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
The Earl of Arundel was “reconciled” by Fr. Wm. Weston, of the Society of
Jesus, in 1584. In the next year he was imprisoned, and after an
incarceration of ten years died in 1595. Fr. Robert Southwell, the poet,
wrote for the Earl’s consolation, when the latter was in the Tower of
London, that ravishing work, the “_Epistle of Comfort_.” (The illustrious
House of the Norfolk Howards has been indeed highly favoured in being able
to call “Friend” and “Father” two such exquisite geniuses as Robert
Southwell and Frederic William Faber.) The two half-brothers, Philip and
William, married two sisters, the daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas
Lord Dacres of the North, “a person of great estate, power, and authority
in those parts (as possessing no less than nine baronies) and one of the
most ancient for nobility in the whole kingdom.” These ladies were among
the most amiable and delightful women of their time. From Philip Howard
Earl of Arundel and Surrey and Anne Dacres is descended the present Duke
of Norfolk; and from his half-brother Lord William Howard and Elizabeth
Dacres the present Earl of Carlisle: both of which Englishmen are indeed
worthy of their “noble ancestors,” and fulfil the great Florentine poet’s
ideal of “the truly noble,” in that _they_ confer nobility upon their
_race_.
For further facts concerning those mentioned in this note——who so appeal
to the historic imagination and so touch the historic sympathies——see the
“_Lives of Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Anne Dacres his wife_” (Hurst
& Blackett), and the “_Household Books of Lord William Howard_” (Surtees
Society).]
[Footnote 5:——Lord Mounteagle would be also akin to Lord Lumley (who had
estates at or about Pickering, I believe), through the great House of
Neville. Lord Lumley’s portrait, from a painting in the possession of the
Right Hon. the Earl of Scarbrough, Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of
Yorkshire, is to be found in Edward Hailstone’s “_Yorkshire Worthies_,”
vol. i. Edward Hailstone, Esquire, of Walton Hall, Wakefield, was a rich
benefactor to the York Minster Library, and his memory should be ever had
in grateful remembrance by all who “love Yorkshire because they know
her.”——See Jackson’s “_Guide to Yorkshire_” (Leeds).]
[Footnote 6:——It should be remembered that (i.) the page’s evidence goes
to show that the man who delivered the Letter was a “tall man.” (ii.) That
the Letter was given in the street to the page who was already in the
street when the “tall man” came up to him with the document.
Hoxton is about four miles from Whitehall. I opine that Mounteagle
proceeded from Bath to Hoxton, and that the supper had been pre-arranged
to take place at Hoxton on the evening of the 26th of October, 1605, by
Thomas Ward, the gentleman-servant of Lord Mounteagle, who indeed read the
Letter after Mounteagle had broken the seal and just glanced at its
contents. Anybody gifted with ordinary common sense can see that this
scene must have been all planned beforehand.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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