The Half Moon Hotel, in Blake Street, York, perhaps derives its name from the well-known device of the Percy family.
[35] — Quoted from Father Gerard’s “Narrative,” p. 278.
[36] — So that the Plot was first hatched about Easter, 1604. — See Dr. S. R. Gardiner’s “What Gunpowder Plot was,” as to the decisive causes of the Plot. — Jardine, in his “Narrative” (pp. 45 and 46), thinks that the Star-Chambering of that aged but charming Roman Catholic gentleman, Thomas Pounde, Esquire, of Belmont, Hampshire, contributed to the causes of the Plot. This is very probable. Pounde was first cousin to the father of the Earl of Southampton, the patron and friend of Shakespeare. Pounde was a devoted friend of Campion, and himself a Jesuit lay-brother. He spent a large part of his life in prison. He was attired in prison as became his rank and fortune, and was, besides being a “mystical” Catholic, a most accomplished Elizabethan gentleman. — See “Jesuits in Conflict” (Burns & Oates).
[37] — I.e., according to Winter, about two months after.
[38] — See pp. 269 and 271 of the Rev. John Gerard’s, S.J., work, “What was the Gunpowder Plot?” (Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co., 1897).
[39] — I.e., a Prayer Book. Sir Everard Digby appears to have been sworn in by Robert Catesby on the cross formed by the hilt of a poniard. — See “Life of Sir Everard Digby.”
[40] — It is also said that Catesby “peremptorily demanded of his associates a promise that they would not mention the project, even in Confession, lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder it.” — See “The Month,” No. 369, pp. 353, 4. — This would be to make assurance double sure. But, happily, the “best laid schemes o’ men gang aft agley.” “For there is on earth a yet auguster thing, veiled though it be, than Parliament or King” — the human conscience, which is “prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathenas” (John Henry Newman). Also, “Conscience is the knowledge with oneself of the better and the worse” (James Martineau).
[41] — See Jardine’s “Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot,” p. 41.
[42] — The Most Hon. the Marquess of Ripon, K.G., Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the Marchioness of Ripon, C.I., of Studley Royal, near Ripon, are descended from this leile-hearted and chivalrous Yorkshire race, in whom so many idealistic, stately souls, of a long buried Past, claim kindred.
Of what manner of men these Mallories were, the puissant owners of Studley Royal, is evident from what we are told concerning that Sir William Mallory, “who was so zealous and constant a Catholic, that when heresy first came into England, and Catholic service commanded to be put down on such a day, he came to the church, and stood there at the door with his sword drawn to defend, that none should come in to abolish religion, saying that he would defend it with his life, and continued for some days keeping out the officers so long as he could possibly do it.” — From the “Babthorpes, of Babthorpe,” Morris’s “Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,” first series, p. 227. — The Church referred to must have been the old Chapel at Aldfield, near Studley Royal. Aldfield was one of the Chapelries of the ancient Parish of Ripon. The old Chapel at Aldfield is now represented by the noble new Church which is seen in the distance, at the end of the long avenue, by all who have the rare happiness of visiting Studley Royal and the tall grey ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, Fountains, laved by the musical little River Skell. (Studley Church is twin-sister to Skelton Church, the Vyner Memorial in the Park of Newby. Skelton was likewise one of the old Ripon Chapelries.) This phrase “to abolish religion,” I opine, refers to the time of Edward VI., when the Mass was first put down, and a communion substituted therefor. — See Tennyson’s “Mary Tudor.” — There is a curious old traditional prophecy extant in Yorkshire, as well as other parts of England, that as the Mass was abolished in the reign of the Sixth Edward, so it will be restored in the reign of the Seventh!