It Might Have Been: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

by Emily Sarah Holt

Robert Keyes.

This man, who appears to have been one of the most desperate and unscrupulous of the conspirators, was the son of a Protestant clergyman in Derbyshire, who is supposed to have been the Reverend Edward Kay of Stavely, a younger son of John Kay of Woodsam, Yorkshire. His name is variously rendered as Keyes, Keis, and Kay; he himself signs Robert Key. His mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, a very opulent Roman Catholic gentleman of Lincolnshire, and through her he was cousin of Mrs Rookwood. The opulence of the grandfather did not descend to his grandson, whose indigence was a great cause of his desperate character. He lived for a time at Glatton, in Huntingdonshire, but afterwards entered the service of Lord Mordaunt as keeper of his house at Turvey, his wife being the governess of his Lordship’s children. He is described as “a young man with no hair on his face.” (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 808.) It was about June, 1605, when Keyes was taken into the plot, and his chief work thereafter was the charge of the house at Lambeth “sometimes called Catesby’s, afterwards Mr Terrett’s, since Rookwood’s,” (Ibidem, folio 62), where the powder was stored. His only other service was the bringing of the watch from Percy to Fawkes just before the discovery of the plot. Keyes left one son, Robert (Foley’s Records, volume 1, page 510), who was living about 1630, and was then a frequent visitor of his relatives the Rookwoods (Domestic State Papers, Charles the First, 178, 43).

Humphrey and Stephen Littleton.

These cousins belonged to the family of the present Baron. Sir John Littleton of Hagley had with other issue two sons, of whom Gilbert, the eldest, was the father of Humphrey, while Sir George Littleton of Holbeach, the third son, was the father of Stephen. Humphrey was known as Red Humphrey, to distinguish him from another of his name, and one of these two was a University man, of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree 29th January 1580, and his M.A., 2nd July, 1582. His cousin Stephen was born in 1575. With the plot Humphrey at least was but partially acquainted, for Catesby “writ to Mr Humphrey Littleton (from Huddington) to meet him at Dunchurch, but he, being then destitute of a horse, returned written answer that he could not then meet him, in regard of his unfurnishment before remembered: whereupon Mr Robert Winter sent a good gelding to Mr Humphrey Littleton, whereon he rode away to Dunchurch, and (saith himself) demanding of the matter in hand, and what it might be, Mr Catesby told him that it was a matter of weight, but for the especial good of them all, which was all he would then disclose to him.” (Harl. Manuscript 360.) The account given in the text, from this volume, of the escape and wanderings of Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton is somewhat varied by another narrative in the same manuscript, according to which Humphrey “bade the officers begone, or he would fetch that should send them packing.” He affirmed in his confession, 26th January 1606, that he “had intention to apprehend” the refugees, “in regard of the odiousness of their treasons and the horribleness of the offence, which this partie in his heart detested,” and that he deferred doing so “out of love to his cousin and affection to their religion,” until he should be able to obtain counsel of Hall. (Ibidem.) Mrs John Littleton, the lady of Hagley Park, was Muriel, daughter of Sir Thomas Bromley, and a Protestant; though renowned for her hospitality and benevolence, she contrived to pay off 9000 pounds of debt left by her father-in-law and husband.

William Parker, Lord Monteagle.

Lord Monteagle was of very distinguished and ancient race, being the eldest son of Edward third Baron Morley of his line (heir of a younger branch of the Lovels of Tichmersh) and Elizabeth, only daughter and heir of William Stanley, Lord Monteagle. Born in 1574, he succeeded his mother as Lord Monteagle, and his father in 1618 as Lord Morley. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham, and his sister Mary was the wife of Mr Thomas Abington of Hendlip Hall.

The chief interest attaching to Lord Monteagle concerns the famous letter: and the two questions requiring answer are—Who wrote it? and, Was the recipient a party to the plot?

The second question, which may be first dealt with, must be answered almost certainly in the affirmative. Nay, more, Lord Monteagle was not only a party to the Gunpowder Plot, but there is strong reason to believe that in conjunction with Lord Salisbury and others, he got up a counter-plot for its discovery. The laying of the letter before Lord Salisbury on the night of October 24th (Note 1), was probably not the first intimation which Salisbury had received, and assuredly not the first given to Lord Monteagle. The whole catena of circumstances, when carefully studied, shows that the episode of the letter was a cleverly-devised countermarch, designed at once to inform the public and at the same time to give a warning to the conspirators. The party got up at Hoxton, where Lord Monteagle was not living; the mysterious delivery of the letter; the placing of it in the hands of Thomas Ward, a known confidant of the conspirators: these and other circumstances all tend to one conclusion—that Monteagle was acting a part throughout, and that it was in reality he who gave warning to them, not they to him. If the conspirators had taken his warning, they might all have escaped with their lives; for the vessel designed to bear Fawkes abroad as soon as he should have fired the mine was lying in the river, and there was abundant time for them all to have made good their escape, had they not foolishly tried to retrieve their loss at Dunchurch. This is made more certain by the fact that the Government were, as Garnet remarked, “determined to save Lord Monteagle,” and that any reference in the confessions of the prisoners which tended to implicate him was diligently suppressed. In one examination, the original words ran, “Being demanded what other persons were privy (to the plot) beside the Lord Mounteagle, Catesby,” etcetera. The three words in italics have been rendered illegible, by a slip of paper being pasted over them, and a memorandum in red ink made on the back. Time, however, has faded the red ink, and the words are again visible. (Criminal Trials, page 67.) Garnet, too, confessed that “Catesby showed the (Pope’s) breves to my Lord Mounteagle at the time when Mr Tresham was with him at White Webbs.” (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 161.) These facts raise a doubt whether the whole story of Tresham’s anxiety to warn Lord Monteagle was not false, and a mere blind to cover something else, which perhaps is not now to be revealed. It remains to inquire, Who wrote the letter? It has been ascribed to three persons beside Tresham: Percy, Mrs Abington, and Anne Vaux. If it really were a part of the Government counterplot, as is very probable, it was not likely to be any of them. If not so, Tresham seems the most likely, though it is customary to charge Mrs Abington with it. Lord Monteagle would at once have recognised his sister’s writing, and perhaps that of her intimate friend, his wife’s cousin, Anne Vaux. Why Percy should be supposed to have written it is a mystery. The handwriting is undoubtedly very like that of Anne Vaux; indeed, for this reason I suspected her as the writer on the first investigation, and before I knew that she had ever been charged with it. Dr Jardine votes decidedly in favour of Tresham. The real truth respecting this matter will in all probability never be known in this world.

Lord Monteagle was in the Essex rebellion, for which he was fined and imprisoned until the end of 1601; but he was in high favour with King James, probably owing to his strenuous efforts to secure his succession. He died in 1622, leaving three sons and three daughters.

A characteristic letter from this nobleman is yet extant, which shows his style and tone, and has not, I believe, been printed. It is that summoning Catesby to Bath, and if it were written in 1605, rather confirms the supposition that the writer was an accomplice. Dr Jardine and others suppose it, I know not why, to belong rather to 1602. It runs as follows:—