The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document: Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy FawkesSpink, Henry
History
The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document: Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy Fawkes
Spink, Henry
Gunpowder Plot, 1605; Monteagle, William Parker, Baron, 1574 or 1575-1622
At the beginning of the month of September, 1605, Father Garnet was at
Gothurst,[A] three miles from Newport Pagnell, in the County of
Buckinghamshire, and about the 5th of September from this still standing
stately English home there proceeded the nucleus of a pilgrim-band bent
for the famous well of St. Winifred, the British Saint, situated at
Holywell, in North Wales.
[Footnote A: Gothurst (now Gayhurst) is twelve miles from Northampton and
from ten to fifteen miles from Great Harrowden. Weston Underwood and
Olney, immortalized by William Cowper, are not far from both places. The
poet would be distantly related to young Lord Vaux of Harrowden, through
the Donnes, who, like Lord Vaux, through the Ropers, were descended from
Sir Thomas More. To Walter Carlile, Esquire, who now resides at Gayhurst,
which was the ancient name of the Estate (Gothurst, however, being its
name in Sir Everard Digby’s day), I am indebted for the information as to
the distance of Gayhurst from Northampton. Cowper was, it will be
recollected, the intimate friend of the Throckmortons of his day.]
Sir Everard Digby, the Master of Gothurst, was not of the company, as he
was engaged in negotiating a match between the young Lord Vaux of
Harrowden, then a youth of about fourteen years of age, with one of the
daughters of the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Suffolk. But Lady Digby
formed one of the band, as did the uncle of Lord Vaux, Edward Brookesby,
Esquire, of Arundell House, Shouldby, Leicestershire, and his wife the
Honourable Eleanor Brookesby, together with her sister the Honourable Anne
Vaux.
At least two Jesuits formed part of the cavalcade, Father Henry Garnet and
Father John Percy, the chaplain to Sir Everard Digby.
Father John Gerard, who had “reconciled to the Church,” as the phrase
went, both Sir Everard and Lady Digby and was their intimate and honoured
friend, as well as the friend of the Dowager Lady Vaux of Harrowden and
her family, did not join the pilgrimage.
Father Gerard was most probably in Yorkshire at this time. For there is
interesting evidence tending to prove that about the 25th of August, 1605,
this Lancashire Jesuit was being harboured as the guest of Sir John and
Lady Yorke, at Gowthwaite (or Goulthwaite) Hall, near Pateley Bridge, in
Nidderdale.[A]
[Footnote A: See “_The Condition of Catholics under James I._” Edited by
John Morris, S.J. (Longmans, 1872), p. 257.]
The following abstracts from the Evidence of two of Sir Everard Digby’s
serving-men, who accompanied their devout, charming young mistress on
this now famous pilgrimage, will give the best account of what took place
on this occasion.[A] They are as follow:——
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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