The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 41

Again, since "he who acts through another acts through himself," it is unnecessary for me to treat at large in the Text concerning my supposal respecting the part that Brother Ralph Ashley played in the great drama of the Gunpowder Plot. Ashley being identified with his master, Father Oldcorne, shares, in his degree, his master's merits and praise.

Professor J. A. Froude thought that Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the same stock as Brother Ralph Emerson. It is quite possible. For after the Gunpowder Plot, I opine that the younger Catholics in many cases became Puritans, and in some cases, later on, Quakers.]

[Footnote 59:--Notwithstanding the endless chain of the causation of human acts and human events, man's strongest and clearest knowledge tells him that he is "master of his fate," nay, that "he is fated to be free,"

inasmuch as at any moment man can open the flood-gates that are betwixt him and an Infinite Ocean of Pure Unconditioned Freedom: can open those flood-gates, and in that Ocean can lave at will, and so render himself a truly emanc.i.p.ated creature.

The antinomies of Thought and Life do not destroy nor make void the Facts of Thought and Life. Antinomies surround man on every side, and one of the great ends of life is to know the same, and to act regardful of that knowledge.]

[Footnote 60:--The copy in the "_Authorised Discourse_" gives "s.h.i.+ft off,"

not "s.h.i.+ft of" as in the original. Doubtless "s.h.i.+ft off" was the expression intended. It is still occasionally used in the country districts about York. The word "tender," in the sense of "take care of" or "have a care of," is to-day quite common in that neighbourhood (1901).]

[Footnote 61:--"_Gunpowder Plot Books_," vol. ii., p. 202.]

[Footnote 62:--It is impossible to describe the emotions that welled up in the heart of the writer as he gazed on this small, faded, and fading doc.u.ment: emotions of awe and grat.i.tude, blended with veneration and reverence, for the maker of this lever--this sheet-anchor--of the temporal salvation of so many human creatures, who had been barbarously appointed to die by those that had forgotten what spirit they were of.

The writer was favoured by the sight of the original Letter on Friday, the 5th day of October, 1900, at about half-past two o'clock in the afternoon.

He desires to place on record his sense of obligation for the courteous civility with which he was treated by the authorities at the Record Office, London, on this occasion.]

[Footnote 63:--Oldcorne, being a Jesuit, would from time to time go to White Webbs, Morecrofts (near Uxbridge), Erith-on-the-Thames, Stoke Pogis, Thames Street (London), and other places of Jesuit resort where Mounteagle and Ward had the _entree_. Again, he must have known well the Vaux family of Harrowden, and all the circle that Mounteagle and Ward would move in.

Again, if Ward were married in York, in 1579, he may have met Oldcorne as a Catholic medical student of promise in the ancient city.

Along with a dear brother, a young Yorks.h.i.+reman, in London, I visited White Webbs, by Enfield Chase, on Sat.u.r.day, the 6th October, 1900. The old house known as Dr. Hewick's House, where the conspirators met, is now no longer standing; but the s.p.a.cious park, with its umbrageous oak trees, meandering streams, tangled thickets, and pleasant paths, is almost unchanged, I should fancy, since it was the rendezvous of the Gunpowder traitors, concerning whom the utmost one can say is that they were not for themselves; and that Nemesis in this life justly punished them, and drove them to make meet expiation and atonement, before the face of all men, for their infamous offences. Thereby Destiny enabled the men to restore equality between the State they had so wronged, _in act and in desire_, and themselves; and a happy thing for the men, as well as for others, that Destiny did so enable them whilst there was yet time.

(In October, 1900, I was informed that the present mansion, known as White Webbs, belongs to the Lady Meux.)]

[Footnote 64:--Known by Edmund Church, Esq., his confidant.]

[Footnote 65:--See "_Life of Mary Ward_," vol. i., p. 1.]

[Footnote 66:--M'rgery Slater most probably belonged to a Ripon family, as I find the same Christian name and surname among entries of the "Christenings" in the Ripon Minster Register, a few years after the year 1579. Possibly the child was a niece of "Mistress M'rgery Ward." "Mistress Warde" may have been a relative of Mr. Cotterell, as I find in the St.

Michael-le-Belfrey Register the entry of the burial (1583) of Anne ---- who is described as "s'vaunt and cozine to Mr. Cotterell, being about twenty-six years of age." Now, Mr. Cotterell was probably Mr. James Cotterell, of the Parish of (Old) St. Wilfred, York, a demolished church, whose site is to-day (1901) occupied by the official lodgings of the King's Judges of a.s.size when on circuit. For the "subsidy" of 1581, a Mr.

James Cotterell of that parish was a.s.sessed in "Lande" at 6 13s. 4d.

(among the highest of the York a.s.sessments). There was a Mr. Cotterell "an Examiner" for the Council of the North in the time of Elizabeth, and I have no doubt that "Mistress Warde's" late master was this very gentleman.

Whether the young woman whom "Thomas Ward, of Mulwaith," made his wife (evidently direct from the house of her master), on the 29th day of May, 1579, was the equal by birth and by descent of her husband, I do not know.

Let us hope, however, that alike in gifts of personal attractiveness and graces of character she was not unworthy of one who came from so truly "gentle" a people as the Wardes, of Mulwith, Givendale, and Newby. If M'gery Slater did hail from Ripon, this "faithful following" of her to York, and from the house of her master, publicly making her, in the face of all the world, his "true and honourable wife, as dear to him as were the ruddy drops that visited his own heart," bears early witness to an idealism of mind in this Yorks.h.i.+re gentleman that was thoroughly in keeping with the chivalrous race whence he sprang. I cannot give any personal description of Thomas Warde; but I can of Marmaduke Warde, who was also of Mulwith, or Mulwaith, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from _this_ picture we may imagine _that_.]

[Footnote 67:--Speaking of Marmaduke Warde (or Ward)--for the name was spelt either way--his kinswoman Winefrid Wigmore, a lady of high family from Herefords.h.i.+re, in after years said:--"His name is to this day famous in that country [_i.e._ Yorks.h.i.+re] for his exceeding comeliness of person, sweetness and beauty of face, agility and activeness, the knightly exercises in which he excelled, and above all for his constancy and courage in Catholic religion, admirable charity to the poor, so as in extreme dearth never was poor denied at his gate; commonly sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred in a day, to whom he gave great alms: and yet is also famous his valour and fidelity to his friend, and myself have heard it spoken by several, but particularly and with much feeling by Mr.

William Mallery, the eldest and best of that name, who were near of kin to our 'Mother,' both by father and mother."

The William Mallery, here spoken of, was one of "the Mallories," of Studley Royal, near Ripon, the present seat of their descendants, the Most Hon. the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon.

The above quotation is taken from the "_Life_" of Marmaduke Ward's eldest daughter, Mary, who was one of the most beautiful and heroic women of her age.--See M. C. E. Chambers' "_Life of Mary Ward_," vol. i., p. 6 (Burns & Oates).--Mary Ward died at the Old Manor House, Heworth, near York, on the 20th January, 1645-6. She was related to Father Edward Thwing, of Heworth Hall, who suffered at Lancaster for his priesthood, 26th July, 1600. I think the Old Heworth Hall was built _behind_ the present Old Manor House, which seems to be an erection of about the end of the seventeenth century.

The Thwing family, of Gate Helmsley, then owned Old Heworth Hall, where Father Antony Page was apprehended, who suffered at the York Tyburn in 1593 for the like offence, which, by statute, was high treason (27 Eliz.).

Thomas Percy, John Wright, and Christopher Wright, as well as Guy Fawkes, may have often visited Old Heworth Hall. In fact there is still a tradition that the Gunpowder plotters "were at Old Heworth Hall"

(communicated to me in 1890 by the owner, W. Surtees Hornby, Esq., J.P., of York), and also a tradition that Father Page was apprehended there. Mr.

T. Atkinson, for the tenant, his brother-in-law, Mr. Moorfoot, showed the writer, on the 9th August, 1901, the outhouse or hay chamber (of brick and old timber) where this priest was taken on Candlemas Day morning in the year 1593.--See Morris's "_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_," third series, p. 139.--This holy martyr was a connection of the Bellamy family, of Uxendon, with whom the great and gifted Father Southwell was captured.

Father Page was a native of Harrow-on-the-Hill. The last of the English martyrs was Father Thomas Thwing, of Heworth, who was executed at the York Tyburn, 1680. His vestments belong to the Herbert family, of Gate Helmsley. I have seen them about three times at St. Mary's Convent, York, where they have been lent by the kindness of the owner. What a hallowed and affecting link with the past are those beautiful, but fading, priestly garments.

The following letter of Mr. Bannister Dent will be read with interest, as helping the concatenation of the evidence. It is from a York solicitor who for many years was Guardian for the old Parish of St. Wilfred, in the City of York:--

"York, 21st March, 1901."

"OLD PARISH OF ST. WILFRED."

"In reply to your letter of to-day's date, the streets comprised in the above parish were Duncombe Place, Blake Street, Museum Street, Lendal Hill, and Lendal. I have made enquiries, and am informed that St. Michael-le-Belfrey's Church would be the church at which a resident in this parish would be married."]

[Footnote 68:--Margery Warde (born Slater) was probably the sister of one Hugo Slater, of Ripon, who, subsequently to 1579, had a daughter, Margery, and a son, Thomas.--See Ripon Registers.

John Whitham, Esq., of the City of Ripon, has been so kind as to place at my disposal the Index, which is the result of his researches into the Ripon Registers. There seems to be no entry of the baptism of Mary (or Joan or Jane) Ward in 1585-86, nor of John Ward, William Ward, nor Teresa Ward. George Warde's baptism is recorded: "18th May, 1595 [not 1594], George Waryde filius M'maduci de Mulwith." Then under date 3rd September, 1598, occurs, three years afterwards, this significant entry: "Thomas Warde filius M'maduci _de Nubie_." This naming of his son "Thomas" by Marmaduke Warde, I submit, _almost_ suffices to clench the proof that Marmaduke and Thomas Warde were akin to each other _as brothers_.

If proof be required that the name "Ward" was spelt both Ward and Warde, it is contained in the following entries in the Ripon Minster Registers of the baptism of Marmaduke Ward's daughters, Eliza and Barbara[A]: "30 April 1591--Eliza, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of Mulwith;" "21 November 1592--Barbara, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of Mulwith." The entries are in Latin. In some subsequent entries Marmaduke Warde is described as of Newbie, _e.g._: "5 Nov. 1594--Ellyn, daughter of Marmaduke Warde of Newbie."]

[Footnote A: Eliza was probably Elizabeth Warde, and Ellyn--Teresa Warde.]

[Footnote 69:--Newby was spelt "Newbie" at that time. Newby adjoins the village of Skelton. Mulwith is about a mile from Newby.]

[Footnote 70:--See vol. v., p. 681.]

[Footnote 71:--Henry Parker Lord Morley, the grandfather of Mounteagle, married Lady Elizabeth Stanley, daughter of Edward Earl of Derby. He was one of the peers who recorded his vote against Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, and became "an exile for the faith" in the Netherlands after the year 1569. His son, Edward Parker Lord Morley, Mounteagle's father, was born in 1555; he too lived abroad for some years, but eventually seems to have conformed wholly, or in part, to the established religion; although his son, Lord Mounteagle, was, on the latter's own testimony, brought up a Roman Catholic, and, in fact, died in that belief. From an undated letter of Mounteagle, ably written, addressed to the King, and given in Gerard's "_What was the Gunpowder Plot?_" p. 256, it is evident that (after the Plot, most likely) Mounteagle intended to conform to the Establishment. The Morley barony was created in 1299.--See Burke's "_Extinct Peerages_," and Horace Round's "_Studies in Peerage and Family History_," p. 23 (Constable, Westminster, 1901).--From Camden's "_Britannia_," the Morleys evidently owned, at various times, estates in the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, in addition to Ess.e.x, Lincolns.h.i.+re, and Lancas.h.i.+re.

That the conformity to the Established Church of Edward Parker Lord Morley (the father of William Parker Lord Mounteagle) was in part only is, to some extent, evidenced by the fact that Mr. Edward Yelverton (one of the well-known Yelvertons, of Norfolk) is described at the end of the reign of Elizabeth as "a Catholic, domiciled in the household of Lord Morley."--See Dr. Jessopp's "_One Generation of a Norfolk House_," being chiefly the biography of the celebrated Jesuit, Henry Walpole, who suffered for his priesthood at the York Tyburn, 7th April, 1595, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. Rome, in 1886, declared Henry Walpole to be "a Venerable Servant of G.o.d."]

[Footnote 72:--See vol. i., p. 244.]

[Footnote 73:--See vol. i., p. 244.]

[Footnote 74:--See vol. i., p. 238.]

[Footnote 75:--See vol. i., p. 237.]

[Footnote 76:--Edward Poyntz, Esquire, was a relative, lineal or collateral, of the celebrated James Duke of Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whose mother was a daughter of Sir John Poyntz.--See that valuable work, "_The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_," p. 254, by John P. Prendergast (McGlashan & Gill, Dublin, 1875).

I have found much information about the Poyntz family in the "_Visitation of Ess.e.x_" (Harleian Soc). I think that Edward Poyntz was uncle to the Viscountess Thurles. If so, he would be great-uncle to the Duke of Ormonde. From this it would follow that the Viscountess Thurles (who was a strict Roman Catholic) would be a first cousin to Mary Poyntz, the friend and companion, as well as relative, of Mary Warde, the daughter of Marmaduke Warde, and niece of Thomas Warde.--See "_Life of Mary Ward_,"

vol. i.

Winefrid Wigmore, already mentioned, was cousin, once removed, to Lady Mounteagle, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham, Sir William Wigmore, Winefrid's father, having married her aunt, Anne Throckmorton, a daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Lady Catesby was another daughter.--See Note 30 _supra_.]

[Footnote 77:--As slightly supporting the contention that Lord Morley, the father of Mounteagle, was related to, or at least connected with, the Wards, it is to be observed that John Wright, the elder brother by the whole blood of Ursula Ward, at the time when the Plot was concocted, had his "permanent residence at Twigmore," in the Parish of Manton, near Brigg, in Lincolns.h.i.+re.--Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 32.--Now, in Foley's "_Records_," vol. i., p. 627, it is stated that Twigmore, or Twigmoor, and Holme "were ancient possessions of the Morley family." The brothers John and Christopher Wright were evidently called after two uncles who bore these two names respectively.--See Norcliffe's Ed. of Flower's "_Visitation of Yorks.h.i.+re_" (Harleian Soc).]

[Footnote 78:--To-day (April, 1901) Newby-c.u.m-Mulwith forms one towns.h.i.+p.

Givendale is a towns.h.i.+p by itself. Along with Skelton they form a separate ecclesiastical parish. Skelton Church, in Newby Park, is one of the most beautiful in the county, having been erected by the late Lady Mary Vyner, of Newby Hall. The Church is dedicated under the touching t.i.tle of "Christ, the Consoler."

Formerly the Parish of Ripon included no less than thirty villages. At Skelton, Aldfield, Sawley, Bishop Thornton, Monckton, and Winksley there were Chapels. Pateley Bridge also had a Chapel, but this was parochial.--See Gent's "_Ripon_."--At Sawley, I find from the Ripon Register of Baptisms, there was a William Norton living (described as "_generosus_") in 1589. He would be the great-grandson of old Richard Norton, who by his first wife, Susanna, daughter of Neville Lord Latimer, had eleven sons and seven daughters. They were (according to an old writer), these Nortons, "a trybe of wicked people universally papists." It is reported to this day (Easter Day, 1901), at Bishop Thornton, by Mr.

Henry Wheelhouse, of Markington, aged 84, that the Nortons, of Sawley, continued constant in their adherence to the ancient faith till well on into the nineteenth century.

Mr. Wheelhouse's recollection to this effect may be well founded; because not only has there been a remnant of English Roman Catholics always in the adjoining hamlet of Bishop Thornton, but there was at Fountains, in 1725, a Father Englefield, S.J., stationed there--see Foley's "_Records_," vol.

v., p. 722--and if the Nortons, of Sawley (or some of them) remained Papists, one can understand how it might come to pa.s.s that there was a Jesuit Priest maintained at Fountains and a Secular Priest at Bishop Thornton, only a few miles off. The Roman Catholic religion was also long maintained by the Messenger family, of Cayton Hall, South Stainley, and by the Trapps family, of Nydd Hall, both only within walking distance of Bishop Thornton: maintained until the nineteenth century. I think the Messengers, too, owned Fountains in 1725. Viscount Mountgarret now owns Nydd Hall. His Lords.h.i.+p's family, the Butlers, are allied to the Lords Vaux of Harrowden.