gallant, charming, zealous, brave to a degree, and even pious, yet with something of the wild, lawless, and bloodthirsty spirit of the but partially-tamed savage, which every now and then asserted itself, until an even later period, unless it was kept under control by some such laws as those of chivalry. It was not, therefore, chivalry, but the _want_ of chivalry, which led to the spirit, habits, and actions of Catesby and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. [92] _Essay on Chivalry._ [93] Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do not know. I hope this digression--a digression from a digression--may be pardoned. It is high time that I returned to Robert Catesby in his relations to Sir Everard Digby. It was likely enough that Sir Everard Digby should become intimate with a zealous Catholic landowner in the neighbouring counties of Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, especially as Catesby's mother's house, at Ashby St Legers, was little more than twenty miles from Gothurst; but probably the reason of his seeing so much of him was that Catesby's first cousin, Tyringham of Tyringham, lived only three-quarters of a mile from Gothurst, the two estates adjoining each other, either house lying within a short distance of the high road, on opposite sides of it. Once on intimate terms, Sir Everard and Catesby were constantly together. In speaking of his master, Sir Everard's page, William Ellis, said in his examination[94]:--"both at London and in the countrie Mr Robert Catesby hath kept him companie." [94] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I. No. 108. In this not altogether desirable "companie," Sir Everard Digby spent much time "in cogitation deep" upon the treatment of his fellow-religionists and countrymen. Both men were exasperated by the persecution which was going on around them, by the fickleness of their king, and by the dangers to which they, their wives, their families--for Sir Everard, as well as Catesby, had a child now--and their estates were exposed. Perhaps most irritating of all, to country-gentlemen of high position, was the then prevalent custom of sub-letting, or farming, the fines and penalties levyable upon Catholics to men who squeezed every farthing out of them that was possible. To be persecuted and fined by an authorized public official was bad enough; but to be pestered and tormented by a pettifogging private person who had purchased the right of doing so, as a speculation, must have been almost unendurable. The subject, however, which Digby and Catesby discussed most would probably be the severe anti-Catholic legislation which was apprehended from the new parliament. In this, said Catesby, the great danger lay. His surmises as to the form it might take would give him and his friend, Sir Everard, ample scope for contemplation, speculation, and conversation. The words of Scripture, "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof," do not appear to have occurred to their memories.