“‘Go back, Mr. Wright,’ quoth I, ‘and learn what you can at Essex Gate.’
“Shortly he returned and said, ‘Surely all is lost,[123] for Leyton is got on horseback at Essex door, and as he parted, he asked if their Lordships would have any more with him, and being answered “No,” he rode as fast up Fleet Street as he can ride.’
“‘Go you then,’ quoth I, ‘to Mr. Percy, for sure it is for him they seek, and bid him be gone: I will stay and see the uttermost.’”
(5) Furthermore; Lathbury, writing in the year 1839,[A] asserts that Christopher Wright’s advice was that each conspirator “should betake himself to flight in a different direction from any of his companions.”[124]
[A] Lathbury’s little book, published by Parker, is a very careful compilation (me judice). It contains an extract from the Act of Parliament ordaining an Annual Thanksgiving for November 5th; also in the second Edition (1840) an excellent fac-simile of Lord Mounteagle’s Letter. In Father Gerard’s “What was the Gunpowder Plot?” (1896), on p. 173, is a fac-simile of the signature of Edward Oldcorne both before and after torture.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Now, as somewhat slightly confirming this statement of Lathbury, is the fact that in an old print published soon after the discovery of the Plot, which shows the conspirators Catesby, Thomas Winter, Percy, John Wright, Fawkes, Robert Winter, Bates, and Christopher Wright, Christopher Wright is represented as a tall man, in the high hat of the period, facing Catesby, and evidently engaged in earnest discourse with the arch-conspirator. Christopher Wright to enforce his utterance is holding up the forefinger of his right hand. Catesby’s right hand is raised in front of Christopher Wright, while Catesby’s left hand rests on the hilt of the sword girded on his side.[125]
(Of course the evidence in paragraphs (2) and (5) of the last chapter may have emanated from one and the same source; but the great point is that it has emanated from somewhere.)