The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605 (33 page)

On this same Friday a very different kind of ritual was taking place in far-off Warwickshire. While Salisbury nonchalantly conversed with the King in Whitehall, the Feast of All Saints was being solemnly marked at Coughton Court. If the pilgrimage to St Winifred’s can be seen as an elegy to the recusant way of life, so this festival at Coughton may be viewed with similar nostalgia as the last great celebration of the English Catholic world: a world which was essentially loyal despite harassment, peace-loving despite suffering, and, where persecution was concerned, submissive to the will of God. They were all of them, the priests, the gentlemen and the gentlewomen, the faithful servants, about to see this world blown apart.

Coughton Court was an appropriate setting for such a solemnity.
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It had belonged to the Throckmortons since the early fifteenth century and had been extended in Elizabethan times into a spacious and beautiful house with its ‘stately castle-like Gate-house of freestone’, in the words of the seventeenth-century antiquary Dugdale. Coughton also commanded from its flat roofs amazing views of the surrounding countryside. This was a perspective which would be useful in perilous times of searches by eager poursuivants.

For the staunchly recusant Throckmortons, these perilous times had lasted since the Reformation. A Throckmorton cousin had been executed in 1584 for a plot to free Mary Queen of Scots. Thomas Throckmorton, the present head of the family, like his brothers-in-law Sir William Catesby and Sir Thomas Tresham, had been persistently fined and had spent many years in prison. It was hardly surprising that by 1605 Coughton’s gracious structure had its secrets, including a hiding-place in the north-eastern turret of the so-called Tower Room, with its inner and outer compartments, which was most probably the work of Little John, and there may well have been others.
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At High Mass on All Saints’ Day, in front of a great gathering of Catholics, Father Garnet preached a sermon on the theme of a Latin hymn from the Office of Lauds: ‘Take away the perfidious people from the territory of the Faithful.’ The government prosecutor, Sir Edward Coke, afterwards used this text to suggest that Garnet had ‘openly’ prayed for ‘the good success’ of the Powder Plot, four days before it was due to happen. Such a prayer supporting treason, declared Coke, counted far more than mere consent, which he suggested Garnet had also given. In fact Garnet’s correspondence around this time provides ample evidence of a concern for Catholic
suffering which would justify the use of such a text. In October he wrote to Rome to say that the persecution was now ‘more severe than in [Queen] Bess’ time’, with the judges openly saying that ‘the King will have blood’. He later explained publicly that the text referred to the prospect of ‘sharper’ anti-Catholic laws in the coming Parliament.
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The next day, 2 November, the Coughton party turned to the more melancholy rituals of All Souls Day, feast of the dead. This protracted sojourn of the Digby household at Coughton – Lady Digby and her small sons, of whom the elder Kenelm was only two – did not however pass unremarked. Also on 2 November, Father John Gerard came over to Gayhurst from Harrowden (presumably to say Mass). He was disconcerted to find the household vanished, with only Sir Everard remaining, making visible preparations for his ‘hunting party’. Father Gerard then had a long conversation with Digby in which he asked some searching questions. Was there ‘any matter in hand’? And, if so, did ‘Mr Whalley’ (an alias for Garnet) know about it?

‘In truth, I think he does not,’ replied Digby. There was ‘nothing in hand’ that he, Digby, knew of, ‘or could tell him of. This was of course disingenuous, to put it mildly, since Digby had been assured of Jesuit approval of the treason less than a fortnight earlier. Digby’s honourable intention was to protect Gerard from implication in the Plot, and in a sense he did so successfully since Gerard afterwards called the conversation to witness as proof of his innocence. But Father Gerard, who was extremely averse to such ‘violent courses’, would always regret that he had not had an opportunity to try to dissuade Digby from his dreadful purpose.
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So Digby was left to his own devices – or rather to those of his hero, Robin Catesby.

Saturday 2 November was also the day on which the
Council resolved to take some action on the question of the threat to Parliament reported to them by Salisbury. Various Privy Councillors came to see the King in his gallery in his Whitehall palace. They told him that it had been decided that the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Suffolk, should ‘view’ the Houses of Parliament ‘both above and below’. Yet, once again, urgency was scarcely the key-note of the proceedings. This expedition would not take place until the Monday, partly to prevent unlawful rumours spreading, and partly because it would be best to make the search ‘the nearer that things were to readiness’.
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This decision, along the same lines as Salisbury’s wish to let the Plot ‘ripen’, makes little sense if the Councillors were really in complete ignorance of what was being planned. By Saturday a full week had passed during which Salisbury and selected Councillors had been aware, thanks to the Monteagle Letter, that ‘a terrible blow’ might be struck at Parliament. To leave things as they stood for another forty-eight hours was recklessly irresponsible – unless Salisbury had taken his own steps to secure the safety of the building.

On Sunday evening, 3 November, Thomas Percy, back from the north, had a conference with Catesby and Wintour in London. By now Catesby and Wintour had been urged more than once by Francis Tresham to abandon their venture and flee because of the sinister omen of the Monteagle Letter. But Catesby would still have none of it. Percy, similarly resolute, declared himself ready to ‘abide the uttermost trial’.
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It is possible that some rearrangement of the plans for a royal abduction was discussed at this late stage. There was a story afterwards about a visit to the young Prince Charles, Duke of York, by Percy: this at a time when everyone was trying to get in on the act (and please the government) by offering helpful information. According to the deposition of one Agnes Fortun, servant, Percy came to the little Duke’s lodgings on or about 1 November and ‘made many enquiries as to the way into his chamber’, also ‘where he rode abroad’ and with how many attendants. But by the time this deposition
was given it was too late for Percy to confirm or deny it. Wintour’s version in his confession has the London conspirators getting word indirectly that Prince Henry was not after all going to the Opening of Parliament: which would have made the kidnapping of the second son pointless.
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(This was hardly the line taken by the government subsequently. There were few references to the Powder Treason which did not drag in the fact that the royal heir – the kingdom’s hope for the future – had been in the same appalling danger as his father.)

Events were now moving at such a pace that one cannot be absolutely certain what Catesby, Wintour and Percy discussed at this meeting. Guy Fawkes’ statement that after ‘sundry consultations’ it was considered easier to abduct the Princess Elizabeth in the midlands rather than the Duke in London ‘where we had not forces enough’ remains, however, more convincing. (As for the fourth royal child, Princess Mary, aged six months, Guido admitted her kidnapping was discussed – but they ‘knew not how to come by her’.) Sir Everard Digby’s departure for Dunchurch, south of Rugby, the next day reinforces Fawkes’ testimony. The point of Dunchurch, Digby stated later, was that it was only eight miles from where the Princess was housed at Coombe Abbey, so that she could be ‘easily surprised’.
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Monday 4 November, therefore, saw Sir Everard Digby and seven servants installed at the Red Lion in Dunchurch, near Dunsmore Heath, where the ‘hunting party’ was to take place
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He travelled as the gallant he was, taking with him not only servants but a trunk of clothes which included ‘a white satin doublet cut with purple’ and other satin garments thickly encrusted with gold lace. Digby was joined by his uncle Sir Robert Digby and two Littletons, ‘Red Humphrey’ and his very tall, very dark nephew Stephen. These men were not conspirators but they were recusants or had recusant sympathies (Humphrey Littleton, like Thomas Habington, had been among those who had tried to get a Catholic MP elected locally in 1604).
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The whole party had a convivial supper at the inn. Later, a message was sent to John Wintour, step-brother of Robert and Tom from their father’s second marriage, who happened to be at Rugby. He was invited to join them in order ‘to be merry’ together. Later still, John Grant and a friend, Henry Morgan, who had been sworn to secrecy at Grant’s house, also joined them.
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There was a Catholic priest in the party, Father Hammond, who said Mass early the next day, before the hunt moved off.

At eleven o’clock on the morning of Monday 4 November, Thomas Percy appeared at Syon House, the great house on the Thames, to the west of London, which belonged to his patron the Earl of Northumberland. This foray, which would bring about the downfall of Northumberland, was actually a fishing expedition on Percy’s part. For all Catesby’s bravado and Percy’s own resolution, the Monteagle Letter could not be dismissed entirely. Percy decided to go down to Syon to find out what rumours, if any, had reached Northumberland (a member of the Privy Council). ‘If ought be amiss,’ he told Wintour and Catesby, ‘I know they will stay [detain] me.’ He used the excuse that he wanted a loan from Northumberland. Percy encountered his patron, talked to him, found to his great relief nothing out of the ordinary about his reception, and set off back to London about one o’clock.
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The timing of this visit was extraordinarily damaging to Northumberland. It was characteristic of the ruthless and self-centred Percy, a middle-aged man without any of the impetuosity forgivable to youth, that he did not seek to protect the man who had treated him so generously. He might at the very least have avoided Northumberland’s company, but Percy did not even warn Northumberland to avoid Parliament next day, as his patron’s subsequent moves demonstrate.

Afterwards Northumberland desperately tried to exculpate himself. Unfortunately he was in the position of a man who, all unawares, has had an encounter with a plague-carrier – and finds out too late to avoid suspicion of having caught the
plague himself. He remembered the conversation in the hall at Syon, denied that it had had any treasonable content whatsoever, declared merely that Percy had asked him ‘whether he would command any service’ before going on his way. Yes, he had sent a message after Percy, but that was purely to do with the audits of the northern properties for which Percy collected the rents.
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What Northumberland did not know was that Thomas Percy on his return to London also paid a visit to Northumberland’s London home, known as Essex House. There Percy saw his nephew Josceline, who was in the Earl’s service.
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No doubt Percy was also testing the waters at Essex House. But the double visit would ensnare Northumberland still further. As for Northumberland himself, he stayed at Syon till after dinner, when he sent for his horses to take him to London, where he would spend the night at Essex House. He had not applied for leave of absence from Parliament, and showed every sign of intending to go there – he had his servant bring up ‘the necessaries for Parliament’ from Syon – apart from one spasm of fatigue which passed.
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Even the King, in a handwritten note directed to Salisbury, afterwards drew attention to the innocence of Northumberland’s behaviour: ‘as for his purpose of not going to Parliament, he only said at dinner that he was sleepy for [because of] his early rising that day, but soon after changed his mind and went.’
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About five or six o’clock in the evening, Thomas Percy assured Wintour, Jack Wright and Robert Keyes that ‘all was well’. After that compromising visit to his nephew at Essex House, Percy went to his own lodging in the Gray’s Inn Road, where he left orders for his four horses to be ready for an extremely early departure the next day. Late that night Robin Catesby set off for the midlands, to take part in the rising, the vital second stage of the Plot, and it seems that Jack Wright, his faithful henchman, and his servant Thomas Bates went
with him as well. This public display of armed rebellion was intended to rally Catholics everywhere to the cause. At io.oop.m. Guido Fawkes visited Robert Keyes and was handed a watch which Percy had left for him to time the fuse. An hour later John Craddock, a cutler from the Strand, brought Ambrose Rookwood the finest of all the engraved swords with the words ‘The Passion of Christ’ upon them.

But Thomas Percy was quite wrong. All was not well. For the hunters who were themselves being hunted, the last stage of the chase was beginning.

Monday was also the day on which members of the Council, headed by Lord Suffolk as Lord Chamberlain, were due to make their long-delayed search of Parliament, ‘both above and below’. The official story told afterwards was of two searches, with a visit to the omniscient King in between. Nevertheless, Salisbury’s first report of these tumultuous events (to the English ambassadors abroad) mentioned only one search – and that around midnight. Salisbury, however, may have been at this point concerned to simplify, for the sake of foreign consumption, what was certainly a very elaborate tale.
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What is quite clear is how the search (or searches) ended.

Accepting the King’s version, Lord Suffolk made the first search on Monday, accompanied by among others Lord Monteagle, whom he sent for from Monteagle’s house in the Strand. Suffolk deliberately conducted himself in the most casual manner possible. He took care not to arouse the suspicions of a tall man standing in or near the cellar who appeared to be some kind of servant. In the words of the King, Suffolk merely cast ‘his careless and his rackless [reckless] eye’ over the scene. But his eye was not so careless that it did not observe an enormous amount of firewood – piles of faggots – heaped up in the cellar. Yet the lodging it served was quite small.