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 148:——Jardine, in his “_Narrative_” p. 37, has the following
exceptionally interesting paragraph: “Sir William Waad in a letter to Lord
Salisbury, reporting a conversation with Fawkes, says, ‘Fawkes’s mother is
alive and re-married, and he hath a brother in one of the Inns of Court.
John and Christopher Wright were school-fellows of Fawkes and neighbours’
children. Tesimond, the Jesuit, was at that time schoolfellow also with
them. So as this crew have been brought up together.’”——State Paper
Office, Add. Papers No. 481, Jardine (now Record Office).
Probably what Fawkes said was that _he_ (Fawkes) _and Tesimond_ were
neighbours’ children; for John and Christopher Wright’s parents were of
Plowland Hall, in the Parish of Welwick, in Holderness, as we have seen.
Two explanations, however, are possible, which will reconcile this
statement that, after all, Fawkes may have _said that he and the Wrights
were neighbours’ children_. One is that possibly the young Wrights boarded
with some citizen dwelling in St. Michael-le-Belfrey’s Parish, York,
whilst they were at the Royal School of St. Peter, then in the Horse
Fayre, Gillygate (but now in Clifton), York; the other explanation is that
possibly a portion of the fourteen years during which the mother of John
and Christopher Wright was (as we have seen already _ante_) imprisoned for
her resolute profession of the Catholic religion was spent in company with
her husband, Robert Wright, in some private gentleman’s house in the
Belfrey Parish, in the City of York——a thing then very common. For
example, Dr. Thomas Vavasour, a physician, of Christ’s Parish, who——_or
whose wife_, Mrs. Dorothy Vavasour——favoured Campion, and probably
harboured him in 1581, was for a time imprisoned in the house of his
brother. This was probably Mr. Edward Vavasour, a Protestant gentleman,
who resided in “the Belfray” Parish, and was a freeman of York and one of
its tradesmen, being, I find, a hatter. In the York “Subsidy Roll for
1581” Edward Vavasour’s name appears as being assessed in goods at £8. Dr.
Thomas Vavasour’s name does not appear in the Subsidy Roll. I believe he
was then in prison, at Hull, for his persistent refusal to conform to the
Queen’s demands in matters of faith.
Query——Did Father Oldcorne learn his “medicine” from Dr. Vavasour, of the
Parish of Christ? What was the system of medical training in the “golden
days”?]
[Footnote 149:——As revealing the interior state (1) of Oldcorne’s mind in
relation to the Gunpowder enterprise, and (2) of Tesimond’s mind,
respectively, the former stands in sharp contrast with the latter, and
must be pregnant with significance to the discerning and judicious
reader.]
[Footnote 150:——Vol. ii., pp. 285, 286.]
[Footnote 151:——“_Somers’ Tracts_,” Edited by Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii.,
p. 106, says: “Tesimond severely censured Hall (alias Oldcorne) for his
timidity on the occasion, calling him a phlegmatic fellow.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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