At this time there was also a Francis Wright at Newbie, and a John Wright at Grantley. They may have been the children of John and Christopher Wright, _the uncles_ of John and Christopher Wright, the Gunpowder plotters. And, of course, it is _possible_ that the Christopher Wright who lived in Bondgate, Newbie, and Skelton between the years 1589 and 1601 _may have been a cousin or other kinsman_ of Christopher Wright the plotter, or even of different families altogether. But in the Register of Welwick Church are the following entries of Burials: “13 October 1654 ffrauncis Wright Esquire and 2 May 1664 ffrauncis Wright Esquire” (communicated by the Rev. D. V. Stoddart, M.A., Vicar of Welwick), entries which tend to prove that the Newby Wrights and the Plowland Wrights were one and the same persons, and, therefore, of one and the same clan. There seem, from the “_Memorials of Ripon_,” vol. iii. (Surtees Soc.), to have been “Wrights” in Ripon and the neighbourhood for many generations, certainly long before the reign of Henry VIII., when the grandfather of the plotters is said to have come from Kent into Yorkshire.——See Foster’s “_Glover’s Visitation of Yorkshire_.” Possibly the Wrights of Kent originally sprang from Yorkshire. “A Christopher Wright” lived at South Kilvington, near Thirsk, in the nineteenth century.——See the tablet to his memory in the church of that parish.] Hence, from the foregoing evidence, the conclusions are inevitable, first, that Thomas Warde, of Mulwith, who married Marjory (or Margery) Slater[A] in 1579, was almost certainly a connection and relative of Lord Mounteagle, in whose household Warde held an honoured and honourable position; or, as doubtless we should say nowadays, was the young peer’s private secretary: and, secondly, that, through the said Thomas Warde, Christopher Wright likewise was almost certainly by affinity connected with, if not related by blood to, the same highly-favoured English nobleman. [Footnote A: This marriage of Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith, to Marjory (or Margery) Slater, “servant to Mr. Cotterill,” of the Parish of St. Wilfrid, York, forcibly reminds one of the romance which Lord Tennyson has immortalized in his charming little poem, “The Lord of Burleigh.” Moreover, it is worthy of remark that there was a family connection between the family of Cecil and a family of Ward, most probably the Wards of Mulwith, or those akin to them.——See Hatfield’s “_Hist. MSS._” (Eyre & Spottiswoode), pt. viii., p. 553, where it says, “Pedigree connection of the Cecil and Ward families, partly in Lord Burleigh’s hand,” pt. i., 204-289.] CHAPTER XIX.