[Footnote 98:——Did Mounteagle likewise behold Fawkes? If so, his

self-command apparently was extraordinary; for, almost certainly,

Mounteagle must have met Fawkes at White Webbs, if not at the Lord

Montague’s and elsewhere. Fawkes was so strict and regular in his habits

and deportment that he was thought to be a priest or a Jesuit (I suppose,

a Jesuit lay-brother). That Tesimond should think that part of the

“_King’s Book_” fabulous which describes this “perusing of the vault” and

finding of Fawkes, is just what I should expect Tesimond, erroneously,

would think; inasmuch as this particular Jesuit would naturally enough

consider it to be simply incredible that Mounteagle should not have

displayed some outward token, however slight, of recognising Fawkes, who

would be sure to carry with him his characteristic air of calm and high

distinction, even amid “the wood and coale” of his “master” Thomas Percy.

But Tesimond did not know what a perfect tutoring Mounteagle had received

from his mentor to qualify him to play so well his part in life at this

supreme juncture. Thomas Ward was evidently a consummate diplomatist. If

he had been trained under Walsingham he would certainly “know a thing or

two.”]

[Footnote 99:——It is to be remembered that, for the first time, the powder

was found by Knevet and his men about midnight of Monday, the 4th of

November. Previous to, possibly, late in the day of the 4th of November, I

do not think that Salisbury and Suffolk knew any more about the existence

of this powder than “the man in the moon.” Such ignorance on their part

redounded to their great discredit, and would be, doubtless, duly noted by

the small and timid, yet sharp, mind of James. But the Country’s

confidence in the Government had to be maintained at all costs; hence the

comical, side-glance, slantingdicular, ninny-pinny way in which the

“_King’s Book_,” for the most part, is drawn up. A re-publication of the

“_King’s Book_,” and of “_The Fawkeses, of York_,” by R. Davies, sometime

Town Clerk of York (Nichols, 1850), are desiderata to the historical

student of the Gunpowder Plot.

I readily allow that it is difficult to believe that neither Salisbury,

nor Suffolk, nor anybody (not even a bird-like-eyed Dame Quickly of

busy-bodying propensities residing in the neighbourhood) knew of this

powder, which had been (at least some of it) in Percy’s house and an

outhouse adjoining the Parliament House. Still, even if they did know

(whether statesmen or housewife) of the _Gunpowder_, it does not follow,

either in fact or in logic, that they knew of the _Gunpowder Plot_. For

they might reasonably enough conclude that the ammunition was to carry out

“the practice for some stir” which Salisbury admits that he knew the

recusants had in hand at that Parliament.——See “_Winwood’s Memorials_,”

Ed. 1725, vol. ii., p. 72.——Moreover, for such a purpose, in the natural

order of things, I take it, the powder would be brought in first, then the

shot, muskets, armour, swords, daggers, pikes, crossbows, arrows, and

other ordnance. (_The barrels, empty or nearly so, would be carried in

first._)

Sir Thomas Knevet, of Norfolk, was created Baron Knevett, of Escrick, near

York, in 1607. He died without male issue. He went to the Parliament House

on the night of November 4th, 1605, as a Justice of the Peace for

Westminster.——See Nichols’ “_Progresses of James I._,” vol. i., p.

582.——Escrick is now the seat of the Lord Wenlock.]

[Footnote 100:——“_Hatfield MS._,” 110, 30. Quoted in “the Rev. J. H.

Pollen’s S.J., thoughtful and learned booklet, entitled “_Father Garnet

and the Gunpowder Plot_” (Catholic Truth Society’s publication, London).]

[Footnote 101:——See Jardine’s Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S.,

Feb., 1841, in “_Archæologia_,” vol. xxix., p. 100. This letter should be

carefully read by every serious student of the Plot.]

[Footnote 102:——Sir William Stanley, of Hooton (in that strip of Cheshire

between the Mersey and the Dee), was not seen by Fawkes between Easter and

the end of August, 1605, when Fawkes went over to Flanders for the last

time in his career so adventurous and so pathetic. Sir William knew

nothing of the Gunpowder Plot. It was said that he surrendered Deventer in

pursuance of the counsel of Captain Roland Yorke, who to the Spaniards had

himself surrendered Zutphen Sconce. These surrenders to the Spaniards on

the part of two English gentlemen were strange pieces of business, and one

would like the whole question to be thoroughly and severely searched into

again. As to Roland Yorke, see Camden’s “_Queen Elizabeth_.”

Captain Roland Yorke, like his patron Sir William Stanley, was an able

soldier. He held a position of command in the Battle of Zutphen, in which

the Bayard of English chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney, received his death

wound.——See the “_Earl of Leicester’s Correspondence_” (Camden

Soc.).——Sidney’s widow (the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham) afterwards

married Robert second Earl of Essex. She became a Roman Catholic, like her

kinsman, the gifted and engaging Father Walsingham, S.J. Frances

Walsingham, the only child of Sir Francis Walsingham, became a Catholic, I

think, through her third marriage with Richard De Burgh fourth Earl of

Clanricarde, afterwards Earl of St. Albans. He was also known as Richard

of Kinsale and Lord Dunkellin. He was an intimate friend of the Earl of

Essex and of Father Gerard, S.J., the friend of Mary Ward.

It would be interesting if Major Hume, or some other authority on the

reign of Queen Elizabeth, could ascertain whether or not there was a

_Thomas Warde_ in the diplomatic service during the “Eighties” of her

reign. Certainly there was a Thomas Warde in the service of the Government

then. I am almost sure that the “Mr. Warde” mentioned by Walsingham, in

his letter to the Earl of Leicester, must have been this Thomas Warde, and

one and the same man with Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith (or Mulwith). It is to

be remembered, too, that the Gunpowder conspirator, Thomas Winter, had

served in the Queen’s forces against the Spanish King for a time. The

names Rowland Yorke, Thomas Vavasour, Sir Thomas Heneage, and Thomas

Winter are very suggestive of the circle in which a Warde, of Mulwith,

Newby, and Givendale, would move. Besides, there was a family connection

between the Parkers, Poyntzes, and Heneages.——See “_Visitation of Essex,

1612_” (Harleian Soc.), under “Poyntz.”

Moreover, it must be continually borne in mind that Father Tesimond (alias

Greenway), in his hitherto unprinted MS., declares that Mounteagle was

related to some of the plotters. “_Greenway’s MS._,” according to

Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 92, also says that Thomas Ward was an intimate

friend of several of the conspirators, and _suspected_ to have been an

accomplice in the treason. That would imply that Ward was suspected to

have had at least a _knowledge_ of the treason.]

[Footnote 103:——Mary Ward, the daughter of Marmaduke Ward and Ursula

Wright, lived with her grandmother, Mrs. Ursula Wright (_née_ Rudston, of

Hayton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire), between the years 1589-94 at

Plowland (or Plewland) Hall, Holderness, Yorkshire; and between the years

1597-1600 at Harewell Hall, in the township of Dacre, Nidderdale, with her

kinswoman, Mrs. Katerine Ardington (_née_ Ingleby). Mrs. Ardington, as

well as Mrs. Ursula Wright, had suffered imprisonment for her profession

of the ancient faith. We have a relation by Mary Ward herself of her

grandmother’s incarceration, which is as follows:——Mrs. Wright “had in her

younger years suffered imprisonment for the space of fourteen years

together, in which time she several times made profession of her faith

before the President of York (the Earl of Huntingdon) and other officers.

She was once, for her speeches to the said Huntingdon, tending to the

exaltation of the Catholic religion and contempt of heresy, thrust into a

common prison or dungeon, amongst thieves, where she stayed not long

because, being much spoken of, it came to the hearing of her kindred, who

procured her speedy removal to the Castle prison where she was

before.”——See Chambers’ “_Life of Mary Ward_,” vol. i., p. 13.

This common prison or dungeon would be, it is all but certain, the

Kidcote, the common prison for the City of York and that portion of

Yorkshire between the Rivers Wharfe and Ouse known as the Ainsty of the

City of York. This dungeon was, according to Gent’s “_History of York_,”

under the York City Council Chamber on Old Ouse Bridge, to the westward of

St. William’s Chapel.——See also J. B. Milburn’s “_A Martyr of Old York_”

(Burns & Oates).——The Old Ouse Bridge was pulled down in 1810.——See

Allen’s “_History of Yorkshire_”——After the Kidcote was demolished, the

York City prison called the Gaol, likewise now demolished (1901), was

built on Bishophill, near the Old Bailie Hill. The prison for the County

of Yorkshire was the Castle built by William the Conqueror, the tower of

which, called Clifford’s Tower, on an artificial mound, is still standing.

There was, moreover, in York, a third prison into which the unhappy popish

recusants, as appears from Morris’s “_Troubles_” were sometimes consigned.

This was the Bishop’s prison, commonly called Peter Prison. The writer is

told by Mr. William Camidge, a York antiquary of note, that Peter Prison

stood at the corner of Precentor’s Court, Petergate, near to the west

front of the Minster. Mr. Camidge remembers Peter Prison being used as a

City lock-up prison about the year 1836, soon after which year it was

pulled down. The late Mr. Richard Haughton, of York, showed the writer,

about Easter, 1899, a sketch of this interesting old prison, a sketch

which Mr. Haughton had himself made. The building was a plain square

erection, the door of which was reached by a flight of stone steps.

Again, we are told——“_Life of Mary Ward_,” vol. i., p. 17——that one day

Mary came to her grandmother, “who was singing some hymns,” and the child

asked the old lady whether she would not send “something again to the

prisoners,” a question, we are told, which “pleased” Mrs. Wright “very

much.”

Lastly, the gifted daughter of Marmaduke Ward, and the niece of Thomas

Ward, bears this striking testimony concerning one aspect of her aged

relative’s gracious life, that “so great a prayer was she” that during the

whole five years that the child lived with her grandmother, the most of

which time she lodged in the same chamber, she “did not remember in that

whole five years she ever saw her grandmother sleep, nor did she ever

awake when she perceived her not at prayer” (p. 15).]

[Footnote 104:——Maybe Christopher Wright, from his earliest school-days,

had with reverence looked up to Edward Oldcorne, for the latter was the

senior of the former by no less than ten years, so that when Oldcorne was

a clever youth of fifteen years Christopher would be a little fellow of

five, “with his satchel and shining morning-face,” though we may be

permitted to hope that little Kit Wright did not “creep like snail

unwillingly to school.” For it was at a school second to none in England

that the future ill-fated Yorkshireman learned to con his “_hic, hæc,

hoc_.” It was a school originally founded by Egbert, Archbishop of York,

in the eighth century, and which, as the Cathedral Grammar School, had

been rendered famous by Alcuin himself, the tutor of Charlemagne. It was a

school re-founded and re-endowed in the Horse Fayre, now Union Terrace, on

the left-hand side going down Gillygate, outside Bootham Bar, by King

Philip and Queen Mary, especially for the training of priests for the

northern parts.——See in Leach’s “_Endowed Schools of Yorkshire_” for an

account concerning St. Peter’s School, Clifton, York, but no register of

scholars of this ancient seat of learning now exists prior to the year

1828. (Title deeds and writings lent by Mrs. Martha Lancaster, of York,

have enabled me to identify the site of the old school.)

It is, I take it, furthermore possible that Edward Oldcorne may have

taught Christopher Wright; and if the relation of pedagogue and scholar

ever subsisted between them, a bond of mutual regard would be created

which the lapse of long years would not weaken. For an account of the kind

of education given in a Grammar School in “the spacious days of Good Queen

Bess,” see Dr. Elzé’s “_Life of Shakespeare_” (Bell & Sons), also H. W.

Mabie’s very recent and able American “_Life of Shakespeare_”

(Macmillan).]

[Footnote 105:——“_Surgam, et ibo ad patrem meum, et dicam ei: Pater,

peccavi in cælum et coram te!_” “I will arise.”]

[Footnote 106:——Possibly the Earl of Northumberland. He was (it will be

remembered) the son of Henry the eighth Earl, and nephew to “the Blessed”

Thomas Percy the seventh Earl, and likewise nephew to Mary Slingsby, of

Scriven, Knaresbrough. Sir Kenelin Digby, the eldest son of Sir Everard

Digby, married the beautiful Venetia Stanley, who was descended from “the

Blessed” Thomas Percy. The helmet and gauntlets of this nobleman were kept

at the handsome old Church of St. Crux, in The Pavement, York, which was

pulled down a few years ago. Thomas Longueville, Esquire, of Llanforda

Hall, Oswestry, Salop, through the Lady Venetia Digby, is descended from

“the Blessed” Thomas Percy, as are several other families, including the

Peacocks, of Bottesford Manor, Lincolnshire, I believe. Mr. Longueville is

the learned author of the “_Lives_” of his ancestors, Sir Everard and Sir

Kenelm Digby.]

[Footnote 107:——We know that on the 5th day of October, two days after the

prorogation of Parliament, Christopher Wright quitted his lodging, in Spur

Alley, where he had been for eighteen days prior to the 5th October.——See

“Evidence of Dorathie Robinson,” p. 128 _ante_.]

[Footnote 108:——John Wright was acknowledged to be one of the most expert

swordsmen of his time. He was commonly known as “Jack Wright,” and his

brother as “Kit Wright.” Father Garnet says, in a voluntary statement that

he made in the Tower——Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 157——“‘These are

not God’s knights, but the devil’s knights.’ And related how Jack Wright

had sent a challenge by Thomas Winter to a gentleman.” The duel, however,

did not come off, though Winter measured swords. Winter appears to have

fulfilled the happy office of peace-maker on the occasion. (What “strange

mixtures” these English and Yorkshire papist gentlemen were, to be sure!)]

[Footnote 109:——See Article in “_National Dictionary of Biography_” on

“John Wright” (citing Camden in “_Birch Original Letters_”) second series,

vol. iii., p. 179.]

[Footnote 110:——Afterwards the great Viscount Verulam, commonly known as

Lord Bacon. Bacon’s particular friend and familiar was Sir Toby Matthews,

the eldest son of Dr. Tobias Matthews, in 1606 created Archbishop of York.

Sir Toby translated Bacon’s “_Essays_” into Italian.——See Spedding’s

“_Life of Bacon_,” and Alban Butler’s “_Life of Matthews_.”——Sir Toby

Matthews (in the February of 1605-6, just after the Plot) was converted to

popery by Father Robert Parsons, who was then at the English College,

Rome; and Matthews’ was, without doubt, the most remarkable and

interesting of all the conversions effected by that strong-minded and most

able Jesuit. Parsons’ intellect was one of marvellous range, reach,

versatility, and power. He was a spiritual or mystical man in his way,

too; but his spirituality or mysticism not seldom failed to control his

action in daily life. It was shut up, as it were, in a watertight

compartment. This (_me judice_) sums up, approximately, the truth about

Parsons. Of all the men in Europe, Parsons was the man Burleigh,

Walsingham, and Salisbury most feared. He died in 1610. A really impartial

Life of Parsons, if possible, by a learned lawyer and politician, is a

desideratum. In some of his political ideas this Jesuit was a progressive

born prematurely——“a man before his time.” For he believed thoroughly in

the sovereignty of the People, and in the desirableness of universal

education. In this latter respect he resembled “that good lady, Mary

Ward,” the daughter of Marmaduke Ward, and niece of Thomas Ward (_ex

hypothesi_). Campion, the Jesuit, who died a martyr in 1581, was much the

more amiable and attractive character. But Campion was no politician.

Oldcorne, I maintain, was the greatest of all the three, because of his

extraordinary mental equipoise and balance.

“_The History of the Jesuits in England, 1580-1773_,” by the Rev. Ethelred

L. Taunton, with twelve illustrations (Methuen & Co., 1901), in some sort

supplies a Life of Robert Parsons. But evidently the Jesuit Society is an

enigma to Father Taunton, as to so many papists. A man must be a jurist

and a statesman to understand the Jesuits. For their aim (_me judice_),

their noble aim, ever has been to make the “Kingdoms of the world the

Kingdoms of God and of His Christ.”

If a delusion, surely a delusion merely, not a crime, the most puissant

spirit among us must allow.

James Robert Hope-Scott, Q.C., thought that the Jesuits were the backbone

of the Church of his adoption. And Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (no mean

judge) thought that Hope-Scott might have become a more popular Prime

Minister than even W. E. Gladstone, had he chosen a political career.

Wordsworth was Hope-Scott’s tutor at Oxford.——See Dr. Christopher

Wordsworth’s “_Autobiography_.”——He was Bishop of St. Andrews, N.B., and

as a classical scholar almost without a peer.]

[Footnote 111:——See Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_,” vol. ii., p. 166.]

[Footnote 112:——“_Narrative_” p. 57. As appears from the Lives of Mary

Ward, Father Gerard had known Mary Ward when a child in Yorkshire. Hence

he probably knew her uncles, John and Christopher Wright, and also Thomas

Percy.

Mary Ward was one of the greatest women-educationists and, in a sense,

women’s rights advocates England has ever seen. She ought to figure in the

Supplement to the “_National Dictionary of Biography_.” The following

word-portrait of Mary Warde we owe to the skilful hand of her kinswoman,

the gifted Winefrid Wigmore, a cousin once removed to Lady Mounteagle. It

is as Mary Ward, that wonderful Yorkshire-woman, appeared in the year

which witnessed the death of Shakespeare (1616). Perhaps the poet knew

her; if so, no wonder he knew how to describe queenly souls. “She was

rather tall (was Mary), but her figure was symmetrical. Her complexion was

delicately beautiful, her countenance and aspect most agreeable, mingled

with I know not what which was attractive.... Her presence and

conversation were most winning, her manners courteous. It was a general

saying ‘She became whatsoever she wore or did.’ Her voice in speaking was

very grateful, and in song melodious. In her demeanour and carriage, an

angelic modesty was united to a refined ease and dignity of manner, that

made even princes[A] find great satisfaction, yea, profit, in conversing

with her. Yet, these were withal without the least affectation, and were

accompanied with such meekness and humility as gave confidence to the

poorest and most miserable. There was nothing she did seem to have more

horror of than there should be anything in herself or hers that might put

a bar to the free access of any who should be in need of ought in their

power to bestow.”

No wonder that——with a brother to the right of him like Marmaduke Ward,

and with a niece to the left o£ him like Mary Ward, “that great soul,” who

in after years, “in a plenitude of vision planned high deeds as immortal

as the sun”[B]——Thomas Warde, the husband for eleven brief years (lacking

nine days) of Margery Warde (born Slater), was instrumental, under Heaven,

in giving effect to the all but too late repentance of the penitent,

Christopher Wright!]

[Footnote A: Mary Ward was the friend or acquaintance of some of the

greatest men and women in Europe. She was a friend of Queen Henrietta

Maria, the wife of Charles I. and daughter of Henry Bourbon, better known

as “King Harry of Navarre.”——See Macaulay’s poem, “_Ivry_.”]

[Footnote B: Line borrowed from Lord Bowen.——See his magnificent poem,

entitled, “Shadowland,” p. 214 of his “_Life_,” by Sir Henry Stewart

Cunningham, K.C.I.E. (Murray).]

[Footnote 113:——The second Edition is dated 1681. The Pamphlet was by a

Dr. Williams, afterwards Bishop of Chichester.——See “_National Dictionary

of Biography_.”]

[Footnote 114:——The report would be at least second-hand, and it might be

much more. For example, if Mr. Abington saw his wife write the Letter and

told the worthy person what he (Abington) had by the evidence of his own

eyes ascertained, then the worthy person would have the evidence at

first-hand. Any person to whom the worthy person conveyed the intelligence

would have it at second-hand, and so on. But if Mr. Abington had not seen

his wife write the Letter, but had only been told by his wife that she had

writ the Letter, then, although Abington would be a witness at first-hand

_as to the bare fact of such a report having been made_, he would be only

a witness at second-hand _as to the truth of the report_; for Mrs.

Abington, in herself reporting, might have spoken falsely either wilfully

or through mental defect.]

[Footnote 115:——Vol. i., p. 585.]

[Footnote 116:——Jardine’s “_Narrative_,” p. 83.]

[Footnote 117:——Jardine’s “_Narrative_” p. 84.]

[Footnote 118:——William Abington’s chief poem was “Castara,” sung in

praise of his wife, the Honourable Lucia Powys. In the recent “_Oxford

Book of English Verse_,” selected by Quiller-Couch (Clarendon Press),

there is a fine philosophic poem of the younger Abington (or Habington),

entitled “_Nox nocti indicat scientiam_.” John Amphlett, Esq., has edited

the elder Abington’s (or Habington’s) “_Survey of Worcestershire_,” with a

valuable introduction, for the Worcestershire Historical Society.]

[Footnote 119:——It is, moreover, possible that, through her brother’s good

offices with the Government, Mrs. Abington had a sight of the Letter

itself. If so, she would have been almost sure to detect the general

similarity of the handwriting, notwithstanding the disguise, with the

handwriting of Father Oldcorne, handwriting she must have known familiarly

enough, to say nothing of the particular similarity in the case of certain

of the letters.

As showing that, when at Hindlip, Father Oldcorne came into Mrs.

Abington’s company, the following quotation may be given from one of

Father Oldcorne’s Declarations, dated 6th March, 1605-6:——“Both Garnett

and he when there were no straungers did ordinarilye dyne and supp with

Mr. Abington and his wyfe in the dyninge chamber.”]

[Footnote 120:——Some idea of the feeling that Mrs. Abington and her

husband must have had for this able and upright Jesuit, a true Jesuit in

whom there was no guile, may be gathered from the following, which is

taken from Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 213:——“Father Edward

Oldcorne, S.J., came to Hindlip in the month of February or March, 1589,

Mr. Richard Abington keeping house there at the time, who by the advice of

other Catholics, then sojourning with him, sent into Warwickshire for the

said Father to talk with Mrs. Dorothy Abington, his sister, about her

religion, who, at the time living in the house with her brother Richard,

was a very obstinate and perverse heretic, and had left the Court of

Elizabeth, where she was brought up, to come and live with her brother

principally.” We are told that Miss Abington desired to have speech on the

subject of religion with some more than ordinarily learned Catholic.

“Father Oldcorne being sent for to that end, and after some earnest

discourses with her for the space of two days, and having yielded her full

satisfaction in all points of religion, and showed such gravity, zeal,

learning, and prudence in his proceeding with her that she was astonished

thereat, and was unable to make any reply of contradiction to what he

propounded to her.”——From a MS. at Stonyhurst, Anglia, vol. vi.,

attributed to Father Thomas Lister, S.J.

Another manuscript account of Father Oldcorne says that he fasted and

prayed for three days for the sake of this lady’s conversion to the

Catholic faith; after the third day he fell down from exhaustion, and yet

a fourth day’s fasting followed. Then the lady was converted and “became a

sharer and participant in the incredible fruit which he reaped in that

county,” _i.e._, Worcestershire.——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p.

213.

Father Gerard, in his “_Narrative_” of the Plot, says that the Government

accused Father Oldcorne “of a sermon made in Christmas, wherein he should

seem to excuse the conspirators, or to extenuate their act.” The

Government had this report from a certain Humphrey Littleton, concerning

whom we shall learn more hereafter.

Richard, Thomas, and Dorothy Abington were brothers and sister

respectively to Edward Abington, who suffered, in 1587, as one of the

fellow-conspirators of Anthony Babington, a distinguished and captivating

gentleman from Dethick, a chapelry or hamlet in the Parish of Ashover, in

the County of Derbyshire. In the Parish Church of Ashover may be still

seen monuments to members of the Babington family. (Communicated to me by

my partner, Mr. G. Laycock Brown, Solicitor, of York.)

The history of the romantic but ill-fated Babington conspiracy requires to

be impartially re-written, and to this end diligent search should be made

to find, if possible, the alleged contemporary history of that curious,

ill-starred movement, which is said to have been written by the gifted

Jesuit martyr, “the Venerable” Robert Southwell, S.J., the author of that

exquisitely imaginative and tender poem, “The Burning Babe,” an

Elizabethan gem of the highest genius.——See the “_Oxford Book of English

Verse_;” also Dr. Grossart’s Edition of Southwell’s Poetical Works, and

Turnbull’s Edition likewise.——A good Life of Southwell is a desideratum.]

[Footnote 121:——It is obviously unnecessary either in the former part or

in the latter part of this Inquiry to assign separate logical divisions

for the case of Thomas Ward. His evidence is common to both, and will

appear in due course of this investigation.]

[Footnote 122:——Thomas Winter lodged apparently at an inn known by the

sign of the “Duck and Drake,” in St. Clement’s Parish, in the Strand. This

fact is proved by the testimony of John Cradock, a cutler, who deposed on

the 6th of November, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, that he had

engraved the story of the Passion of Christ on two sword hilts for Mr.

Rookwood and Mr. Winter, and on a third sword hilt for another gentleman,

“a black man,” of that company, of about forty years of age. The Winter

here referred to, no doubt, was Thomas, not Robert, the elder brother.

For Cradock’s evidence _in extenso_, see Appendix; also for evidence of

Richard Browne, servant to Christopher Wright; also for letter of Popham,

the Chief Justice to Salisbury, as to Christopher Wright; also for

evidence of William Grantham as to purchase by Christopher Wright of

beaver hats at the shop of a hatter, named Hewett.]

[Footnote 123:——This emphatic “surely all is lost,” of Christopher Wright,

is worthy of notice, as indicating the certitude of his frame of mind.

Now, “certitude” is the offspring of knowledge, and therefore of belief,

and when it is not the life is the death of Hope, an emotion Wright had

then clearly abandoned. Hence we may justly infer a special consciousness

on Christopher Wright’s part as to the genesis of the fact that the game

was indeed up, thanks to the infatuated behaviour of his brother-in-law,

Thomas Percy: “up” to all and singular the plotters’ fatal undoing; yet,

after all, traceable back indirectly to Christopher Wright’s own repentant

act and deed! Truly the repentant wrong-doer suffers temporal punishment

by the everlasting Law of Retribution, which lives for ever!]

[Footnote 124:——Was this said by Christopher Wright on Sunday, the 3rd of

November, at the meeting behind St. Clement’s? There is none such

statement recorded by Fawkes in any of his Declarations or Confessions in

the Record Office, London.]

[Footnote 125:——See H. Speight’s “_Nidderdale_” (Elliot Stock), p. 344.

The title of this interesting work is “_Nidderdale and the Garden of the

Nidd; A Yorkshire Rhineland_”: being a complete account, historical,

scientific, and descriptive, of the beautiful Valley of the Nidd.——See

also “_Connoisseur_” for November, 1901.]

[Footnote 126:——Christopher Wright must have known well the great family

of Hildyard, of Winestead, near Patrington. General Sir H. J. T. Hildyard,

K.C.B., is a scion of this ancient house. The Hildyards are mentioned in

the “_Hatfield MSS._”]

[Footnote 127:——This good woman’s evidence proves that on the 5th of

October Wright left her lodgings. Now, my suggestion is that Christopher

Wright, after quitting Spurr Alley, went down into Warwickshire, probably

to Lapworth. That thence he repaired to Hindlip Hall, four miles from

Worcester, to have his interview with Father Oldcorne. Rookwood went to

Clopton, close to Stratford-on-Avon, and not far from both Lapworth and

Hindlip, soon after Michaelmas, _i.e._, the 11th of October (old style).

That about Michaelmas the diplomatic Thomas Warde came into Warwickshire

and Worcestershire to interview Father Oldcorne, and give full assurance

to the Jesuit that he, Warde, as diplomatic go-between, would vouch for

the conveyance of the Letter, on receipt of the same, to the Government

authorities. That the shrewd, diplomatic Warde, all eyes and ears, from

what he was ear-witness and eye-witness of at Lapworth, sent post-haste

for his brother, Marmaduke Ward, of Newbie. Most probably William Ward,

Marmaduke Ward’s son, was at this time on a visit to his uncle Thomas in

London.——See Kyddall’s evidence as to “William Ward, nephew to Mr.

Wright.”——The boy was sent down to Lapworth on November the 5th, the fatal

Tuesday, in the charge of Kyddall. It is possible that William Ward,

however, came up into Warwickshire along with his father and half-sister

Mary. If so, he must have gone up to London between Marmaduke Ward’s going

to Lapworth and the flight of “uncle Christopher” on the 5th; for there is

no evidence that William Ward accompanied Christopher Wright and Kyddall

up to London on Monday, the 28th of October. Kyddall styles William Ward

“nephew to Mr. Wright.” Now, this designation would be, by common usage,

accurate if Christopher Wright married Margaret Ward; otherwise, supposing

William Ward’s mother was Elizabeth Sympson, it would not be; for Ursula

Wright would be naught akin to William Ward.]

[Footnote 128:——Mr. Jackson, “mine host” of “the Salutation,” probably

meant between a week and a fortnight when he said “about a fortnight.”

“Many things had happened since then,” so Mr. Jackson might easily fancy a

longer time had elapsed than was really the case. For Kyddall’s evidence

shows that Christopher Wright was at Lapworth on the 24th October, and

that he did not reach London till the 30th (Wednesday). On Wednesday

Wright may have again called for his quart of sack or for the foaming

tankard of the nut-brown ale, partly with a view to ascertaining whether

or not any tidings had “leaked out” as to the Letter received by

Salisbury, though, as a fact, it was not shown to the King until Friday,

the 1st of November. Christopher Wright’s last visit to “the Salutation”

was, belike, what is styled nowadays “a pop visit.”

At Patrington, in Holderness, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, there is

to-day (May, 1901) an ancient hostelry known by the sign of the “Dog and

Duck.” At this house, I doubt not, both John and Christopher Wright full

many a time and oft had quenched their thirst and heard and discussed the

rural gossip of their day; for Plowland Hall was only about a mile distant

from the “Dog and Duck” and its good cheer. The “Hildyard Arms” and the

“Holderness” Inn, Patrington, may have been likewise, belike, favourite

haunts of theirs, for human nature is pretty much the same generation

after generation. And even our social habits bind us to the Past. What

thoughts crowd into the mind when one makes a visit to the “Dog and Duck,”

at Patrington, within a short walk of Plowland Hall!

It is possible that, between the reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria,

Plowland Hall was reduced to smaller proportions than it had been in the

days of John and Christopher Wright. This was the case with Ugthorpe Hall,

the seat of the Catholic Ratcliffes, near Whitby, situate in a lovely

little dingle or dell amid the Cleveland Moors; also it was the case with

Grosmont House, the seat of the Catholic Hodgsons, near Whitby, situate

near and almost laved by the rushing waters of the Yorkshire Esk.]

[Footnote 129:——Father Henry Garnet knew John Wright, but, according to

Garnet’s testimony, he did not know Christopher Wright, a fact which alone

tends to show that the younger Wright was essentially a subordinate

conspirator; for certainly Father Garnet knew, more or less, all the

principal plotters, namely, Catesby, Thomas Winter, John Wright, Percy,

and even Fawkes, whom he once saw, and to whom he gave letters of

introduction when Fawkes went to Flanders, in 1605, to see Stanley and

Owen.]

[Footnote 130:——Father Hart was captured, along with Father John Percy

(alias Fisher, afterwards famous for his controversy with Archbishop Laud,

who could not “abide” the Jesuits), at the house of Lord Vaux of

Harrowden. Hart was banished for a time, but died in England, in 1650,

aged seventy-two.

Query——Did Hart make any communication to Bellarmine or Eudæmon-Joannes, I

wonder?]

[Footnote 131:——See Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_;” vol ii., p. 166.]

[Footnote 132:——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. i., p. 173, citing

“Gunpowder Plot Book,” No. 177. Eudæmon-Joannes, in his “_Apologia_” for

Henry Garnet, gives reasons why Father Hart, S.J., may have thus acted.

Dr. Abbott, in his “_Antilogia_,” in reply to Eudæmon-Joannes, answers

Joannes at great length.]

[Footnote 133:——Vol. ii., p. 120. It may be here stated that by the Common

Law of England a confessor was obliged to reveal the fact to the

Government in the case of his receiving from a penitent the confession of

the heinous crime of High Treason.

Garnet said that “the priest is bound to find all lawful means to hinder

and discover it, but that the seal of the Confessional must be saved,

_salvo sigillo confessionis_.”——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p.

162.——It seems to me that this statement of Garnet is of the utmost

importance.]

[Footnote 134:——Afterwards the well-known Lord Coke, the famous Editor of

Judge Littleton’s work on “_Tenures_.”——For a diverting account of Coke

and his domestic infelicities see Lord Macaulay’s Essay on “Lord Bacon.”]

[Footnote 135:——Catesby, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Thomas Percy

were already dead; the two first were slain at Holbeach; Christopher

Wright and Thomas Percy both were wounded unto death at the same place;

but certainly Percy and possibly Christopher Wright actually breathed

their last a day or two afterwards. Query——Where were the bodies of these

four men interred? Were they first quartered as traitors according to law?

Tresham died in the Tower, but his body was quartered, and its members

exposed at Northampton in the usual way.]

[Footnote 136:——Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_,” vol. ii., p. 135. This of

the learned Attorney-General reminds one of the late Lord Bowen’s witty

saying: “Truth will out; even in an Affidavit!”]

[Footnote 137:——Father Henry Garnet, the chief of the Jesuits in England,

said that he considered the authors of the Gunpowder Treason were not only

deserving of the punishment that some of them had undergone, but even a

more severe one, if possible.——See Foley’s “_Records_.”]

[Footnote 138:——Fonblanque, in his “_Annals of the House of Percy_,” in

the chapter dealing with Thomas Percy, expresses the opinion that the

Government’s behaviour was comparatively mild, regard being had to the

atrocious nature of the designment against the King and Parliament. Such

is candidly my own opinion, and this, although I remember that James’s

Oath of Allegiance and very tyrannical anti-recusant legislation were the

dire consequences of the Plot, which (_me judice_)——far more than the

Marian burnings, the Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy, of Uniformity,

Constructive Treason, and the Spanish Armada, all put together——led

finally to England’s being “bereft” of what to a Roman Catholic is “the

one true faith.”

In regard to James’s Oath of Allegiance (1609), it is to be recollected

that while strict Roman Catholics, whether “Jesuitized” or not, refused to

take the oath, some Catholics thought they might lawfully take it. Among

such was the Arch-priest, Blackwell, who, however, was deposed from his

office, as, in general terms, Rome condemned the oath. “The sting” of this

famous oath was “in its tail;” inasmuch as it not only contained a

disclaimer of the deposing power of the Pope, but declared that the

doctrine of the deposing power was “impious, heretical, and damnable.” It

is remarkable that all the Roman Catholic peers took the Oath of

Allegiance, except Lord Teynham, a collateral descendant of William Roper,

the husband of Margaret More.

“An apostate” Jesuit, named Sir Christopher Perkins, aided in framing this

searching test, so the Government knew exactly how to get the unhappy

papist recusants tightly within their grip. (Perkins, like Sir Edwin

Sandys, a philosophic friend of Sir Toby Matthews, was an incipient

rationalist. Shakespeare may have known Sir Toby Matthews.)

For valuable information (derived from an unpublished manuscript) as to

the working of this Oath of Allegiance, see the late Richard Simpson’s

Article, entitled, “A Glimpse of the Working of the Penal Laws,” in “_The

Rambler_,” vol. vi., p. 401 (1856). If this Article has not been printed

separately, it ought to be. In it occur the names Middleton, Gascoigne,

Ingleby, Whitham, Cholmeley, Vavasour, Dolman, Mennell (or Meynell), and

Catterick, of Yorkshire; Preston and Towneley, of Lancashire; Tichbourne,

of Hampshire; Wiseman, of Essex; Gage, of Sussex; Vaux, of

Northamptonshire; Throckmorton, of Warwickshire; Tregean, of Cornwall;

Plowden, of Shropshire; Morgan, of Monmouthshire; Edwards, of Flintshire;

together with other English and Welsh names, which can be only described

as synonymous with honour, high-mindedness, heroism, and all goodness.]

[Footnote 139:——James Usher[A] (1581-1656), Protestant Archbishop of

Armagh, was an Anglo-Irishman, who was “learned to a miracle,” so the

great English Jurist, Seldon, said.——See “Usher,” “_National Dictionary of

Biography_.”——Usher was, through his mother, who became a Roman Catholic,

a grandson of James Stanihurst (Recorder of Dublin, and Speaker of the

Irish House of Commons), whose family were the patrons of Edmund Campion,

when in Ireland. The great orator wrote his history of that country after

leaving Oxford, and before going to Douay. Usher crossed over to England

in 1602. He held in the University of Dublin, in 1607, a divinity

professorship, worth £8 a year, which was founded by Mr. James Cotterell,

who died in York. Now, I find from the Register of St. Michael-le-Belfrey,

York, that there is a record of the burial of a “Mr. James Cotterell——in

the mynster——the 29th day of August, 1595.” This, I have no doubt, was the

self-same gentleman as the “Mr. Cotterell,” from whose house, on the 29th

day of May, 1579, Thomas Warde made M’gery Slater “his true and honourable

wife;” and the same Mr. James Cotterell as founded the Dublin divinity

professorship. Dr. Usher knew personally Lord Mordaunt, the son of the

Lord Mordaunt who died in the Tower in 1608; and also, according to the

“_National Dictionary of Biography_,” Father Oswald Tesimond. If so, it is

_possible_ that Usher knew personally Lord Mounteagle and Thomas Warde,

and it may be it was from them that he gathered hints upon which he

founded his oracular statement. (I desire here to express my sense of

obligation to the Rev. E. S. Carter, M.A., the Vicar of St.

Michael-le-Belfrey, York, who most kindly and generously gifted me with a

copy of his singularly valuable “_Parish Register_” Part I., edited by Dr.

Francis Collins, from which I have obtained that item of domestic

information so valuable as a leading clue for the purposes of this

Inquiry, namely, the marriage of Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith.)]

[Footnote A: “_The Life of Archbishop Usher_” by Barnard (1656), however,

does not bear out the statement of the Author of the Article on “Usher” in

the “_National Dictionary of Biography_.” For Barnard says that the Jesuit

who debated at Drayton, in Northamptonshire, with Archbishop Usher, was

called “Beaumond,” but that his real name was Rookwood, and that he was a

brother of Ambrose Rookwood, the Gunpowder plotter. The debate was

arranged by Lord Mordaunt (afterwards the Earl of Peterborough), to the

end that his wife, the Lady Mordaunt, a daughter of the Earl of

Nottingham, might become convinced of the soundness of the exacting claims

of the Church of Rome. The upshot was that not only was the Lady Mordaunt

_not_ convinced, but that the Lord Mordaunt himself became a Protestant!

The topics for discussion were:——Transubstantiation, Invocation of Saints,

Images, and the Visibility of the Church. According to Barnard, Beaumond

at the third day of meeting sent to excuse himself, saying, “That all the

arguments he had framed within his own head, and thought he had them as

perfect as his _‘Pater noster_,’ he had forgotten and could not recover

them again; that he believed it was the just judgment of God upon him thus

to desert him in the defence of His cause for the undertaking of himself

to dispute with a man of that eminency and learning without the licence of

his superior.”

If it were a Rookwood, probably it was Robert (S.J.)]

[Footnote 140:——The “_Oliver Cromwell_,” by John Morley (Macmillan, 1900),

contains a picture of Usher, taken from the original portrait by Sir Peter

Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery. The face is one of great keenness

and power.]

[Footnote 141:——“Style” in handwriting is its genius, its ethos, its air,

its aroma, its active, its essential principle. “Style is the man.”]

[Footnote 142:——See the Rev. John Gerard’s published fac-simile.]

[Footnote 143:——“Shift off,” no doubt, is meant as “_The Kings Book_”

gives it. (I should like to say that a gentleman, a member of Trinity

College, Cambridge, the Rev. Edmond Nolan, B.A., suggested to me in

August, 1900, when I had the pleasure of meeting him in York, that

probably “shift of” was really “shift off.”)]

[Footnote 144:——This enigmatical sentence partook of the nature of a

clever sleight of mental strategy or of a skilful manœuvre of mental

tactics. In the case of a man of Oldcorne’s combination of the mystical

and the practical, it is probable that there would be wheels within

wheels, and depths below depths, which are beyond the reach of us ordinary

mortals to detect or to fathom. But all this mystery would tend to grip

hold of the attention of the reader by compelling him to peruse and weigh

the document again and again, and so would tend to beat its warning

message into his brains, and so impel beneficent action.]

[Footnote 145:——Gerard’s “_Narrative_” likewise omits the word “good,”

which shows us that the Jesuit was indebted to the Royal Author for his

copy of the document.]

[Footnote 146:——The Mounteagle Letter is a remarkably clever composition.

Its liveliness, its pithiness, its directness, and its force, in spite of

its designed obscurity, gain upon one more and more the oftener one

ponders it. But Father Oldcorne was a very clever man. His combination of

qualities, theoretical and practical, shows him to have been a man of

distinct genius.

In Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., there is, as has been already remarked,

a portrait of this great Yorkshire Jesuit, showing a portion of Old Ouse

Bridge, York, and St. William’s Chapel in the left-hand corner. The face

depicted betokens an intellect of great acumen, a heart of great

benevolence, both controlled by a will strong with the strength of

persistent discipline. The keenness of the countenance portrayed struck a

distinguished Oxford friend of mine forcibly the moment he beheld the

picture, for he remarked forthwith, “He has an acute look!” The

countenance, moreover, as another Protestant friend in effect observed,

has that look of infinite patience, of calm resignation, and of sweet

melancholy, which was so characteristic of the best of the old English

Roman Catholics during “troublesome times.”

This phrase, “troublesome times,” was used in my hearing about the year

1890 by an ancient lady, the late Mrs. Ann Matterson, widow, of

High-field, Bishop Thornton, near Ripon. Mrs. Matterson was an interesting

specimen of the solid, calm, old, Garden-of-the-Soul type of English

Catholic, or as they proudly and touchingly put it, “Catholics that have

never lost the Faith.” My informant said she was the daughter of one

Francis Darnbrough——a family well known in that part of Yorkshire, a

Darnbrough being Wakeman (or Mayor) of Ripon in 1542: that her father’s

branch of the Darnbrough family had regained the Catholic Faith through

marriages with the Bishop Thornton Hawkesworths, hereditary Catholics, who

were formerly tenants under the Lords Grantley and Markenfield, of

Markenfield Hall. Mrs. Matterson furthermore told me on that occasion that

she was distantly connected (through the marriage of her aunt with a Mr.

William Bickerdyke) with one of the York Catholic Martyrs, whose cause of

canonization had been, in 1886, introduced at Rome, namely, with “the

Venerable” Robert Bickerdyke, a gentleman born at Low Hall, near Scotton,

in the Parish of Farnham, near Knaresbrough, and who suffered at the York

Tyburn, in 1586, for being “reconciled to the Church of Rome.” The aged

lady also said that her uncle, William Bickerdyke, had lived at Brampton

Hall, on the River Ure, close to Mulwith: that Brampton Hall had belonged

to the ancient and now extinct Yorkshire Catholic family of Tankard, or

Tancred——one branch of which had their seat at Whixley: and that at

Brampton Hall there had been a place to hide the priest in during

“troublesome times.”

For an interesting work on priests’ hiding-places see “_Secret Chambers

and Hiding-places_,” by Allen Fea (Bousfield, 1901).]

[Footnote 147:——The following letter (1599, probably), which ends with the

words: “I comitte you to sweete Jesus his hole protection,” etc., will be

read with interest. It was written by Richard Collinge, Coolinge, or

Cowling, a Jesuit, who was a native of York, being the son of a certain

Raulf Cowling (then pronounced Cooling), whose name appears in the York

Elizabethan “Subsidy Roll for 1581” as of “St. Olave’s parish and

Belfray’s without Bootham Bar,” and as being assessed in goods at the sum

of £3, which shows him to have been a well-to-do citizen. Raulf Cowling

died a captive in York Castle for his profession of the Catholic Faith.

This valuable letter (for which I am indebted to the great generosity of

Dr. Collins, of Pateley Bridge) was written probably in 1599, and

intercepted by the Government. From the document we learn that Father

Richard Collinge, S.J., was not only a cousin to Guy Fawkes, but also to

the Harringtons, of Mount St. John. William Harrington, the elder, who

harboured “the Blessed” Edmund Campion for ten days in the spring of 1581

at that secluded, tranquil, and lovely spot, Mount St. John, near the

Hambleton Hills, Thirsk, Yorkshire, would be not only father to “the

Venerable” William Harrington, the martyr for his priesthood at the London

Tyburn, but uncle to Father Richard Collinge, and cousin once removed to

Guy Fawkes himself. Guy’s mother married for her second husband Denis

Bainebridge, of Scotton, a Roman Catholic gentleman connected with the

ancient and honourable Roman Catholic family of Pulleyn (Pullein, or

Pulleine), of Killinghall and Scotton, by reason of the marriage of Denis

Bainbridge’s mother to Walter Pulleyn, Esq., as her third husband. We

learn also from Father Collinge’s letter that, belike, Mr. Denis

Bainbridge, Guy Fawkes’ step-father, was one of those gentlemen that are

“ornamental” rather than “useful.” He was, however, certainly a papist,

and his name, together with that of his wife, occurs in Peacock’s “_List

for 1604_,” under the Parish of “Farnham.” There is a blank left for the

name of the wife of Denis Bainbridge, probably because Mr. Peacock could

not decipher the name indicated. I think that Mrs. Denis Bainbridge must

have sprung originally from Nidderdale or Wharfedale, and that she was

akin to the Vavasours, of Weston and Newton Hall, near Ripley; to the

Johnsons, of Leathley; and the Palmes, of Lindley; both of the two last in

that part of the Forest of Knaresbrough which is near to the town of

Otley. But further researches may solve the problem as to the maiden name

of her who gave birth to Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes called himself “John Johnson” when accosted by the Earl of

Suffolk and Lord Mounteagle in the cellar under the House of Lords, on

Monday, the 4th November. Possibly, therefore, his mother was a Johnson.

Query——Does the Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer, of Chicago, U.S.A., know of any

tradition hereon?

“Good Sir,——I pray you lette me intreate y^{r} favoure and

frendshippe for my Cosen Germane Mr Guydo Fawks who serves S^{r}

William (Stanley) as I understande he is in greate wante and

y^{r} worde in his behalfe may stande him in greate steede. I

have not deserved aine such curtesie at y^{r} handes as for my

sake to helpe my friendes but assure yrselfe that yf there be

aine thinge I can doe for you, you may commande me for the

respecte I beare to our ould friendshippe but also by this

meanes you shalle bynde me more unto you. He hath lefte a

prettie livinge here in his countre which his mother being

married to an unthriftie husbande since his departure I think

hath wastied awaye.[A] Yet she and the reste of our friends are

in good health. I durste not as yet goe to them but this sommer

I meane to see them all God willinge lette him tell my Cousin

Martin Harrington that I was at his Brother Henries house at

_the mounte_ but he was not then at home he and his wyfe are

well and have manie prettie children. Mr D. Worthington’s

brother hath wrote a letter unto him desiringe a speedie answere

he is a good honeste and devoute man I often mete with him for

nowe I am residente at his Cozens house in that province which

is fallen to my lotte they expecte therefor for some helpe

nothinge is wanting but a beginner amonge them so they saye for

the redemption of Israel. Remember I pray you my commendacons to

my good and honourable godmother my L. Marie[B] (Percie) and the

twoe devoute sisters in her companie. Mr Roberte Chambers[C]

writte to me for his mother, the charge is geven to Mr

Duckette[D] to inquire for her for she is in his vicinitie tho

four Sirsbies of his companie as [? are] here very well. Within

this week I have sene both Cor^{n} & Gould and Batte, to-morrowe

I shall mete w^{th} John Lassells. Thinges goe well forwarde

here o^{r} enemies persecute us all more than ever and are in

particulare feare or rather looke for some what more from o^{r}

owne malcontents. Thus requesting y^{r} favoure in my suite and

remembrance in y^{r} beste memories as you shall have myne _I

comitte you to sweete Jesus his hole protection_ this St John

Baps^{t} Eve.——Yours in Christe Richard Collinge.

“Lette D. Kellison know that his brother Valentine is in goode

healthe and a well wisher but noe Catholike.”

Addressed thus:——

“All Molto Mag^{co} Sig^{re}

il Signiore Guilio

Piccioli a

Venezia” [_i.e._, Venice].

(Endorsed) Fugitives.

Vol. cclxxi., No. 21.

_Cf._ also a letter of Father Richard Holtby, S.J., of Fryton, Hovingham,

North Riding of Yorkshire, to Father Parsons, dated 6th May, 1609,

ending:——“_I commit you to our sweet Saviour His keeping._”——Foley’s

“_Records_,” vol. iii., p. 9.]

[Footnote A: Guy Fawkes’ little patrimony was situate in Gillygate and

Clifton, then in the suburbs of the City of York.——See Robert Davies’

“_Fawkeses, of York_,” and William Camidge’s pamphlet, “_Guy Fawkes_”

(Burdekin, York).

Miss Catharine Pullein, of Rotherfield, Sussex, and Edward Pulleyn, Esq.,

of York and Lastingham, I have reason to believe, likewise belong to this

ancient family so long settled near Knaresbrough.——See Flower’s

“_Visitation of Yorkshire_,” and Glover’s “_Visitation_,” for a pedigree

of the family in the time of Elizabeth.]

[Footnote B: The Lady Mary Percy was niece to Francis and Mary Slingsby

(daughter of Sir Thomas Percy), of Scriven Hall, whose monuments are still

to be seen in the Knaresbrough Parish Church. Dr. Collins tells me that

“Sirsbie” was then “a Knaresbrough name,” and occurs in the Knaresbrough

Parish Church Registers of that period. The name “Sizey,” which is given

in Peacock’s “_List_,” under “Knaresbrough,” is probably the way “Sirsbie”

was pronounced, just as “subtle” is pronounced “su(b)tle.”]

[Footnote C: I incline to think that this Robert Chambers is the same as

the Robert Chambers mentioned in the “_Douay Diary_,” edited by Dr. Knox

(David Nutt); the name, Robert Chambers, appears as one of the students at

the English College, Rome. Gould and Batte (or Bates) were probably also

the names of priests who had been at this College. Corn may have been

Father Oldcorne, S.J., who came to England as a missionary in 1588 with

Father John Gerard; or he may have been Father Thomas Cornforth, S.J., a

native of Durham, and a great friend of Edward fourth Lord Vaux of

Harrowden, whose mother was Elizabeth Roper, a daughter of Sir John Roper

first Lord Teynham. Father Cornforth became a Jesuit in 1600. He was at

the English College at Rome, and came to England in April, 1599.]

[Footnote D: The Duckette here mentioned was doubtless Father Richard

Holtby, S.J., who succeeded Garnet as Superior of the English Jesuits.

Holtby was born at Fryton——in the Parish of Hovingham, in the Vale of

Mowbray——between Slingsby and Hovingham, where his brother, George Holtby,

lived.——See Peacock’s “_List of Roman Catholics in Yorkshire in 1604_;”

also Foster’s Edition of Glover’s “_Visitation of Yorkshire_.”——It was

Richard Holtby, then a secular priest, who found for Campion secluded,

lovely Mount St. John. I think it is probable that, after being harboured

by Sir William Babthorpe, at Babthorpe Hall or Osgodby (or both), Campion

would proceed through the Vale of Ouse and Derwent to Thixendale, in the

Parish of Leavening, to the house of a Mrs. Bulmer; thence, I opine, to

Fryton, in the Parish of Hovingham; thence to Grimston Manor, in the

Parish of Gilling East; thence through the Vale of Mowbray, by Coxwold, to

Mount St. John, the home of the Harringtons, who seem to have quitted the

place soon after the year 1603, because the Gregory family are found

recorded in the Parish Registers shortly after that date, and they

certainly resided at Mount St. John. (Communicated to me by the Rev. Henry

Clayforth, M.A., Vicar of Feliskirk, near Thirsk.) Near Mount St. John are

Upsal Castle, magnificently situated, and Kirby Knowle Castle (commonly

called New Building). These were ancient Catholic houses, formerly of a

branch of the Constable family. In Kirby Knowle Castle, embosomed in

trees, is still to be seen a priests’ hiding-place. During the

early part of the nineteenth century a skeleton was found in this

hiding-place——possibly that of a priest. (Communicated to me by the late

Very Rev. Monsignor Edward Canon Goldie, of York, about the year 1889.)

George S. Thompson, Esquire, now lives at Kirby Knowle Castle, or New

Building. This gentleman married a Miss Elsley, of York, whose family, I

believe, formerly owned Mount St. John, through their relatives, the

Gregories, who seem to have succeeded the Harringtons, harbourers of the

great Campion, whom Lord Burleigh himself styled “one of the diamonds of

England.” Campion’s guides through Yorkshire were Mr. Tempest (probably of

Broughton Hall, near Skipton-in-Craven), Mr. More (probably of Barnbrough

Hall, near Doncaster, which came to the descendants of Sir Thomas More,

through the Cresacre family), Mr. Smyth (brother-in-law of William

Harrington, the elder), and Father Richard Holtby.——See Simpson’s “_Life

of Campion_,” second Edition (Hodges, London).——In recent years the Walker

family have owned Mount St. John, but I believe that to-day (1901) Sir

Lowthian Bell is the owner. When I visited this historic and ravishing

spot, the Honourable Mrs. Bosville was the lessee, and the writer has a

pleasant recollection of that lady’s gracious courtesy (1898).]

[Footnote 148:——Jardine, in his “_Narrative_” p. 37, has the following

exceptionally interesting paragraph: “Sir William Waad in a letter to Lord

Salisbury, reporting a conversation with Fawkes, says, ‘Fawkes’s mother is

alive and re-married, and he hath a brother in one of the Inns of Court.

John and Christopher Wright were school-fellows of Fawkes and neighbours’

children. Tesimond, the Jesuit, was at that time schoolfellow also with

them. So as this crew have been brought up together.’”——State Paper

Office, Add. Papers No. 481, Jardine (now Record Office).

Probably what Fawkes said was that _he_ (Fawkes) _and Tesimond_ were

neighbours’ children; for John and Christopher Wright’s parents were of

Plowland Hall, in the Parish of Welwick, in Holderness, as we have seen.

Two explanations, however, are possible, which will reconcile this

statement that, after all, Fawkes may have _said that he and the Wrights

were neighbours’ children_. One is that possibly the young Wrights boarded

with some citizen dwelling in St. Michael-le-Belfrey’s Parish, York,

whilst they were at the Royal School of St. Peter, then in the Horse

Fayre, Gillygate (but now in Clifton), York; the other explanation is that

possibly a portion of the fourteen years during which the mother of John

and Christopher Wright was (as we have seen already _ante_) imprisoned for

her resolute profession of the Catholic religion was spent in company with

her husband, Robert Wright, in some private gentleman’s house in the

Belfrey Parish, in the City of York——a thing then very common. For

example, Dr. Thomas Vavasour, a physician, of Christ’s Parish, who——_or

whose wife_, Mrs. Dorothy Vavasour——favoured Campion, and probably

harboured him in 1581, was for a time imprisoned in the house of his

brother. This was probably Mr. Edward Vavasour, a Protestant gentleman,

who resided in “the Belfray” Parish, and was a freeman of York and one of

its tradesmen, being, I find, a hatter. In the York “Subsidy Roll for

1581” Edward Vavasour’s name appears as being assessed in goods at £8. Dr.

Thomas Vavasour’s name does not appear in the Subsidy Roll. I believe he

was then in prison, at Hull, for his persistent refusal to conform to the

Queen’s demands in matters of faith.

Query——Did Father Oldcorne learn his “medicine” from Dr. Vavasour, of the

Parish of Christ? What was the system of medical training in the “golden

days”?]

[Footnote 149:——As revealing the interior state (1) of Oldcorne’s mind in

relation to the Gunpowder enterprise, and (2) of Tesimond’s mind,

respectively, the former stands in sharp contrast with the latter, and

must be pregnant with significance to the discerning and judicious

reader.]

[Footnote 150:——Vol. ii., pp. 285, 286.]

[Footnote 151:——“_Somers’ Tracts_,” Edited by Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii.,

p. 106, says: “Tesimond severely censured Hall (alias Oldcorne) for his

timidity on the occasion, calling him a phlegmatic fellow.”

Dr. Abbott’s “_Antilogia_” confirms Jardine’s report of Tesimond’s

denunciation, _although Foley most improperly omits it_.]

[Footnote 152:——The diverse demeanour on this critical occasion of these

two Jesuits (both natives of the same City, most probably, and

fellow-scholars in the then recently re-founded Grammar School belonging

to York Minster) is very striking, and reminds one of the following

sagacious remark of that clear writer, Dr. James Martineau: “In human

psychology, feeling when it transcends sensation is not without idea, but

is a type of idea.”——“_Essays and Addresses_,” vol. iv., p. 202 (Longmans,

1891).——Such feeling then is _mens cordis_——the mind of the heart.]

[Footnote 153:——Hindlip Hall, about four miles from Worcester, was built

on an eminence in 1572 and the following years of Elizabeth’s reign. It

had a large prospect of the surrounding country, and contained many

conveyances, secret chambers, and priests’ hiding-places, perhaps more

than any house in England. The old Hall of the Abingtons was pulled down

at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The present mansion was built

by the Lord Hindlip’s family, I believe. This demesne is one of the most

historic spots in the kingdom, owing to its memorable associations with

Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne, Garnet having left Coughton at the request of

Oldcorne, in December, 1605. The two Jesuits were nourished, after

Salisbury instituted his search, during seven days, seven nights, and some

odd hours, mainly by broth and other warm drinks, conveyed to them through

a quill or reed passed “through a little hole in a chimney that backed

another chimney into a gentlewoman’s chamber.” Doubtless Mrs. Abington and

Miss Anne Vaux (the devoted friend of Father Garnet, who, along with

Brother Nicholas Owen, accompanied him to Hindlip) had administered this

food to the two famishing Jesuits detained in durance.]

[Footnote 154:——Father Garnet’s house in Thames Street, London, had been

broken up, this place of Jesuit sojourning having become known to the

Government. Consequently, Garnet, at the beginning of September, 1605,

went down to Gothurst, in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard and

Lady Digby.

Christopher Wright, it will be remembered, quitted his lodging near Temple

Bar, on October the 5th, and, I opine, then went down to Lapworth, or

Clopton, near Stratford-on-Avon. Catesby was born at Lapworth.

It will be remembered that the Ardens, the relatives of Shakespeare’s

mother, were allied to the Throckmortons, and therefore to Francis

Throckmorton, the friend of Mary Queen of Scots. It is a remarkable

coincidence that the great dramatist was, through both the Ardens and the

Throckmortons, connected with those whose quartered remains he may have

had in his mind’s eye (in addition to those of the Gunpowder conspirators)

when in 1606, in “Macbeth,” he writ of “the hangman’s bloody hands.”

For an account of the Somerville-Arden and the Francis Throckmorton

alleged conspiracies against the life of Queen Elizabeth, see Froude’s

“_History_.” For an account of Shakespeare’s family, including the Ardens,

see Mrs. C. C. Stope’s recent book (Elliot Stock, 1901).]

[Footnote 155:——In the “_Life of Sir Everard Digby_,” by “One of his

descendants” (Kegan Paul), is to be found a vivid and historically

accurate account of the proceedings of November the 5th and afterwards.

The conspirators’ line of flight would be nearly parallel with the London

and North Western Railway from Euston Station to Rugby.]

[Footnote 156:——The country crossed by these unhappy fugitives is

undoubtedly the very “heart of England,” and in spring and summer is one

of the gardens of England. As those then flying, on that gloomy November

day, from the Avenger of blood, were probably almost all men of strong

family affections, and certainly all ardent lovers of their country, how

often must the feelings have welled up in their heart, as from some

intermittent crystalline spring, so beautifully expressed by the old Latin

poet:——

“Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens

Uxor: neque harum, quas colis, arborum

Te, praeter invisas cupressos,

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.”——_Horace._[A]

Alas! Like many another wrong-doer, before and since, they thought of this

too late.

Well-nigh the final glimpse we get of Christopher Wright is from a letter

the conspirator, Thomas Bates, wrote to a priest, which is given in

Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” p. 210. Christopher Wright, we are told by Bates,

on the morning of the day when the powder exploded at Holbeach House,

“flung to Bates, out of a window, £100, and desired him, as he was a

Catholic, to give unto his wife, and his brother’s wife, £80, and take £20

himself:”——Wright owing Bates some money.]

[Footnote A:

“Land must be left, and home, and charming wife,

And of these trees which you cultivate,

None will follow you, their short-lived owner and lord,

Save the detested cypress.”]

[Footnote 157:——Does Greenway’s “_Narrative_” clearly state how many of

these conspirators received from Tesimond the sacraments? If so, what

sacraments were they?

The Government would have had a clear case of inciting to open rebellion

against Tesimond if they had caught him, but he escaped to Flanders. He

was “a very deep dog,” was Master Tesimond, and no mistake. But he was

wholly under the finger and thumb (_me judice_) of Catesby, which shows

what a powerful man of genius Catesby must have been.

Father Henry Garnet, at his trial, allowed that Tesimond had acted “ill,”

in seeking to rouse the country to open rebellion.]

[Footnote 158:——This lady was Muriel, the widow of John Littleton, who had

been involved in the rebellion of Robert Devereux Earl of Essex. She was

the daughter of Elizabeth’s Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley.——See

Aiken’s “_Memoirs of the Reign of James I._”

For a true estimate of the second Earl of Essex, see Dr. R. W. Church’s

“Bacon” (Macmillan).——See also Major Hume’s “_Courtships of Queen

Elizabeth_ (Fisher Unwin) and his “_Treason and Plot_” (Nesbit).]

[Footnote 159:——How well-grounded Oldcorne’s suspicions of Littleton were,

and how soundly he had discerned the man’s spirit, is proved from the fact

that after Littleton had been condemned to death for harbouring his

cousin, the Master of Holbeach, and Robert Winter, the Master of

Huddington, Littleton sought to save his life by telling the Government

that Oldcorne had “answered that the [Gunpowder] action was good, and that

he seemed to approve of it.” Littleton also said that “since this last

rebellion he heard Hall [_i.e._, Oldcorne] once preach in the house of the

said Mr. Abington, at which time he seemed to confirm his hearers in the

Catholic cause.”——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 219.]

[Footnote 160:——On the 5th of October, 1900, I saw this Declaration by the

courtesy of the authorities at the Record Office, London, and compared it

with the Letter to Lord Mounteagle. Miss Emma M. Walford was present the

while.——See Appendix.]

[Footnote 161:——This luminous definition is by that great writer, Frederic

Harrison.]

[Footnote 162:——It is not less dangerous to indulge in Irony. For an

emphatic proof of this see the “_Life of Lord Bowen_,” p. 115 (Murray), by

Sir H. S. Cunningham, K.C.I.E.

_Cf._ the great Stagyrite’s discountenancing the study by the

inexperienced (the young in years or in character) of the fundamental

grounds of those moral rules that each man must observe if he would

faithfully do his duty from day to day, and “walk sure-footedly” in this

life.——See “_The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle_,” book i. See also

Professor Muirhead’s “_Chapters from the Ethics_” (Murray).

Hector, in “Troilus and Cressida,” act ii., scene 2, speaks of “Young men,

whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear moral philosophy.”]

[Footnote 163:——Jardine thinks that Oldcorne manifests a disposition “to

hesitate and argue about the moral complexion” of the Gunpowder Treason;

and this disposition Jardine regards as exhibiting in Oldcorne,

“apparently a man of humane and quiet character,” a “distorted perception

of right and wrong.”——See “_Criminal Trials_,” pp. 232, 233.

But it is evident that, for the nonce, the London Magistrate’s judicial

temper of mind had deserted him, when he sniffed too closely the moral air

breathed by a Jesuit. For manifest is it that, _e.g._, all acts of

insubordination against an established government are not treasons and

rebellions when that government is hopelessly tyrannical, inhuman, and

corrupt. Nor are all acts of slaughter of human beings acts of wilful

murder. They may be acts of justifiable tyrannicide, as, possibly, in the

case of “the man Charles Stuart, King of England;” and acts of justifiable

homicide, as in the case of every just war, or of every legitimate slaying

upon the gallows.]

[Footnote 164:——In this connection the following words of the conspirator

John Grant should be remembered. After the Jury had found a verdict of

“guilty” against the prisoners, at Westminster Hall, on being asked what

he could say wherefore judgment of death should not be pronounced against

him, Grant replied, “He was guilty of a conspiracy intended, but never

effected.”

_Cf._ Wordsworth’s Sonnet on the Gunpowder Plot, which is very

penetrating.]

[Footnote 165:——Let it be remembered by the gentle, though unreflecting,

reader who is disposed to be unnerved at the sound of the word “Casuist,”

as at the sound of something “uncanny,” that Casuistry is that great

science, so indispensable to statesmen, warriors, and politicians,

especially in these days of democratic self-government, whereby the

electing, self-governing people are told by their own authorized expert

representatives so much of public affairs as it is for the common good

should be known by them, _but no more_. The late Right Hon. W. E.

Gladstone once styled Casuistry “a great and noble science.” Now, the

Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., the present Prime Minister of King Edward

VII., denominated Mr. Gladstone in the House of Lords, when paying his

tribute to the memory of that “king of men,” “a great Christian

statesman.” And justly; for although Mr. Gladstone was himself a master in

the science of Casuistry, the object that science has in view is to forge

a palladium for Truth, and this at the cost of endless intellectual

labour. Casuistry, properly understood, counts all mere intellectual toils

as cheaply purchased, no matter at what cost, provided only that Truth

herself——unsullied Truth——be saved. For, after its kind, in whatever

sphere, Truth is infinitely more excellent than the diamond, neither is

the ruby so lovely; while _partial Truth_, according to its degree, is not

less true than the full orb of Truth.]

[Footnote 166:——This phrase, “sacrilegious murder,” is used by Shakespeare

in “Macbeth,” and so precisely does it express the double crime of the

Gunpowder plotters that I feel certain that from this allusion——as well as

from the evident allusion to the well-known equivocations of Father Henry

Garnet (alias Farmer) before the Privy Council——the great dramatist must

have had the Gunpowder Plot in his mind the whole time he wrote this

finest of his tragedies.

I suggest, too, that the words “The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan?

for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell” are an allusion

to the mysterious warning bell that the plotters thought they heard whilst

working in the mine.——See Jardine’s “_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,”

p. 54.

Compare also Mr. H. W. Mabie’s description of the tragedy of “Macbeth” in

his very recent and valuable “_Life of Shakespeare_” (Macmillan & Co.).

Mr. Mabie’s account sounds in one’s ears like a very echo of a recital of

the facts and purposes of the Gunpowder Plot.]

[Footnote 167:——Now, as the conspirators were engaged in a

joint-enterprise, it must be evident to every clear-minded thinker that

the repentance of _any one of the joint-plotters_ must have shed an

imputed beneficent influence over and upon all the band. For just as no

man liveth only to himself, and no man dieth only to himself, so, by a

parity of reasoning, no man is morally resurrected only to himself.

Therefore, the moment Christopher Wright was, in the pure eyes of Edward

Oldcorne, freed from the leprosy of his sacrilegious-murderous

crime——freed (1) by his owning to the same in word; (2) by his manifesting

sorrow for the same in heart; and, above and beyond all, freed (3) by his

making amends for the same in deed, through the earnest and part

performance he had given and made of his unconquerable purpose of

reversal, in assenting to the proposal of his listener to pen the

revealing Letter——from that moment Christopher Wright, I say, and, through

him (though in a secondary, subordinate, derivative sense), all the

remaining twelve plotters, would rise up, as an army from the dead; would

rise up and stand once more with head erect and in marching order——that

noble posture and manly attitude which is ever the reward, sure and

certain, of a recovered sense of justice, sincerity, truth.]

[Footnote 168:——The Government, it is said, appointed a special Commission

to try Humphrey Littleton and some others at Worcester. The following

quotation is taken from “the Relation of Humphrey Littleton, made January

26th, 1605-6,” written by one Sir Richard Lewkner to the Lords of the

Privy Council. Lewkner was one of the Commissioners.

This sentence is to be specially noted in this “Relation”:——“The servant

of the said Hall [_i.e._, Oldcorne] is now prisoner in Worcester Gaol, and

can, as he thinks, go directly to the secret place where the said Hall

lieth hid.”

Now, what was the name of this servant? It certainly was not Ralph Ashley

(alias George Chambers), Jesuit lay-brother, for he and Nicholas Owen, the

servant of Garnet, who died in the Tower, “in their hands,” whatever that

may mean, were not captured at Hindlip until a few days before their

masters. This treacherous servant of Oldcorne, whoever he was, was

possibly the self-same person who told the Government that Ashley “had

carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy.”——See Gerard’s

“_Narrative_,” p. 271.——The man may have shrewdly suspected it from

something in Ashley’s deportment or from his riding up and down the

country in a way that portended that something unusual was afoot. He may

have been a “weak or bad Catholic” servant of Mr. Abington, whom that

gentleman placed at the special disposal of Oldcorne for a class of work

which could be done by one who was not a Jesuit lay-brother. The

Government had evidently got a clue to something from somebody, because I

find Father Oldcorne making answer in the course of one of his

examinations:——“He sayth he bought a black horse of Mr. Wynter at May next

shall be three yeares, and sould him againe.” Examination, 5th March,

1606.——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv., p. 224.

According to Foley’s “_Records_,” Oldcorne was indicted at Worcester for——

(1) Inviting Garnet, a denounced traitor, to Hindlip.

(2) Writing to Father Robert Jones, S.J., in Herefordshire, to aid in

concealing Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter, thus making himself an

accomplice.

(3) Of approving the Plot as a good action, though it failed of effect.

Father Jones had provided a place of concealment at Coombe, in the Parish

of Welch Newton, on the borders of Herefordshire, which then abounded in

Catholics. Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter, being captured at Hagley,

in Worcestershire, were executed as traitors according to law. Hagley

House is now the residence of Charles George Baron Lyttelton and Viscount

Cobham.]

[Footnote 169:——A learned Cretan Jesuit, Father L’Henreux, who was

appointed by Pope Urban VIII. Rector of the Greek College at Rome, wrote a

powerful “_Apologia_” in behalf of Father Henry Garnet, which was

published in 1610. In 1613 Dr. Robert Abbott, a Master of Balliol College,

Oxford, and Regius Professor of Divinity at that University, wrote his

“_Antilogia_” as a reply to Eudæmon-Joannes’ “_Apologia_.” It would be a

boon to historical students if both the “_Apologia_” and the “_Antilogia_”

were “Englished” by some competent hand. Abbott was made Bishop of

Salisbury, partly on account of the learning he displayed in his

“_Antilogia_.” He was a Calvinist, and a vigorous writer, being styled

“the hammer of Popery and Arminianism.”

Dr. Lancelot Andrewes (in answer to Cardinal Bellarmine) and Isaac

Casaubon also contributed to the literature of the controversies anent the

Plot, and modern editions of their works with notes are desiderata.

Casaubon is best known, at the present day, through his “_Life_,” by Mark

Pattison; Andrewes, through the late Dr. R. W. Church’s “Lecture,” now in

“_The Pascal_” volume (Macmillan) of that judicious and learned man.]

[Footnote 170:——See Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_,” vol. ii., p. 120,

quoting “_Apologia_,” p. 200.

Sir Everard Digby was the only conspirator who pleaded “guilty,” and he

was arraigned by a different Indictment from that which charged the rest

of the surviving conspirators.]

[Footnote 171:——My contention is that the conclusion is inevitable to the

discerning mind that the sphinx-like nescience——the face set like a

flint——with which Oldcorne met Littleton’s inquiry, displays indisputable

evidence of a sub-consciousness on Oldcorne’s part, of what? Of a

_special_, _private_, _official knowledge_ (as distinct from a general,

public, personal knowledge) of what had been intended to be the executed

Gunpowder Plot, but which Oldcorne himself had thwarted, and so prevented

everlastingly any one single human creature being able, even for the

infinitesimal part of an instant, to contemplate “_post factum_”——after

the fact——and in the concrete; which, indeed, judged “from the outside,”

and as the bulk of mankind are entitled to judge it, was the only side or

aspect of the baleful enterprise that was of practical and, therefore, to

them, of paramount personal consequence. The conspirator John Grant

expressed the state of the case exactly when he said in Westminster Hall,

after being asked what he could say wherefore judgment of death should not

be pronounced against him, “He was guilty of a conspiracy intended, but

never effected.”]

[Footnote 172:——See Butler’s “_Memoirs of English Catholics_,” vol. ii.,

p. 260. See also Gerard’s “_Narrative_.”——It is possible (according to

Gerard) that Oldcorne may have been even still more cruelly tortured,

namely, as Dr. Lingard says, during five hours for each of five successive

days; but to me, humanly speaking, this is incredible.]

[Footnote 173:——Father Edward Oldcorne and Brother Ralph Ashley are both,

along with others, now styled by Rome, “Venerable Servants of God.” The

Decree introducing the cause of these “English Martyrs,” dated 1886, and

signed by the present Pope, Leo XIII., is kept in the English College at

Rome, where Oldcorne had himself entered as a student a little more than

three hundred and four years previously, namely, in 1582.

Through the truly kind courtesy of the Right Rev. Monsignor Giles, D.D.,

President of the English College, Rome, the writer was privileged to see,

along with the Rev. Father Darby, O.S.B., and some other gentlemen, this

Decree in the afternoon of Saturday, the 13th of October, 1900, the Feast

of St. Edward the Confessor, King of England. In the forenoon of the same

day the first great band of the English Pilgrims for the Holy Year, the

Year of Jubilee, had received, in St. Peter’s, the Papal Blessing, amid

great rejoicing, the apse or place of honour in this, the largest Church

in Christendom, being graciously accorded to these fifteen hundred British

Catholic subjects of Her late Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.]

[Footnote 174:——As to the precise teaching of the theologians of Father

Oldcorne’s Church respecting the famous dictum of St. Augustine of Hippo,

“_Extra ecclesiam nulla salus_,” see the book of the once celebrated Douay

theologian, Dr. Hawarden, entitled, “_Charity and Truth; or Catholics not

uncharitable in saying that none are saved out of the Catholic Communion,

because the rule is not universal_” (1728). And, again, that great

Yorkshire son of St. Philip Neri, Dr. Frederic William Faber, an

ultramontane papist of the ultramontane papists, has thus recorded his own

potent testimony on this subject in his singularly able and beautiful

work, entitled, “_The Creator and the Creature_,” first edition, p. 368.

Dr. Faber says: “We are speaking of Catholics. If our thoughts break their

bounds and run out beyond the Church, nothing that has been said has been

said with any view to those without. I have no profession of faith to make

about them, except that God is infinitely merciful to every soul; that no

one ever has been, or ever can be, lost by surprise or trapped in his

ignorance; and as to those who may be lost, I confidently believe that our

Heavenly Father threw His arms round each created spirit, and looked it

full in the face with bright eyes of love in the darkness of its mortal

life, and that of its own deliberate will it would not have Him.”]

[Footnote 175:——Either from the phonograph or even the shorthand scribe.]

[Footnote 176:——Are the Indictments in existence of Father Oldcorne and

Ralph Ashley, who seem to have been tried in the Shire Hall, Worcester, at

the Lent Assizes of 1606? If so, they and extracts from any Minute Books

still extant bearing on the subject would be of great interest and value

to the historical Inquirer, if published.]

[Footnote 177:——Oldcorne realized experimentally, in the final action of

the great tragedy, what it means, as Goethe has it, for a man “to adjust

his compass at the Cross.”

And than Oldcorne no human creature ever lived that had a better right to

anticipate those magnificent words of triumph over death of one of

Yorkshire’s supremest geniuses: “_If my barque sink, ’tis to another

sea._”]

[Footnote 178:——In Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,”

third series, p. 325, we read: “In 1572 John Oldcorne is one of the four

sworn men against the late rebels and other evil-disposed people suspected

of papistry, for St. Sampson’s parish.”

Again, under date April 10th, 1577, we read: “And now also John Oldcorne,

of St. Sampson’s parish, who cometh not to the church on Sundays and

holidays, personally appeared before these presents, and sayeth he is

content to suffer the churchwarden of the same parish to take his

distresses for his offence.”

There is also for January, 1598, the following pathetic entry concerning

the mother of Father Oldcorne:——

“Monckewarde Saint Sampson’s, Elizabeth Awdcorne, alias Oldcorne, old and

lame a recusant.”

York is now divided into six wards for the purposes of municipal

government, namely: Bootham, Monk, Micklegate, Walmgate, Guildhall, and

Castlegate. Until the nineteenth century there were only the first four

wards, which, indeed, corresponded to the four great Gates or chief Ways

for entering the City.

The writer remembers with pleasure that, now some years ago, his

fellow-citizens of Micklegate Ward, on the west side of York, did him the

honour of electing him to occupy a seat, for the term of three years, in

the Council Chamber of his native City, which, he is proud to remember,

was the City wherein first drew the breath of life Edward Oldcorne; one,

he has every reason to believe, whose keen, sane mind, and ready, skilful

hand were instrumental, under Heaven, in penning that immortal document

which saved the life, certainly, of King James I., of His Royal Consort

Queen Anne of Denmark, of Henry Prince of Wales, and Charles Duke of York,

afterwards King Charles I., as well as the life of the Lords Spiritual and

Temporal, the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, and many Foreign

Ambassadors, in the year of grace 1605, now well-nigh three centuries ago.

As some readers may be, perchance, interested in a few particulars

concerning the ancient Parish of St. Sampson, which is in the heart of the

City of York, close to the Market Place, I propose to mention a few. First

of all, then, the ancient parish church which bears the name of the old

British Saint, St. Sampson, is pre-eminently one of “the grey old churches

of our native land,” whereof in the reign of King Henry V. (Shakespeare’s

ideal English monarch) there were in the City of York and its suburbs no

less than forty-one, though in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth the

number was reduced. That forty-one was the number originally we know from

a subsidy of Parliament which granted to King Harry, in 1413, two

shillings in the pound leviable on all spirituals and temporals in the

realm for carrying on the then war with France.——See Drake’s “_Eboracum_,”

p. 234.

St. Sampson’s Church consists of a lower nave and chancel with north and

south aisles to both, extending nearly to the west base of the tower. The

architecture of the church is in the decorated and the perpendicular

styles. King Richard III., in 1393, granted the advowson of this church to

the Vicars Choral of York Minster. The present Vicar (1901) is the Rev.

William Haworth, one of the Vicars Choral of the Minster, to whom I am

indebted for information respecting the Registers of St. Sampson’s Church

and the Church of Holy Trinity, King’s Court, or Christ’s.

Mr. Councillor John Earle Wilkinson, “mine host” of the “Garrick’s Head”

Hotel, Low Petergate, York, who was the Guardian of the Poor for the old

Parish of St. Sampson (as he is now the Guardian for Ward No. 2 of the

United Parish of York), kindly informed me on the 10th July, 1901, that

the following streets are in the Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Sampson.

Hence we may conclude that it was in a house in one of these streets that

were spent the earliest years of Edward Oldcorne, the son of John

Oldcorne, Tiler, and of Elizabeth, his wife:——

(1) Church Street, a street between the Market Place (which Market Place

is formed by St. Sampson’s Square and Parliament Street) and Goodramgate

towards Monk Bar. Here is St. Sampson’s Church.

(2) Patrick Pool, to the east of St. Sampson’s Church.

(3) The right-hand side of Newgate, leading into High Jubbergate (formerly

Jews-Gate).

(4) Little Shambles and Pump Yard.

(5) That part of Parliament Street on the south-west which includes the

site of the York City and County Bank.

(6) That part of Parliament Street on the north-east which includes Mr. F.

H. Vaughan’s “Clock” Hotel.

(7) Silver Street, to the west of St. Sampson’s Church, connecting Church

Street with High Jubbergate.

(8) On the north side of Church Street, opposite St. Sampson’s Church,

Swinegate.

Finkle Street.

(9) Back (or Little) Swinegate, between Swinegate and Finkle Street.

(10) That part of Little Stonegate which includes the back part of the

premises of Messrs. Myers and Burnell, Coachbuilders, and the Model

Lodging House opposite.

(11) Coffee Yard.

(12) The top part of Grape Lane (leading into Low Petergate), which

adjoins Coffee Yard and the north end of Swinegate.

(13) St. Sampson’s Square (forming part of the Market Place).

Some of the old Elizabethan dwelling-houses and shops in these streets and

yards, built of oak (doubtless from the famous Galtres Forest, northward

of York), with their projecting stories of lath and plaster, happily, are

still standing, “rich with the spoils of time,” and the eyes of Edward

Oldcorne must have, many a time and oft, gazed upon them at that momentous

period of life when “the child is father of the man.”

Besides these ancient dwelling-houses and shops, relics of the Past, the

grey old Parish Church of St. Sampson must have been one of the sights

which, from the earliest dawn of reason, entered into the historic

“imagination” of the great Elizabethan Englishman, who was destined to

become a learned student at Rheims and Rome and “to see much of many men

and many cities” before he came to England, in the year 1588, the year of

the Spanish Armada.

Another familiar object to the future honoured friend and trusted

counsellor of Mr. and Mrs. Abington and the highest in the land would be

also the old Market Cross, which stood in the middle of St. Sampson’s

Square, then, and even still sometimes, called Thursday Market.——See

Gent’s “_York_.”

The fact that during the month of December, 1901, the claim of the ancient

City of York to be specially represented, through its Lord Mayor, on the

occasion of the forthcoming Coronation of His Most Gracious Majesty King

Edward VII., was considered by the Court of Claims next after the claim of

the City of London, is interesting evidence to show that the City of

Edward Oldcorne is still counted the second City of the British Empire,

notwithstanding that such claim was disallowed.]

[Footnote 179:——Sir Edward Hoby was a man of parts, a learned diplomatist

and able Protestant controversialist.——See “_National Dictionary of

Biography_.”]

[Footnote 180:——Nichols’ “_Progresses of James I._,” pp. 584-587. (The

italics are mine.)]

_Sub-note to Note 178._

In 1572 John Oldcorne, we are told, was one of the four “sworn men against

the late rebels and other evil-disposed people suspected of papistry, for

St. Sampson’s parish.” This is very interesting; for on the 22nd day of

August, 1572, at three o’clock in the afternoon, “the Blessed” Thomas

Percy, “the good Erle of Northumberland,” was beheaded in The Pavement, at

the east end of All Saints’ Church. He was buried in old St. Crux Church,

adjoining The Pavement; and it is possible, I conjecture, that John

Oldcorne may have been sworn in as a special constable to help to keep the

peace on the occasion of the beheading of the Earl, who held the hearts of

nine-tenths of the people of York and Yorkshire, as well as of “the North

Countrie” generally, at the time of his long and deeply lamented death.

The York “Tyburn,” in the middle of the Tadcaster High-road, opposite Hob

Moor Gate, Knavesmire, was abolished at the beginning of the nineteenth

century.

John Oldcorne, the father of Father Edward Oldcorne, is described as a

Bricklayer as well as a Tiler. I think he was a “Master,” in partnership,

maybe, with his brother, Thomas Oldcorne, a great sufferer for the

Catholic Faith, whose wife, Alice, died——a prisoner for her conscience——in

the Kidcote, on Old Ouse Bridge, and whose body was buried on Toft Green,

near to Micklegate Bar.——See Foley’s “_Records_,” vol. iv.——The name

Oldcorne is not now found in the City of York.

FINIS.

A task at once pleasurable and laborious is at length accomplished, and

the writer humbly sends forth into the world his modest contribution

towards the literature of the Gunpowder Treason Plot.

Errors, whether in matters of Fact or in points of Reasoning and Argument,

the author will be gratefully obliged by his readers at an early date

pointing out to him.

Should his book be read by any of our kith and kin in His Most Gracious

Majesty’s Dominions beyond the seas, whom “the stern behests of Duty” have

bidden “with strangers make their home,” as well as by professed students

of History and the general citizen reader in the United Kingdom of Great

Britain and Ireland, then will be the writer’s joy great indeed.

The author desires to tender his respectful and cordial thanks to the

Authorities of the following Libraries for the use of their valuable, and

not seldom invaluable, works:——(1) The Minster Library, York; (2) the

Minster Library, Ripon; (3) the British Museum, London; (4) the Free

Library, York; (5) the Free Library, Leeds; (6) the Free Library, Preston;

(7) the Free Library, Wigan; and (8) the Albert Library, York.

Also the like thanks to the following persons of divers nationalities,

creeds, and parties. Their aid and assistance have been of various kinds:

sometimes the loan of rare and costly books for a twelve-month together;

in certain cases, advice and counsel; in other cases, the revising of

proof sheets, the translation from foreign tongues, and the transcription

of Elizabethan and Jacobean documents:——

To the Rev. F. A. Russell, York, formerly of India; the Rev. Edmond Nolan,

B.A., St. Edmund’s House, Cambridge; the Rev. Richard Sharp, S.J.,

Skipton-in-Craven, Yorks.; the Rev. George Machell, York; the Rev. Louis

Tils, York, formerly of Germany; the Rev. H. Rawlings, M.A., York,

formerly of South Africa; the Rev. T. Harrington, Brosna, Co. Kerry,

Ireland; the Rev. H. A. Geurts, Bishop Thornton, Ripon, Yorks., formerly

of Holland; the Rev. E. J. Hickey, Lartington, North Yorks.; A. E.

Chapman, LL.D., York; A. Neave Brayshaw, B.A., LL.B., York; Oswald C. B.

Brown, York, Solicitor (author of “_The Life of the Venerable Richard

Langley: a Martyr of the Yorkshire Wolds_”); G. Laycock Brown, York,

Solicitor; Miss Emma M. Walford, 45, Bernard St., Russell Square, London,

W.C.; Miss Georgina Kirby, York House, Middlesbrough, Yorks.; Mr. Ralph

Currie, York; and Mr. John Sampson, York.

Lastly, to all other kind friends who may have rendered assistance, but

whose names do not occur _either_ in the work itself _or_ in the

above-mentioned list, the writer begs to offer his sincere

acknowledgments.

PRINTED BY

THE YORKSHIRE HERALD NEWSPAPER COMPANY, LIMITED,

YORK.

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER’S AMENDMENTS

Transcriber’s Note: Blank pages have been deleted. Footnotes with

alphabetic tags now generally follow the referencing paragraph. Footnotes

with numeric tags are located near the end of the work. The publisher’s

inadvertent omissions of important punctuation have been corrected.

Duplicative book and chapter front matter has been removed.

The following list indicates any additional changes made. The page number

represents that of the original publication and applies in this etext

except for footnotes and illustrations since they may have been moved.

Page Change

2 See Notes at End of Text, indicated by figures in ( )[[ ]]

2 ['Local' footnotes are indicated with A-Z, not numerals.]

168 This lady was the the[Delete.] above-named Dowager

174 Anglo-Saxon compeers as belonging [to] a comparatively inferior

176 his aid for the rebellion.[Omitted footnote tag added here.]

192 the point of a needle?”[Omitted footnote tag added here.]

248 owned by the Rev. Charles Slingsby Slingsby[Delete.],

251 and from tyme to to[Delete.] tyme,

306 William Grauntham[Grantham].

387 Again; Fawkes, we are told by Endæmon[Eudæmon],

* * * * *