“To my loving kinsman, Rob Catesbye Esquire, give these. Lipyeat. If all creatures born under the moons sphere cannot endure without the elements of aier and fire In what languishment have we led our life since we departed from the dear Robin whose conversation gave us such warmth as we needed no other heat to maintain our healths: since therefore it is proper to all to desire a remedy for their disease I do by these bind the by the laws of charity to make thy present aparance here at the bath and let no watery Nimpes divert you, who can better live with(out) the air and better forbear the fire of your spirit and Vigour then we who accumpts thy person the only sone that must ripen our harvest. And thus I rest. Even fast tied to your friendshipp, William Mounteagle.” (Cott. Manuscript Titus, B. 2, folio 294.)
Thomas Percy.
The exact place of this conspirator in the Northumberland pedigree has been the subject of much question. He is commonly said to have been a near relative of the Earl; but Gerard thinks that “he was not very near in blood, although they called him cousin.” Among the various suggestions offered, that appears to be the best-founded which identifies him not with the Percys of Scotton, but as the son of Edward Percy of Beverley, whose father, Joscelyn, was a younger son of the fourth Earl. The wife of Joscelyn was Margaret Frost; the wife of Edward, and mother of the conspirator, was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Waterton of Walton, Yorkshire—of the family of the famous naturalist, Charles Waterton, of whom it was said that he felt tenderly towards every living thing but two—a poacher and a Protestant. The character of Percy, as sketched by one of the Jesuit narrators, is scarcely consistent with that given by the other. Greenway writes of him, “He was about forty-six years of age, though from the whiteness of his head, he appeared to be older; his figure was tall and handsome, his eyes large and lively, and the expression of his countenance pleasing, though grave; and notwithstanding the boldness of his mind, his manners were gentle and quiet.” Gerard says, “He had been very wild in his youth, more than ordinary, and much given to fighting—so much so that it was noted in him and in Mr John Wright... that if they heard of any man in the country more valiant than the others, one or other of them would pick a quarrel to make trial of his valour... He had a great wit, and a very good delivery of his mind, and so was able to speak as well as most in the things wherein he had experience. He was tall, and of a very comely face and fashion; of age near fifty, as I take it, for his head and beard was much changed white.” The proclamation for his apprehension describes him as “a tall man, with a great broad beard, a good face, the colour of his beard and head mingled with white hairs, but his head more white than his beard. He stoupes somewhat in the shoulders, well coloured in face, longe foted, smale legged.” Percy was steward and receiver of rents to his kinsman the Earl, whose rents he appropriated to the purposes of the plot—without the owner’s knowledge, if his earnest denial may be trusted. Percy married Martha, sister of John and Christopher Wright, by whom he had three children: Elizabeth, who died young, and was buried at Alnwick, 2nd February 1602; a daughter (name unknown), who married young Robert Catesby; and Robert Percy, of Taunton, who married Emma Meade at Wivelscomb, 22nd October 1615, and was the founder of the line of Percy of Cambridge. Percy’s widow lived privately in London after his execution.
Ambrose Rookwood.
Second son of Robert Rookwood of Stanningfield, by his second wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawkstead; he became eventually the heir of his father. Ambrose was born in 1578, and was educated in Flanders as a Roman Catholic. According to Greenway, he was “beloved by all who knew him;” Gerard describes him as “very devout, of great virtue and valour, and very secret; he was also of very good parts as for wit and learning.” He was remarkable for his stud of fine horses. Coldham Hall, his family mansion, built by his father in 1574, is still standing, and is a picturesque house, about four miles from Bury Saint Edmunds. Very reluctant at first to join the plot, (March 31st, 1605), when arrested he “denied all privity, on his soul and conscience, and as he was a Catholic.” He was drawn into it by Catesby, with whom he had long been acquainted, and whom he said that he “loved and respected as his own life.” Objecting that “it was a matter of conscience to take away so much blood,” Catesby replied that he was “resolved that in conscience it might be done,” whereon Rookwood, “being satisfied that in conscience he might do it, confessed it neither to any ghostly father nor to any other.” (Exam, of Rookwood, Gunpowder Plot Book, article 136.) Sir William Wade writes that “Rookwood can procure no succour from any of his friends in regard of the odiousness of his actions,” (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 34). He seems to have been fond of fine clothes, for he not only had a “fair scarf” embroidered with “ciphres,” but “made a very fair Hungarian horseman’s cote, lyned all with velvet, and other apparel exceeding costly, not fyt for his degree,” (Ibidem, folio 86). His wife, who was “very beautiful” and “a virtuous Catholic,” was the daughter of Robert Tyrwhitt, Esquire, of Kettleby, county Lincoln. They had three children: Sir Robert Rookwood, who warmly espoused the cause of Charles the First, and was buried 10th June, 1679; he married Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Townsend of Ludlow, and left issue: Henry: and Elizabeth, wife of William Calverley, Esquire. The Rookwoods of the Golden Fish, in the story, are all fictitious persons. The real brother of Ambrose was the Reverend Thomas Rookwood of Claxton, the correspondent of Garnet.
Francis Tresham.
Sir Thomas Tresham, the father of Francis, had suffered much in the cause of Rome. Perverted by Campion in 1580, he was repeatedly imprisoned for recusancy and harbouring Jesuits, but remained the more resolutely devoted to the faith of which he speaks as “his beloved, beautiful, and graceful Rachel,” for whom his “direst adversity” seemed “but a few days for the love he had to her.” By his wife Muriel, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, he had two sons, of whom Francis was the elder. He was educated at Gloucester Hall; and having been very actively participant in the rebellion of Essex, was on his trial extremely insolent to the Lord Chancellor. His life was saved only by the intercession of Lady Catherine Howard, whose services were purchased apparently for 1500 pounds. Catesby never ceased to regret the admission of Tresham to the conspiracy: but if as is probable (see ante, Monteagle), Lord Monteagle were himself a party to the plot, the much-vaunted earnestness of Tresham to save him is in all probability a fiction, and a mere piece of the machinery. Gerard says that he was “of great estate, esteemed to be worth 3000 pounds a year. He had been wild in his youth, and even till his end was not known to be of so good example as the rest.” Jardine says, “He was known to be mean, treacherous, and unprincipled.” He vehemently denied, however, the charge of having sent the warning letter to Lord Monteagle, of which he was always suspected by his brother conspirators. Catesby and Thomas Winter had determined to “poniard him on the spot” if he had shown any hesitation in this denial. He escaped the gallows by dying of illness in the Tower on the 23rd of November. Lord Salisbury has been accused of poisoning Tresham because he knew too many State secrets. But why then did he not poison Lord Monteagle for the same reason? The fact that Tresham’s wife and servant were admitted into his prison, and allowed to nurse him till he died, is surely sufficient answer. By his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir John Tufton, Tresham left no issue. He “showed no remorse, but seemed to glory in it as a religious act, to the minister that laboured with him to set his conscience straight at his end: had his head chopped of and sent (to) be set up at Northampton, his body being tumbled into a hole without so much ceremony as the formalitye of a grave.” (Domestic State Papers, 17; 62.)
Robert, Thomas, and John Winter.
The Winters of Huddington are a family of old standing in Worcestershire; and Anne Winter, sister of the great grandfather of these brothers, was the mother of Edward Underhill, the “Hot Gospeller.” His grandson, George Winter of Huddington and Droitwich, was a “recusant,” yet was High Sheriff of his county in 1589. He married, first, Jane, daughter of Sir William Ingleby of Ripley, in Yorkshire, and secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Bourne. By the first marriage he had issue two sons—Robert and Thomas; by the second, John, Dorothy, and Elizabeth.
Robert, the eldest son, was born in or soon after 1565. Gerard describes him as “a gentleman of good estate in Worcestershire, about a thousand marks a year (666 pounds, 13 shillings 4 pence)—an earnest Catholic, though not as yet generally known to be so. He was a wise man, and of grave and sober carriage, and very stout (i.e., courageous), as all of that name have been esteemed.” He joined the conspirators, March 31st, 1605; but he, like others, objected at first to the “scandal to the Catholic cause,” and was a half-hearted accomplice to the end. He is said to have been terrified by a horrible dream on the night of November 4th, which made him more willing to desert the cause. He married Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Talbot (of the Shrewsbury line) and of Katherine Petre, by whom he had four children,—John, who died in 1622, leaving issue; Helen, of Cooksey, died 5th May 1670; Mary, a nun; and Catherine, died before 1670. All the daughters were unmarried.