[82] — The Earl of Northumberland was fined by the Star Chamber £30,000, ordered to forfeit all offices he held under the Crown, and to be imprisoned in the Tower for life. He paid £11,000 of the fine; and was
released in 1621. He was the son of Henry Percy eighth Earl of Northumberland, and nephew of “the Blessed” Thomas Percy seventh Earl of Northumberland, and of Mary Slingsby, the wife of Francis Slingsby, of Scriven, near Knaresbrough. Although the Earl of Northumberland that was Star-Chambered was by his own declaration no papist, he was looked up to by the English Roman Catholics as their natural leader. His kinship with the conspirator, Thomas Percy, alone is usually thought to have involved the Earl in this trouble; but probably the inner circle of the Government knew more than they thought it policy to publish. “Simple truth,” moreover, was not this Government’s “utmost skill.”
Lord Montague compounded for a fine of £4,000. Guy Fawkes, for a time, was a member of this peer’s household. — See “Calendar of State Papers, James I.”
Lord Stourton compounded for £1,000.
Lord Mordaunt’s fine was remitted after his death, which took place in 1608. Robert Keyes and his wife were members of this peer’s household. — See “Calendar of State Papers, James I.”
These three noblemen were absent from Parliament on the 5th of November, no doubt having received a hint so to do from the conspirators. This fact of absence the Government construed into a charge of Concealment of Treason and Contempt in not obeying the King’s Summons to Parliament. — See Jardine’s “Narrative,” pp. 159-164.
The Gascoignes, through whom the Earl of Northumberland and the Wardes were connected, belonged to the same family as the famous Chief Justice of Henry IV., who committed to prison Henry V., when “Harry Prince of Wales.” — See Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV.” and “King Henry V.”
The Gascoignes were a celebrated Yorkshire family, their seats being Gawthorpe, Barnbow, and Parlington, in the West Riding. They were strongly attached to their hereditary faith, and suffered much for it, from the infliction of heavy fines. Like Lord William Howard, the Inglebies, of Lawkland, near Bentham, the Plumptons, of Plumpton, near Knaresbrough, and the Fairfaxes, of Gilling, near Ampleforth, the Gascoignes were greatly attached to the ancient Benedictine Order, which took such remarkable root in England through St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, and his forty missionaries, all of whom were Benedictines. — See Taunton’s “The English Black Monks of St. Benedict” (Methuen & Co.); also Dr. Gasquet’s standard work on “English Monasteries” (John Hodges).
It may be, perhaps, gratifying to the historic feeling of my readers to learn that the influence of these old Yorkshire Roman Catholic families,
the Gascoignes, the Inglebies, and the Plumptons, is still felt at Bentham and in the old Benedictine Missions of Aberford, near Barnbow, and of Knaresbrough, near picturesque Plumpton, notwithstanding that the places which once so well knew the Gascoignes and the Plumptons now know them no more. The present gallant Colonel Gascoigne, of Parlington, I believe, is not himself descended from the Roman Catholic Gascoignes in the direct male line of descent; the Inglebies, of Lawkland, recently died out; and the Plumptons to-day are not even represented in name.