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
[Footnote D: The Duckette here mentioned was doubtless Father Richard
Holtby, S.J., who succeeded Garnet as Superior of the English Jesuits.
Holtby was born at Fryton——in the Parish of Hovingham, in the Vale of
Mowbray——between Slingsby and Hovingham, where his brother, George Holtby,
lived.——See Peacock’s “_List of Roman Catholics in Yorkshire in 1604_;”
also Foster’s Edition of Glover’s “_Visitation of Yorkshire_.”——It was
Richard Holtby, then a secular priest, who found for Campion secluded,
lovely Mount St. John. I think it is probable that, after being harboured
by Sir William Babthorpe, at Babthorpe Hall or Osgodby (or both), Campion
would proceed through the Vale of Ouse and Derwent to Thixendale, in the
Parish of Leavening, to the house of a Mrs. Bulmer; thence, I opine, to
Fryton, in the Parish of Hovingham; thence to Grimston Manor, in the
Parish of Gilling East; thence through the Vale of Mowbray, by Coxwold, to
Mount St. John, the home of the Harringtons, who seem to have quitted the
place soon after the year 1603, because the Gregory family are found
recorded in the Parish Registers shortly after that date, and they
certainly resided at Mount St. John. (Communicated to me by the Rev. Henry
Clayforth, M.A., Vicar of Feliskirk, near Thirsk.) Near Mount St. John are
Upsal Castle, magnificently situated, and Kirby Knowle Castle (commonly
called New Building). These were ancient Catholic houses, formerly of a
branch of the Constable family. In Kirby Knowle Castle, embosomed in
trees, is still to be seen a priests’ hiding-place. During the
early part of the nineteenth century a skeleton was found in this
hiding-place——possibly that of a priest. (Communicated to me by the late
Very Rev. Monsignor Edward Canon Goldie, of York, about the year 1889.)
George S. Thompson, Esquire, now lives at Kirby Knowle Castle, or New
Building. This gentleman married a Miss Elsley, of York, whose family, I
believe, formerly owned Mount St. John, through their relatives, the
Gregories, who seem to have succeeded the Harringtons, harbourers of the
great Campion, whom Lord Burleigh himself styled “one of the diamonds of
England.” Campion’s guides through Yorkshire were Mr. Tempest (probably of
Broughton Hall, near Skipton-in-Craven), Mr. More (probably of Barnbrough
Hall, near Doncaster, which came to the descendants of Sir Thomas More,
through the Cresacre family), Mr. Smyth (brother-in-law of William
Harrington, the elder), and Father Richard Holtby.——See Simpson’s “_Life
of Campion_,” second Edition (Hodges, London).——In recent years the Walker
family have owned Mount St. John, but I believe that to-day (1901) Sir
Lowthian Bell is the owner. When I visited this historic and ravishing
spot, the Honourable Mrs. Bosville was the lessee, and the writer has a
pleasant recollection of that lady’s gracious courtesy (1898).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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