“He was of person above two yards[18] high, and though slender, yet as well proportioned to his height as any man one should see.” He was, moreover, reputed to be “very wise and of great judgment, though his utterance was not so good. Besides, he was so liberal, and apt to help all sorts, as it got him much love.” At the time of the Plot Catesby was about thirty-five years of age. He had married Catherine Leigh, a daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, of Stoneleigh, a Protestant gentleman of wealth and influence in Warwickshire. The Parish Register of Chastleton has the following entry:——“Robert Catesbie, son of Robert Catesbie, was baptised the 11th day of November, 1595.”[19] He had only this one surviving child, who is said to have married the only child of Thomas Percy. Catesby had the misfortune to lose his wife by death before the year 1602, and at the time of the Plot his home seems to have been with his mother, the Dowager Lady Catesby, at Ashby St. Legers in the County of Northampton, the family ancestral seat. For in 1602 he had sold his residence, Chastleton, in Oxfordshire. Now, as Robert Catesby, it seems by many circumstances, was the first inventor and chiefest furtherer of the Plot, it is worth while thus lingering on a description of what manner of man he was. It, however, may be asked how came it to pass that this one person gained such prodigious ascendency over twelve other persons so as to make them, in the event, as mischievously, nay fatally, deluded as himself? The answer is manifold: for besides the wrongs which these ruthless plotters sought to avenge, they evidently came under a potent psychological spell when they came under the influence of this wayward, yet fascinating, son of the brilliant age of Elizabeth——an age in which men’s intellectual and physical powers too often attained a complete mastery over their moral powers.[20] For a proof of Catesby’s immense influence over others, it may be mentioned that Ambrose Rookwood, one of those whose blood afterwards stained the scaffold at the early age of twenty-seven for his share in the wicked scheme, says of Catesby that “he (Rookwood) loved and respected him as his own life.”[21] Four things seem to have caused those who came in contact with Robert Catesby to have been carried captive at his will, if from the first they were at all well affected towards him——his personal appearance, his generosity, his zeal, and his skill in the use of arms. We are told that Tesimond (alias Greenway), another contemporary of Catesby, says that “his countenance was exceedingly noble and expressive. That his conversation and manners were peculiarly attractive and imposing, and that by the dignity of his character he exercised an irresistible influence over the minds of those who associated with him.”[22] His zeal was of that kind which is contagious and kindles responsive fire.