Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher
John Stuart Mill · en
"Immediately she was released from custody, knowing that I was
then in London, quite forgetful of herself, she set about taking
care of me, and provided all the furniture and other things
necessary for my new house. Moreover, she sent me letters daily,
recounting everything that occurred; and when she knew that I
wished to cross the sea for a time, she bid me not spare expense,
so that I secured a safe passage, for that she would pay
everything, though it should cost five thousand florins, and in
fact she sent me at once a thousand florins for my journey. I left
her in care of Father Percy, who had already as my companion lived
a long time at her house. There he still remains, and does much
good. I went straight to Rome, and being sent back thence to these
parts, was fixed at Louvain."[36] So much at present of Elizabeth.
We shall hear of her, as did Beaumont, during the succeeding
years.
In the tribulations of Anne Vaux, his own first cousin, Francis must
have been even more deeply interested. That she was in communication
with Fawkes had been discovered, November 5. She was apprehended,
committed to the care of Sir John Swynerton, but temporarily discharged.
When Fawkes confessed, November 9, that the conspirators had been using
a house of Father Garnet's at White Webbs, in Enfield Chace, the house
called "Dr. Hewick's" was searched. "No papers nor munition found, but
Popish books and relics,--and many trap-doors and secret passages."
Garnet had escaped but, on examination of the servants, it developed
that under the pseudonym of "Meaze" he had taken the house "for his
sister, Mrs. Perkins,"--[and who should "Mrs. Perkins" turn out to be
but Anne Vaux!] The books and relics are the property of "Mrs.
Jennings,"--[and who should she be but Anne's sister, Eleanor
Brookesby!] "Mrs. Perkins spent a month at White Webbs lately;" and
"three gentlemen [Catesby, Winter, and another] came to White Webbs, the
day the King left Royston" [October 31]. On November 27, Sir Everard
Digby's servant deposes concerning Garnet that "Mrs. Ann Vaux doth
usually goe with him whithersoever he goethe." On January 19, as we have
seen, warrants are out for the arrest of Garnet. On January 30, he is
taken with another Jesuit priest, Father Oldcorne, at Hindlip Hall, in
Worcestershire, where for seven days and nights they have been buried in
a closet, and nourished by broths conveyed to them by means of a quill
which passed "through a little hole in a chimney that backed another
chimney into a gentlewoman's chamber." True enough, the deposition, that
whithersoever her beloved Father Superior "goethe, Mrs. Ann Vaux doth
usually goe"; for she is the gentlewoman of the broths and quill,--she
with Mrs. Abington, the sister of Monteagle. Garnet and Oldcorne are
taken prisoners to the Tower; and three weeks later Anne is in town
again, communicating with Garnet by means of letters, ostensibly brief