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
Now the inference that I draw, from a reviewing and weighing of the
Evidence to-day available in relation to this matter, is this, that
_Christopher Wright_ was the conspirator who revealed the Plot, and that
his worthy aiders and honourable abettors were, first, _Thomas Ward_, the
gentleman-servant (and almost certainly kinsman) of Lord Mounteagle
himself, _amicus secundum carnem_; and, secondly, _Edward Oldcorne_,
Priest and Jesuit, _amicus secundum spiritum:——friends according to the
flesh and to the spirit respectively_.
CHAPTER XI.
Let us proceed to support these statements with Evidence and with
Argument.
(1) Now was Christopher Wright a subordinate conspirator, introduced late
into the conspiracy? It is plain that he was, from “_Thomas Winter’s
Confession_,” where he says: “About Candlemas we brought over in a boat
the powder which we had provided at Lambeth and layd it in Mr. Percy’s
house, because we were willing to have all our danger in one place. We
wrought also another fortnight in the mine against the stone wall which
was very hard to beat through, at which time we called in Kit Wright
(sometime in February, 1605), and near to Easter as we wrought the third
time, opportunity was given to hire the cellar in which we resolved to lay
the powder and leave the mine.”
Again, in the published “_Confession_” of Guy Fawkes (17th November,
1605), Fawkes says, that a practice “in general was first broken unto me
against his majestie, for releife of the Catholique cause, and not
invented or propounded by myself. And this was first propounded unto me
about Easter last was twelve-month,[36] beyond the seas, in the Low
Countries of the Archdukes’ obeyance by Thomas Wynter.”
Fawkes says, in his “_Confession_” further on: “Thomas Percy hired a howse
at Westminster ... neare adjoyning the Parlt. howse, and there wee beganne
to make a myne about the XI. of December, 1604. The Fyve that entered
into the woorck were Thomas Percye, Robert Catesby, Thomas Wynter, John
Wright, and myself, and soon after[37] we tooke another unto us,
Christopher Wright, having sworn him also, and taken the sacrament for
secrecie.”[38]
Therefore Christopher Wright must have become a confederate about ten
months after Fawkes himself and the other prime movers in the nefarious
scheme, and his services were requisitioned——as the modern phrase
goes——primarily for the purpose of adding to the amount of manual labour
available for the digging of the mine, which was afterwards abandoned for
the cellar as the receptacle for the gunpowder that was to effect the
explosion purposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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