For an account of the Somerville-Arden and the Francis Throckmorton alleged conspiracies against the life of Queen Elizabeth, see Froude’s “_History_.” For an account of Shakespeare’s family, including the Ardens, see Mrs. C. C. Stope’s recent book (Elliot Stock, 1901).] [Footnote 155:——In the “_Life of Sir Everard Digby_,” by “One of his descendants” (Kegan Paul), is to be found a vivid and historically accurate account of the proceedings of November the 5th and afterwards. The conspirators’ line of flight would be nearly parallel with the London and North Western Railway from Euston Station to Rugby.] [Footnote 156:——The country crossed by these unhappy fugitives is undoubtedly the very “heart of England,” and in spring and summer is one of the gardens of England. As those then flying, on that gloomy November day, from the Avenger of blood, were probably almost all men of strong family affections, and certainly all ardent lovers of their country, how often must the feelings have welled up in their heart, as from some intermittent crystalline spring, so beautifully expressed by the old Latin poet:—— “Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor: neque harum, quas colis, arborum Te, praeter invisas cupressos, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.”——_Horace._[A] Alas! Like many another wrong-doer, before and since, they thought of this too late. Well-nigh the final glimpse we get of Christopher Wright is from a letter the conspirator, Thomas Bates, wrote to a priest, which is given in Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” p. 210. Christopher Wright, we are told by Bates, on the morning of the day when the powder exploded at Holbeach House, “flung to Bates, out of a window, £100, and desired him, as he was a Catholic, to give unto his wife, and his brother’s wife, £80, and take £20 himself:”——Wright owing Bates some money.] [Footnote A: “Land must be left, and home, and charming wife, And of these trees which you cultivate, None will follow you, their short-lived owner and lord, Save the detested cypress.”] [Footnote 157:——Does Greenway’s “_Narrative_” clearly state how many of these conspirators received from Tesimond the sacraments? If so, what sacraments were they? The Government would have had a clear case of inciting to open rebellion against Tesimond if they had caught him, but he escaped to Flanders. He was “a very deep dog,” was Master Tesimond, and no mistake. But he was wholly under the finger and thumb (_me judice_) of Catesby, which shows what a powerful man of genius Catesby must have been. Father Henry Garnet, at his trial, allowed that Tesimond had acted “ill,” in seeking to rouse the country to open rebellion.] [Footnote 158:——This lady was Muriel, the widow of John Littleton, who had been involved in the rebellion of Robert Devereux Earl of Essex. She was the daughter of Elizabeth’s Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley.——See Aiken’s “_Memoirs of the Reign of James I._”