[D] John Wright and Christopher Wright.
[E] Ambrose Rookwood.
[F] John Grant.
Dr. Gardiner’s “History of James I.” (Longmans) contains a map showing the relative positions of these places.
On Wednesday, the 6th November, Fathers Garnet and Tesimond were at Coughton. Catesby, along with Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, Sir Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, and others, was at Huddington. Catesby and Digby had sent a letter to Garnet.
Bates was the messenger, and was come from Norbrook, the house of John Grant, where the plotters rested in their wild, north-westward flight from Ashby St. Legers. For to Ashby the fugitives had posted headlong from London town on Tuesday, the “fatal Fifth.”
Catesby and Digby urged Garnet to make for Wales.[A]
[A] Catesby had great influence over Tesimond, and it was Tesimond whom Catesby first informed of the Gunpowder Plot, in the Tribunal of Penance. Tesimond had a sharp and nimble, but probably not very powerful, mind. Catesby gave Tesimond permission to consult Father Henry Garnet as to the ethics of the Plot. Moreover, Catesby gave the Jesuits permission to disclose the particular knowledge of the Plot they had received, provided they thought it right to do so. This is how we come to know what passed between Catesby and Tesimond, and then between Tesimond and Garnet. Tesimond had received from Catesby about the 24th July, 1605, in the Confessional, a particular knowledge of the Plot, in the sense that he was told there was projected an explosion by gunpowder, with the object of destroying the King and Parliament; but all particulars respecting final plans he did not know till a fortnight before the 11th of October, I think.
After half-an-hour’s earnest discourse together, Father Garnet gave leave to Tesimond to proceed to Huddington to administer to the wretched fugitives the rites — the last rites — of the Church they had so disgraced and wronged. Garnet remained at Coughton. Tesimond tarried at Huddington about two hours.
Tesimond arrived at Hindlip from Huddington in a state of the greatest excitement possible. He showed himself on reaching Hindlip to be a choleric man, while Father Oldcorne — who seems to have kept perfectly calm and cool throughout the whole of the momentous conference — Tesimond himself denounced, if he did not reproach, as being phlegmatic.