Government accused Father Oldcorne “of a sermon made in Christmas, wherein he should seem to excuse the conspirators, or to extenuate their act.” The Government had this report from a certain Humphrey Littleton, concerning whom we shall learn more hereafter.
Richard, Thomas, and Dorothy Abington were brothers and sister respectively to Edward Abington, who suffered, in 1587, as one of the fellow-conspirators of Anthony Babington, a distinguished and captivating gentleman from Dethick, a chapelry or hamlet in the Parish of Ashover, in the County of Derbyshire. In the Parish Church of Ashover may be still seen monuments to members of the Babington family. (Communicated to me by my partner, Mr. G. Laycock Brown, Solicitor, of York.)
The history of the romantic but ill-fated Babington conspiracy requires to be impartially re-written, and to this end diligent search should be made to find, if possible, the alleged contemporary history of that curious, ill-starred movement, which is said to have been written by the gifted Jesuit martyr, “the Venerable” Robert Southwell, S.J., the author of that exquisitely imaginative and tender poem, “The Burning Babe,” an Elizabethan gem of the highest genius. — See the “Oxford Book of English Verse;” also Dr. Grossart’s Edition of Southwell’s Poetical Works, and Turnbull’s Edition likewise. — A good Life of Southwell is a desideratum.
[121] — It is obviously unnecessary either in the former part or in the latter part of this Inquiry to assign separate logical divisions for the case of Thomas Ward. His evidence is common to both, and will appear in due course of this investigation.
[122] — Thomas Winter lodged apparently at an inn known by the sign of the “Duck and Drake,” in St. Clement’s Parish, in the Strand. This fact is proved by the testimony of John Cradock, a cutler, who deposed on the 6th of November, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, that he had engraved the story of the Passion of Christ on two sword hilts for Mr. Rookwood and Mr. Winter, and on a third sword hilt for another gentleman, “a black man,” of that company, of about forty years of age. The Winter here referred to, no doubt, was Thomas, not Robert, the elder brother.
For Cradock’s evidence in extenso, see Appendix; also for evidence of Richard Browne, servant to Christopher Wright; also for letter of Popham, the Chief Justice to Salisbury, as to Christopher Wright; also
for evidence of William Grantham as to purchase by Christopher Wright of beaver hats at the shop of a hatter, named Hewett.
[123] — This emphatic “surely all is lost,” of Christopher Wright, is worthy of notice, as indicating the certitude of his frame of mind. Now, “certitude” is the offspring of knowledge, and therefore of belief, and when it is not the life is the death of Hope, an emotion Wright had then clearly abandoned. Hence we may justly infer a special consciousness on Christopher Wright’s part as to the genesis of the fact that the game was indeed up, thanks to the infatuated behaviour of his brother-in-law, Thomas Percy: “up” to all and singular the plotters’ fatal undoing; yet, after all, traceable back indirectly to Christopher Wright’s own repentant act and deed! Truly the repentant wrong-doer suffers temporal punishment by the everlasting Law of Retribution, which lives for ever!
[124] — Was this said by Christopher Wright on Sunday, the 3rd of November, at the meeting behind St. Clement’s? There is none such statement recorded by Fawkes in any of his Declarations or Confessions in the Record Office, London.
[125] — See H. Speight’s “Nidderdale” (Elliot Stock), p. 344. The title of this interesting work is “Nidderdale and the Garden of the Nidd; A Yorkshire Rhineland”: being a complete account, historical, scientific, and descriptive, of the beautiful Valley of the Nidd. — See also “Connoisseur” for November, 1901.