The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 43

Possibly R. C. De Grey Vyner, Esquire, of Newby Hall, their present owner, may know. In vol. iii. of the "_Memorials of Ripon_" (Surtees Soc.) occur the names of Edmund Ward and Ralph Ward, both as paying dues for lands in Skelton (p. 333). Also the "Fabric Roll for 1542" (in the same work) has the name Marmaduke Ward. This would be the husband of Susannay, who died in 1594, probably. So that, most likely, Marmaduke and Susannay Ward were the parents of Marmaduke Ward and Thomas Ward, if the latter were brothers, as it is practically certain they were.

I am inclined, on the whole, to think that Edmund Ward cannot have been the father to Marmaduke and Thomas Ward, though he may have been their grandfather. There is a curious reference to, most probably, this Edmund Ward, in the "_Plumpton Correspondence_," pp. 185, 186 (Camden Soc.); but it sheds no light on this question of the parentage of any of the Wards.

From Slater's "_History of Guiseley_" it is evident that a branch of the Wards settled at Scotton, near Knaresbrough.

Miss Pullein, of Rotherfield Manor, Suss.e.x, a relative of the Pulleins, of Scotton, tells me that in the "Subsidy Roll for 1379" the names occur:--"Johannes Warde et ux ej. ijs. Tho. Warde et ux ej. vjd Johannes fil. Thomae Warde iiij d." So that the names John and Thomas were evidently hereditary in the various branches of the Wardes, of Givendale and Esholt. (18th April, 1901.)]

[Footnote 89:--From the "_Authorised Discourse_," or "_King's Book_," we learn that the King returned from Royston on Thursday, the 31st day of October; that on Friday, All Hallows Day, Salisbury showed James the Letter in the "gallerie" of the palace at Whitehall. On the following day, Sat.u.r.day, the 2nd of November, Salisbury and the Earl of Suffolk, the Lord Chamberlain, saw the King in the same "gallerie," when it was arranged that the Chamberlain should view all the Parliament Houses both above and below. This "viewing" or "perusing" of the vault or cellar under the House of Lords took place on the following Monday afternoon by Suffolk and Mounteagle, when they saw Fawkes, who styled himself "John Johnson,"

servant to Thomas Percy, who had hired the house adjoining the Parliament House and the aforesaid cellar also.

Now, Mounteagle, almost certainly, must have known that there would be this second conference with the King, on this Sat.u.r.day, and from what Mounteagle (_ex hypothesi_) had said to Tresham about "the mine," Tresham would have concluded that what Mounteagle knew, Salisbury would be soon made to know, and, through Salisbury's speeches, the King. My opinion is that Mounteagle _saw_ and _spoke_ to Tresham _between_ the conference of the King, Suffolk, and Salisbury (Mounteagle being made acquainted with, by either Suffolk or Salisbury, if he were not actually an auditor of, all that had pa.s.sed), _and_ the meeting with Winter in Lincoln's Inn Walks, on the night of that same Sat.u.r.day, November the 2nd.]

[Footnote 90:--See "_Winter's Confession_," Gardiner, pp. 67 and 68.

This meeting on the Sat.u.r.day was behind St. Clement's. At this meeting Christopher Wright was present. Query--What did he say? And in whose Declaration or Confession is it contained? If in one of Fawkes', then which? Possibly it may have been at this meeting that Christopher Wright recommended the conspirators to take flight in different directions. It is observable that, so far as I am aware, Christopher Wright and John Wright do not appear to have expressed a wish that any particular n.o.bleman should be warned, except Arundel. Whereas Fawkes wished Montague; Percy, Northumberland; Keyes, Mordaunt; Tresham was "exceeding earnest" for Stourton and Mounteagle; whilst all wished Lord Arundel to be advertised.

Arundel was created Earl of Norfolk by Charles I. in 1644.

(Since writing the above, I have ascertained that there is no report in any of Guy Fawkes' Confessions of this statement of Christopher Wright, nor in his written "Confessions" does Fawkes refer to his own mother.)]

[Footnote 91:--"_Labile tempus_"--the motto inscribed over the entrance of the fine old Elizabethan mansion-house situate at Heslington, near York, the seat of the Lord Deramore, formerly belonging to a member of the great Lancas.h.i.+re family of Hesketh, of Mains Hall, Poulton-in-the-Fylde, and Rufford. Edmund Neville, one of the suitors of Mary Ward, was brought up with the Heskeths, of Rufford. In 1581 the Mains Hall branch of the Heskeths harboured Campion.]

[Footnote 92:--As a fact, the Government did not know of the mine, according to Dr. Gardiner, even on Thursday, the 7th of November, but certainly they did know, says Gardiner, by Sat.u.r.day, the 9th.--See Gardiner's "_Gunpowder Plot_," p. 31.--Probably the entrance to the mine was sealed up. No useful purpose would be served by either Mounteagle or Ward telling the Government about the mine, which then was an "extinct volcano."]

[Footnote 93:--The exact words of Lingard are these:--"Winter sought a second interview with Tresham at his house in Lincoln's Inn Walks, and returned to Catesby with the following answer: That the existence of the mine had been communicated to the Ministers. This Tresham said he knew: but by whom the discovery had been made he knew not."

Lingard does not give his authority, but probably he got the material for this important pa.s.sage from "_Greenway's_ (_vere_ Tesimond's) _MS._" It is an historical desideratum that this MS. should be published. Mounteagle, conceivably, may have falsely told Tresham that the Government already knew of the mine, in order to alarm him the more effectually; but, most probably, it was an inference that Tresham himself erroneously drew from Mounteagle's words, whatever may have been their precise nature.

Mounteagle possibly said something about "the mine," and that the Parliament Houses would be with minuteness searched far and near. This would be quite sufficient to inflame the already heated imagination of Tresham, and he would readily enough leap forth to the conclusion that the "mine" must be for certain known to the Government.

One can almost feel the heart-beats of the distraught Tresham as one reads the relation of his second interview with Winter. Then from the pulsations of _one_ human heart, O, Earth's governors and ye governed, learn _all_.

For the study of true History is big with mighty lessons and "he that hath ears let him hear." Let him hear that Truth and Right, although each is, in its essential nature, a simple unity, and _therefore_ imperially exclusive in its claims, and _therefore_ intolerant of plurality, of multiplicity, of diversity, yet that each of these high attributes of the eternal and the ideal is the mistress not only of man's G.o.d-like intellect, but also of his heart and will. And _these_ two faculties are likewise of divine original and have severally a voice which perpetually bids man, poor wounded man, "be pitiful, be courteous" to his fellows. For human life at best is "hard," is "brief," and "piercing are its sorrows."]

[Footnote 94:--The meeting between Catesby, Winter, and Tresham, at Barnet, on the road to White Webbs, was on Friday, the 1st of November, the day the Letter was shown to the King.]

[Footnote 95:--Or, Mounteagle may have thought that, as it would be meritorious in Percy supposing he had sent the Letter, he (Mounteagle) would expressly, in the hearing of Suffolk, give Percy the benefit of the doubt; since it might stand his old friend in good stead hereafter if Percy were involved in the meshes of the law for the part that, I hold, Mounteagle _by_ Christopher Wright _through_ Thomas Warde then _knew_ for a fact, Percy, and indeed all his confederates, had taken in the nefarious enterprise. Such a train of thought may have flashed through Mounteagle's brain well-nigh instantaneously; for what is quicker than thought? I suspect, moreover, that Mounteagle conjectured that the Letter was from one of Warde's and his own connections: for Percy, as well as the Wrights, would be a connection of Mounteagle, through the Stanleys, Percies, Gascoignes, Nortons, Nevilles, and Wardes, who were all more or less allied by marriages entered into within the last few generations. Percy would be about Thomas Warde's own age (forty-six).

I do not, however, think that Mounteagle knew for certain who was the revealing conspirator; and his lords.h.i.+p would not want to know either.

Besides, I hold that Warde would be too good a diplomatist and too faithful a servant to suffer his master to know, even if he had wanted.

"Say 'little' is a bonnie word," would be a portion of the diplomatic wisdom that Warde would carry with him up to the great metropolis from his "native heather" of Yorks.h.i.+re.]

[Footnote 96:--Ben Jonson was "reconciled" to the Church of Rome either in 1593 or 1594. After, and probably on account of, the Plot he left the Church, whose "exacting claims" he had "on trust" accepted. Possibly it was under the influence of Jonson's example that Mounteagle wrote the letter to the King, given in the Rev. John Gerard's "_What was the Gunpowder Plot?_" p. 256. Mounteagle, however, died in the Church of Rome, and the Article in the "_National Dictionary of Biography_" says that he had a daughter a nun. Belike, she was a member of the Inst.i.tute of "The English Virgins," for the name "Parker" is mentioned in Chambers' "_Life of Mary Ward_."[A] There has been recently (1900) published a smaller "_Life of Mary Ward_," by M. Mary Salome (Burns & Oates), with a Preface by Bishop Hedley, O.S.B., which should be read by those not desirous of possessing the more costly work by Mary Catharine Elizabeth Chambers, in 2 vols. (Burns & Oates), with a Preface by the late Henry James Coleridge, S.J. (brother to the late Lord Coleridge). May I express the hope that these two learned auth.o.r.esses will cause the Ward Papers, at Nymphenburg, near Munich, in Germany (that are extant), to be carefully examined afresh to see if they contain anything about Thomas Warde, Mary's uncle, and anything further about her connection, through the Throckmortons and Nevilles, the Lord Mounteagle? By so doing, they will cause to be obliged to them all serious students of the Gunpowder Plot, which is of perennial interest and value to human beings, whether governors or governed, by reason of the intellectual, moral, and political lessons that with the truest eloquence--the eloquence of Fact--it teaches mankind for all time.]

[Footnote A: Whilst it is possible that the "Parker" mentioned in the "_Life of Mary Ward_" was one of Lord Mounteagle's daughters, I find, from a statement in Foley's "_Records_," vol. v. (by a contemporary hand, I think), that "Lord Morley and Mounteagle," as he is styled, had a daughter who was "crooked," and who was an Augustinian nun. Her name was Sister Frances Parker. Her father is said to have given his consent to this daughter becoming a nun "after much ado." Lady Morley and Mounteagle, a strict papist, brought up the children Roman Catholics.--See Foley's "_Records_," vol. v., p. 973.--The same writer is of opinion that Mounteagle was not a Roman Catholic. Evidently he was a very lax one, and between the Plot and the time of his death he probably conformed to the Establishment.]

[Footnote 97:--Born Lord Thomas Howard, brother to Lord William Howard, of Naworth, near Carlisle.--For an interesting account of the Tudor Howards, see Burke's "_Tudor Portraits_" (Hodges); also Lodge's "_Portraits_," and "_Memorials of the House of Howard_."]

[Footnote 98:--Did Mounteagle likewise behold Fawkes? If so, his self-command apparently was extraordinary; for, almost certainly, Mounteagle must have met Fawkes at White Webbs, if not at the Lord Montague's and elsewhere. Fawkes was so strict and regular in his habits and deportment that he was thought to be a priest or a Jesuit (I suppose, a Jesuit lay-brother). That Tesimond should think that part of the "_King's Book_" fabulous which describes this "perusing of the vault" and finding of Fawkes, is just what I should expect Tesimond, erroneously, would think; inasmuch as this particular Jesuit would naturally enough consider it to be simply incredible that Mounteagle should not have displayed some outward token, however slight, of recognising Fawkes, who would be sure to carry with him his characteristic air of calm and high distinction, even amid "the wood and coale" of his "master" Thomas Percy.

But Tesimond did not know what a perfect tutoring Mounteagle had received from his mentor to qualify him to play so well his part in life at this supreme juncture. Thomas Ward was evidently a consummate diplomatist. If he had been trained under Walsingham he would certainly "know a thing or two."]

[Footnote 99:--It is to be remembered that, for the first time, the powder was found by Knevet and his men about midnight of Monday, the 4th of November. Previous to, possibly, late in the day of the 4th of November, I do not think that Salisbury and Suffolk knew any more about the existence of this powder than "the man in the moon." Such ignorance on their part redounded to their great discredit, and would be, doubtless, duly noted by the small and timid, yet sharp, mind of James. But the Country's confidence in the Government had to be maintained at all costs; hence the comical, side-glance, slantingdicular, ninny-pinny way in which the "_King's Book_," for the most part, is drawn up. A re-publication of the "_King's Book_," and of "_The Fawkeses, of York_," by R. Davies, sometime Town Clerk of York (Nichols, 1850), are desiderata to the historical student of the Gunpowder Plot.

I readily allow that it is difficult to believe that neither Salisbury, nor Suffolk, nor anybody (not even a bird-like-eyed Dame Quickly of busy-bodying propensities residing in the neighbourhood) knew of this powder, which had been (at least some of it) in Percy's house and an outhouse adjoining the Parliament House. Still, even if they did know (whether statesmen or housewife) of the _Gunpowder_, it does not follow, either in fact or in logic, that they knew of the _Gunpowder Plot_. For they might reasonably enough conclude that the ammunition was to carry out "the practice for some stir" which Salisbury admits that he knew the recusants had in hand at that Parliament.--See "_Winwood's Memorials_,"

Ed. 1725, vol. ii., p. 72.--Moreover, for such a purpose, in the natural order of things, I take it, the powder would be brought in first, then the shot, muskets, armour, swords, daggers, pikes, crossbows, arrows, and other ordnance. (_The barrels, empty or nearly so, would be carried in first._)

Sir Thomas Knevet, of Norfolk, was created Baron Knevett, of Escrick, near York, in 1607. He died without male issue. He went to the Parliament House on the night of November 4th, 1605, as a Justice of the Peace for Westminster.--See Nichols' "_Progresses of James I._," vol. i., p.

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

[Footnote 100:--"_Hatfield MS._," 110, 30. Quoted in "the Rev. J. H.

Pollen's S.J., thoughtful and learned booklet, ent.i.tled "_Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_" (Catholic Truth Society's publication, London).]

[Footnote 101:--See Jardine's Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Feb., 1841, in "_Archaeologia_," vol. xxix., p. 100. This letter should be carefully read by every serious student of the Plot.]

[Footnote 102:--Sir William Stanley, of Hooton (in that strip of Ches.h.i.+re between the Mersey and the Dee), was not seen by Fawkes between Easter and the end of August, 1605, when Fawkes went over to Flanders for the last time in his career so adventurous and so pathetic. Sir William knew nothing of the Gunpowder Plot. It was said that he surrendered Deventer in pursuance of the counsel of Captain Roland Yorke, who to the Spaniards had himself surrendered Zutphen Sconce. These surrenders to the Spaniards on the part of two English gentlemen were strange pieces of business, and one would like the whole question to be thoroughly and severely searched into again. As to Roland Yorke, see Camden's "_Queen Elizabeth_."

Captain Roland Yorke, like his patron Sir William Stanley, was an able soldier. He held a position of command in the Battle of Zutphen, in which the Bayard of English chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney, received his death wound.--See the "_Earl of Leicester's Correspondence_" (Camden Soc.).--Sidney's widow (the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham) afterwards married Robert second Earl of Ess.e.x. She became a Roman Catholic, like her kinsman, the gifted and engaging Father Walsingham, S.J. Frances Walsingham, the only child of Sir Francis Walsingham, became a Catholic, I think, through her third marriage with Richard De Burgh fourth Earl of Clanricarde, afterwards Earl of St. Albans. He was also known as Richard of Kinsale and Lord Dunkellin. He was an intimate friend of the Earl of Ess.e.x and of Father Gerard, S.J., the friend of Mary Ward.

It would be interesting if Major Hume, or some other authority on the reign of Queen Elizabeth, could ascertain whether or not there was a _Thomas Warde_ in the diplomatic service during the "Eighties" of her reign. Certainly there was a Thomas Warde in the service of the Government then. I am almost sure that the "Mr. Warde" mentioned by Walsingham, in his letter to the Earl of Leicester, must have been this Thomas Warde, and one and the same man with Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith (or Mulwith). It is to be remembered, too, that the Gunpowder conspirator, Thomas Winter, had served in the Queen's forces against the Spanish King for a time. The names Rowland Yorke, Thomas Vavasour, Sir Thomas Heneage, and Thomas Winter are very suggestive of the circle in which a Warde, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale, would move. Besides, there was a family connection between the Parkers, Poyntzes, and Heneages.--See "_Visitation of Ess.e.x, 1612_" (Harleian Soc.), under "Poyntz."

Moreover, it must be continually borne in mind that Father Tesimond (alias Greenway), in his. .h.i.therto unprinted MS., declares that Mounteagle was related to some of the plotters. "_Greenway's MS._," according to Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 92, also says that Thomas Ward was an intimate friend of several of the conspirators, and _suspected_ to have been an accomplice in the treason. That would imply that Ward was suspected to have had at least a _knowledge_ of the treason.]

[Footnote 103:--Mary Ward, the daughter of Marmaduke Ward and Ursula Wright, lived with her grandmother, Mrs. Ursula Wright (_nee_ Rudston, of Hayton, in the East Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re), between the years 1589-94 at Plowland (or Plewland) Hall, Holderness, Yorks.h.i.+re; and between the years 1597-1600 at Harewell Hall, in the towns.h.i.+p of Dacre, Nidderdale, with her kinswoman, Mrs. Katerine Ardington (_nee_ Ingleby). Mrs. Ardington, as well as Mrs. Ursula Wright, had suffered imprisonment for her profession of the ancient faith. We have a relation by Mary Ward herself of her grandmother's incarceration, which is as follows:--Mrs. Wright "had in her younger years suffered imprisonment for the s.p.a.ce of fourteen years together, in which time she several times made profession of her faith before the President of York (the Earl of Huntingdon) and other officers.

She was once, for her speeches to the said Huntingdon, tending to the exaltation of the Catholic religion and contempt of heresy, thrust into a common prison or dungeon, amongst thieves, where she stayed not long because, being much spoken of, it came to the hearing of her kindred, who procured her speedy removal to the Castle prison where she was before."--See Chambers' "_Life of Mary Ward_," vol. i., p. 13.

This common prison or dungeon would be, it is all but certain, the Kidcote, the common prison for the City of York and that portion of Yorks.h.i.+re between the Rivers Wharfe and Ouse known as the Ainsty of the City of York. This dungeon was, according to Gent's "_History of York_,"

under the York City Council Chamber on Old Ouse Bridge, to the westward of St. William's Chapel.--See also J. B. Milburn's "_A Martyr of Old York_"

(Burns & Oates).--The Old Ouse Bridge was pulled down in 1810.--See Allen's "_History of Yorks.h.i.+re_"--After the Kidcote was demolished, the York City prison called the Gaol, likewise now demolished (1901), was built on Bishophill, near the Old Bailie Hill. The prison for the County of Yorks.h.i.+re was the Castle built by William the Conqueror, the tower of which, called Clifford's Tower, on an artificial mound, is still standing.

There was, moreover, in York, a third prison into which the unhappy popish recusants, as appears from Morris's "_Troubles_" were sometimes consigned.

This was the Bishop's prison, commonly called Peter Prison. The writer is told by Mr. William Camidge, a York antiquary of note, that Peter Prison stood at the corner of Precentor's Court, Petergate, near to the west front of the Minster. Mr. Camidge remembers Peter Prison being used as a City lock-up prison about the year 1836, soon after which year it was pulled down. The late Mr. Richard Haughton, of York, showed the writer, about Easter, 1899, a sketch of this interesting old prison, a sketch which Mr. Haughton had himself made. The building was a plain square erection, the door of which was reached by a flight of stone steps.

Again, we are told--"_Life of Mary Ward_," vol. i., p. 17--that one day Mary came to her grandmother, "who was singing some hymns," and the child asked the old lady whether she would not send "something again to the prisoners," a question, we are told, which "pleased" Mrs. Wright "very much."

Lastly, the gifted daughter of Marmaduke Ward, and the niece of Thomas Ward, bears this striking testimony concerning one aspect of her aged relative's gracious life, that "so great a prayer was she" that during the whole five years that the child lived with her grandmother, the most of which time she lodged in the same chamber, she "did not remember in that whole five years she ever saw her grandmother sleep, nor did she ever awake when she perceived her not at prayer" (p. 15).]

[Footnote 104:--Maybe Christopher Wright, from his earliest school-days, had with reverence looked up to Edward Oldcorne, for the latter was the senior of the former by no less than ten years, so that when Oldcorne was a clever youth of fifteen years Christopher would be a little fellow of five, "with his satchel and s.h.i.+ning morning-face," though we may be permitted to hope that little Kit Wright did not "creep like snail unwillingly to school." For it was at a school second to none in England that the future ill-fated Yorks.h.i.+reman learned to con his "_hic, haec, hoc_." It was a school originally founded by Egbert, Archbishop of York, in the eighth century, and which, as the Cathedral Grammar School, had been rendered famous by Alcuin himself, the tutor of Charlemagne. It was a school re-founded and re-endowed in the Horse Fayre, now Union Terrace, on the left-hand side going down Gillygate, outside Bootham Bar, by King Philip and Queen Mary, especially for the training of priests for the northern parts.--See in Leach's "_Endowed Schools of Yorks.h.i.+re_" for an account concerning St. Peter's School, Clifton, York, but no register of scholars of this ancient seat of learning now exists prior to the year 1828. (t.i.tle deeds and writings lent by Mrs. Martha Lancaster, of York, have enabled me to identify the site of the old school.)

It is, I take it, furthermore possible that Edward Oldcorne may have taught Christopher Wright; and if the relation of pedagogue and scholar ever subsisted between them, a bond of mutual regard would be created which the lapse of long years would not weaken. For an account of the kind of education given in a Grammar School in "the s.p.a.cious days of Good Queen Bess," see Dr. Elze's "_Life of Shakespeare_" (Bell & Sons), also H. W.

Mabie's very recent and able American "_Life of Shakespeare_"

(Macmillan).]

[Footnote 105:--"_Surgam, et ibo ad patrem meum, et dicam ei: Pater, peccavi in caelum et coram te!_" "I will arise."]

[Footnote 106:--Possibly the Earl of Northumberland. He was (it will be remembered) the son of Henry the eighth Earl, and nephew to "the Blessed"

Thomas Percy the seventh Earl, and likewise nephew to Mary Slingsby, of Scriven, Knaresbrough. Sir Kenelin Digby, the eldest son of Sir Everard Digby, married the beautiful Venetia Stanley, who was descended from "the Blessed" Thomas Percy. The helmet and gauntlets of this n.o.bleman were kept at the handsome old Church of St. Crux, in The Pavement, York, which was pulled down a few years ago. Thomas Longueville, Esquire, of Llanforda Hall, Oswestry, Salop, through the Lady Venetia Digby, is descended from "the Blessed" Thomas Percy, as are several other families, including the Peac.o.c.ks, of Bottesford Manor, Lincolns.h.i.+re, I believe. Mr. Longueville is the learned author of the "_Lives_" of his ancestors, Sir Everard and Sir Kenelm Digby.]

[Footnote 107:--We know that on the 5th day of October, two days after the prorogation of Parliament, Christopher Wright quitted his lodging, in Spur Alley, where he had been for eighteen days prior to the 5th October.--See "Evidence of Dorathie Robinson," p. 128 _ante_.]

[Footnote 108:--John Wright was acknowledged to be one of the most expert swordsmen of his time. He was commonly known as "Jack Wright," and his brother as "Kit Wright." Father Garnet says, in a voluntary statement that he made in the Tower--Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., p. 157--"'These are not G.o.d's knights, but the devil's knights.' And related how Jack Wright had sent a challenge by Thomas Winter to a gentleman." The duel, however, did not come off, though Winter measured swords. Winter appears to have fulfilled the happy office of peace-maker on the occasion. (What "strange mixtures" these English and Yorks.h.i.+re papist gentlemen were, to be sure!)]

[Footnote 109:--See Article in "_National Dictionary of Biography_" on "John Wright" (citing Camden in "_Birch Original Letters_") second series, vol. iii., p. 179.]

[Footnote 110:--Afterwards the great Viscount Verulam, commonly known as Lord Bacon. Bacon's particular friend and familiar was Sir Toby Matthews, the eldest son of Dr. Tobias Matthews, in 1606 created Archbishop of York.