Chapter Nine.
On the weary Way to Holbeach.
“And thou hast fashioned idols of thine own—
Idols of gold, of silver, and of stone:
To them hast bowed the knee, and breathed the breath,
And they must help thee in the hour of death.”
Sir Edwin Arnold.
While the discomfited conspirators were thus speeding on their weary way, in hope of yet gathering recruits enough to raise the standard of rebellion in the interests of that Church on whose behalf they counted everything lawful, Lord Harrington, at Combe Abbey, heard the news, and hurried the little Princess off to Coventry, as a safer place than his own house, for Coventry was determinately Protestant and loyal. Elizabeth, afterwards well known as the Queen of Bohemia, was deeply impressed and horrified with the terrible discovery.
“What sort of a queen should I have been,” said the true-hearted child, “when I had won to my throne through the blood of my father and my brothers? Thanked be God that it was not so!”
The metropolis was passing through a ferment of delight, amazement, and activity. Everywhere in the streets bonfires were blazing,—the first of those Gunpowder Plot bonfires which every fifth of November has seen after them.
A watch was set on Percy’s house in Holborn, and his wife was guarded. A priest named Roberts was taken in the house. Mrs Martha Percy appears to have been a fitting mate for a conspirator. She put on an affectation of the sublimest innocence. How should she know anything? she who lived so quietly, and was entirely occupied in teaching her own and other children. As to her husband, she had not seen him since Midsummer. He was attendant on my Lord of Northumberland, and lodged, as she supposed, in his house. Having thus lulled to sleep the suspicions of those set to watch her, the next morning Mrs Percy was not to be found. Whether she slipped through a door, or climbed out of a window, or went up the chimney on a broomstick, there was no evidence to show; but three days later she made her appearance at Norbrook House in Warwickshire, the residence of her eldest brother, John Wright, and was affectionately received by her sister-in-law.
At Westminster, Lord Chief-Justice Popham and Sir Edward Coke sat in judicial ermine, and summoned before them two prisoners—Gideon Gibbons the porter, and the clever gentleman who called himself John Johnson, and whose real name was Guy Fawkes.
Gibbons was soon disposed of, for he was as innocent as he seemed to be. All that he could say was that he had been hired, in his usual way of business, with two other porters, to carry three thousand billets of wood to the Parliament House, and that Mr Percy’s servant Johnson had stacked them in the cellar. The key of the house next door had been at times left in charge of his wife. So much he knew, and no more.
The examination of “John Johnson” was another matter. The King himself had drawn up a paper containing questions to be put to him, and he answered these and all others with an appearance of perfect frankness and wish to conceal nothing. His replies were in reality a mixture of truth and falsehood, which was afterwards proved.
The catechism began as usual, “What is your name?”
“John Johnson.” To this he adhered through two more examinations.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.” This was true.
“Where were you born?”
“In Netherdale, in the county of York.”
“How have you lived hitherto?”
“By a farm of thirty pounds a year.”
“How came those wounds in your breast?”
“They are scars from the healing of a pleurisy.”
The treatment of pleurisy in the seventeenth century was apparently rather severe.
Fawkes went on to reply to the articles demanded, that he had never served any man but Percy—though he had been in the service of Anthony Browne, Lord Montague, a few months before: that he obtained Percy’s service “only by his own means, being a Yorkshire man”; that he had learned French in England, and increased it when abroad; that he was born a Papist, and not perverted—which was false.
Being asked why he was addressed as “Mr Fauks” in a letter (as he alleged) from Mrs Colonel Bostock, which was found in his pocket, Mr “Johnson” replied with the coolest effrontery, that it was because he had called himself so in Flanders, where Mrs Bostock resided. This letter was subsequently discovered to come from Anne Vaux.
Thus far went King James’s queries: in respect of which the King desired “if he will no other ways confesse, the gentle tortours to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur; and so God speede your good work!”
It was not, however, necessary to urge a confession: Mr Percy’s man seemed anxious to make a clean breast of it, and promised to tell everything. He proceeded accordingly to lead his examiners astray by a little truth and a good deal of falsehood. He gave a tolerably accurate account of the hiring of the house and the cellar, the bringing in of the powder, etcetera, except that he refrained from implicating any one but himself. There was, at first, a certain air of nobility about Fawkes, and he sternly refused to become an informer. He declined to admit his summer journey abroad, and would not allow that the spring excursion had any other object than “to see the country and pass away the time.”
“What would you have done,” asked the examiners, “with the Queen and the royal issue?”
“If they had been there, I would not have helped them.”
“If all had gone, who would have been published or elected King?”
“We never entered into that consideration.”
“What form of government should have succeeded?”
“We were too few to enter into the consideration. The people themselves would have drawn to a head.” All this was untrue, as Fawkes subsequently allowed. A number of arrests were made, mostly of innocent persons. All in whose houses the conspirators had lodged. Mrs Herbert, Mrs More, the tailor Patrick; Mrs Wyniard, Mrs Bright, and their respective servants; Lord Northumberland’s gentlemen, and the Earl himself, were put under lock and key. The poor Earl bemoaned himself bitterly, and entreated that Percy might be searched for—“who alone could show him clear as the day, or dark as the night.” He asserted that Percy had obtained money from him by falsehood: and seeing how exquisitely little value most of these worthy gentlemen seem to have set upon truth, it was not at all unlikely. Lady Northumberland wrote an impulsive letter to Lord Salisbury, entreating him to stand her friend by “salving” her husband’s reputation, “much wounded in the opinion of the world by this wretched cousin”: but the only result of the appeal was to make the Lord Treasurer angry, and give rise to an intercession in her behalf from her lord and master, who begs Salisbury to “bear with her because she is a woman,” and therefore “not able with fortitude to bear out the crosses of the world as men are: and,” adds the Earl humorously, “she will sometimes have her own ways, let me do what I can, which is not unknown to you.” (Note 1.)
The prisoners were remanded, and the great metropolis slept: but there was no sleep for those bemired and weary horsemen who pressed on that night journey to Norbrook. Where Grant joined them is not recorded, but Humphrey Littleton had left them at Dunchurch. His share in the plot had been insignificant, but we shall hear of him again. Catesby, John Wright, and Percy, who rode in front, beguiled their journey by a discussion as to how they could procure fresh horses. They were approaching Warwick, and it was proposed that Grant and some of the servants should be sent on in front, with instructions to make a raid on a livery-stable in the town, kept by a man named Bennock, and seize as many horses as they could get.
Robert Winter, riding behind, saw the men sent on, and pressing forward to the front, inquired the meaning of it. When told the intention, he combated it strongly, and did his best to dissuade Catesby from it. The man who had swallowed the camel of the Gunpowder Plot was scandalised at the idea of horse-stealing! (Note 2.)
“I pray you, no more of this!” said Robert Winter. “It will but further increase the wrath of the King.”
“Some of us may not look back,” said Catesby.
Robert replied with some spirit, for he knew himself to be among the less guilty of the plotters. “Yet others, I hope, may; and therefore, I beg you, let this alone.”
Catesby looked up with a faint, sad smile, and tired sleepless eyes. “What, hast thou any hope, Robin? I assure thee, there is none that knoweth of this action but shall perish.”
When the body of the conspirators reached Warwick, about 3 a.m., the horses were almost ready for them to mount. Ten were seized at the the livery-stable, and a few more were either stolen or borrowed from the Castle. Thus provided, and now about eighty in number, they rode on to Grant’s house at Norbrook. On arrival here, they despatched Bates to Coughton, with a letter to Garnet from Digby. This letter was read by Garnet to Greenway, both of whom are represented by Bates as spotlessly ignorant of the plot until that moment. Greenway returned with Bates, at his earnest request, attired in “coulored satten done with gould lace,” and was met by Catesby with the exclamation—
“Here is a gentleman who will live and die with us!”
From Norbrook Robert Winter despatched a servant in advance, summarily ordering his wife to “go forth of the house, and take the children with her,” which the obedient Gertrude did. About two o’clock on the afternoon of the sixth, thirty-six worn-out men arrived at Huddington, to be re-armed from Robert Winter’s armoury; after which, finding himself rather at a loss in the housekeeping department, the master of the house recalled his Gertrude to minister to the comfort of himself and his guests.
That submissive lady did her duty, and leaving the children with the neighbour at whose house she had taken refuge, returned to her own kitchen to superintend a hastily-prepared supper for the weary travellers. Before this was ready, Catesby and John Wright took Robert Winter aside, and tried hard to induce him to write to his father-in-law, attempting to draw him into the now almost hopeless rebellion.
“There is no remedy, Robin,” said John Wright, “but thou must write a letter to thy father Talbot, to see if thou canst therewith draw him unto us.”
“Nay, that will I not,” was the determined answer.
“Robin, you must,” said Catesby.
“My masters, ye know not my father Talbot so well as I,” replied Robin Winter. “All the world cannot draw him from his allegiance. Neither would I if I could, in this case. What friends hath my poor wife and children but he? And therefore, satisfy yourselves; I will not.”
“Well, then,” suggested Wright, “write as we shall say unto thee to Master Smallpiece, that serves thy father Talbot.”
Robert Winter, who liked an easy life, suffered himself to be persuaded on this point; and wrote the letter, of which all that now remains is a few half-burnt lines, written in great haste, and barely legible:
“Good Cousin, I fear it will not seem strange to you that—a good number of resolved Catholics so perform matters of such... will set their most strength, or hang all those that ever... use your best endeavour to stir up my father Talbot... which I hold much more honourable than to be hanged after... Cousin, pray for me, I pray you, and send me all such friends... haste, I commend you. From Huddington, this 6th of November.”
“R...”
Having written this letter, Mr Robert Winter proceeded, not to forward, but to pocket it, and declined to give it up until the next morning, when he resigned it, “to stop a peace withal.”
Late in the evening of the 6th, the conspirators were joined by Stephen Littleton and Thomas Winter, the latter of whom had not been able to overtake them any sooner. Before daybreak on the following morning, they assembled in the private chapel of Huddington House, where mass was sung by the family confessor, Mr Hammond, and the Sacrament was administered to all present after due confession. Then, leaving Huddington about sunrise, they recommenced their weary flight.
They were now “armed at all points in open rebellion,” yet with daggers and guns only. Instead of continuing their course, as hitherto, directly westward, they turned towards the north, and made for Hewell Grange, the residence of Lord Windsor, where they plundered the armoury. The company had much decreased: one and another every now and then dropped off stealthily, doubtful of what was coming, though Catesby and Sir Everard rode pistol in hand, warning them that all who sought to steal away would be shot without quarter. Percy, Grant, John Wright, and Morgan, were placed behind for the same purpose. As the party rode towards Hewell Grange, they asked all whom they met to join them. The usual response was—
“We are for King James; if you go for him, then will we have with you.”
To this the conspirators were wont to reply—“We go for God and the country.”
But the shrewd Worcestershire peasants declined to commit themselves to anything so vague as this.
At last they came to an old countryman, to whom they addressed their customary appeal. The old man planted his staff firmly in front of him, and set his back against a wall.
“I am for King James,” he said, “for whom I will live and die.”
Upon this the disloyalty of the company was plainly manifested by shouts of “Kill him! kill him!” But there was no time to stop for that, which probably saved the brave old loyalist’s life.
Upon leaving Hewell, the conspirators rode up to the houses of all the Roman Catholic gentry in the neighbourhood, and summoned their owners to join them for God and the Church. But sore disappointments met them on every side. From door after door they were driven with horror and contumely—were openly told that “they had brought ruin on the Catholic cause.”
“Not one man came to take our part,” is their lament, “though we had expected so many.” To add to their misery, the rain began to pour down in torrents; one after another deserted them as they fled: and when at last in the darkness the heath was passed, and Holbeach House was reached, instead of the gallant company of eighty well-accoutred troops who had left Norbrook the morning before, there crept into the court-yard only eighteen wet and weary men, who had lost all, including honour.
Holbeach House was about two miles from Stourbridge, and was the home of Stephen Littleton, one of the latest to join the plot. Here the worn-out men slept—the last sleep for some of them.
So weary and worn-out were they, that they sank to sleep just as they were, in the dining-room—some pillowing their heads on the table, others casting themselves on the floor. At this very unsuitable moment, it seemed good to Mr John Winter to inquire of Percy what he meant to do. (Note 3.)
Percy, in extremely somnolent tones, answered that he intended to go on.
“Ay, but how and whither?” responded Thomas Winter, as wide awake as he usually was in all senses.
“If you have e’er a plan in your head, out with it,” replied Percy. “Just now, I’ve no head to put one in.”
“If you will hearken to me,” said Thomas, “you will now despatch Robin’s letter to my cousin Smallpiece.”
“What to do?”
“‘What to do’!—to win his aid. He is as true a Catholic as any of us.”
“Ay, he’s Catholic, but he is very timorous. He has no mind to be hanged, trust me.”
“Have you?”
“I should stand to it better than he. Then you’ll meet old Master Talbot, who shall kick you forth ere you have time to say, ‘An’t please you.’”
“I’ll have a care of that. Steenie, wilt have with me?”
Mr Stephen Littleton had to be awoke before he could answer the question. As soon as he understood what was demanded of him, he professed his readiness to accompany anybody anywhere in the future, so long as he might be let alone to finish his nap at the present. Before another sentence had been uttered, he reverted to an unconscious state.
Suddenly Sir Everard sprang up.
“Mr Catesby, methinks I shall best serve you if I go to hasten the succours. What think you?”
“If you will,” said Catesby, for once a little doubtfully.
Ten minutes later, one of the least wearied horses in the group carried him away.
There were troops on their way to Holbeach, but it was not for succour. Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff, Sir John Folliott, a few gentlemen, and a party of the King’s troops, with all the force of the county, were on the track of the wretched fugitives. They had chased them from Northamptonshire into Warwickshire, from Warwickshire into Worcestershire, and now they were approaching their last refuge in Staffordshire.
It was still dark on the Friday morning, when Thomas Winter and Stephen Littleton rode to Pepperhill, where old Mr Talbot was at that time. Robert declined to accompany them, and Bates excused himself. To obtain sight of Mr Smallpiece, without being seen by Mr Talbot, was the delicate business on which they were bent. Leonard Smallpiece seems to have been an agent or bailiff of Mr Talbot, and a relative of the Winters; he was “exceeding popishe, but very timorous.” (Note 4.) The pair of worthies settled that Stephen should remain outside in charge of the horses, while Winter tried to effect safe entrance. They rode up to the yard door, and having dismounted, were about to investigate possibilities, when without any warning the doors were flung open, and the sturdy old loyalist owner appeared behind them.
“How dare you come hither?” was his fierce greeting to the unwelcome visitors, “considering what speech there is of your tumultuous rising.”
“Sir,” answered Winter, deprecatingly, “my meaning was not to speak with you, but with one in your house; and I am very sorry I have met with you.”
“So am I, too!” said John Talbot. “Your coming may be as much as my life is worth. It is very fit you should be taken.”
“I shall not easily be taken,” was the reply.
“Fare you well! Get you away!” answered Talbot, as he slammed the gate in Winter’s face.
They came to the conclusion that discretion would be the better part of valour, and retraced their steps to Holbeach. Here Stephen went into the house, leaving Winter outside. The former found his friends very busily engaged in making preparations for resistance, for they had now determined that at Holbeach their last stand should be made. Their gunpowder, like themselves, had been soaked in the rain, the Stour being extremely high, and the cart which they had stolen from Hewell Grange a very low one. Catesby, Rookwood, and Grant, applied themselves to the drying of the powder. They laid about sixteen pounds of it in a linen bag on the floor, and heaping about two pounds on a platter, placed it in the chimney-corner to dry by the fire. A servant entering to put fresh logs on the fire, was not sufficiently careful of the platter. A spark flew out, lighted on the powder, and it exploded. Part of the roof was blown off, the linen bag was carried through the hole thus made, and afterwards taken up uninjured in the court-yard: but the three powder-dryers, with Henry Morgan, were severely injured both in face and body. In the same pit that they had dug privily, was their own foot taken.
When the conspirators thus beheld themselves “hoist with their own petard,” the first feeling among them was less fear for their safety than awe at the just judgment of God. The most guilty among them were also the most horrified. For a moment those nearest the powder were supposed to be killed. John Wright lost his head, flung himself on what he believed to be the corpse of his leader, with a wild cry—
“Woe worth the time that we have seen this day! Bring me the powder! bring me the powder, that I may set it afire, and blow up ourselves and this house together!”
Rookwood rushed to a picture of the Virgin, and throwing himself on his knees, confessed “that the act was so bloody that he desired God to forgive him;” in which prayer he was joined by some of the others. Catesby himself lost his firmness, and on recovering himself, gasped out his fear that God disapproved of their project. Robert Winter and Greenway fled in terror—so far that they never came back. Stephen Littleton went off also, but he waited long enough to send a message to Thomas Winter, who had not yet come in.
“Tell him to fly,” said the valiant Stephen, “and so will I.”
Whatever else Thomas Winter was, he was loyal to his oath and to his friends.
“His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
He supposed the news to mean that Catesby was killed.
“Nay,” said he; “I will first see the body of my friend and bury him, whatsoever befall me.”
Returning to the house, Winter found his friends decidedly alive and “reasonable well.”
“What resolve you to do?” he asked them.
“We mean here to die,” was the answer.
“Well!” replied Winter, “I will take such part as you do.”
And John Wright said, “I will live and die among you.”
Not long afterwards, about noon, the Sheriff and his troops surrounded Holbeach House. After several ineffectual summonses to surrender, and the reading of a proclamation in the King’s name bidding the rebels to submit themselves, which met only with blunt refusals, the Sheriff fired the house, and led an attack upon the gates. The conspirators who were left showed no lack of courage. They walked out into the court-yard, set the gate open, and took up their stand in front of it, Catesby in the middle, with Percy and Thomas Winter on either side. At the first assault, an arrow from a cross-bow had struck Winter in the shoulder, and rendered his right arm useless. The second shot struck John Wright, the third Christopher Wright, the fourth Rookwood. The two Wrights fell, and were supposed to be dead.
“Stand by me, Tom,” said Catesby to Winter, “and we will die together.”
“Sir,” was the answer, “I have lost the use of my right arm, and I fear that will cause me to be taken.”
They were the last words of Robert Catesby. The next bullet passed clean through his body, and lodged in that of Percy at his side. Catesby fell, mortally wounded. He had just strength to crawl on his hands and knees into the vestibule of the house, where stood an image of the Virgin: and clasping it in his arms, he died.
Percy sank down, also wounded to death; he expired the following day. John Wright, recovering somewhat from his wound, called to Bates, and delivered him a bag of money, entreating him to fly and take it to Mrs Wright at Norbrook. Winter was seized; Grant, Rookwood, and Morgan, yielded themselves to the Sheriff: but the exasperated mob, rushing in, while the Sheriff’s men were lifting one of the wounded, seized upon the others, stripped and ill-used them, until wounds which might possibly have been healed were past cure. John and Christopher Wright died in two or three days.
One or two fugitives were brought into Holbeach later; five were arrested at Stourbridge, Sir Everard Digby at Dudley. Bates succeeded in making good his escape with the bag, and reached Wolverhampton in the night. His wife Martha, who lived at Ashby, hearing a false rumour of his capture and imprisonment in Shrewsbury Gaol, went to see him, and both stayed for the night in the same inn at Wolverhampton, neither of them knowing the nearness of the other. Bates, finding himself unable to reach Lapworth, and with no hope of escaping finally, delivered the bag of money to a friend to convey to Martha, and departed, not wishing to endanger his friend. He then went to Oldfield, in Shropshire, to the house of his cousin, Richard Bates, by whom having been betrayed, he was apprehended, and brought to London. By his confession on his examination, Garnet and Greenway were implicated, though Bates tried his best to prove them innocent.
Sir Richard Walsh conveyed his prisoners to Worcester, where he occupied himself in taking their examinations, and sending the information obtained to the Lords of the Council. Sir Richard Verney was sent to scour the country on the recent track of the fugitives, and to arrest the relatives and servants of every one of them. John Winter, Gertrude Winter at Huddington, Ludovic Grant at Dudley, Dorothy Grant at Norbrook, and at Lapworth John Wright’s wife Dorothy, and Christopher’s wife Margaret; Ambrose Rookwood’s wife, and her sister; and Thomas Rookwood of Claxton, at Bidford, were all gradually added to the group. Mrs Dorothy Grant, whether from fright or loquacity, proved very candid in answering questions, and from her they learned that the missing Martha Percy was “not far off.” Sir Richard Verney, however, found it no easy matter to keep his prisoners when he had got them. Twice his house was set on fire, evidently by design; but he held stoutly to the lively ladies in his care, and delivered them all safely in London in due time.
We must now, for a short time, follow the two conspirators who had escaped in company, and whose wanderings are not devoid of interest. Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton got safely away from Holbeach, thus evading the miserable fate of their fellow-conspirators. They succeeded in reaching the house of a certain Christopher White, a servant of Stephen’s cousin, Humphrey Littleton, who lived in the village of King’s Rowley. This man they bribed to allow them to remain in his barn until the search for the fugitives should have ceased, when they promised to give him a substantial reward, and no longer to endanger him by their presence. “There they abode a great while, but with very poor and slender fare, such as otherwise had been too coarse and out of fashion for them.” A proclamation was meanwhile set forth by Government for their discovery, wherein Robert Winter was described as “of mean stature, rather low than otherwise; brown hair and beard, not much beard, short hair; somewhat stooping, square made, near forty.” Stephen Littleton was “a very tall man; swarthy complexion, no beard or little, brown coloured hair; about thirty.” A neighbour of White’s, named Smart, and apparently smart by nature as well as name, noticed the unusual evidences of prosperity in his neighbour’s dwelling, and shrewdly surmised the reason. Upon due consideration of the subject, Mr Smart, like a good many people both before and after him, came to the conclusion that it was highly unreasonable that his neighbour should be mounting the social ladder when he remained at the bottom. He therefore applied himself to the matter, discovered the refugees in the barn, and strongly recommended his barn as far preferable to White’s. The fugitives were persuaded to change their hiding-place. This was no sooner done, than another neighbour, named Hollyhead, set his wits also to work, and dulcetly represented that Smart’s barn was a much less safe and attractive locality than his house: each of these worthy individuals being of course moved by respect to the pecuniary reward for which he hoped. On the departure of his guests, White took fright and fled: which caused “much rumour to be blabbed abroad” concerning the vain search and the probable vicinity of the fugitives. Humphrey Littleton, who was in the secret, began to be alarmed, and removed his friends from Hollyhead’s house to that of a man named John Perks, in the village of Hagley, close to Hagley Park, the residence of his widowed sister-in-law. It was before dawn on New Year’s Day that they reached the cottage of Perks, a warrener or gamekeeper, who had been dismissed from Mrs Littleton’s service for dishonesty. The wearied men knocked at his door; and when Perks came forth, said they were friends, and begged him to help them to food and shelter.
“Ye be Mr Stephen Littleton, and Mr Winter,” said Perks.
“We are so,” they admitted. “Pray you, Goodman, grant us meat and lodging till we be fit for journeying; and when we can travel, then shall you bring us to London, and have a great reward from the King for taking us, we being willing to die, and not live any longer in so miserable a condition.”
If Mr Perks’s eyes glistened as this distant prospect of a great reward was held out to him, they grew yet more radiant when Humphrey Littleton counted into his hand thirty golden sovereigns, twenty into that of his man, and seventeen to his sister. Perks led the way to his barn, where mounting on a barley mow, he formed a large hole in its midst, and here the unhappy gentlemen were secreted, food being brought to them by Perks as occasion served, by his sister Margaret, or at times by his man, Thomas Burford. Here they might have remained in safety for a considerable time without fear of discovery, had not Mr Perks entertained rather too close an affection for barley in another form than heaped up in a barn—namely, in company with hops and water. Mr Perks had a friend, named Poynter, who liked beer and rabbits quite as well as himself; and one winter night, nine days after the fugitives had been hidden in the mow, these worthies set forth on a poaching expedition. Returning home somewhat late, and “well tippled in drink,” it occurred to Mr Poynter that it would save him a walk home if his friend Perks were to lodge him for the night. The latter, however, did not see the circumstance in that light, and a tipsy altercation followed, which was ended by Perks “shaking off” Poynter, and staggering home by himself. The night was cold and wet, and Mr Poynter’s temper was scarcely so cool as the atmosphere. He was tipsily resolved that he would have a lodging at Perks’s expense, whether that gentleman would or not; and bethinking himself that if Perks’s house were locked against him, his barn was not, he took thither his unsteady way, and scrambling up the barley mow, to his own unfeigned astonishment dropped into the hole on the top of the sleeping conspirators.
Thus roused suddenly in the dead of night, and naturally concluding that their enemies were upon them, Winter and Littleton sprang up to defend themselves, and to sell their lives dearly. Poynter, who was quite as much amazed and terrified as they could be, as naturally fought for his own safety, and a desperate struggle ensued. It ended in the two overcoming the one, and insisting on his remaining with them, so that they could be certain of his telling no tales. For four days Poynter remained on the mow, professing resignation and contentment, and lamenting the sore pain which he suffered from a wound in the leg, received in the pursuit of his vocation as a rabbit-stealer. When Margaret Perks came with food, and afterwards Burford, Poynter pretended to be in mortal anguish, and besought them earnestly to bring him some salve, without which he was quite certain he should die. The salve was brought, and the wily Poynter then discovered that lying in the hole he had not sufficient light to apply it. He was suffered to creep up on the top of the mow, which he professed to do with the greatest difficulty. But even there the light was scarcely sufficient: might he drag himself a little nearer the door? Being now quite deceived by Mr Poynter’s excellent acting, and believing that he was much too suffering and disabled to escape, they permitted him to crawl quite to the edge of the mow nearest to the light, and of course next to the door. The moment this point was reached, the disabled cripple slipped down from the mow, and the next instant was out of the door and far away, running with a fleetness which made it hopeless to think of following him.
There was still, however, some room for that hope which springs eternal in the human breast. Poynter’s friendship for Perks, and the expectation that Perks could bribe him to secrecy, weighed with the fugitives, who had not sufficiently learned that the friendship of an unprincipled man is worth nothing.
Poynter, on the other hand, considered his chances superior in the opposite direction. He made at once for Hagley Hall, intending to tell his story there; but on the way he met with Perks, who was ignorant of Poynter’s recent adventure; and that gentleman suggesting a joint visit to the nearest tavern, Poynter easily suffered his steps to be diverted in that attractive direction. The precious pair of friends drank together, and departed to their respective homes.
Now, Mistress Littleton, the lady of Hagley Park, was a Protestant, and a gentlewoman of extreme discretion; and the day on which Poynter thus made his escape from the hay-mow had been chosen by her to commence a journey to London. Before her departure, she summoned her steward, Mr Hazelwood, and desired him to be circumspect during her absence, “owing to the mischances happening in the county.”
Mistress Littleton having ridden forth on her journey, her worthy brother, Mr Humphrey, commonly called Red Humphrey, who certainly did not share the discretion of his sister, determined to play the mouse during the absence of his cat, and to convey his traitor-friends into his own chamber at Hagley Park. There is reason to think that Mistress Littleton was not only a sagacious but also a somewhat managing dame, who rode Red Humphrey with a tighter curb than that reckless individual approved. Accordingly, having heard of Poynter’s escape, and taking one person only into his confidence, he repaired to the barn about eleven o’clock that night, and smuggled his cousin and friend away from the barley mow into the pleasanter shelter of his own room in Hagley Park. The one person thus selected as Humphrey’s confidant, was John Fynwood or Fynes, alias “Jobber,” also known as John Cook, from the office which he bore in the household. Humphrey had brought him up, and when come to suitable age, had induced his sister-in-law to engage him as cook: he therefore expected this man, being thus beholden to him, to remain faithful to his interests. But there was another person whose interests were considerably dearer to John Cook, and that was himself.
The trio reached Master Humphrey’s chamber in safety, aided by John Cook. Robert Winter turned round as he entered, and grasped the cook’s hand.
“Ah, Jack!” said he, “little wots thy mistress what guests are now in her house, that in so long a space did never so much as look upon a fire!”
“Welcome, heartily!” answered Humphrey, motioning to his guests to approach nearer to the cheerful hearth. “Jack, lad, the time being thus late, canst kill some hen or chickens about the house, to serve and fit the present occasion withal? I will recompense it to thee afterward.”
Jack readily undertook the commission, and brought up a very appetising dish with great diligence and promptness.
“Master,” said he, “you shall need drink, and the butler is in bed; to call on him for the key might rouse suspicion. Pray you, shall I run in the town to my mother, and fetch you drink from thence?”
“So do, honest Jack, and hie thee back quickly. See, here is a tester for thee.”
Honest Jack picked up the tester, and disappeared.
It does seem strange, considering the danger which was thus run, that the fugitives should not have been satisfied to drink water with their supper, since even thus they would have fared much better than they had done for some time past. But in truth, the very idea of drinking water was foreign to men’s minds in those days, except in the light of a very cruel hardship, and about the last strait to which a starving man could be reduced.
The mother of Jack kept a small tavern in the village. Thither he ran to fill his jug, and to pour into the ears of the hostess the interesting fact that the traitors then sought for by the King’s proclamation were at that moment entertained in Master Humphrey’s chamber at Hagley Park.
“Pray you, Mother,” he added, “when morning breaketh, raise the town to take them, for I fear lest I may not, unsuspected, get forth again to do it.”
Having made which little arrangement, honest Jack and his jug returned to the Park, where the trio of traitors finished their supper, and proceeded to sleep three in a bed.
To make assurance doubly sure, Jack rapped at Mr Hazelwood’s door, and bestowed upon him the same interesting information already given to Mrs Fynwood.
The morning being come, the cook paid another visit to his prisoners, whom he found nearly dressed, and looking out of the window to see the meaning of the noise they heard, which was in fact the arrival of the Sheriff’s officer and his men. Even then, so complete was their confidence in Jack, that they never imagined themselves betrayed, and Humphrey, having stowed his friends for more complete security in a closet-room opening out of his chamber, went down into the hall—and met the officer of the law.
“Sir, I understand there be in this house certain traitors, so charged by proclamation of his sacred Majesty, whom you have in keeping.”
“Never an one, my master, I do ensure you,” answered Humphrey, as lightly as if he spoke the truth: and he cut a large slice from the loaf standing on the table. “Pray you, sit down and break your fast; you are full welcome, as I am sure my good sister should tell you were she at home. After that ye have eaten, ye shall search the house an’ ye will.—See here, Jack Cook! make a good toast for these worthy masters; and thou, David Butler, go up to my chamber for my cup—thou shalt find it on the window-ledge, I think.”
Outside, Mr Hazelwood was giving directions for the search, hints being constantly supplied to him by the cook as to what transpired within. The butler, David Bate, went to fetch his master’s cup, and of course found the room empty. As he came to the foot of the back-stair, Master Humphrey met him.
“Good David, help me to the key of the back-door into the cellar,” he said in a hurried whisper. “As ever thou wilt do anything for me, stick now to me, and help save my life.”
“Sir, I have not the key,” answered the astonished butler. “The brewer hath it.”
The brewer was hastily summoned, delivered the key, and was as hurriedly dismissed. Then Humphrey ran up to his closet, brought down his concealed guests, and conducted them through the buttery towards the cellar. The butler slipped away from them, and told the officers. The situation was now desperate. Inside the house the officers were pursuing them; outside, a crowd, in league with the authorities, was shouting itself hoarse in execration of them. The wretched men made one last frantic dash around the house, and Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton were arrested in the stable-yard, and prevented from reaching the neighbouring wood.
But what had become of Red Humphrey? The instant he saw the game was up, he hurriedly mounted his horse, and eluded his pursuers. But he was not to escape much longer. The searching party which Poynter had led to the barn, disappointed there, scoured the neighbourhood; and at Prestwood the fugitive was taken, and committed to safe custody in Stafford Gaol. Even after they were secured, it was no easy matter to carry the other prisoners to Worcester. While they were “refreshing themselves” in an alehouse at Hagley—probably the tavern kept by Mrs Fynwood—a tumult arose among the people outside which almost led to their rescue; and a few miles from Hagley, Sir Thomas Undirhood and his company overtook the Sheriff, and vainly attempted to gain possession of them to take them back to Staffordshire. The Worcestershire men, however, held on grimly to their prize, and at last triumphantly lodged their prisoners in the gaol at Worcester.
The examinations of the culprits in London went on. They were mainly characterised by Mr Fawkes’s contradictions on every occasion of something which he had previously said; by the addition of a little information each time; and by the very small amount of light that could be obtained from any outsiders. On his third examination, Mr “John Johnson” owned that his name was Guy Fawkes; that he was born at York, the son of Edward Fawkes, a younger brother, who had left him “but small living,” which he ran through with equally small delay. He denied on his conscience that he was in orders, “major or minor, regular or secular”: on which occasion he told the truth. Fawkes added that he did not now desire to destroy the King.
“It is past,” he said, “and I am now sorry for it, for that I now perceive that God did not concur with it.”
He admitted also the design on the Lady Elizabeth, but he still declined to name his accomplices, and proved obdurate to all attempts—and the attempts were basely made—to persuade him to accuse the prisoners in the Tower, of whom the chief was Sir Walter Raleigh. The utmost he could be induced to admit concerning this point was that it had been “under consultation that the prisoners in the Tower should have intelligence” of the intended plot, and that Raleigh and several others had been named in this connection.
“We should have been glad to have drawn any, of what religion soever, unto us,” he said: “we meant to have made use of all the discontented people of England.”
But he would not allow, even to the last, that any communication had actually been made.
In his fourth examination Fawkes gave the names of those who had been “made privy afterwards,” but he still refused to reveal those of the original traitors. He was accordingly put to the torture. Gentle or ungentle, this worked its office: and on the ninth of November, after half-an-hour on the rack, Fawkes recounted the names of all his accomplices. He made also an admission which proved of considerable importance—he mentioned a house in Enfield Chase, “where Walley (Garnet) doth lie.”
Every examination is signed by the prisoner. To the first he signs “Guido Faukes” in a free, elegant Italian hand, the hand of an educated man. But it is pitiful to see the few faint strokes which sign the fifth, even the “Guido” being left unfinished. He is supposed to have fainted before the word could be written. The subsequent reports are fully signed, and in a firmer hand; but the old free elegant signature never comes again.
That night an unheard-of event occurred at the White Bear. Hans Floriszoon was two hours late in coming home.
“My lad!” said Edith, meeting him in the hall, “we feared some ill had befallen thee.”
“It hath not befallen me, Mrs Edith,” was the answer; “and may God avert it from us all! But these men that Aubrey was wont to visit—Mr Catesby, Mr Winter, and the rest—are now confessed by the caitiff in the Tower to have an hand in the plot.”
“Aubrey?” The word was only just breathed from Edith’s lips.
“I went thither at once, and spake with Aubrey, whom I found to have heard nought, and to be very sore troubled touching Mr Winter, whose friendship I can see hath been right dear unto him. I besought him to lie very close,—not to come forth at all, and if he would communicate with us these next few days, to send a messenger to me at Mr Leigh’s, and not here, for it seemed to me there was need of caution. After a time, if all blow over, there may be less need. Will you tell my Lady Lettice, or no?”
“Dear Hans, thou art ever thoughtful and good. Thou hast done very well. But I think my mother must be told. Better softly now, than roughly after—as it may be if it be let alone.”
Lady Louvaine sat silent for a few minutes after that gentle communication had been made. Then she said—
“‘The floods lift up themselves, and rage mightily: but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier.’ ’Tis strange that it should be so much harder to trust Him with the body than with the soul! O father, keep my boy from evil!—what is evil, Thou knowest: ‘undertake for us!’”
On the 23rd of November, one of the prisoners in the Tower escaped the sentence of the law, by an inevitable summons to the higher tribunal of God Almighty. Francis Tresham died in his prison cell, retracting with his last breath, and “upon his salvation,” the previous confession by which he had implicated Garnet in the Spanish negotiations. It has been suggested that he was poisoned by Government because he knew too much; but there is no foundation for the charge except the possibility that his death might have been convenient to the Government, and the fact that they allowed his wife and servant to be with him in his last illness goes far to disprove this improbable accusation.
The authorities were now engaged in lively pursuit of the new track which Fawkes had indicated to them. A house in Enfield Chase where Garnet was or might be found, was too appetising a dainty to be lightly resigned. On the 23rd, they obtained a full confession from Thomas Winter, and the actual name of White Webbs. From this moment White Webbs became their Ultima Thule of hope and expectation.
A poor and mean revenge was taken on the dead Catesby and Percy. Their bodies were exhumed, and beheaded, and their heads set on the pinnacles of the Houses of Parliament. The spectators noticed with superstitious terror that blood flowed from Percy’s wound. The authorities seem to have regarded Percy as the head and front of the conspiracy; they term him “the arch-traitor.” But by the testimony of both Fawkes and Winter, Catesby was the original deviser of the Gunpowder Plot.
Note 1. Excerpts from Burghley Papers, Additional Manuscript 6178, folios 58, 184.—Lady Northumberland was Dorothy Devereux, daughter of Walter Earl of Essex and Lettice Knolles, and sister of the famous Robert Earl of Essex, in whose rebellion so many Romanists took part. Poor Lord Northumberland, if innocent, paid dearly for his relationship to his “wretched cousin,” being fined 30,000 pounds, which in 1613 was commuted to 11,000 pounds. He borrowed 12,000 pounds from Peter Vanlore to discharge the fine, and repaid half of it within a year.
Note 2. The most comical item of this assumption of virtue is the reason, as given by himself, for Mr Rookwood’s riding on in advance at this juncture. “Seeing that he was so well horsed as he was—he having fifteen or sixteen good bourses—he meant not to adventure himself in stealing of any!”
Note 3. “At Holbeach, I demanded of Mr Percy and the rest, being most of them asleep, what they meant to do.” (Letter of John Winter, Gunpowder Plot Book, article 110.)
Note 5. For this shot one of the Sheriff’s men, named John Streete, received 2 shillings per day up to 1627.
Chapter Ten.
The Chain of our Sins.
“When on the problems of the past
A flood of light has come;
When we see the evil that we did,
And the good we might have done.”
Cyrus Thornton.
On the 27th of January, Robert and Thomas Winter, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Thomas Bates were placed upon their trial at Westminster.
Grant and Bates were really guilty of very little beyond knowing of the plot and keeping silence. But they all received the same sentence—to be hung, drawn, and quartered. Sir Everard Digby was tried separately, but to the same end. He alone pleaded guilty; his principal anxiety seemed to be to save the priests—a wish wherein all the conspirators agreed. On leaving the dock, Sir Everard, “bowing himself towards the Lords, said, ‘If I may but hear any of your Lordships say, you forgive me, I shall go more cheerfully to the gallows.’ Whereupon the Lords said, ‘God forgive you, and we do.’”
Of all the conspirators, Sir Everard won the greatest sympathy, from his rank, his youth, his accomplishments, and especially his fine person—which last drew expressions of pity from the Queen, who was afflicted with that fatal worship of beauty which was the bane of the Stuart race.
Three days later, the scaffold was set up at the west end of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and four of the traitors were brought forth to die. They were the four least guilty of the group—Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates.
As the prisoners were being drawn to the scaffold upon hurdles, a pathetic incident took place. Martha Bates had followed her husband to London, and as the procession passed by, she rushed from the crowd of spectators, and flung herself upon the hurdle in an agony. Bates then told her of the money entrusted to him by Wright, which he wished her to keep for her own relief, and it was afterwards granted to her by the Crown.
Arrived at the place of execution, Sir Everard was the first to ascend the ladder. Very pale, yet very self-controlled, he spoke to the people, saying that his conscience had led him into this offence, which in respect of religion he held to be no sin at all, but in respect of the law he confessed that he had done wrong; and he asked forgiveness of God, the King, and the kingdom. He declined the ministrations of the clergy, and after a few Latin prayers, crossed himself, and so “made an end of his wicked days in this world,”—an example for all time how little education and accomplishments can do to keep man from sin, a martyr to a priest-ridden conscience unenlightened by the Word of God.
Robert Winter followed next. He scarcely spoke, asked no forgiveness, but after a few silent prayers, passed calmly into the Silent Land.
The next was John Grant. This grave, melancholy man went smiling to his death. When he was entreated to seek for pardon for his crimes, his reply was, in a triumphant tone, “I am satisfied that our project was so far from being sinful, that I rely entirely upon my merits in bearing a part of that noble action, as an abundant satisfaction and expiation for all sins committed by me during the rest of my life!” He died thus with a lie in his right hand, and went to present the filthy rags of his own righteousness before His eyes in whose sight the heavens are not pure, and whose command is “Thou shalt do no murder.”
Last came poor Bates, who “seemed sorry for his offence,” and said that only his love for his dead master had drawn him to forget his duty to God, his King and country. And “thus ended that day’s business.”
In Old Palace Yard, “over against the Parliament House,”—namely, where now stands the statue of Godfrey de Bouillon—the second scaffold was erected on the following day. The four prisoners who were now to suffer were, the priests excepted, the most guilty of those left alive. They were drawn from the Tower on hurdles, as was usual. As they passed along the Strand, from an open window the beautiful Elizabeth Rookwood called to her husband—
“Ambrose, be of good courage! Thou art to suffer for a great and noble cause.”
Raising himself from the hurdle as well as he could, Rookwood answered, “My dear, pray for me.”
“I will, I will!” she cried. “And do you offer yourself with a good heart to God and your Creator. I yield you to Him, with as full an assurance that you will be accepted of Him as when He gave you to me.” And so the procession passed on.
The first to suffer of these was Thomas Winter. He was extremely pale, and seemed sorry for his offence “after a sort;” but he spoke little, merely protesting that he died “a true Catholic.”
Rookwood, who came next, made a long speech. He said that he asked forgiveness of God, whom he had offended in seeking to shed blood, of the King, and of the people. He prayed for the King and Royal Family, entreating that the King might become a “Catholic:” (Note 1) and he besought the King’s goodness to his Elizabeth and her children. He was spared the worst, for he drew his last breath ere it began.
The next to follow was Keyes. He had said on the trial that his fortunes being desperate, his fate was “as good now as another time, and for this cause rather than another.” In this hardened, reckless spirit, he flung himself from the ladder, with such force as to break the halter.
Last came “the great devil of all,” Guy Fawkes, who, “being weak with torture and sickness, was scarce able to go up the ladder.” He made no long speech, but “after a sort, seemed to be sorry” and asked forgiveness: and “with his crosses and his idle ceremonies” was cast-off, dying instantaneously.
So ended the awful scenes which were the reward of the Gunpowder Plot.
But not yet had justice overtaken all the perpetrators of this villainy. Three important traitors were yet at large, and they were all Jesuit priests. Greenway, who had fled from Holbeach with Robert Winter, had not continued in his company. For ten days he hid in barns and cottages in Worcestershire; but when the proclamation was made for his arrest, thinking it safest to be lost in a crowd in the metropolis, he came to London. Here he was one day seized by a man, as they stood among others reading the proclamation for his arrest. Greenway, with artful composure, denied the identity, but went quietly with his captor till they reached an unfrequented street, when the priest, who was a very powerful man, suddenly set upon his companion, and escaping from him, after a few days’ concealment fled to the coast, whence he safely crossed to the Continent. He afterwards wrote for his superiors a narrative of the plot, wherein all the conspirators are impeccable heroes of the romantic novel type, and the plot—which during its existence he upheld and fervently encouraged—is condemned as a “rash, desperate, and wicked” piece of business. He succeeded so well in deceiving his superiors (or else they were equally hypocritical with himself), that he was appointed Penitentiary to the Pope, and ended his life in the full favour of that potentate.
Gerard, also, who had originally assisted the plotters in taking their oath of secrecy, had now disappeared. So excellent an opinion had the Roman Catholics of him, that many refused to believe “that holy, good man” could have had any share in the conspiracy. The description of this worthy, as given in the proclamation for his arrest, is curious in its detail, and the better worth quoting since it has apparently not been printed:—
“John Gerrarde the Jesuit is about thirty years old, of a good stature, something higher than Sir Thomas Leighton (this name is crossed out, and replaced by the word) ordinary, and upright in his pace and countenance; somewhat staring in his looke and Eyes, curled headed by Nature, and blackish, and not apt to have much hair on his beard. His Nose somewhat wide, and turning up; blebberd lipped (thick-lipped), turning outward, especially the upper lip, upward toward the Nose. Curious in speech, if he do continue his custom, and in his speech he flewreth (Note 2) and smiles much, and a faltering, lisping, or doubling of his tongue in his speech.” (Note 3.) What a picture of a Jesuit! This is the type of man who practises an art which I never saw to such perfection as once in the Principal of a Jesuit College—that of:
“Washing the hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.”
Lastly, what had become of Garnet? He had not escaped nor left England, yet he seemed in some inscrutable manner to have vanished from the face of the earth, as completely as a morning mist.
The next step was to secure White Webbs. Commissioners were sent down to Enfield Chase, with directions to search for that undiscoverable house, to make thorough investigation of it, and to take into custody every individual therein. They found the place—an old rambling house in the heart of the Chase, full of trap-doors, passages, unexpected steps up or down, holes, corners, and cupboards at every turn. But it had no inhabitants save servants, and they could tell little. Their mistress was Mrs Perkins, the widowed sister of Mr Mease, a Berkshire farmer. It was quite true they were Catholics, all allowed; and Elizabeth Shepherd admitted that mass had been performed in the house. But what connection could there be between the Gunpowder Plot and worthy Mr Mease the faimer, or innocent Mrs Perkins the widow?
Many persons would have resigned the search: but not so Sir William Wade. Sir William Wade, the Keeper of the Tower, had an uncommonly keen scent for a heretic which term was in his eyes the equivalent of a Jesuit. He could see much further than any one else through a millstone, and detected a Jesuit where no less acute person suspected anything but a farmer or a horse-dealer. Not only was a Jesuit capable of every crime that man could commit, but every criminal was pretty nearly certain to turn out a Jesuit. Moreover, Sir William loved a joke only less than he bated a Jesuit; and apathy in any pursuit was not one of his failings who wrote that “he thanked God on the knees of his soul” for the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.
Mr Mease was not to escape Sir William’s penetration. He was anxious to see a little more of Mr Mease, and of Mrs Perkins also.
For the moment, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Sturdy James Johnson, Mrs Perkins’ servant, would not betray his employers, even when put to the rack, until he had suffered appallingly. Half-an-hour had been sufficient to exhaust Guy Fawkes’ endurance, but James Johnson bore three hours. Even then he could tell little. For his mistress’s brother he knew no name but Mease, except that he had heard him addressed as “Farmer:” but he did know, and had known for two years, that the real name of his mistress was Anne Vaux. He could also say that she had been visited by a Mr and Mrs Skinner, a Mr and Mrs Thomas Jennings, a Mr Catesby, and a little gentleman whom the latter called Tom, and whose name he said was Winter. As to himself, Johnson asserted that he was “a Romishe Catholic,” and “never was at church nor yet at mass in his life.” Frightened little Jane Robinson, aged fourteen, admitted that mass had been said in the house, but when asked what vestments the priest wore, could only answer that “he was apparelled like a gentleman.”
Sir William Wade went down once more upon the knees of his soul, when his ears were refreshed by these delightful names. At Harrowden, the seat of Lord Vaux, the family had already been questioned to no purpose. Mrs Vaux, the mother of the young Lord, and the sister-in-law of Anne, was astonished that anybody should suspect her of a guilty knowledge of the plot. Having previously denied that she knew any such person as Gerard, she subsequently confessed that Gerard and Garnet had been frequently at her house, and that she had a vague suspicion that “something was going to happen.” Harrowden must be further investigated; and admissions were wrung from the servants at White Webbs which satisfied the commission that the relations between Anne Vaux and Garnet had been of an intimate character. Sir William Wade was now on the track of a Jesuit, and might be trusted to pursue that enticing path with eager and untiring accuracy.
The watch set at Harrowden was removed just too soon. Had it lasted two days longer, Gerard would have been starved out, for he lay concealed in the priest’s hiding-place. As soon as the watching party took their leave, he emerged from his refuge, and succeeded through multifarious difficulties in safely escaping over seas.
About this time—from what source is uncertain—a hint reached the Government to the effect that Gerard might possibly, and Hall would probably, be found in one of the priest’s hiding-places at Hendlip Hall in Worcestershire, the residence of Mr Thomas Abington. Edward Hall, alias Oldcorne, (Note 4) was Mr Abington’s private chaplain; and though there is little evidence extant to connect him with the plot, the Government appear to have been extremely suspicious of him. When, therefore, the suggestion reached them that they might as well inspect the curiosities of Hendlip Hall, the authorities lost no time in sending down Sir Henry Bromley, of Holt Castle, at the head of a searching party, for that purpose.
Until 1825 or thereabouts, Hendlip Hall remained standing, on the highest ground in the neighbourhood between Droitwich and Worcester, and rather nearer to the latter. A most curious, cunningly-planned, perplexing house it was—a house of houses wherein to secrete a political refugee or a Jesuit priest—full of surprises, unexpected turnings, sliding panels, and inconceivable closets without apparent entrances. “There is scarcely an apartment,” wrote a spectator shortly before its destruction, “that has not secret ways of going in or going out; some have back staircases concealed in the walls; others have places of retreat in their chimneys; some have trap-doors, and all present a picture of gloom, insecurity, and suspicion.” On one side was a high tower, from which the approach of any enemy could be easily observed. The house had been built in 1572, by John Abington, cofferer to Queen Elizabeth; but his son Thomas, the owner in 1605, had added the hiding-places. Such concealed chambers were very common in houses belonging to Roman Catholic families; and in the safest of all those at Hendlip Hall, two priests were at that moment in close confinement. The Government had been so far truly informed. Hall, too, was one of them: but Gerard was not the other. Sir William Wade would have danced in delight, could he have known that his colleagues were on the track of the great Provincial of the Jesuit Mission to this heathen country of England, the chief of all the conspirators yet left at large.
About two months before this, Garnet had come to the conclusion that he was no longer safe at Coughton, which, as the property of Mr Throckmorton, and lately in the occupation of Sir Everard Digby, would be likely to obtain a thorough overhauling. From Mr Hall he had received a pressing invitation to Hendlip for himself and his confidential servant, Nicholas Owen, who went by the name of “Little John.” The latter was an old acquaintance at Hendlip, for it was his ingenuity that had devised the numerous hiding-places which had been added to the Hall by its present owner. To Hendlip accordingly Garnet removed from Coughton,—accompanied by Anne Vaux and the Brooksbys,—about the 16th of December, and for some weeks resided with the family without concealment. But on Monday, the 20th of January, as the day broke, Sir Henry Bromley and his troops marched up to and invested Hendlip Hall.
The Hon. Mrs Abington was a sister of Lord Monteagle, and was quite as good an actress as her brother was an actor. She possessed the power of assuming the most complete outward composure, as if nothing whatever were the matter, however adversely things might be going to her wishes. She had also a very quiet, very firm, very unmanageable will. Mr Abington was not at home; but that signified little, for the grey mare was unquestionably the superior creature of the pair.
If the information imparted to her so early on that morning had been that the cat had mewed, or that a hen had dropped a feather, the lady of Hendlip could scarcely have received it with more repose of manner.
“That is what we might look for,” said she. “If it please you, holy Fathers, it might be as well that you should repair to one of your chambers for a while.—Bid Edward come to me.”
Edward, a white-headed confidential servant with an aspect of appalling respectability, presented himself at once in response to his mistress’s summons.
“Edward,” said Mrs Abington, “I would have you, quickly, take up these holy Fathers to the hole in your chamber, and set Little John and Chambers in the next safest. There are enemies approaching.”
Edward bowed his dignified head, and obeyed.
He led Garnet and Hall up the chief staircase, and into the bedroom occupied by Edward himself, which stood behind that of his master.
Garnet cast his eyes round the chamber.
“Truly, good Edward,” said he, “I scarce see means to hide so much as a mouse in this chamber, other than in yonder closet, which is as plain as the door or the window.”
Edward replied by an amused smile.
“You’ve a deal of book-learning, Father Garnet,” said he, “but under your leave, there’s a few things you don’t know in this world.”
He walked into the chimney-corner.
Chimneys, be it remembered, were much wider in the seventeenth century than they have been since the invention of grates. There was room in every chimney-corner, not only for the fire, but for one or two chairs and settles, where people could sit when they wished to warm themselves; and as there was no fire on Edward’s hearth, moving about on it was as easy as in a closet.
“Are we to fly up the chimney on a pair of broomsticks?” laughed Hall.
Edward only smiled again, and after a moment’s feeling with his hand among the bricks at the side of the chimney, they heard a sound as of the pushing back of bolts. Slowly, as if it moved with some difficulty, a square door opened in the chimney, so cleverly concealed that it required a skilful detective indeed to guess its existence. The door was of wood, “curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast” to it, “and coloured black like the other parts of the chimney, that very diligent inquiry might well have past by.” Behind it was a very small square recess, large enough to hold the two, though not sufficiently high for them to stand upright. A narrow tunnel, in outward appearance like a chimney, led up to the top of the house, designed for the admission of light and air to the hiding-place, but capable of conveying no great quantity of either. Having fetched a short ladder, Edward placed it in position, so that the priests could climb up into the chamber.
“It had been more to your comfort, Fathers, could we have cast forth some of this furniture,” he said, looking round it: “but it were scarce wise to defer the matter, the house being already invested.”
“Let be, we will serve ourselves of it as it is, and well.”
The priests mounted into the tiny hiding-place.
“See you, holy Fathers,” Edward asked, “a vessel of tin, standing below a little hole in the wall? Have a care that you move it not without you first stop the hole, for it runneth through into my mistress’s chamber, and by a quill or reed therein laid can she minister warm drinks unto you, as broths and caudle. She can likewise speak to you through the hole, and be heard: but if you hear the noise of feet or strange voices in that chamber, have a care to lie as squat (quiet) and close as ever you can. So may you safely hover (lie concealed); for the cleverest soldier of them all shall be hard put to it to find you here, if it please God.”
Would it please God? Did no memory come to either of those well-read priestly refugees of a familiar question—“Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with Thee?”
“A tight fit this, for two!” said Hall.
“Ay, it is. There hath not been above one here aforetime. But it is the safest hilling (hiding-place) in the house. Good-day, holy Fathers, and God keep you safe!”
While these scenes were enacting in one part of the house, in another Sir Henry Bromley was introducing himself to the lady of Hendlip Hall, and, with plumed hat in hand, apologising for his intrusion, and civilly requesting her permission to examine the house. A kindly, tender-hearted man was the commander of this searching party, but at the same time a conscientious one, and a determined Protestant.
If anything could be more considerate and cordial than Sir Henry’s appeal, it was to all appearances the spirit wherein it was received. Mrs Abington begged her visitor not to speak of intrusion. His Majesty the King had no subjects more loyal than every man and woman in that house. It was really a source of pleasure to her that her abode should be scrutinised in the most critical manner, and her perfect innocence and submission to law thus made manifest. The lady at once delivered her keys—she did not say that a few of them were on a separate bunch—and requested that no quarter might be given. Appearances were so charming, and innocence apparently so clear, that they might have deluded a more astute man than Sir Henry Bromley.
Sir Henry, however, had come to do his duty, and he did it in spite of appearances. Lord Salisbury had furnished him with minute instructions, which pointed decidedly to probable need of caution in this respect. He was to search for a suspected vault at the east end of the dining-room; for a similar erection beneath the cellars; for ingenious closets squeezed in between the walls of upper rooms; for possible holes in corners and chimneys, wainscots which could be pierced by gimlets, double lofts, and concealed chambers in the rafters. Sir Henry set to work. “Madam,” said he to Mrs Abington, “were it not more to the conveniency of yourself and these gentlewomen your friends, that you should take occasion to pay some visit forth of the house? I fear the noise made by my men, not to speak of the turning about of your chambers by taking up of boards and trying of wainscots, shall greatly incommode you if you tarry.”
Sir Henry wanted sadly to get the ladies away. But Mrs Abington was quite as sagacious as himself, and more determined. She assured him that the noise was nothing, and the little novelties of holes in her dining-room floor and broken wainscots in her drawing-room would be rather amusing than otherwise. Poor Sir Henry, baffled by this clever woman, laments to Lord Salisbury,—“I did never hear so impudent liars as I find here—all recusants, and all resolved to confess nothing, what danger soever they incur.—I could by no means persuade the gentlewoman of the house to depart the house, without I should have carried her, which I held uncivil, as being so nobly born; as I have and do undergo the greater difficulties thereby.”
The Monday night brought home the master of the house. He answered the queries of the gentlemen in possession with as much apparent frankness as his wife, but assured Sir Henry that the persons for whom he was searching were absolute strangers to him; he had never seen any of them save Gerard, and him only some five and twenty years before. For suspecting him of harbouring priests, not to speak of traitors, there was not a shadow of reason!
Sir Henry went on searching, though he was out of hope. In the first place, he discovered some parcels of “books and writing,” which showed at that time that “some scholars” must have used them; an ordinary country gentleman was not expected to have any books, except Bible and prayer-books, one or two on law, needed in his capacity as a magistrate, a book on etiquette, and a few dog’s-eared plays. On the Wednesday a discovery of more importance was made, for in three or four places where boards were uplifted, a quantity of “Popish trash” was brought to light. Thus encouraged, the searchers resolved to continue their work, which they were on the point of giving up. Mr Abington continued to protest his supreme innocence of all knowledge or connivance. The books were none of his; the “Popish stuff” astonished him as much as it did the searchers. This assumption of exquisite stainlessness lasted until one day a hiding-place was discovered, which contained his family muniments and the title-deeds of his estate. After that, Mr Abington protested no more; and it was needless, for he would not have been believed had he done so. Sir Henry at once despatched him to Worcester to be taken care of by a magistrate; and “being much wearied,” on Wednesday night returned to his own house to take rest, leaving his brother Sir Edward in charge.
On the Thursday morning, when he returned to Hendlip, he was met by two wan, gaunt men, whose countenances showed privation and suffering. They gave their names as William Andrews and George Chambers.
By some unexplained want of care or foresight, these two unfortunate men had been suffered to secrete themselves without provisions, and had nothing but one apple between them from Monday to Thursday.
Sir Henry was delighted, for at first he thought he had secured Greenway and Hall. A little further examination, however, showed him that his captives were only the priests’ servants; yet he shrewdly surmised that the servants being there, the masters in all probability were not far away.
For four days more the search was pursued in vain: but on the 27th news came that not only was Hall certainly concealed in the house, but that the most important of all the implicated Jesuits, Garnet, would probably be found by a diligent continuance of the search. It came from an unexpected quarter—no other than Red Humphrey Littleton.
Justice had not been slow in overtaking the harbourers of Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton. White and his brothers had got clear away; but Smart, Hollyhead, Perks, and Burford, suffered the last penalty of the law. Margaret Perks was pardoned, though condemned to death. Humphrey Littleton received the torture; and when apparently at the point of death, entreated permission to confess important facts, which he promised to do if his life might be spared. His appeal was granted, and he then told the authorities that the most important criminal still at large would be found in the priest’s hiding-place at Hendlip Hall.
Fortified by this encouraging news, though the prisoners already taken denied all knowledge of any others being hidden in the house, Sir Henry pushed on his search; and at last, on the 28th, eight days after his arrival, one of his men broke into the cunningly contrived hiding-place in the chimney of Edward’s room. This brave discoverer was so terrified by his own success that he ran away lest the priests should shoot him; but others coming rapidly to his assistance, the priests offered to come out if they might do so with quietude. “So they helped us out,” says Garnet, “very charitably.”
Garnet’s account of their experiences in “the hoale,” as he terms it, is not suggestive of an inviting place. “We were in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some hours, and were well wearied;” the place was so encumbered with books and furniture that they “could not find place for their legs” even when seated; and the cramped positions which they were compelled to assume caused their legs to swell greatly. Garnet seems to have suffered more of the two. Yet he adds that they were “very merry and content,” and could have stayed three months, though when they came out at last, “we appeared like two ghosts.”
Sir Henry Bromley at once recognised the Provincial of the Jesuit Mission; but which of his various aliases really belonged to him puzzled his captor not a little, and Garnet declined to enlighten him.
“Call me as you will,” said he; “I refer all to my meeting with my Lord of Salisbury, and he will know me. In truth, I say not thus for any discourtesy, but that I will not, in the places we are, be made an obloquy: but when I come to London, I will not be ashamed of my name.”
Sir Henry now marshalled his prisoners for transport to Worcester. He described them to the authorities as “Humphrey Phillips alias Henry Garnet; John Vincent alias Hall; Thomas Abington, Esquire; William Androwes alias Nicholas Owen, either a priest or servant to Garnet; George Chambers, servant of Hall; Edward Jarrett, servant of Mrs Dorathie Abington; William Glandishe, servant of Mr Abington.” (Note 5.) Mr Abington and the priests were taken to Worcester in Sir Henry’s coach. The mind of that gentleman was somewhat exercised as to what he was to do with them when he got them there. Before leaving Hendlip he had promised to place them in the house of some bailiff or citizen; but as they were driving into Worcester, he said uneasily—
“My masters, I cannot do for you as I would; I must needs send you to the gaol.”
“In God’s name!” (Note 6) responded Garnet. “But I hope you will provide we have not irons, for we are lame already, and shall not be able to ride after, to London.”
Sir Henry’s tender heart was touched at once.
“Well,” said he, “I will think of it.”
He thought of it to such purpose, that when they reached the inn, he placed Garnet in a private room, with a guard—his Reverence says, “to avoid the people’s gazing;” Sir Henry would probably have added that it was also in order to prevent the prisoner’s disappearance. After despatching his business he ordered his coach, and took his prisoners home with him to Holt Castle. Here, on their own testimony, they were “exceeding well used, and dined and supped with him and his every day,”—not without some apprehension on the part of their kindly gaoler that they might reward him by perverting his young daughters from the Protestant faith.
When Candlemas Day came, Sir Henry “made a great dinner to end Christmas,” and sent for wine to drink the King’s health. It was then customary for gentlemen always to dine with their hats on, and to uncover when a royal toast was proposed. The hats were doffed accordingly. The wine came in, and with it a wax candle, lighted—a blessed candle taken at Hendlip, among the “Popish trash,” and destined for use on the services of that very day, having “Jesus” painted on one side of it, and “Maria” on the other. Garnet’s heart leaped at the familiar sight, and he begged leave to take the candle in his hand. Passing it to Mr Hall, he said, half joyfully, half sadly—
“I am glad yet, that I have carried a holy candle on Candlemas Day.”
Restoring the holy wax to the unholy candlestick, the priests drank the King’s health in what Mr Garnet is kind enough to tell us was “a reasonable glass”—a piece of information the more valuable, since this adjective was not always applicable to his Reverence’s glasses.
When they came to leave Worcester, the parting between Garnet and the ladies was almost affectionate. The priest was evidently possessed of that strong personal magnetism which some men and women have, and which is oftener exercised for the purposes of Satan than in the service of God.
“Madam,” he said to Lady Bromley, “I desire you all to think well of me till you see whether I can justify myself in this cause.”
The journey to London took longer than would otherwise have been needed, on account of the condition of the prisoners. Garnet, whose sufferings had been the more severe, was also the one in whom their results lasted longest; and on the 5th of February, Sir Henry wrote that he was “but a weak and wearisome traveller.” He was, however, “passing well used at the King’s charge, and that by express orders from my Lord Salisbury,” and “had always the best horse in the company.” Garnet adds, “I had sorde bickering with ministers by the way. Two very good scholars, and courteous, Mr Abbott and Mr Barlow, met us at an inn; but two other rude fellows met us on the way, whose discourtesy I rewarded with plain words, and so adieu.” The Jesuit Superior apparently rather enjoyed a little brisk brushing of wits with well-educated gentlemanly clerics, but felt some disgust of abuse which passed for argument with others. On the evening of the 6th of February they reached London, where they were lodged in the Gate-house, and Garnet was “very sick the first two nights with ill lodging.” It was not until the 13th that the first examination took place before the Privy Council at Whitehall.
Note 1. To which the reporter adds, “otherwise a Papist, which God for His mercy ever forbid!”
Note 2. To flewer or fleer is to smile in that grinning manner which shows all the teeth. Our forefathers considered it a mark of a sneering, envious man.
Note 3. Domestic State Papers, James the First, volume eighteen, article 20.
Note 4. This most untruthful gentleman asserted that “his true name was Oldcorne;” but Garnet and Anne Vaux both call him Hall in writing to each other.
Note 5. Domestic State Papers, James the First, volume 18, article 64. Mrs Dorathie Abington was Mr Abington’s maiden sister, who lived at Hendlip Hall, and had a priest of her own, a Jesuit, named Butler or Lyster. He does not appear in this narrative, and was very likely absent.
Note 6. This was not meant profanely, but was simply equivalent to saying, “God’s will be done!”