The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 39

[Footnote 22:--Jardine's "_Narrative_," pp. 31, 32.]

[Footnote 23:--Gerard's "_Narrative_," p. 56.]

[Footnote 24:--Knaresborough, Knaresbrough or Knaresburgh, is thus pleasantly celebrated in Drayton's "_Polyolbion_":--

"From Whernside Hill not far outflows the nimble Nyde, Through Nytherside, along as sweetly she doth glide Tow'rds Knaresburgh on her way-- Where that brave forest stands Ent.i.tled by the town[A] who, with upreared hands, Makes signs to her of joy, and doth with garlands crown The river pa.s.sing by."]

[Footnote A: The allusion is to the ancient Forest of Knaresbrough belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster. (As to the extent and history of the Forest, see Grainge's "_Forest of Knaresbrough_.")]

[Footnote 25:--"The Venerable" Francis Ingleby's portrait is still to be seen at Ripley Castle, an ideal English home, hard-by the winding Nidd.]

[Footnote 26:--For the facts of Francis Ingleby's life, see Challoner's "_Missionary Priests_," edited by Thomas G. Law; and "_Acts of the English Martyrs_" (Burns & Oates), by the Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J.]

[Footnote 27:--From Father Gerard's "_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,"

p. 59.]

[Footnote 28:--See the admirably written life of Sir Everard Digby, under the t.i.tle "_The Life of a Conspirator_," by "One of his descendants"

(Kegan Paul & Co., 1895). The learned descendant of Sir Everard Digby, however, evidently knows very much more concerning his gallant ancestor than he knows about Guy Fawkes, who (excepting that "accident of an accident"--fortune) was as honourable a character as the high-minded spouse of Mary Mulsho himself--_honourable, of course, I mean after their kind_.--Jardine's "_Narrative of Gunpowder Plot_," p. 67.]

[Footnote 29:--Sir William Catesby and Sir Thomas Tresham were excellent types of the English gentry of their day. Each was "a fine old English gentleman, one of the olden time." They had both become "reconciled" Roman Catholics--along with so many of the n.o.bility, gentry, and yeomanry in the Midlands--in 1580-81, through the famous missionary journey of the Jesuit, Robert Parsons, probably forming with Edmund Campion two of the most powerful extempore preachers that ever gave utterance to the English tongue.

We may readily picture to ourselves "the coming of age" of the son and heir of each of these gallant knights and stately dames. And we may easily conceive of the bright hopes that either of the gentlewomen (especially the two sisters), in their close-fitting caps, laced ruffs, and gowns falling in pleated folds, must have cherished in their maternal hearts for an honourable career for the child--the treasured child--of their bosom.

Alas! through the evil will of man, for the pathetic vanity of human wishes.]

[Footnote 30:--Jardine, in his "_Narrative_," p. 51, says that John Grant's ancestors are described in several pedigrees as of Saltmarsh, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, and of Snitterfield, in Warwicks.h.i.+re; that Norbrook adjoined Snitterfield, though it is not now considered locally situate therein. Students of Shakespeare will be interested to learn that in the Parish of Snitterfield, near Grant's ancestral home, the poet's mother, Mary Arden--herself connected with the Throckmorton family--owned property. Moreover, through his mother, Shakespeare was distantly connected with several of the plotters. For Catesby and Tresham, as well as Lady Wigmore, of Lucton, Herefords.h.i.+re, were all first cousins to Lady Mounteagle, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (the father of Francis Throckmorton, who was executed in the reign of Elizabeth) having three daughters whom he married to Sir William Catesby, Sir Thomas Tresham, and Sir William Wigmore.--See Jardine's "_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_," p. 11; also Foley's "_Records of the Jesuits in England_" (Burns & Oates), vol. iv., p. 290.

Probably Shakespeare knew Grant personally, and not only Grant, but Catesby, Percy, the Winters (Robert and Thomas Winter were likewise akin to the Throckmortons), and Tresham. That the bard of Avon knew Lord Mounteagle, the a.s.sociate of his friend and patron the Earl of Southampton, is even still more probable.

How is it that Shakespeare never in his writings sought to make political capital (as the sinister phrase goes) out of the Gunpowder Plot? For several reasons: first, his heart (if not his head) was with the ancient faith he had learned in the old Warwicks.h.i.+re home; secondly, his large humanity prompted him to sympathise with all that were oppressed. I hold that in this studied silence, this dignified reserve of Shakespeare, we may discern additional proof of the n.o.bleness of the man, supposing that he knew personally any of the plotters. He would not kick friends that were down, when those friends were even traitors. He could not approve their action--far from it. He might have condemned with justice, and with the world's applause. But upon himself a self-denying ordinance he laid, tempting as it must have been to him to perform the contrary, especially when we recollect the course then followed by his brother-poet--Jonson.

But Shakespeare would not "take sword in hand" with the pretence of restoring "equality" between these wrong-doers and their country. He deemed that the ends of justice--exact, strict Justice--were met in "the hangman's b.l.o.o.d.y hands"--"Macbeth," 1606--and that sufficed for him.

Since writing the above note I find it stated in "_The Religion of Shakespeare_," by Henry Sebastian Bowden (Burns & Oates, 1899)--chiefly from the writings of that great Elizabethan scholar, the late Richard Simpson--that "among the chief actors in the so-called Gunpowder Plot were Catesby; the two Bates; John Grant, of Norbrook, near Stratford; Thomas Winter, Grant's brother-in-law; all Shakespeare's friends and benefactors"

(p. 103); so that my conjecture is, belike, warranted that the poet knew Catesby, Winter, and Grant. Moreover, from the same work, it appears that Shakespeare, through the Ardens and Throckmortons, was connected by family marriages, not only with Catesby, the Winters, and Tresham, but distantly with the Earl of Southampton himself, who was a relative of Lord Mounteagle. Hence it is still more probable that Shakespeare knew Mounteagle personally.

Again, Shakespeare probably was present as one of the King's players in 1604 at Somerset House, on the occasion of the Constable of Castile's visit.--See Sidney Lee's "_Life of Shakespeare_" (Smith & Elder), p.

233.--If this were so, then it is well-nigh certain that the poet must have there beheld Mounteagle, who would be one of the Lords then present, most probably in attendance on the Queen Consort. The festivities in honour of the Spanish Amba.s.sador Extraordinary wound up with a magnificent banquet at the Palace of Whitehall, when the Earl of Southampton "danced a correnta" with the Queen. This was August 19th, 1604.--_Cf._ Churton Collins's "_Ephemera Critica_" (Constable) as to religion of Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 31:--The name is also spelt Tirwhitt. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, Lady Ursula Babthorpe's grandfather, had entertained Henry VIII. at the old Hall at Kettleby. A new Hall was built in the time of James I., but this was pulled down about 1691, I believe. The Tyrwhitts, of Kettleby, were allied to such as the Tailboys, Boroughes, Wymbishes, Monsons, Tournays, Thimbelbies, Thorolds, and other Lincolns.h.i.+re houses. They were rigidly Roman Catholic. The marriage between Sir William Babthorpe and Ursula Tyrwhitt was one of those marriages "that are made in heaven." The lovely pathos of the lives of this ideal Yorks.h.i.+re family is indescribable; beginning with Sir William Babthorpe, who harboured Campion in 1581. It was continued through Sir Ralph Babthorpe, who married that "valiant woman" (the only daughter and heiress of William Birnand, the Recorder of York), Grace Birnand by name, of Brimham, Knaresbrough, and York. Lady Grace Babthorpe's active and contemplative life was one long singing of _Gloria in excelsis_. Sir William Babthorpe and Lady Ursula his wife, like their n.o.ble parents, Sir Ralph Babthorpe and Lady Grace, "for conscience sake" became voluntary exiles "and with strangers made their home." Sir William died a captain in the Spanish Army fighting against France. Lady Ursula, his wife, died of the plague at Bruges. They had many children, some of whom were remarkably gifted. Mary Anna Barbara Babthorpe, the grand-daughter of Sir William Babthorpe, and great-great-grand-daughter of the Sir William Babthorpe who harboured Campion, was the Mother-General of the Nuns of the Inst.i.tute of the Blessed Virgin, one of whose oldest convents, St. Mary's, is still situated near Micklegate Bar, York, on land given by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Bart., of Barnbow Hall, near Aberford, in the time of James II. In Ireland the nuns of this order are styled the Loretto Nuns. The story of the Babthorpes is a veritable English "_Un Recit d'une sur_."--See "_Life of Mary Ward_."--The Wards--like the Inglebies, of Ripley; the Constables, of Everingham;[A] the Dawnays, of Sessay; and the Palmes, of Naburn--were related to this "family of saints."--See also "The Babthorpes, of Babthorpe" (one of whose ancestors carried the sword before King Edward III. on entering Calais in 1347), in the late Rev. John Morris's "_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,"

first series (Burns & Oates).

For "the Kayes," of Woodsome, see Canon Hulbert's "_Annals of Almondbury_"

(Longmans).

"The Venerable" Richard Langley, of Owsthorpe and Grimthorpe, near Pocklington, in the East Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, who suffered at the York Tyburn on the 1st December, 1586, for harbouring priests, was great-grandson of one of the Kayes, of Woodsome. (Communicated by Mr.

Oswald C. B. Brown, Solicitor, of York.)]

[Footnote 32:--"_Greenway's MS._," quoted by Jardine, "_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_," p. 151.]

[Footnote 33:--Hawarde, "_Reportes of Star Chamber_."

See "_The Fawkeses, of York_," by Robert Davies, sometime Town Clerk of York (Nichols, Westminster, 1850); and the "_Life of Guy Fawkes_," by William Camidge (Burdekin, York). Davies was a learned York antiquary.

William Harrington, the elder, first cousin to Edward Fawkes (Guy's father), and Thomas Grimstone, of Grimston, were both "bound over" by the Privy Council, on the 6th of December, 1581, to appear before the Lord President of the North and the Justices of a.s.size at the next a.s.sizes at York, for harbouring Edmund Campion.--See "_Acts of Privy Council, 1581_"

(Eyre & Spottiswoode), p. 282.--What was the upshot I do not know.

Their Indictments are probably still to be found at York Castle. And it is a great desideratum that the old York Castle Indictments should be catalogued, and a catalogue published. I believe such never has been done.

Since August, 1900, York Castle has been used as a Military Prison. All the old Indictments that are in existence, whether at York, Worcester, or other a.s.size towns, would be of interest and value re the Gunpowder Plot _if the affair is to be thoroughly bottomed_.

The York Quarter Sessions' Indictments appear to be irretrievably lost, which is a great pity, as many of those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries must have referred to Popish recusants, and those of the seventeenth century probably to Puritan sectaries, and, later, to Quakers as well--the latter being punished under the Popish Acts of Supremacy and Allegiance. Indeed, the barrister, William Prynne (seventeenth century), a Calvinistic English Presbyterian, wrote a book to prove that Quakerism was only a sort of indirect and derivative Popery. The learned gentleman ent.i.tled his work: "_The Quakers unmasked and clearly detected to be but the sp.a.w.n of Romish Frogs, Jesuites, and Franciscan Fryers._" Now, Prynne was not far wrong either, the erudite historical philosopher knows very well, who has studied the genesis of the remarkable system developed by Fox, Barclay, and Penn.

Was there a Grimston near Mount St. John, Feliskirk, near Thirsk? Or was it Grimston Garth, Holderness? or was it North Grimston, between Malton and Driffield, that Thomas Grimstone came from; or Grimston, three miles east of York?

Since writing the preceding note I have come to the conclusion that the Grimston was, most likely, the Grimstone some twelve miles from Mount St.

John, in the Parish of Gilling East, near Hovingham and Ampleforth, in the Vale of Mowbray, and near Gilling Castle, once the seat of the Catholic branch of the Fairfaxes, now the seat of George Wilson, Esquire, J.P. This Grimstone would be a spot very suitable for harbouring Campion after he had been at Babthorpe, near Selby; Thixendale, near Leavening, east of Malton; and Fryton, west of Malton, near Hovingham.

(How wonderful to think that the probabilities are in favour of the supposal that these tranquil, sequestered nooks, each with its own fair summer beauty, once rang with the golden eloquence of Edmund Campion, "one of the diamonds of England," in the days of Shakespeare.)

Guy Fawkes was also connected with another Roman Catholic martyr, "the Venerable" William Knight, yeoman, of South Duffield, Hemingbrough, Selby, East Yorks.h.i.+re, who suffered death at the York Tyburn in 1596, for "explaining to a man the Catholic faith."--See Challoner and Foster's "_Pedigrees of Yorks.h.i.+re Families_" ("Fawkes, of Farnley").]

[Footnote A: The Constables, of Everingham, are one of those old English Roman Catholic families who so appealed to the historic imagination and so touched the historic sympathies of the first Earl of Beaconsfield. The present Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, Lord Herries, is the owner of this grand old home of the Constables, one of whom was executed for his share in the first Pilgrimage of Grace under Robert Aske, of Aughton on the Derwent, in the time of Henry VIII. (1536). The pilgrims captured York, Pontefract, and Hull, and laid siege to Skipton Castle.

Aske was hanged as a traitor from one of the towers of York, either Clifford's Tower or possibly the tower of All Saints' Church, The Pavement, York. After the movement had been quelled, Henry VIII. came with dread majesty to York and established the Council of the North. Lady Lumley, the wife of Sir John Lumley, of Lumley Castle, was burned alive at Smithfield.--See Burke's "_Tudor Portraits_."]

[Footnote 34:--Father Morris, S.J., in "_The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_" (York volume), says that Father Tesimond was a Yorks.h.i.+reman; though in Foley's "_Records_," in one place, he is said to have been born in Northumberland, perhaps a translation of the Latin "Northumbria,"

intended to represent the name "Yorks.h.i.+re." There were, at least, three families of Tesimond in York in the reign of Elizabeth, namely, Robert Tesimond, a butcher, of Christ's Parish; Anthony Tesimond, a cordyner; and William Tesimond, a saddler, both of St. Michael-le-Belfrey's Parish. I incline to think that Father Oswald Tesimond was the son of William Tesimond, who lived in the Parish of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, York. Oswald Tesimond was born in 1563; but as the Register books of St. Michael's Church, unfortunately, begin in 1565, two years afterwards, there are no means of verifying my supposal. William Tesimond was, for a great part of his life, a rigid Catholic, suffering imprisonment for his faith, although eventually he appears to have yielded. Margaret Tesimond, the wife of William Tesimond, also bore a more than lip testimony to the ancient religion by suffering imprisonment for it. Whether William Tesimond died "reconciled" or not, I cannot say. Perhaps further researches will clear the matter up as to this and the exact parentage of Father Tesimond. In the very learned and deeply lamented Dr. James Raine's admirable book on the City of York (Longmans, 1893), on p. 110, is the following:--"Whilst the Earl of Northumberland's head was lying in the Tolbooth on Ouse Bridge, William Tessimond cut off some hair from the beard. He wrapped it in paper, and wrote on the outside, 'This the heire of the good Erle of Northumberland, Lord Perecy.' For this he got into great trouble." This must have been about the 22nd August, 1572, as Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland was beheaded on that day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in The Pavement, York, for his share in the Rising of the North. The Church Register of St. Margaret's Church, Walmgate, York, contains an entry of the death of the Earl of Northumberland. The Percy family had property in Walmgate at that time. The Earl is now "the Blessed Thomas Percy," one of "the York martyrs." The Lady Mary Percy, of Ghent, a well-known Benedictine Abbess, was his daughter. She would be probably named after her aunt Mary, the wife of Francis Slingsby, of Scriven Hall, near Scotton. There is a fine monument in the Parish Church of Knaresbrough to the memory of Francis Slingsby and Mary Percy, his wife.

The Slingsbies were Roman Catholics till many years after the reign of Elizabeth; in fact, Sir Henry Slingsby, who was beheaded during the Commonwealth, was himself a Roman Catholic.

The Half Moon Hotel, in Blake Street, York, perhaps derives its name from the well-known device of the Percy family.]

[Footnote 35:--Quoted from Father Gerard's "_Narrative_," p. 278.]

[Footnote 36:--So that the Plot was first hatched about Easter, 1604.--See Dr. S. R. Gardiner's "_What Gunpowder Plot was_," as to the decisive causes of the Plot.--Jardine, in his "_Narrative_" (pp. 45 and 46), thinks that the Star-Chambering of that aged but charming Roman Catholic gentleman, Thomas Pounde, Esquire, of Belmont, Hamps.h.i.+re, contributed to the causes of the Plot. This is very probable. Pounde was first cousin to the father of the Earl of Southampton, the patron and friend of Shakespeare. Pounde was a devoted friend of Campion, and himself a Jesuit lay-brother. He spent a large part of his life in prison. He was attired in prison as became his rank and fortune, and was, besides being a "mystical" Catholic, a most accomplished Elizabethan gentleman.--See "_Jesuits in Conflict_" (Burns & Oates).]

[Footnote 37:--_I.e._, according to Winter, about two months after.]

[Footnote 38:--See pp. 269 and 271 of the Rev. John Gerard's, S.J., work, "_What was the Gunpowder Plot?_" (Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co., 1897).]

[Footnote 39:--_I.e._, a Prayer Book. Sir Everard Digby appears to have been sworn in by Robert Catesby on the cross formed by the hilt of a poniard.--See "_Life of Sir Everard Digby_."]

[Footnote 40:--It is also said that Catesby "peremptorily demanded of his a.s.sociates a promise that they would not mention the project, even in Confession, lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder it."--See "_The Month_," No. 369, pp. 353, 4.--This would be to make a.s.surance double sure. But, happily, the "best laid schemes o' men gang aft agley." "For there is on earth a yet auguster thing, veiled though it be, than Parliament or King"--the human conscience, which is "prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathenas" (John Henry Newman). Also, "Conscience is the knowledge with oneself of the better and the worse" (James Martineau).]

[Footnote 41:--See Jardine's "_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_," p. 41.]

[Footnote 42:--The Most Hon. the Marquess of Ripon, K.G., Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, and the Marchioness of Ripon, C.I., of Studley Royal, near Ripon, are descended from this leile-hearted and chivalrous Yorks.h.i.+re race, in whom so many idealistic, stately souls, of a long buried Past, claim kindred.

Of what manner of men these Mallories were, the puissant owners of Studley Royal, is evident from what we are told concerning that Sir William Mallory, "who was so zealous and constant a Catholic, that when heresy first came into England, and Catholic service commanded to be put down on such a day, he came to the church, and stood there at the door with his sword drawn to defend, that none should come in to abolish religion, saying that he would defend it with his life, and continued for some days keeping out the officers so long as he could possibly do it."--From the "Babthorpes, of Babthorpe," Morris's "_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_," first series, p. 227.--The Church referred to must have been the old Chapel at Aldfield, near Studley Royal. Aldfield was one of the Chapelries of the ancient Parish of Ripon. The old Chapel at Aldfield is now represented by the n.o.ble new Church which is seen in the distance, at the end of the long avenue, by all who have the rare happiness of visiting Studley Royal and the tall grey ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, Fountains, laved by the musical little River Skell. (Studley Church is twin-sister to Skelton Church, the Vyner Memorial in the Park of Newby. Skelton was likewise one of the old Ripon Chapelries.) This phrase "to abolish religion," I opine, refers to the time of Edward VI., when the Ma.s.s was first put down, and a communion subst.i.tuted therefor.--See Tennyson's "_Mary Tudor_."--There is a curious old traditional prophecy extant in Yorks.h.i.+re, as well as other parts of England, that as the Ma.s.s was abolished in the reign of the Sixth Edward, so it will be restored in the reign of the Seventh!]

[Footnote 43:--The promoters of the Rising of the North wished:--

(1) To restore to her kingdom Mary Queen of Scots, who simply fascinated Francis Norton, and every other imaginative, romantic, Yorks.h.i.+re heart that she came in contact with.