Regard being had to the fixities of thought or self-evident fundamentals which in the introduction to this Inquiry were enunciated, these two friends, these two confidants must have been bound to the revealing conspirator by bonds, ties, obligations, “light,” indeed, “as air, yet strong as iron,” which were the outcome of kinship, friendship, or business (in a superlatively wide sense), possibly of all three.
Now the inference that I draw, from a reviewing and weighing of the Evidence to-day available in relation to this matter, is this, that Christopher Wright was the conspirator who revealed the Plot, and that his worthy aiders and honourable abettors were, first, Thomas Ward, the gentleman-servant (and almost certainly kinsman) of Lord Mounteagle himself, amicus secundum carnem; and, secondly, Edward Oldcorne, Priest and Jesuit, amicus secundum spiritum: — friends according to the flesh and to the spirit respectively.
CHAPTER XI.
Let us proceed to support these statements with Evidence and with Argument.
(1) Now was Christopher Wright a subordinate conspirator, introduced late into the conspiracy? It is plain that he was, from “Thomas Winter’s Confession,” where he says: “About Candlemas we brought over in a boat the powder which we had provided at Lambeth and layd it in Mr. Percy’s house, because we were willing to have all our danger in one place. We wrought also another fortnight in the mine against the stone wall which was very hard to beat through, at which time we called in Kit Wright (sometime in February, 1605), and near to Easter as we wrought the third time, opportunity was given to hire the cellar in which we resolved to lay the powder and leave the mine.”
Again, in the published “Confession” of Guy Fawkes (17th November, 1605), Fawkes says, that a practice “in general was first broken unto me against his majestie, for releife of the Catholique cause, and not invented or propounded by myself. And this was first propounded unto me about Easter last was twelve-month,[36] beyond the seas, in the Low Countries of the Archdukes’ obeyance by Thomas Wynter.”
Fawkes says, in his “Confession” further on: “Thomas Percy hired a howse at Westminster ... neare adjoyning the Parlt. howse, and there wee beganne to make a myne about the XI. of December, 1604. The
Fyve that entered into the woorck were Thomas Percye, Robert Catesby, Thomas Wynter, John Wright, and myself, and soon after[37] we tooke another unto us, Christopher Wright, having sworn him also, and taken the sacrament for secrecie.”[38]