventeenth century), a
Calvinistic English Presbyterian, wrote a book to prove that Quakerism was
only a sort of indirect and derivative Popery. The learned gentleman
entitled his work: “_The Quakers unmasked and clearly detected to be but
the spawn of Romish Frogs, Jesuites, and Franciscan Fryers._” Now, Prynne
was not far wrong either, the erudite historical philosopher knows very
well, who has studied the genesis of the remarkable system developed by
Fox, Barclay, and Penn.
Was there a Grimston near Mount St. John, Feliskirk, near Thirsk? Or was
it Grimston Garth, Holderness? or was it North Grimston, between Malton
and Driffield, that Thomas Grimstone came from; or Grimston, three miles
east of York?
Since writing the preceding note I have come to the conclusion that the
Grimston was, most likely, the Grimstone some twelve miles from Mount St.
John, in the Parish of Gilling East, near Hovingham and Ampleforth, in the
Vale of Mowbray, and near Gilling Castle, once the seat of the Catholic
branch of the Fairfaxes, now the seat of George Wilson, Esquire, J.P. This
Grimstone would be a spot very suitable for harbouring Campion after he
had been at Babthorpe, near Selby; Thixendale, near Leavening, east of
Malton; and Fryton, west of Malton, near Hovingham.
(How wonderful to think that the probabilities are in favour of the
supposal that these tranquil, sequestered nooks, each with its own fair
summer beauty, once rang with the golden eloquence of Edmund Campion, “one
of the diamonds of England,” in the days of Shakespeare.)
Guy Fawkes was also connected with another Roman Catholic martyr, “the
Venerable” William Knight, yeoman, of South Duffield, Hemingbrough, Selby,
East Yorkshire, who suffered death at the York Tyburn in 1596, for
“explaining to a man the Catholic faith.”——See Challoner and Foster’s
“_Pedigrees of Yorkshire Families_” (“Fawkes, of Farnley”).]
[Footnote A: The Constables, of Everingham, are one of those old English
Roman Catholic families who so appealed to the historic imagination and so
touched the historic sympathies of the first Earl of Beaconsfield. The
present Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire, Lord Herries, is
the owner of this grand old home of the Constables, one of whom was
executed for his share in the first Pilgrimage of Grace under Robert Aske,
of Aughton on the Derwent, in the time of Henry VIII. (1536). The pilgrims
captured York, Pontefract, and Hull, and laid siege to Skipton Castle.
Aske was hanged as a traitor from one of the towers of York, either
Clifford’s Tower or possibly the tower of All Saints’ Church, The
Pavement, York. After the movement had been quelled, Henry VIII. came with
dread majesty to York and established the Council of the North. Lady
Lumley, the wife of Sir John Lumley, of Lumley Castle, was burned alive at
Smithfield.——See Burke’s “_Tudor Portraits_.”]
[Footnote 34:——Father Morris, S.J., in “_The Troubles of our Catholic
Forefathers_” (York volume), says that Father Tesimond was a Yorkshireman;
though in Foley’s “_Records_,” in one place, he is said to have been born
in Northumberland, perhaps a translation of the Latin “Northumbria,”
intended to represent the name “Yorkshire.” There were, at least, three
families of Tesimond in York in the reign of Elizabeth, namely, Robert
Tesimond, a butcher, of Christ’s Parish; Anthony Tesimond, a cordyner; and
William Tesimond, a saddler, both of St. Michael-le-Belfrey’s Parish. I
incline to think that Father Oswald Tesimond was the son of William
Tesimond, who lived in the Parish of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, York. Oswald
Tesimond was born in 1563; but as the Register books of St. Michael’s
Church, unfortunately, begin in 1565, two years afterwards, there are no
means of verifying my supposal. William Tesimond was, for a great part of
his life, a rigid Catholic, suffering imprisonment for his faith, although
eventually he appears to have yielded. Margaret Tesimond, the wife of
William Tesimond, also bore a more than lip testimony to the ancient
religion by suffering imprisonment for it. Whether William Tesimond died
“reconciled” or not, I cannot say. Perhaps further researches will clear
the matter up as to this and the exact parentage of Father Tesimond. In
the very learned and deeply lamented Dr. James Raine’s admirable book on
the City of York (Longmans, 1893), on p. 110, is the following:——“Whilst
the Earl of Northumberland’s head was lying in the Tolbooth on Ouse
Bridge, William Tessimond cut off some hair from the beard. He wrapped it
in paper, and wrote on the outside, ‘This the heire of the good Erle of
Northumberland, Lord Perecy.’ For this he got into great trouble.” This
must have been about the 22nd August, 1572, as Thomas Percy Earl of
Northumberland was beheaded on that day, at three o’clock in the
afternoon, in The Pavement, York, for his share in the Rising of the
North. The Church Register of St. Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York,
contains an entry of the death of the Earl of Northumberland. The Percy
family had property in Walmgate at that time. The Earl is now “the Blessed
Thomas Percy,” one of “the York martyrs.” The Lady Mary Percy, of Ghent, a
well-known Benedictine Abbess, was his daughter. She would be probably
named after her aunt Mary, the wife of Francis Slingsby, of Scriven Hall,
near Scotton. There is a fine monument in the Parish Church of
Knaresbrough to the memory of Francis Slingsby and Mary Percy, his wife.
The Slingsbies were Roman Catholics till many years after the reign of
Elizabeth; in fact, Sir Henry Slingsby, who was beheaded during the
Commonwealth, was himself a Roman Catholic.
The Half Moon Hotel, in Blake Street, York, perhaps derives its name from
the well-known device of the Percy family.]
[Footnote 35:——Quoted from Father Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” p. 278.]
[Footnote 36:——So that the Plot was first hatched about Easter, 1604.——See
Dr. S. R. Gardiner’s “_What Gunpowder Plot was_,” as to the decisive
causes of the Plot.——Jardine, in his “_Narrative_” (pp. 45 and 46), thinks
that the Star-Chambering of that aged but charming Roman Catholic
gentleman, Thomas Pounde, Esquire, of Belmont, Hampshire, contributed to
the causes of the Plot. This is very probable. Pounde was first cousin to
the father of the Earl of Southampton, the patron and friend of
Shakespeare. Pounde was a devoted friend of Campion, and himself a Jesuit
lay-brother. He spent a large part of his life in prison. He was attired
in prison as became his rank and fortune, and was, besides being a
“mystical” Catholic, a most accomplished Elizabethan gentleman.——See
“_Jesuits in Conflict_” (Burns & Oates).]
[Footnote 37:——_I.e._, according to Winter, about two months after.]
[Footnote 38:——See pp. 269 and 271 of the Rev. John Gerard’s, S.J., work,
“_What was the Gunpowder Plot?_” (Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co., 1897).]
[Footnote 39:——_I.e._, a Prayer Book. Sir Everard Digby appears to have
been sworn in by Robert Catesby on the cross formed by the hilt of a
poniard.——See “_Life of Sir Everard Digby_.”]
[Footnote 40:——It is also said that Catesby “peremptorily demanded of his
associates a promise that they would not mention the project, even in
Confession, lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder
it.”——See “_The Month_,” No. 369, pp. 353, 4.——This would be to make
assurance double sure. But, happily, the “best laid schemes o’ men gang
aft agley.” “For there is on earth a yet auguster thing, veiled though it
be, than Parliament or King”——the human conscience, which is “prophet in
its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its
blessings and anathenas” (John Henry Newman). Also, “Conscience is the
knowledge with oneself of the better and the worse” (James Martineau).]
[Footnote 41:——See Jardine’s “_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 41.]
[Footnote 42:——The Most Hon. the Marquess of Ripon, K.G., Lord Lieutenant
of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the Marchioness of Ripon, C.I., of
Studley Royal, near Ripon, are descended from this leile-hearted and
chivalrous Yorkshire race, in whom so many idealistic, stately souls, of a
long buried Past, claim kindred.
Of what manner of men these Mallories were, the puissant owners of Studley
Royal, is evident from what we are told concerning that Sir William
Mallory, “who was so zealous and constant a Catholic, that when heresy
first came into England, and Catholic service commanded to be put down on
such a day, he came to the church, and stood there at the door with his
sword drawn to defend, that none should come in to abolish religion,
saying that he would defend it with his life, and continued for some days
keeping out the officers so long as he could possibly do it.”——From the
“Babthorpes, of Babthorpe,” Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic
Forefathers_,” first series, p. 227.——The Church referred to must have
been the old Chapel at Aldfield, near Studley Royal. Aldfield was one of
the Chapelries of the ancient Parish of Ripon. The old Chapel at Aldfield
is now represented by the noble new Church which is seen in the distance,
at the end of the long avenue, by all who have the rare happiness of
visiting Studley Royal and the tall grey ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of
St. Mary, Fountains, laved by the musical little River Skell. (Studley
Church is twin-sister to Skelton Church, the Vyner Memorial in the Park of
Newby. Skelton was likewise one of the old Ripon Chapelries.) This phrase
“to abolish religion,” I opine, refers to the time of Edward VI., when the
Mass was first put down, and a communion substituted therefor.——See
Tennyson’s “_Mary Tudor_.”——There is a curious old traditional prophecy
extant in Yorkshire, as well as other parts of England, that as the Mass
was abolished in the reign of the Sixth Edward, so it will be restored in
the reign of the Seventh!]
[Footnote 43:——The promoters of the Rising of the North wished:——
(1) To restore to her kingdom Mary Queen of Scots, who simply fascinated
Francis Norton, and every other imaginative, romantic, Yorkshire heart
that she came in contact with.
(2) To depose Elizabeth, whom they regarded as morally no true claimant
for the throne, until dispensed from her illegitimacy by the Pope.
(3) To place Mary Stuart on the throne of England.
(4) Above all, to restore “the ancient faith,” which they did in Durham,
Staindrop, Darlington, Richmond, Ripon, and some of the churches in
Cleveland, for a very brief season.
It is to be remembered that the Rising of the North in 1569 was not joined
in by _all_ the Catholics of Yorkshire, nor by any of the Catholics of
Lancashire. This latter fact, together with the influence of Cardinal
Allen, of Rossall, partly accounts for the circumstance that Lancashire
(especially the neighbourhood of “Wigan and Ashton-on-Makerfield, and,
above all, the Fylde, that region between Lancaster and Preston, whence
“the great Allen” sprang) is “the Rome of England” to this day. It is said
that the Parish Church of Bispham (near which the well-known sea-side
resort, Blackpool, is situated) was the parish church where last the
parochial Latin Mass was said publicly in Lancashire, the priest being
Jerome Allen, uncle to the Cardinal. In the white-washed yeoman dwellings
of the Fylde have been reared many of the sturdiest and most solidly pious
of the post-Reformation English Catholic Priests. William Allen’s plain,
honest, finely-touched spirit seems to have brooded over this fruitful,
western, wind-swept land which is well worthy of exploration by all
philosophic historians that visit Blackpool.
Also, all who travel in Yorkshire, either by road or rail, from
Knaresbrough and Harrogate to Ripon, and thence to Topcliffe, Thirsk,
Darlington, Durham, and Alnwick, pass through a part of the North of
England whose very air is laden with historic memories of the reigns of
Elizabeth and James I. And how often, when visiting Bishop Thornton (an
idyllic hamlet betwixt Harrogate, Pateley Bridge, and Ripon, that is still
a stronghold of “the ancient faith,” which, as in a last Yorkshire
retreat, has _there_ never died out), has the writer recalled the
following lines from the old “Ballad of the Rising of the North”:——
“Lord Westmoreland his ancyent [_i.e._, ensign] raisde,
The Dun Bull he rais’d on hye;
Three dogs with golden collars brave,
Were there set out most royallye.
Earl Percy there his ancyent spred,
The half moon shining all so fair;
The Nortons ancyent had the Cross
And the Five Wounds Our Lord did beare.”
Norton Conyers, in the Parish of Wath, near Ripon, was forfeited by the
Nortons after the Rebellion of 1569. It is now, I believe, the property of
Sir Reginald Graham, Bart. If the Grantley estate belonged to the Nortons
in 1569, it was not forfeited, or else it was recovered to the Norton
family. Grantley, however, may have possibly belonged to the Markenfields,
and, being forfeited by them, granted to Francis Norton, the eldest son of
old Richard Norton.——See “_Sir Ralph Sadlers Papers_,” Ed. by Sir Walter
Scott.——The present Lord Grantley is descended from Thomas Norton, who was
sixth in descent from old Richard Norton, and fifth in descent from
Francis, the eldest of the famous “eight good sons.” The Grantley property
belonged to Lord Grantley until it was recently disposed of to Sir
Christopher Furness, M.P. Lord Grantley’s ancestor, Sir Fletcher Norton,
was created Lord Grantley and Baron Markenfield in 1782. Sir Fletcher
Norton’s mother was a Fletcher, of Little Strickland, in the County of
Westmoreland. The present Sir Henry Fletcher, Bart., M.P., belongs to a
branch of the Fletcher family, who originally came from Cockermouth, in
Cumberland. There is a tradition that when Mary Queen of Scots had been
defeated at the Battle of Langside, after her romantic escape from
Lochleven Castle, Henry Fletcher, of Cockermouth Hall, waited on the
Scots’ Queen when she first landed at Workington. Henry Fletcher
“entertained” the Queen at Cockermouth Hall (17th May, 1568), “most
magnificently, presenting her with robes of velvet.” It is further said
that when James I. came to the English Throne he treated Henry Fletcher’s
son, Thomas Fletcher, with great distinction, and offered to bestow upon
him a knighthood.——See Nicholson & Burns’ “_History of Cumberland and
Westmoreland_.”
As to the Nortons and Markenfields, see Wordsworth’s “_White Doe of
Rylstone_”; “_Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569_” (1840); Froude’s
“_History of England_”; “_Memorials of Cardinal Allen_”[A] (Ed. by Dr.
Knox, published by Nutt, London); and J. S. Fletcher’s “_Picturesque
Yorkshire_” (Dent & Co.). In Hailstone’s “_Portraits of Yorkshire
Worthies_” (two magnificent volumes published by Cundall & Fleming) are
photographs of old Richard Norton and of his brother Thomas, and of the
former’s seventh son, Christopher. The photographs are taken from
paintings in the possession of Lord Grantley, now, I believe, at
Markenfield Hall.
The same valuable work also contains a photograph of a portrait of “the
Blessed” Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland, from a painting belonging to
the Slingsbies, of Scriven.
From the Ripon Minster Registers of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths, it is
plain that, between the years 1589 and 1601, a “Norton,” described as
“_generosus_,” lived at Sawley, close to Bishop Thornton and Grantley,
near Ripon.]
[Footnote 44:——In 1569 the Norton Conyers estate seems to have been vested
in a Nicholas Norton, probably as a trustee.——See “_Sir Ralph Sadler’s
Papers_,” and see _ante_, Supplementum III.
The Winters were also related to the Markenfields, their aunt, Isabel
Ingleby, having married Thomas Markenfield, of Markenfield.
The Wrights and Winters were also, through the Inglebies, connected with
the Yorkes, of Gowthwaite, in Nidderdale, of which family, most probably,
sprang Captain Roland Yorke (who introduced the use of the rapier into
England——see Camden’s “_Elizabeth_”), the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, in
the Netherlands.——See Foster’s Edition of “_Glover’s Visitation of
Yorkshire_”; “_The Earl of Leicester’s Correspondence_” (Camden Soc.);
also “_Cardinal Allen’s Defence of Sir William Stanley’s Surrender of
Deventer, 29th January, 1586-87_” (Chetham Soc.).
The Wards, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale, were related to the Nortons,
old Richard Norton’s grandmother being Margaret, daughter of Roger Ward,
of Givendale. Richard Norton’s mother was Ann, daughter and heiress of
Miles Ratcliffe, of Rylstone. Through her came to the Nortons the Rylstone
estates. Hence the title of the immortal poem of the Lake poet.
Rylstone and Barden (or Norton) Tower are both near Skipton-in-Craven.
Skipton Castle was the seat of the Cliffords Earls of Cumberland. The
Craven estates of the Nortons, it is said, were granted by James I. to
Francis Earl of Cumberland. (I visited Norton Tower in company with my
friend, Mr. William Whitwell, F.L.S., now of Balham, a gentleman of varied
literary and scientific acquirements, in the year 1883. Norton Tower,
built on Rylstone Fell, between the valleys which separate the Rivers Aire
and Wharfe, commands a magnificent prospect “without bound, of plain and
dell, dark moor and gleam of pool and stream.”——See Dr. Whitaker’s
“_Craven_.”)]
[Footnote A: Cardinal Allen, though a Lancashireman by his father, was a
Yorkshireman by his mother, who was Jane Lister, of the County of
York.——See Fitzherbert’s Life of Allen, in “_Memorials of Cardinal
Allen_.”——Lord Ribblesdale, of Gisburn Park, in the West Riding of the
County of York, is the representative of this ancient Yorkshire family of
Lister. Lord Masham is a representative of a younger branch of the same
family.
By a remarkable coincidence, on the 16th day of October, 1900, there were
presented to Pope Leo XIII., at Rome, on the occasion of the English
Pilgrimage, the Rev. Philip Fletcher, M.A., and Lister Drummond, Esq.,
barrister-at-law, representatives respectively of the families of both
Fletcher and Lister.]
[Footnote 45:——That Thomas Percy (of the Percies, of Beverley, not of
Scotton, I feel certain), the eldest of the conspirators, must have been a
Roman Catholic as a young man is plain from the fact that Marmaduke Ward,
brother-in-law to John Wright and Christopher Wright, had a designment “to
match” his gifted and beautiful eldest daughter, Mary, with Thomas Percy
who, however, singularly enough married Martha Wright, Mary Ward’s
aunt.——See “_Life of Mary Ward_,” by Mary Catherine Elizabeth Chambers
(Burns & Oates, 1882), vol. i., pp. 12 and 13.——Percy, being agent for his
kinsman, the Earl of Northumberland, would frequently reside at the Percy
palace at Topcliffe, which was only distant twelve miles or so of pleasant
riding across a breezy, charming country to Mulwith and Newby. Sampson
Ingleby, uncle to the Winters, succeeded Thomas Percy as the Earl’s agent
in Yorkshire. Sampson Ingleby was a very trusty man. A photograph of a
painting of him is in Hailstone’s “_Yorkshire Worthies_,” taken from a
painting at Ripley Castle.
Edmund Neville Earl of Westmoreland, _de jure_, was afterwards one of the
many unsuccessful suitors for the hand of Mary Ward.——See her “_Life_,”
vol. i.——The Government would have liked to implicate Neville in the
Gunpowder Plot, but utterly failed to do so. He eventually became a Priest
of the Society of Jesus. He petitioned James to restore to him the Neville
estates, but without avail; so that historic Middleham and Kirbymoorside
(in Yorkshire), and Raby and Brancepeth (in Durham), finally passed from
the once proud house of Neville, one of whom was the well-known Warwick,
the King-maker, owing to the chivalrous, ill-fated Rising of 1569. This
Rising first broke out at Topcliffe, between Ripon and Thirsk, where the
Earl of Northumberland was then sojourning at his palace, the site of
which is pointed out to this day. Topcliffe is situated on the waters of
the River Swale, which (like the East Riding river, the Derwent) is sacred
to St. Paulinus, the disciple of St. Augustine, the disciple of St.
Gregory the Great, the most unselfish, disinterested friend the English
and Yorkshire people ever had.
The first Pilgrimage of Grace, under Robert Aske, of Aughton, broke out on
the banks of the Derwent. Hence, each of “the holy rivers” of Yorkshire
inspired a crusade——a thing worth memory.
Mr. Thomas P. Cooper, of York (author of “_York: the History of its Walls
and Castles_”), kindly refers me to “_Letters and Papers, Foreign and
Domestic, Henry VIII., 1537_,” p. 87, for evidence tending to prove that
Robert Aske was executed “on the height of the castle dungeon,” where the
High Sheriff of Yorkshire had jurisdiction, and _not_ the Sheriffs of the
City of York.
This would be Clifford’s Tower, not The Pavement, where Aske is sometimes
said to have met his fate. I think Mr. Cooper has, most probably, settled
the point by his discovery of this important letter of “the old Duke of
Norfolk” to Thomas Cromwell.]
[Footnote 46:——Father Gerard’s “Narrative of Gunpowder Plot” in
“_Conditions of Catholics under James I._” Edited by Father Morris, S.J.
(Longmans, 1872).]
[Footnote 47:——The “very imperfect proof” to which I refer is contained in
a certain marriage entry in the Registers at Ripon Minster. The date is
“10th July, 1588” (the year and month of the Spanish Armada), and _seems_
to me to be as follows: “Xpofer Wayde et Margaret Wayrde.” Now, “Margaret”
was a family name of the Wardes, of Givendale, Newby, and Mulwith, and the
clergyman making the entry _may_ have written “Wayde” instead of Wright.
We cannot tell. Therefore, alone, it is a mere _scintilla_ of evidence to
show that Christopher Wright married a Warde, of Mulwith.
Further research among those of the Ward (or Warde) papers that are yet
extant may clear the question as to whom Christopher Wright married. The
mysterious silence which broods over the life and career of Marmaduke
Ward, subsequent to the year 1605, suggests to my mind many far-reaching
supposals. Marmaduke Ward seems to have died before the year 1614, but the
“burials” of the Ripon Registers are lost for this period apparently.]
[Footnote 48:——Born 1563. Father Oswald Tesimond was for six years at
Hindlip Hall, along with Father Oldcorne. Ralph Ashley, a Jesuit
lay-brother, was Oldcorne’s servant.]
[Footnote 49:——John Wright was born about 1568. Christopher Wright was
born about 1570. Had they a brother Francis, living at Newbie (or Newby),
who had a son Robert?——See Ripon Registers, which records the baptism of a
Robert Wright, 25th March, 1601, the son of Francis Wright, of Newbie;
also of a Francis Wright, son of Francis Wright, of Newby, under date 2nd
February, 1592.
The Welwick Church Registers for this period are lost apparently, though
the burial is recorded, under date 13th October, 1654, of ffrauncis
Wright, Esquire, and of another ffrauncis Wright, under date 2nd May,
1664, both at Welwick. (Communicated to me by the Rev. D. V. Stoddart,
M.A., Vicar of Welwick.) Probably the Francis Wrights, of Newby (or
Newbie), are those buried at Welwick, being father and son respectively.
Certainly the coincidence is remarkable.——See _ante_.]
[Footnote 50:——Foley’s “_Records of the English Province of the Society of
Jesus_,” vol. iv., pp. 203-5 (Burns & Oates, 1878).]
[Footnote 51:——Quoted in Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 213.]
[Footnote 52:——It is noteworthy, as illustrative of Father Oldcorne’s
character, that Robert Winter says in his letter to the Lords
Commissioners, 21st January, 1605-6: “After our departure from Holbeach,
about some ten days, we [_i.e._, himself and Stephen Littleton, the Master
of Holbeach] met Humphrey Littleton, cousin to Stephen Littleton, and we
then entreated him to seek out one Mr. Hall [an alias of Oldcorne] for us,
and desire him to help us to some resting place.”——See Jardine’s
“_Criminal Trials, Gunpowder Plot_,” vol. ii., p. 146.]
[Footnote 53:——Schismatic Catholics were those Catholics that went to Mass
in private houses, and then, more or less, frequented their parish church
afterwards to escape the fines. They were further divided into
Communicants and Non-communicants. Very often the men of a family were
Catholics of this sort, and the womenkind strict Catholics. Indeed, it was
mainly the women and the priests that have kept “the Pope’s religion”
alive in England: although, of course, _many_ men of great mental and
physical powers were papists of the most rigid class. The practice of
“going to the Protestant church,” as English Roman Catholics term the
practice to this day, was deliberately condemned by the Council of Trent.
The cause of the historic controversy between the Jesuits and the Secular
Priests in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. lies in a nut-shell. It
was this: the Jesuits, and especially their extraordinarily able leader,
Father Parsons, thought that the Secular Priests required watching. And so
they did; and so do all other human creatures. But the mistake that
Parsons made was this: his prejudices and prepossessions blinded him to
the fact that the proper watchers of Secular Priests are Bishops and the
Pope, and not a society of Presbyters, however grave, however gifted, or
however pious.]
[Footnote 54:——“_Collecti Cardwelli_,” Public Record Office, Brussels Vitæ
Mart, p. 147.
In Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., there is a beautiful picture of Father
Edward Oldcorne, S.J., now “the Venerable Edward Oldcorne,” one of York’s
most remarkable sons. In the left-hand corner of the portrait is a
representation of a portion of Old Ouse Bridge, with St. William’s Chapel
(at present the site of which is occupied by Messrs. Varvills’
establishment). St. Sampson’s Church, the ancient church which gave the
name of the parish where Oldcorne first saw the light of the sun, is still
standing. It is near Holy Trinity, King’s Court, or Christ’s Parish, where
“the Venerable,” Margaret Clitherow lived. Oldcorne must have known that
great York citizen well. She was born in Davygate, and was the second wife
of a butcher, named John Clitherow, of the Parish of Christ, in the City
of York. She was married in the Church of St. Martin, Coney Street, in
1571. She was one of Nature’s gentlewomen, by birth: and the Church of
Rome, ever mindful of her own, declared in 1886 (just three hundred years
after the martyr’s death in the Tolbooth, on Old Ouse Bridge) that
Margaret Clitherow, a shrewd, honest, devout York tradeswoman, is one of
the Church’s “Venerable Servants of God,” by grace.——See J. B. Milburn’s
Life of this extraordinary Elizabethan Yorkshire-woman, entitled, “_A
Martyr of Old York_” (Burns & Oates, London).]
[Footnote 55:——This crossing-out of the word “yowe” is noticed in Nash’s
“_History of Worcestershire_.”]
[Footnote 56:——The word “good” is omitted in the copy of the Letter given
in the “_Authorised Discourse_,” which is remarkable. I think it was done
designedly, in order to minimize the merit of the revealing plotter.]
[Footnote 57:——King James’s interpretation of these enigmatical words was
simply fantastical. It may be read in Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” and in most
contemporary relations of the Plot.]
[Footnote 58:——I am of opinion that one of Father Oldcorne’s servants,
Ralph Ashley by name, a Jesuit lay-brother, was the person that actually
conveyed the Letter to the page who was in the street adjoining Lord
Mounteagle’s Hoxton residence, on the evening of Saturday, the 26th of
October, 1605. My reason for being of the opinion that Ralph Ashley
conveyed the Letter will be seen hereafter, in due course of this Inquiry.
The page’s evidence went to show that the deliverer of the Letter was a
tall man, or a reasonably tall man. There is nothing inconsistent in this
account of the height of the Letter-carrier with what we know of the size
of Ashley, which is negative knowledge merely. I mean we are not told
anywhere that he was of short stature, as we are told in the case (1) of
the Jesuit lay-brother, Brother Ralph Emerson, a native of the County of
Durham, and the servant of Edmund Campion——see Simpson’s “_Life of
Campion_”——whom the genial orator playfully called “his little
man”——“_homulus_”; and in the case (2) of the Jesuit lay-brother, Brother
Nicholas Owen, the servant of Garnet, who was affectionately termed
“little John” by the Catholics in whose castles, manor-houses, and halls,
up and down the country, he constructed most ingenious secret places for
the hiding of priests.
Ralph Ashley had acted in some humble capacity at the English Catholic
College of Valladolid, which had been founded in Spain from Rheims,
through the generosity of noble-hearted Spanish Catholics, among whom was
that majestic soul, Dona Luisa de Carvajal.——See her “_Life_,” by the late
Lady Georgiana Fullerton (Burns & Oates).——See also “_The Life of the
Venerable John Roberts, O.S.B._,” by the Rev. Bede Camm, O.S.B. (Sands &
Co.)——Father Roberts founded the Benedictine College at Douay, still in
existence. Cardinal Allen’s secular priests’ College is now used as a
French Barracks. Ushaw College, Durham, and St. Edmund’s College, Ware,
are the lineal successors of Cardinal Allen’s College at Douay.
(By the way, when are the letters of the late Dr. Lingard likely to be
published? Lingard, after Wiseman, was the greatest man Ushaw has
produced, and his letters would be interesting reading; for Lingard must
have known many of the most considerable personages of his day. Lingard
died at Hornby, near Lancaster, not far from Hornby Castle, the seat of
the once famous Lord Mounteagle.)
Brother Raphael (or Ralph) Ashley, was possibly akin to the Ashleys, of
Goule Hall, in the Township of Cliffe, in the Parish of Hemingbrough, in
the East Riding of Yorkshire, or to the Ashleys, of Todwick, near
Sheffield, in the south-east of Yorkshire. He came to England along with
Father Oswald Tesimond, in 1597.——See “Father Tesimond’s landing in
England,” in Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,” first
series (Burns & Oates).——If Ashley were a Yorkshireman, one can easily
understand his being the chosen companion of the two Yorkshire Jesuits,
Oldcorne and Tesimond.
This Jesuit lay-brother was acquainted with London; and as, _Qui facit per
alium facit per se_, it was pre-eminently likely that Oldcorne would
employ his confidential servant to perform so weighty a mission as the one
I have attributed unto him.
Again, since “he who acts through another acts through himself,” it is
unnecessary for me to treat at large in the Text concerning my supposal
respecting the part that Brother Ralph Ashley played in the great drama of
the Gunpowder Plot. Ashley being identified with his master, Father
Oldcorne, shares, in his degree, his master’s merits and praise.
Professor J. A. Froude thought that Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the same
stock as Brother Ralph Emerson. It is quite possible. For after the
Gunpowder Plot, I opine that the younger Catholics in many cases became
Puritans, and in some cases, later on, Quakers.]
[Footnote 59:——Notwithstanding the endless chain of the causation of human
acts and human events, man’s strongest and clearest knowledge tells him
that he is “master of his fate,” nay, that “he is fated to be free,”
inasmuch as at any moment man can open the flood-gates that are betwixt
him and an Infinite Ocean of Pure Unconditioned Freedom: can open those
flood-gates, and in that Ocean can lave at will, and so render himself a
truly emancipated creature.
The antinomies of Thought and Life do not destroy nor make void the Facts
of Thought and Life. Antinomies surround man on every side, and one of the
great ends of life is to know the same, and to act regardful of that
knowledge.]
[Footnote 60:——The copy in the “_Authorised Discourse_” gives “shift off,”
not “shift of” as in the original. Doubtless “shift off” was the
expression intended. It is still occasionally used in the country
districts about York. The word “tender,” in the sense of “take care of” or
“have a care of,” is to-day quite common in that neighbourhood (1901).]
[Footnote 61:——“_Gunpowder Plot Books_,” vol. ii., p. 202.]
[Footnote 62:——It is impossible to describe the emotions that welled up in
the heart of the writer as he gazed on this small, faded, and fading
document: emotions of awe and gratitude, blended with veneration and
reverence, for the maker of this lever——this sheet-anchor——of the temporal
salvation of so many human creatures, who had been barbarously appointed
to die by those that had forgotten what spirit they were of.
The writer was favoured by the sight of the original Letter on Friday, the
5th day of October, 1900, at about half-past two o’clock in the afternoon.
He desires to place on record his sense of obligation for the courteous
civility with which he was treated by the authorities at the Record
Office, London, on this occasion.]
[Footnote 63:——Oldcorne, being a Jesuit, would from time to time go to
White Webbs, Morecrofts (near Uxbridge), Erith-on-the-Thames, Stoke Pogis,
Thames Street (London), and other places of Jesuit resort where Mounteagle
and Ward had the _entrée_. Again, he must have known well the Vaux family
of Harrowden, and all the circle that Mounteagle and Ward would move in.
Again, if Ward were married in York, in 1579, he may have met Oldcorne as
a Catholic medical student of promise in the ancient city.
Along with a dear brother, a young Yorkshireman, in London, I visited
White Webbs, by Enfield Chase, on Saturday, the 6th October, 1900. The old
house known as Dr. Hewick’s House, where the conspirators met, is now no
longer standing; but the spacious park, with its umbrageous oak trees,
meandering streams, tangled thickets, and pleasant paths, is almost
unchanged, I should fancy, since it was the rendezvous of the Gunpowder
traitors, concerning whom the utmost one can say is that they were not for
themselves; and that Nemesis in this life justly punished them, and drove
them to make meet expiation and atonement, before the face of all men, for
their infamous offences. Thereby Destiny enabled the men to restore
equality between the State they had so wronged, _in act and in desire_,
and themselves; and a happy thing for the men, as well as for others, that
Destiny did so enable them whilst there was yet time.
(In October, 1900, I was informed that the present mansion, known as White
Webbs, belongs to the Lady Meúx.)]
[Footnote 64:——Known by Edmund Church, Esq., his confidant.]
[Footnote 65:——See “_Life of Mary Ward_,” vol. i., p. 1.]
[Footnote 66:——M’rgery Slater most probably belonged to a Ripon family, as
I find the same Christian name and surname among entries of the
“Christenings” in the Ripon Minster Register, a few years after the year
1579. Possibly the child was a niece of “Mistress M’rgery Ward.” “Mistress
Warde” may have been a relative of Mr. Cotterell, as I find in the St.
Michael-le-Belfrey Register the entry of the burial (1583) of Anne ————
who is described as “s’vaunt and cozine to Mr. Cotterell, being about
twenty-six years of age.” Now, Mr. Cotterell was probably Mr. James
Cotterell, of the Parish of (Old) St. Wilfred, York, a demolished church,
whose site is to-day (1901) occupied by the official lodgings of the
King’s Judges of Assize when on circuit. For the “subsidy” of 1581, a Mr.
James Cotterell of that parish was assessed in “Lande” at £6 13s. 4d.
(among the highest of the York assessments). There was a Mr. Cotterell “an
Examiner” for the Council of the North in the time of Elizabeth, and I
have no doubt that “Mistress Warde’s” late master was this very gentleman.
Whether the young woman whom “Thomas Ward, of Mulwaith,” made his wife
(evidently direct from the house of her master), on the 29th day of May,
1579, was the equal by birth and by descent of her husband, I do not know.
Let us hope, however, that alike in gifts of personal attractiveness and
graces of character she was not unworthy of one who came from so truly
“gentle” a people as the Wardes, of Mulwith, Givendale, and Newby. If
M’gery Slater did hail from Ripon, this “faithful following” of her to
York, and from the house of her master, publicly making her, in the face
of all the world, his “true and honourable wife, as dear to him as were
the ruddy drops that visited his own heart,” bears early witness to an
idealism of mind in this Yorkshire gentleman that was thoroughly in
keeping with the chivalrous race whence he sprang. I cannot give any
personal description of Thomas Warde; but I can of Marmaduke Warde, who
was also of Mulwith, or Mulwaith, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and
from _this_ picture we may imagine _that_.]
[Footnote 67:——Speaking of Marmaduke Warde (or Ward)——for the name was
spelt either way——his kinswoman Winefrid Wigmore, a lady of high family
from Herefordshire, in after years said:——“His name is to this day famous
in that country [_i.e._ Yorkshire] for his exceeding comeliness of person,
sweetness and beauty of face, agility and activeness, the knightly
exercises in which he excelled, and above all for his constancy and
courage in Catholic religion, admirable charity to the poor, so as in
extreme dearth never was poor denied at his gate; commonly sixty, eighty,
and sometimes a hundred in a day, to whom he gave great alms: and yet is
also famous his valour and fidelity to his friend, and myself have heard
it spoken by several, but particularly and with much feeling by Mr.
William Mallery, the eldest and best of that name, who were near of kin to
our ‘Mother,’ both by father and mother.”
The William Mallery, here spoken of, was one of “the Mallories,” of
Studley Royal, near Ripon, the present seat of their descendants, the Most
Hon. the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon.
The above quotation is taken from the “_Life_” of Marmaduke Ward’s eldest
daughter, Mary, who was one of the most beautiful and heroic women of her
age.——See M. C. E. Chambers’ “_Life of Mary Ward_,” vol. i., p. 6 (Burns &
Oates).——Mary Ward died at the Old Manor House, Heworth, near York, on the
20th January, 1645-6. She was related to Father Edward Thwing, of Heworth
Hall, who suffered at Lancaster for his priesthood, 26th July, 1600. I
think the Old Heworth Hall was built _behind_ the present Old Manor House,
which seems to be an erection of about the end of the seventeenth century.
The Thwing family, of Gate Helmsley, then owned Old Heworth Hall, where
Father Antony Page was apprehended, who suffered at the York Tyburn in
1593 for the like offence, which, by statute, was high treason (27 Eliz.).
Thomas Percy, John Wright, and Christopher Wright, as well as Guy Fawkes,
may have often visited Old Heworth Hall. In fact there is still a
tradition that the Gunpowder plotters “were at Old Heworth Hall”
(communicated to me in 1890 by the owner, W. Surtees Hornby, Esq., J.P.,
of York), and also a tradition that Father Page was apprehended there. Mr.
T. Atkinson, for the tenant, his brother-in-law, Mr. Moorfoot, showed the
writer, on the 9th August, 1901, the outhouse or hay chamber (of brick and
old timber) where this priest was taken on Candlemas Day morning in the
year 1593.——See Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,” third
series, p. 139.——This holy martyr was a connection of the Bellamy family,
of Uxendon, with whom the great and gifted Father Southwell was captured.
Father Page was a native of Harrow-on-the-Hill. The last of the English
martyrs was Father Thomas Thwing, of Heworth, who was executed at the York
Tyburn, 1680. His vestments belong to the Herbert family, of Gate
Helmsley. I have seen them about three times at St. Mary’s Convent, York,
where they have been lent by the kindness of the owner. What a hallowed
and affecting link with the past are those beautiful, but fading, priestly
garments.
The following letter of Mr. Bannister Dent will be read with interest, as
helping the concatenation of the evidence. It is from a York solicitor who
for many years was Guardian for the old Parish of St. Wilfred, in the City
of York:——
“York,
21st March, 1901.”
“OLD PARISH OF ST. WILFRED.”
“In reply to your letter of to-day’s date, the streets comprised
in the above parish were Duncombe Place, Blake Street, Museum
Street, Lendal Hill, and Lendal. I have made enquiries, and am
informed that St. Michael-le-Belfrey’s Church would be the
church at which a resident in this parish would be married.”]
[Footnote 68:——Margery Warde (born Slater) was probably the sister of one
Hugo Slater, of Ripon, who, subsequently to 1579, had a daughter, Margery,
and a son, Thomas.——See Ripon Registers.
John Whitham, Esq., of the City of Ripon, has been so kind as to place at
my disposal the Index, which is the result of his researches into the
Ripon Registers. There seems to be no entry of the baptism of Mary (or
Joan or Jane) Ward in 1585-86, nor of John Ward, William Ward, nor Teresa
Ward. George Warde’s baptism is recorded: “18th May, 1595 [not 1594],
George Waryde filius M’maduci de Mulwith.” Then under date 3rd September,
1598, occurs, three years afterwards, this significant entry: “Thomas
Warde filius M’maduci _de Nubie_.” This naming of his son “Thomas” by
Marmaduke Warde, I submit, _almost_ suffices to clench the proof that
Marmaduke and Thomas Warde were akin to each other _as brothers_.
If proof be required that the name “Ward” was spelt both Ward and Warde,
it is contained in the following entries in the Ripon Minster Registers of
the baptism of Marmaduke Ward’s daughters, Eliza and Barbara[A]: “30 April
1591——Eliza, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of Mulwith;” “21 November
1592——Barbara, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of Mulwith.” The entries are in
Latin. In some subsequent entries Marmaduke Warde is described as of
Newbie, _e.g._: “5 Nov. 1594——Ellyn, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of
Newbie.”]
[Footnote A: Eliza was probably Elizabeth Warde, and Ellyn——Teresa
Warde.]
[Footnote 69:——Newby was spelt “Newbie” at that time. Newby adjoins the
village of Skelton. Mulwith is about a mile from Newby.]
[Footnote 70:——See vol. v., p. 681.]
[Footnote 71:——Henry Parker Lord Morley, the grandfather of Mounteagle,
married Lady Elizabeth Stanley, daughter of Edward Earl of Derby. He was
one of the peers who recorded his vote against Elizabeth’s Act of
Uniformity, and became “an exile for the faith” in the Netherlands after
the year 1569. His son, Edward Parker Lord Morley, Mounteagle’s father,
was born in 1555; he too lived abroad for some years, but eventually seems
to have conformed wholly, or in part, to the established religion;
although his son, Lord Mounteagle, was, on the latter’s own testimony,
brought up a Roman Catholic, and, in fact, died in that belief. From an
undated letter of Mounteagle, ably written, addressed to the King, and
given in Gerard’s “_What was the Gunpowder Plot?_” p. 256, it is evident
that (after the Plot, most likely) Mounteagle intended to conform to the
Establishment. The Morley barony was created in 1299.——See Burke’s
“_Extinct Peerages_,” and Horace Round’s “_Studies in Peerage and Family
History_,” p. 23 (Constable, Westminster, 1901).——From Camden’s
“_Britannia_,” the Morleys evidently owned, at various times, estates in
the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, in addition to Essex, Lincolnshire,
and Lancashire.
That the conformity to the Established Church of Edward Parker Lord Morley
(the father of William Parker Lord Mounteagle) was in part only is, to
some extent, evidenced by the fact that Mr. Edward Yelverton (one of the
well-known Yelvertons, of Norfolk) is described at the end of the reign of
Elizabeth as “a Catholic, domiciled in the household of Lord Morley.”——See
Dr. Jessopp’s “_One Generation of a Norfolk House_,” being chiefly the
biography of the celebrated Jesuit, Henry Walpole, who suffered for his
priesthood at the York Tyburn, 7th April, 1595, in the thirty-sixth year
of his age. Rome, in 1886, declared Henry Walpole to be “a Venerable
Servant of God.”]
[Footnote 72:——See vol. i., p. 244.]
[Footnote 73:——See vol. i., p. 244.]
[Footnote 74:——See vol. i., p. 238.]
[Footnote 75:——See vol. i., p. 237.]
[Footnote 76:——Edward Poyntz, Esquire, was a relative, lineal or
collateral, of the celebrated James Duke of Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, whose mother was a daughter of Sir John Poyntz.——See that
valuable work, “_The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_,” p. 254, by John
P. Prendergast (McGlashan & Gill, Dublin, 1875).
I have found much information about the Poyntz family in the “_Visitation
of Essex_” (Harleian Soc). I think that Edward Poyntz was uncle to the
Viscountess Thurles. If so, he would be great-uncle to the Duke of
Ormonde. From this it would follow that the Viscountess Thurles (who was a
strict Roman Catholic) would be a first cousin to Mary Poyntz, the friend
and companion, as well as relative, of Mary Warde, the daughter of
Marmaduke Warde, and niece of Thomas Warde.——See “_Life of Mary Ward_,”
vol. i.
Winefrid Wigmore, already mentioned, was cousin, once removed, to Lady
Mounteagle, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham, Sir William Wigmore,
Winefrid’s father, having married her aunt, Anne Throckmorton, a daughter
of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Lady Catesby was another daughter.——See Note
30 _supra_.]
[Footnote 77:——As slightly supporting the contention that Lord Morley, the
father of Mounteagle, was related to, or at least connected with, the
Wards, it is to be observed that John Wright, the elder brother by the
whole blood of Ursula Ward, at the time when the Plot was concocted, had
his “permanent residence at Twigmore,” in the Parish of Manton, near
Brigg, in Lincolnshire.——Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 32.——Now, in Foley’s
“_Records_,” vol. i., p. 627, it is stated that Twigmore, or Twigmoor, and
Holme “were ancient possessions of the Morley family.” The brothers John
and Christopher Wright were evidently called after two uncles who bore
these two names respectively.——See Norcliffe’s Ed. of Flower’s
“_Visitation of Yorkshire_” (Harleian Soc).]
[Footnote 78:——To-day (April, 1901) Newby-cum-Mulwith forms one township.
Givendale is a township by itself. Along with Skelton they form a separate
ecclesiastical parish. Skelton Church, in Newby Park, is one of the most
beautiful in the county, having been erected by the late Lady Mary Vyner,
of Newby Hall. The Church is dedicated under the touching title of
“Christ, the Consoler.”
Formerly the Parish of Ripon included no less than thirty villages. At
Skelton, Aldfield, Sawley, Bishop Thornton, Monckton, and Winksley there
were Chapels. Pateley Bridge also had a Chapel, but this was
parochial.——See Gent’s “_Ripon_.”——At Sawley, I find from the Ripon
Register of Baptisms, there was a William Norton living (described as
“_generosus_”) in 1589. He would be the great-grandson of old Richard
Norton, who by his first wife, Susanna, daughter of Neville Lord Latimer,
had eleven sons and seven daughters. They were (according to an old
writer), these Nortons, “a trybe of wicked people universally papists.” It
is reported to this day (Easter Day, 1901), at Bishop Thornton, by Mr.
Henry Wheelhouse, of Markington, aged 84, that the Nortons, of Sawley,
continued constant in their adherence to the ancient faith till well on
into the nineteenth century.
Mr. Wheelhouse’s recollection to this effect may be well founded; because
not only has there been a remnant of English Roman Catholics always in the
adjoining hamlet of Bishop Thornton, but there was at Fountains, in 1725,
a Father Englefield, S.J., stationed there——see Foley’s “_Records_,” vol.
v., p. 722——and if the Nortons, of Sawley (or some of them) remained
Papists, one can understand how it might come to pass that there was a
Jesuit Priest maintained at Fountains and a Secular Priest at Bishop
Thornton, only a few miles off. The Roman Catholic religion was also long
maintained by the Messenger family, of Cayton Hall, South Stainley, and by
the Trapps family, of Nydd Hall, both only within walking distance of
Bishop Thornton: maintained until the nineteenth century. I think the
Messengers, too, owned Fountains in 1725. Viscount Mountgarret now owns
Nydd Hall. His Lordship’s family, the Butlers, are allied to the Lords
Vaux of Harrowden.
Mass also was said (before the present Roman Catholic Chapel was built at
Bishop Thornton) at Raventoftes Hall, in the Ripon Chapelry of Bishop
Thornton, once the home of the stanch old Catholic family of Walworth.
Then Mass was said in the top chamber, running the whole length of the
priest’s present house. Afterwards (about 1778) followed the present stone
Chapel. Clare Lady Howard, of Glossop, built the Schools at Bishop
Thornton a few years ago.
F. Reynard, Esquire, J.P., of Hob Green, Markington and Sunderlandwick,
Driffield, now owns Raventoftes Hall, which has a splendid view towards
Sawley, How Hill, and Ripon. It is rented by a Roman Catholic, named Mr.
F. Stubbs, who is akin to the Hawkesworths, the Shanns, the Darnbroughs,
and other old Bishop Thornton and Ripon families.
Peacock, in his “_List_,” speaks of William Norton as a grandson of
Richard Norton, but, according to Burke’s “_Peerage_,” he must have been a
great-grandson. The Nortons may have saved the Sawley estate from
forfeiture, somehow or another, or perchance they bought it in afterwards
from some Crown nominee. Francis Norton, the eldest son and heir of old
Richard Norton, fled with his father to the continent. His son was Edmund,
and _his_ son was William Norton, of Sawley, whose descendant was the
first Lord Grantley.
Gabetis Norton, Esquire, owned Dole Bank, between Markington and Bishop
Thornton, where Miss Lascelles, Miss Butcher, and others of Mary Ward’s
followers, lived a semi-conventual life during the reign of Charles II.,
previously to their taking up their abode near Micklegate Bar, York.——See
“_Annals of St. Mary’s Convent, York_,” Edited by H. J. Coleridge, S.J.
(Burns & Oates).——Sir Thomas Gascoigne, of Barnbow, Aberford, was the
benefactor of these ladies, both at Dole Bank and York; Dole Bank probably
at that time belonging to this “fine old English gentleman,” who died a
very aged man at the Benedictine Abbey of Lambspring, in Germany, a
voluntary exile for his faith. Dole Bank came to Gabetis Norton, Esquire,
in the eighteenth century, from his sister, who was the wife of Colonel
Thornton, of Thornville Royal (now Stourton Castle, near Knaresbrough, the
seat of the Lord Mowbray and Stourton) and of Old Thornville, Little
Cattal, now the property of William Machin, Esq. (Derived from old
title-deeds and writings in the possession of representatives of William
Hawkes, yeoman, of Great Cattal.) Dole Bank, I believe, now belongs to
Captain Greenwood, of Swarcliffe Hall, Birstwith, Nidderdale. During the
early part of the nineteenth century the Darnbroughs rented Dole Bank, the
present tenant being Mr. Atkinson.]
[Footnote 79:——I think that Thomas Warde may have been born about the
beginning of Elizabeth’s reign; for if he were married in 1579, and was,
say, twenty-one years of age at the time of his marriage, this would fix
his birth about the year 1558. Early marriages were characteristic of the
period. Mounteagle, for example, was married before he was eighteen. The
Ripon Registers begin in fairly regular course in 1587, though there are
fragments from 1574, but not earlier. If Christopher Wright, the plotter,
lived in Bondgate, Ripon, and had a child born to him in 1589 (the year
after the Spanish Armada), he must, like Mounteagle, have been married
when about eighteen years of age. These instances should be carefully
noted by students of Shakespeare, inasmuch as they render the poet’s
marriage with Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he was little more than eighteen
and a-half years old, less startling.——See Sidney Lee’s “_Life of
Shakespeare_,” p. 18 (Smith & Elder, 1898).
I should like also to add that I think there is a great deal in
Halliwell-Phillips’ contention as to Shakespeare having made the
“troth-plight.”——Concerning the “troth-plight” see Lawrence Vaux’s
“_Catechism_,” Edited by T. G. Law, with a valuable historical preface
(Chetham Soc).——Shakespeare’s “mentor” in the days of his youth was, most
probably, some old Marian Priest, like Vaux, who was a former Warden of
the Collegiate Church at Manchester, and with “the great Allen” and men
like Vivian Haydock——see Gillow’s “_Haydock Papers_” (Burns &
Oates)——retained Lancashire in its allegiance to Rome——so that “the
jannock” Lancashire Catholics style their county, “God’s County” even unto
this day.]
[Footnote 80:——The strong and, within due limits, admirable spirit of
“clannishness” that still animates the natives of Yorkshire——a valiant,
adventurous, jovial race, fresh from Dame Nature’s hand——is evidenced by
the fact that within a very recent date the Yorkshiremen who have gone up
to the great metropolis, like many another before them, to seek their
livelihood, and maybe their fortune, have formed an association of their
own. This excellent institution for promoting good fellowship among those
hailing from the county of broad acres has for Patron during the present
year, 1901, the Duke of Cornwall and York (now H.R.H. The Prince of Wales,
December, 1901), and that typical Yorkshireman, Viscount Halifax, for
President. The Earl of Crewe, Lord Grantley, Sir Albert K. Rollit, Knt.,
M.P., _cum multis aliis_, are members. May it flourish _ad multos annos_!]
[Footnote 81:——In the Record Office, Chancery Lane, London.]
[Footnote 82:——The Earl of Northumberland was fined by the Star Chamber
£30,000, ordered to forfeit all offices he held under the Crown, and to be
imprisoned in the Tower for life. He paid £11,000 of the fine; and was
released in 1621. He was the son of Henry Percy eighth Earl of
Northumberland, and nephew of “the Blessed” Thomas Percy seventh Earl of
Northumberland, and of Mary Slingsby, the wife of Francis Slingsby, of
Scriven, near Knaresbrough. Although the Earl of Northumberland that was
Star-Chambered was by his own declaration no papist, he was looked up to
by the English Roman Catholics as their natural leader. His kinship with
the conspirator, Thomas Percy, alone is usually thought to have involved
the Earl in this trouble; but probably the inner circle of the Government
knew more than they thought it policy to publish. “Simple truth,”
moreover, was not this Government’s “utmost skill.”
Lord Montague compounded for a fine of £4,000. Guy Fawkes, for a time, was
a member of this peer’s household.——See “_Calendar of State Papers, James
I._”
Lord Stourton compounded for £1,000.
Lord Mordaunt’s fine was remitted after his death, which took place in
1608. Robert Keyes and his wife were members of this peer’s
household.——See “_Calendar of State Papers, James I._”
These three noblemen were absent from Parliament on the 5th of November,
no doubt having received a hint so to do from the conspirators. This fact
of absence the Government construed into a charge of Concealment of
Treason and Contempt in not obeying the King’s Summons to Parliament.——See
Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” pp. 159-164.
The Gascoignes, through whom the Earl of Northumberland and the Wardes
were connected, belonged to the same family as the famous Chief Justice of
Henry IV., who committed to prison Henry V., when “Harry Prince of
Wales.”——See Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV.” and “King Henry V.”
The Gascoignes were a celebrated Yorkshire family, their seats being
Gawthorpe, Barnbow, and Parlington, in the West Riding. They were strongly
attached to their hereditary faith, and suffered much for it, from the
infliction of heavy fines. Like Lord William Howard, the Inglebies, of
Lawkland, near Bentham, the Plumptons, of Plumpton, near Knaresbrough, and
the Fairfaxes, of Gilling, near Ampleforth, the Gascoignes were greatly
attached to the ancient Benedictine Order, which took such remarkable root
in England through St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, and his forty
missionaries, all of whom were Benedictines.——See Taunton’s “_The English
Black Monks of St. Benedict_” (Methuen & Co.); also Dr. Gasquet’s standard
work on “_English Monasteries_” (John Hodges).
It may be, perhaps, gratifying to the historic feeling of my readers to
learn that the influence of these old Yorkshire Roman Catholic families,
the Gascoignes, the Inglebies, and the Plumptons, is still felt at Bentham
and in the old Benedictine Missions of Aberford, near Barnbow, and of
Knaresbrough, near picturesque Plumpton, notwithstanding that the places
which once so well knew the Gascoignes and the Plumptons now know them no
more. The present gallant Colonel Gascoigne, of Parlington, I believe, is
not himself descended from the Roman Catholic Gascoignes in the direct
male line of descent; the Inglebies, of Lawkland, recently died out; and
the Plumptons to-day are not even represented in name.
The stately Benedictine Abbey of St. Lawrence, Ampleforth, in the Vale of
Mowbray, will long perpetuate the memory of the Fairfaxes, of Gilling; H.
C. Fairfax-Cholmeley, Esquire, J.P., of Brandsby Hall, now represents this
ancient family.]
[Footnote 83:——See “_Condition of Catholics under James I._,” by the Rev.
John Morris, S.J., pp. 256, 257 (Longmans). The charge of complicity was
based on an alleged reception of Father John Gerard, S.J. (the friend of
Sir Everard Digby, and author of the contemporary Narrative of the Plot),
by Sir John Yorke at Gowthwaite Hall, after the Gunpowder Treason. Gerard
left England in 1606, and there is no evidence whatever that he had
anything to do with the Plot. I do not know, for certain, how Sir John
Yorke fared as to the upshot of his prosecution. But I strongly suspect
that the tradition that obtains among the dalesmen of Nidderdale to the
effect that the Yorkes, of Gowthwaite (or Goulthwaite, as it is styled in
the Valley), were once heavily fined by the Star Chamber for acting in the
great Chamber of Gowthwaite a political play, wherein the Protestant
actors were worsted by the Catholic actors, sprang from these proceedings
against Sir John Yorke anent the Gunpowder Plot. For long years after the
reign of James I., the Yorkes, like the Inglebies their relatives, were
rigid Catholics. This ancient and honourable family of Yorke is still in
existence, being represented by T. E. Yorke, Esquire, J.P., of Bewerley
Hall, Pateley Bridge. The old home of the Yorkes, Gowthwaite Hall, where
doubtless many priests were harboured “in the days of persecution,” is
about to be pulled down to make way for the Bradford Reservoir. I visited,
about 1890, the charming old Hall built of grey stone, with mullioned
windows. A description of this historic memorial of the days of Queen
Elizabeth and James I. is to be seen in “_Nidderdale_,” by H. Speight, p.
468 (Elliot Stock); also in Fletcher’s “_Picturesque Yorkshire_” (Dent &
Co.), which latter work contains a picture of the place, a structure “rich
with the spoils of time,” but, alas! destined soon to be “now no more.”
Ripley Castle, the home of the Inglebies, at the entrance to Nidderdale
(truly the Switzerland of England), still rears its ancient towers, and
still is the roof-tree of those who worthily bear an honoured historic
name for ever “to historic memory dear.”
“_From Eden Vale to the Plains of York_,” by Edmund Bogg, contains
sketches of both Ripley Castle and Gowthwaite Hall. Lucas’s “_Nidderdale_”
(Elliot Stock) is also well worth consulting for its account of the
dialect of this part of Yorkshire which, like the West Riding generally,
retains strong Cymric traces. There are also British characteristics in
the build and personal appearance of the people, as also in their
marvellous gift of song. The Leeds Musical Festival and its Chorus, for
example, are renowned throughout the whole musical world.]
[Footnote 84:——It is, moreover, possible that Mounteagle may have met his
connection, and probably kinsman, Thomas Warde, at White Webbs, about the
year 1602. Mounteagle, at that time, like the Earl of Southampton and the
Earl of Rutland, was not allowed to attend Elizabeth’s Court on account of
his share in the Essex tumult. He was, in fact, then mixed up with the
schemes of Father Robert Parsons’ then-expiring Spanish faction among the
English Catholics. If a certain Thomas Grey, to whom Garnet at White Webbs
showed the papal breves (which the latter burnt in 1603, on James I. being
proclaimed King by applause), were the same person as Sir Thomas Gray, he
would be, most probably, a relative of Thomas Warde. For the Wardes, of
Mulwith, certainly were related to a Sir Thomas Gray.——See “_Life of Mary
Ward_,” vol. i., p. 221, where it is said that, “through the Nevilles and
Gascoignes,” the Wards were related to the families of Sir Ralph and Sir
Thomas Gray.[A]
As to father Garnet showing the breves to Thomas Grey, see Foley’s
“_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 159, where it says:——Garnet “confesseth that in
the Queen’s lifetyme he received two Breefs (one was addressed by the Pope
to the English clergy, the other to the laity) concerning the succession,
and immediately upon the receipt thereof, be shewed them to Mr. Catesby
and Thomas Winter, then being at White Webbs; whereof they seemed to be
very glad and showed it (_sic_) also unto Thomas Grey at White Webbs
before one of his journies into Scotland in the late Queen’s tyme.”
It will be remembered that Thomas Percy, who married Martha Wright, Ursula
Warde’s sister, was one of those who waited upon James VI. of Scotland
before Elizabeth’s death, in order to obtain from him a promise of
toleration for the unhappy Catholics. James, the English Catholics
declared, did then promise toleration, and they considered that they had
been tricked by the “weasel Scot.” Fonblanque, in his “_Annals of the
House of Percy_,” vol. ii., p. 254 (Clay & Sons), thinks that Percy was a
man of action rather than of words, and that the reason he entered into
the Plot was that he was stung by the reproaches of the disappointed
Catholics, whom he had given to understand James intended to tolerate, and
that his vanity (or rather, I should say, self-love) was likewise wounded
at the recollection of the proved fruitlessness of his mission or missions
into Scotland. I think this is a very likely explanation. For, according
to “Winter’s Confession”——see Gardiner’s “_Gunpowder Plot_” (Longmans),
and Gerard’s three recent works (Osgood & Co. and Harper Bros.)——Thomas
Percy seems to have shown a stupendous determination “to see the Plot
through,” a fact which I have always been very much struck with. But if,
in addition to other motives, Percy had the incentive of “injured pride,”
we have an explanation of his extraordinarily ferocious anger and spirit
of revenge. For well does the Latin poet of “the tale of Troy divine”
insist with emphasis on the fact that it was “the _despised_
beauty”——“_spretæque_ injuria _formæ_”——of Juno, the goddess, that spurred
her to such deathless hatred against the ill-starred house of Priam. What
a knowledge of the springs of human action does not this portray!]
[Footnote A: Were Sir Ralph and Sir Thomas Gray of the Grays (or Greys),
of Chillingham, Northumberland? It may be remarked that, about the year
1597-98, Marmaduke Ward and his wife and some of his family went to live
in Northumberland, maybe at Alnwick; and as Thomas Percy was connected
with Marmaduke Ward, it is at least possible that Marmaduke Ward went
himself into Scotland on the mission to King James VI. in the company of
his brother-in-law, Thomas Percy.
But the Wards may have gone to Chillingham about 1597-9, and not to
Alnwick. Sir Thomas Gray, of Chillingham, married Lady Catherine Neville,
one of the four daughters of Charles Neville sixth Earl of Westmoreland,
whose wife was Lady Jane Howard, daughter of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey.
Lady Margaret Neville was married to Sir Nicholas Pudsey, of
Bolton-in-Bowland, Yorkshire, I think. Lady Anne Neville was married to
David Ingleby, of Ripley, a cousin of Marmaduke Ward and of Ursula Wright.
Lady Margaret Neville conformed to the Establishment, but afterwards, I
believe, the lady relapsed to popery.——See the “_Hutton Correspondence_”
(Surtees Soc.), and “_Sir Ralph Sadler’s Papers_,” Edited by Sir Walter
Scott.]
[Footnote 85:——Interesting evidence of the connection of Mounteagle with
not only these great northern families of Preston and Leybourne (whose
places that once so well knew them now know them no more), but also with
the Lords Dacres of the North and with the Earls of Arundel, is contained
in Stockdale’s book on the beautiful and historic Parish of Cartmel, on
the west coast of Lancashire, “North of the Sands.”——See Stockdale’s
“_Annales Caermoelenses_,” p. 410, a work, I believe, now out of
print.——Stockdale says that in the old Holker Hall (which seems to have
been built by George Preston, in the reign of James I.), in the Parish of
Cartmel, there was over the mantel-piece in the entrance-hall an
elaborately ornamented oak-wood carving, on which were displayed, in
alto-relievo, twelve coats-of-arms, namely:——Those of (1) King James I.,
with the lion and unicorn as supporters. (2) The Preston family, younger
branch; from whom, through an heiress, the Dukes of Devonshire to-day own
the Holker estates. The younger branch of the Prestons, viz., those of
Holker, were probably Schismatic Catholics, or “Church-papists,” for some
time, but gradually they conformed entirely to the Established Church. The
elder branch of the Prestons, namely, the Prestons, of the Manor Furness,
were strict Roman Catholics. Margaret Preston was married to Sir Francis
Howard, of Corby, third son of Lord William Howard, of Naworth. The last
of the Prestons, of the Manor, was Sir Thomas Preston, Bart., who, in
1674, became a Jesuit at the age of thirty-two.——See Foley’s “_Records_,”
vol. iv., p. 534, and vol. v., p. 358.——Sir Thomas Preston, S.J., had been
twice married, but had him surviving only two daughters, whom he amply
provided for, and then gave his Furness estates to the Society he had
joined. A subsequent Act of Parliament, however, defeated his intention
almost entirely. (3) Arundel impaling Dacre; Philip Howard Earl of Arundel
having married Anne Dacre, or Dacres, daughter of Thomas Lord Dacres of
the North. (4) Howard impaling Dacre; Lord William Howard having married
Elizabeth Dacre, or Dacres, sister to Anne Dacres Countess of Arundel and
Surrey. Through Elizabeth Howard, the Earls of Carlisle have the Naworth
Castle and Hinderskelfe (or Castle Howard) estates. (5) Morley impaling
Stanley; Edward Parker Lord Morley having married, in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, Elizabeth Stanley, only daughter of Lord Mounteagle, of Hornby
Castle, Lancashire (these were the parents of Lord Mounteagle, who married
Elizabeth Tresham). (6) Dacre impaling Leybourne, of Cunswick, near
Kendal; Thomas Lord Dacre having married Elizabeth Leybourne, daughter of
Sir James Leybourne, of Cunswick. (7) Stanley impaling Leybourne; William
Stanley third Lord Mounteagle, of Hornby Castle, having married Anne
Leybourne, sister to Elizabeth Lady Dacre. (8) Leybourne impaling Preston;
Ellen (Stockdale by mistake says Eleanor), daughter of Sir Thomas Preston,
of Westmoreland and Lancashire, having married Sir James Leybourne, of
Cunswick; this lady afterwards married Thomas Stanley second Lord
Mounteagle, the father of her son-in-law, William Stanley third Lord
Mounteagle, who married her daughter, Anne Leybourne, and who was the
grandfather of Lord Mounteagle, who married Elizabeth Tresham. (9)
Cavendish impaling Keighley; William Cavendish first Earl of Devonshire
having married Anne Keighley, daughter of Sir Henry Keighley, of Keighley,
Yorks. (10) Keighley impaling Carus; Henry Keighley, of Keighley, having
married Mary Carus, daughter of Sir Thomas Carus, of Kirkby Lonsdale. (11)
Carus impaling Preston; Sir Thomas Carus, of Kirkby Lonsdale, having
married Catherine Preston, daughter of Sir Thomas Preston, about the reign
of Philip and Mary. (12) Middleton impaling Carus; Edward Middleton, of
Middleton Hall (who died in 1599), having married Mary, daughter of Sir
Thomas Carus, of Kirkby Lonsdale.[A]
Fittingly does that great master of English, Frederic Harrison, quote
approvingly, in his charming book, “_Annals of an Old Manor House_”
(_i.e._, Sutton Place, Guildford, the home of the Westons, and the
dwelling, for a time, of the above-mentioned Anne Dacres Countess of
Arundel and Surrey——that queenly Elizabethan woman), the words of a
historian-friend of his: “Sink a shaft, as it were, in some chosen spot in
the annals of England, and you will come upon much that is never found in
the books of general history.” The late Robert Steggall, of Lewes, wrote a
fine poem in blank verse on “the Venerable” Philip Howard Earl of Arundel
and Surrey, the husband of Anne Dacres. It appeared in “_The Month_” some
years ago.]
[Footnote A: The arms of Lord Mounteagle were az., between two bars, sa.,
charged with three bezants, a lion passant, gu., in chief three bucks’
heads caboshed of the second.
The title Morley and Mounteagle is now in abeyance——see Burke’s “_Extinct
Peerages_”——since the year 1686, the reign of James II.
The last Lord Morley and Mounteagle died without issue. The issue of two
aunts of the deceased baron were his representatives. One aunt was
Katherine, who married John Savage second Earl of Rivers, and had issue;
the other aunt was Elizabeth, who married Edward Cranfield.
The present Earl of Morley, Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords,
though a Parker, is of the Parkers of Devonshire, a different family from
the Parkers of Essex.]
[Footnote 86:——The beautiful and pathetic “Lament,” so well known to
Scotsmen under the title of “The Flowers of the Forest,” was penned to
express “the lamentation, mourning, and woe” that filled the historic land
of “mountain and of flood,” on the tidings reaching “brave, bonnie
Scotland” of the “woeful fight” of Flodden Field. At the funeral of that
gallant soldier and fine Scotsman, the late General Wauchope, of the
Regiment known as the Black Watch, the pipers played this plaintive air,
“The Flowers of the Forest.” Who does not hope that those funereal strains
may be prophetic that, through the power of far-sighted wisdom, human
sympathy, and the healing hand of Time, there may be a reconciliation as
real and deep and true betwixt England’s kinsman-foe of to-day and herself
as there is betwixt herself and her kinsman-foe of the year 1513——the year
of Flodden Field!
See also Professor Aytoun’s “Edinburgh after Flodden,” in his “_Lays of
the Scottish Cavaliers_” (Routledge & Sons); also, of course, Sir Walter
Scott’s well-known “Marmion.”]
[Footnote 87:——It should be remembered that Baines says that Nichols, in
his “_Progresses of James I._,” describes Hornby Castle in Yorkshire, by
mistake, for the one in Lancashire.
The sunny, balmy, health-giving watering-place of Grange-over-Sands, built
at the foot of Yewbarrow, a pine-clad, hazel-loving fell, “by Kent
sand-side,” is in the ancient Parish of Cartmel; and, in connection with
the family of Lord Mounteagle, the following will be read with interest by
those who are privileged to know that golden land of the westering sun,
the paradise of the weak of chest.
About three miles from the Grange——so called because here was formerly a
Grange, or House, for the storing of grain by the Friars, or black Canons,
of the Augustinian Priory at Cartmel——is the square Peel Tower known as
Wraysholme Tower. In the windows of the old tower were formerly arms and
crests of the Harrington and Stanley families. A few miles to the west of
Cartmel were Adlingham and Gleaston, ancient possessions of the
Harringtons, which likewise became a portion of the Mounteagles’ Hornby
Castle estates. All this portion of the north of England abounded in
adherents of the ancient faith up to about the time of the Gunpowder Plot.
The Duke of Guise had planned that the Spanish Armada should disembark at
the large and commodious port of the Pile of Fouldrey, in the Parish of
Dalton-in-Furness, “North of the Sands.” This rock of the Pile of
Fouldrey, from which the port took its name, was not only near Adlingham
and Gleaston, but also near the Manor Furness, the seat of the elder
branch of the Prestons, from whom Mounteagle, on his mother’s side, was
descended.[A]]
[Footnote A: William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle’s great-great-uncle,
James Leybourne (or Labourn), of Cunswick and Skelsmergh, in the County of
Westmoreland, was hanged, drawn, and quartered by Queen Elizabeth, in the
year 1583.——See “_The Acts of the English Martyrs_,” by the Rev. J. H.
Pollen, S.J. (Burns & Oates).——James Leybourne is not reckoned “a Catholic
martyr” by Challoner, because he denied that Elizabeth was “his lawful
Queen.” There has been a doubt as to where this gentleman suffered “a
traitor’s death.” Baines says that he was executed at Lancaster, that his
head was exposed on Manchester Church steeple, and that prior to his
execution Leybourne was imprisoned in the New Fleet, Manchester. This is
probably a correct statement of the case. Burke, however, in his “_Tudor
Portraits_” (Hodges, London), says that Leybourne was executed at Preston.
Though a minute point, it would be interesting to know what the truth of
the matter is.
There is a marble tablet on the north wall of the east end of the fine old
Parish Church of Kendal, to the memory of John Leybourne, Esquire, the
last of his race, and formerly owners of Cunswick, Skelsmergh, and
Witherslack Halls. The tablet bears the arms of the Leybournes, and shows
that the last male representative of this ancient Westmoreland family died
on the 9th December, 1737, aged sixty-nine years, evidently reconciled to
the faith of his ancestors.]
[Footnote 88:——The exact relationship of Marmaduke Ward and Thomas Warde
to Sir Christopher Ward has been not yet traced out. Sir Christopher Ward
was the last of the Wards in the direct line. He died in the year 1521,
but left no male heir. His eldest daughter, Anne, married Francis Neville,
of Thornton Bridge, in the Parish of Brafferton, near Boroughbridge; his
second daughter, Johanna, married Edward Musgrave, of Westmoreland; and
his third daughter, Margaret, married John Lawrence, of Barley Court
(probably near St. Dennis’ Church), York. A grand-daughter married a
Francis Neville, of Holt, in Leicestershire.——But see the “_Plumpton
Correspondence_” (Camden Soc.).
I find that, along with Thomas Hallat, one Edmund Ward was Wakeman (or
Mayor) of Ripon, in 1524. He is described as “Gentleman.” He may have been
the grandfather, or even possibly the father, of Marmaduke and Thomas
Ward.——Concerning the Ward family down to Sir Christopher Ward, see
Slater’s “_Guiseley_,” Yorks. (Hamilton Adams), and the “_Life of Mary
Ward_,” vol. i., p. 102.——There is still to be found the name Edmund Ward
at Thornton Bridge (June, 1901); possibly of the same family as the Wards
of the sixteenth century; for Christian names run in families for
generations.
It is, however, possible that the name of the father of Marmaduke and
Thomas Ward may have been Marmaduke. For I find an entry in the Ripon
Registers, under date the 16th December, 1594, of the burial of “Susannay
wife of Marmaduke Wayrde of Newby.” (At least, so I read the entry.) When
this Marmaduke died I do not know. Nor, indeed, have I been able to
ascertain when Marmaduke, the father of Mary Ward, died. It is probable
that Marmaduke Ward, the younger, sold the Newby estate prior to 1614. At
what date the Mulwith and Givendale estates were sold, I cannot say.
Possibly R. C. De Grey Vyner, Esquire, of Newby Hall, their present owner,
may know. In vol. iii. of the “_Memorials of Ripon_” (Surtees Soc.) occur
the names of Edmund Ward and Ralph Ward, both as paying dues for lands in
Skelton (p. 333). Also the “Fabric Roll for 1542” (in the same work) has
the name Marmaduke Ward. This would be the husband of Susannay, who died
in 1594, probably. So that, most likely, Marmaduke and Susannay Ward were
the parents of Marmaduke Ward and Thomas Ward, if the latter were
brothers, as it is practically certain they were.
I am inclined, on the whole, to think that Edmund Ward cannot have been
the father to Marmaduke and Thomas Ward, though he may have been their
grandfather. There is a curious reference to, most probably, this Edmund
Ward, in the “_Plumpton Correspondence_,” pp. 185, 186 (Camden Soc.); but
it sheds no light on this question of the parentage of any of the Wards.
From Slater’s “_History of Guiseley_” it is evident that a branch of the
Wards settled at Scotton, near Knaresbrough.
Miss Pullein, of Rotherfield Manor, Sussex, a relative of the Pulleins, of
Scotton, tells me that in the “Subsidy Roll for 1379” the names
occur:——“Johannes Warde et ux ej. ijs. Tho. Warde et ux ej. vjd Johannes
fil. Thomae Warde iiij d.” So that the names John and Thomas were
evidently hereditary in the various branches of the Wardes, of Givendale
and Esholt. (18th April, 1901.)]
[Footnote 89:——From the “_Authorised Discourse_,” or “_King’s Book_,” we
learn that the King returned from Royston on Thursday, the 31st day of
October; that on Friday, All Hallows Day, Salisbury showed James the
Letter in the “gallerie” of the palace at Whitehall. On the following day,
Saturday, the 2nd of November, Salisbury and the Earl of Suffolk, the Lord
Chamberlain, saw the King in the same “gallerie,” when it was arranged
that the Chamberlain should view all the Parliament Houses both above and
below. This “viewing” or “perusing” of the vault or cellar under the House
of Lords took place on the following Monday afternoon by Suffolk and
Mounteagle, when they saw Fawkes, who styled himself “John Johnson,”
servant to Thomas Percy, who had hired the house adjoining the Parliament
House and the aforesaid cellar also.
Now, Mounteagle, almost certainly, must have known that there would be
this second conference with the King, on this Saturday, and from what
Mounteagle (_ex hypothesi_) had said to Tresham about “the mine,” Tresham
would have concluded that what Mounteagle knew, Salisbury would be soon
made to know, and, through Salisbury’s speeches, the King. My opinion is
that Mounteagle _saw_ and _spoke_ to Tresham _between_ the conference of
the King, Suffolk, and Salisbury (Mounteagle being made acquainted with,
by either Suffolk or Salisbury, if he were not actually an auditor of, all
that had passed), _and_ the meeting with Winter in Lincoln’s Inn Walks, on
the night of that same Saturday, November the 2nd.]
[Footnote 90:——See “_Winter’s Confession_,” Gardiner, pp. 67 and 68.
This meeting on the Saturday was behind St. Clement’s. At this meeting
Christopher Wright was present. Query——What did he say? And in whose
Declaration or Confession is it contained? If in one of Fawkes’, then
which? Possibly it may have been at this meeting that Christopher Wright
recommended the conspirators to take flight in different directions. It is
observable that, so far as I am aware, Christopher Wright and John Wright
do not appear to have expressed a wish that any particular nobleman should
be warned, except Arundel. Whereas Fawkes wished Montague; Percy,
Northumberland; Keyes, Mordaunt; Tresham was “exceeding earnest” for
Stourton and Mounteagle; whilst all wished Lord Arundel to be advertised.
Arundel was created Earl of Norfolk by Charles I. in 1644.
(Since writing the above, I have ascertained that there is no report in
any of Guy Fawkes’ Confessions of this statement of Christopher Wright,
nor in his written “Confessions” does Fawkes refer to his own mother.)]
[Footnote 91:——“_Labile tempus_”——the motto inscribed over the entrance of
the fine old Elizabethan mansion-house situate at Heslington, near York,
the seat of the Lord Deramore, formerly belonging to a member of the great
Lancashire family of Hesketh, of Mains Hall, Poulton-in-the-Fylde, and
Rufford. Edmund Neville, one of the suitors of Mary Ward, was brought up
with the Heskeths, of Rufford. In 1581 the Mains Hall branch of the
Heskeths harboured Campion.]
[Footnote 92:——As a fact, the Government did not know of the mine,
according to Dr. Gardiner, even on Thursday, the 7th of November, but
certainly they did know, says Gardiner, by Saturday, the 9th.——See
Gardiner’s “_Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 31.——Probably the entrance to the mine
was sealed up. No useful purpose would be served by either Mounteagle or
Ward telling the Government about the mine, which then was an “extinct
volcano.”]
[Footnote 93:——The exact words of Lingard are these:——“Winter sought a
second interview with Tresham at his house in Lincoln’s Inn Walks, and
returned to Catesby with the following answer: That the existence of the
mine had been communicated to the Ministers. This Tresham said he knew:
but by whom the discovery had been made he knew not.”
Lingard does not give his authority, but probably he got the material for
this important passage from “_Greenway’s_ (_vere_ Tesimond’s) _MS._” It is
an historical desideratum that this MS. should be published. Mounteagle,
conceivably, may have falsely told Tresham that the Government already
knew of the mine, in order to alarm him the more effectually; but, most
probably, it was an inference that Tresham himself erroneously drew from
Mounteagle’s words, whatever may have been their precise nature.
Mounteagle possibly said something about “the mine,” and that the
Parliament Houses would be with minuteness searched far and near. This
would be quite sufficient to inflame the already heated imagination of
Tresham, and he would readily enough leap forth to the conclusion that the
“mine” must be for certain known to the Government.
One can almost feel the heart-beats of the distraught Tresham as one reads
the relation of his second interview with Winter. Then from the pulsations
of _one_ human heart, O, Earth’s governors and ye governed, learn _all_.
For the study of true History is big with mighty lessons and “he that hath
ears let him hear.” Let him hear that Truth and Right, although each is,
in its essential nature, a simple unity, and _therefore_ imperially
exclusive in its claims, and _therefore_ intolerant of plurality, of
multiplicity, of diversity, yet that each of these high attributes of the
eternal and the ideal is the mistress not only of man’s god-like
intellect, but also of his heart and will. And _these_ two faculties are
likewise of divine original and have severally a voice which perpetually
bids man, poor wounded man, “be pitiful, be courteous” to his fellows. For
human life at best is “hard,” is “brief,” and “piercing are its sorrows.”]
[Footnote 94:——The meeting between Catesby, Winter, and Tresham, at
Barnet, on the road to White Webbs, was on Friday, the 1st of November,
the day the Letter was shown to the King.]
[Footnote 95:——Or, Mounteagle may have thought that, as it would be
meritorious in Percy supposing he had sent the Letter, he (Mounteagle)
would expressly, in the hearing of Suffolk, give Percy the benefit of the
doubt; since it might stand his old friend in good stead hereafter if
Percy were involved in the meshes of the law for the part that, I hold,
Mounteagle _by_ Christopher Wright _through_ Thomas Warde then _knew_ for
a fact, Percy, and indeed all his confederates, had taken in the nefarious
enterprise. Such a train of thought may have flashed through Mounteagle’s
brain well-nigh instantaneously; for what is quicker than thought? I
suspect, moreover, that Mounteagle conjectured that the Letter was from
one of Warde’s and his own connections: for Percy, as well as the Wrights,
would be a connection of Mounteagle, through the Stanleys, Percies,
Gascoignes, Nortons, Nevilles, and Wardes, who were all more or less
allied by marriages entered into within the last few generations. Percy
would be about Thomas Warde’s own age (forty-six).
I do not, however, think that Mounteagle knew for certain who was the
revealing conspirator; and his lordship would not want to know either.
Besides, I hold that Warde would be too good a diplomatist and too
faithful a servant to suffer his master to know, even if he had wanted.
“Say ‘little’ is a bonnie word,” would be a portion of the diplomatic
wisdom that Warde would carry with him up to the great metropolis from his
“native heather” of Yorkshire.]
[Footnote 96:——Ben Jonson was “reconciled” to the Church of Rome either in
1593 or 1594. After, and probably on account of, the Plot he left the
Church, whose “exacting claims” he had “on trust” accepted. Possibly it
was under the influence of Jonson’s example that Mounteagle wrote the
letter to the King, given in the Rev. John Gerard’s “_What was the
Gunpowder Plot?_” p. 256. Mounteagle, however, died in the Church of Rome,
and the Article in the “_National Dictionary of Biography_” says that he
had a daughter a nun. Belike, she was a member of the Institute of “The
English Virgins,” for the name “Parker” is mentioned in Chambers’ “_Life
of Mary Ward_.”[A] There has been recently (1900) published a smaller
“_Life of Mary Ward_,” by M. Mary Salome (Burns & Oates), with a Preface
by Bishop Hedley, O.S.B., which should be read by those not desirous of
possessing the more costly work by Mary Catharine Elizabeth Chambers, in 2
vols. (Burns & Oates), with a Preface by the late Henry James Coleridge,
S.J. (brother to the late Lord Coleridge). May I express the hope that
these two learned authoresses will cause the Ward Papers, at Nymphenburg,
near Munich, in Germany (that are extant), to be carefully examined afresh
to see if they contain anything about Thomas Warde, Mary’s uncle, and
anything further about her connection, through the Throckmortons and
Nevilles, the Lord Mounteagle? By so doing, they will cause to be obliged
to them all serious students of the Gunpowder Plot, which is of perennial
interest and value to human beings, whether governors or governed, by
reason of the intellectual, moral, and political lessons that with the
truest eloquence——the eloquence of Fact——it teaches mankind for all time.]
[Footnote A: Whilst it is possible that the “Parker” mentioned in the
“_Life of Mary Ward_” was one of Lord Mounteagle’s daughters, I find, from
a statement in Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. v. (by a contemporary hand, I
think), that “Lord Morley and Mounteagle,” as he is styled, had a daughter
who was “crooked,” and who was an Augustinian nun. Her name was Sister
Frances Parker. Her father is said to have given his consent to this
daughter becoming a nun “after much ado.” Lady Morley and Mounteagle, a
strict papist, brought up the children Roman Catholics.——See Foley’s
“_Records_,” vol. v., p. 973.——The same writer is of opinion that
Mounteagle was not a Roman Catholic. Evidently he was a very lax one, and
between the Plot and the time of his death he probably conformed to the
Establishment.]
[Footnote 97:——Born Lord Thomas Howard, brother to Lord William Howard, of
Naworth, near Carlisle.——For an interesting account of the Tudor Howards,
see Burke’s “_Tudor Portraits_” (Hodges); also Lodge’s “_Portraits_,” and
“_Memorials of the House of Howard_.”]