Sir Everard's own uncle, Sir Robert Digby,[274] was the very first to charge the conspirators with being a band of traitors, and to order his men and horses to be got ready for immediate departure. With scarcely any exceptions, the other guests followed his example, not only condemning the treason, but also reproaching the traitors with having gravely injured the Catholic cause. To join in a legitimate warfare, even a civil warfare, was one thing; to acquiesce in an attempted murder, a murder on a gigantic scale, and to endeavour to profit by the terror brought about by that attempted murder, was quite another. And besides all this; if they complained of having been invited to hunt and hawk at Dunchurch on false pretences, who could blame them? No doubt they were very angry. Besides, they were but mortal, and to be suddenly disturbed and required to decide hastily upon a most serious question, involving immediate action, is more disagreeable during the process of digestion, just after the principal meal of the day, than at any other time; and as the country squires, who had come to Dunchurch to enjoy good sport, scrambled into their uncleaned, and very likely but half-dried riding-clothes, and went out into the dark, damp night, to mount their horses for long, dreary journeys over bad roads towards their homes, they cannot have felt in the best of tempers. [274] He afterwards "assisted in taking prisoners" of some of the conspirators. S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi.; G. P. Bk., n. 142. It may be worth noticing here, that Sir Robert was not the only member of the Digby family who gave the Government assistance in respect to the Gunpowder Plot.[275] "Lord Harrington, who had the care of the Princess Elizabeth, having received some intimation of an attempt to seize her, immediately sent up John Digby, a younger son of Sir George Digby, to court, with an account of all he knew; where the young gentleman told the tale so well as to acquire thereby the King's good graces, who not long after knighted, employed him in long negotiation in Spain, and Sep. 15th, 1622, created him Earl of Bristol. His son was the famous George Digby, &c." Accordingly, if the Gunpowder Plot marred the fortunes of one branch of the Digby family, it made those of another! [275] _Biographia Britannica_, Vol. iii. p. 184. Sir Everard was as much astonished as he was dispirited at finding that the "powder-action," far from being approved of, was repudiated with horror by the friends whom he had assembled at Dunchurch. He had expected them to have looked at the matter in a very different light. He can scarcely have failed now to see that, even if the plot had succeeded, the Catholics, as a body, would have condemned it, and refused to profit by it. Still he was weak enough to yield to Catesby's urgent requests to proceed with the insurrection and to endeavour to raise forces in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Wales.