by Nick Holland
Guy would never have dreamed of changing sides, but he found himself fighting under a man who became infamous for doing just that: Sir William Stanley. Stanley was of a noble family, and related to the Earl of Derby, and while it was known that he held Catholic beliefs, he had gained renown fighting for Queen Elizabeth in Ireland against Catholic uprisings.
Stanley proved to be an effective soldier and leader, and on the surface a loyal one, gaining him a knighthood and increasingly senior positions, including being made the Sheriff of Cork7 and de facto ruler of the Irish province of Munster.8 He was as brave as he was fierce, once fighting without armour and refusing to surrender despite suffering multiple wounds.9
After more than a decade of fighting, and with the scars to show for it, Stanley had hoped to gain more favour from the Queen, but he was becoming increasingly despondent at being overlooked for positions he felt should be his, including that of Viceroy of Ireland. The first turning point in Stanley’s career came in 1585 when he travelled to the Spanish Netherlands in the company of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to fight in support of the Protestants. Knowing his outstanding record in Ireland, Dudley sent Stanley back to Ireland to recruit men for the cause, but although he recruited over a thousand troops, he travelled to London first rather than immediately rejoining Dudley.10
It is believed that Stanley had in fact been talking to Jesuit priests and to the Spanish ambassador to England, Bernardino de Mendoza. In short, Stanley had decided to embrace his Catholic faith. It seems that he was also aware of the Babington plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and may even have been involved in its planning.11 He decided to remain in London in case the plot succeeded, so he could be ready to assist if the Spanish sent an invasion fleet.
When the Babington plot was foiled and the fleet failed to materialise, Stanley threw on the cloak of loyalty again and rejoined Robert Dudley. Playing a prominent part in the battles of Doesborg and Zutphen, where the Elizabethan courtier and poet Sir Philip Sidney picked up the injury that led to his terrible lingering death,12 Stanley was once more back in favour. So impressed was Robert Dudley with Stanley’s bravery that he stated he was ‘worth his weight in pearl’,13 and he was made Governor of the city of Deventer, now in the Netherlands. It was here that his great act of treachery took place.
William Stanley was holding Deventer with his hand-picked troop of Irishmen, but conditions were hard and food was scarce, which made Stanley’s dissatisfaction grow even stronger. In January 1587 he wrote to the Catholic governor of Zutphen, Juan de Tassis, and surrendered the city and its garrison to him. Stanley now changed allegiance formally, and he and around 600 of his men took up arms for the Spanish king, Philip II.14
Stanley embraced his new life as an officer in the Spanish army, and his growing unit became known as the ‘English regiment’, even though it also included Italians, Scots and Irish. His infamy in England, where he was seen as the ultimate traitor, made him an attractive figure to English Catholics looking to strike back against their own nation, and like a moth to a flame it was inevitable that Guy Fawkes would one day find himself among this band of outcasts.
Life in the English regiment was hard. The men were paid by the Spanish king, via his agents, but payment was not always fulsome or delivered on time. Winter especially could bring extreme hardship, and Ralph Sadler, a spy for Queen Elizabeth, reported that Stanley’s men were surviving by eating handfuls of dry acorns.15
It may have been these hardships, rather than any fear of war or fighting, that led Guy to seek employment elsewhere. We get evidence of this in a letter from Father Richard Collinge, the cousin who had left England with Guy, to a Venetian called Giulio Piccioli. In it he writes,
Good Sir,
I pray you let me entreat your favour and friendship for my cousin germane Mr Guido Fawkes who serves Sir William Stanley as I understand he is in great want and a word on his behalf may stand him in great stead.16
This letter reveals that Guy had adopted the Spanish sounding Guido since joining the army of the Holy Roman Empire, and also shows that his funds and means of earning a living were depleted. By the time this letter was written however, 1599, the Spanish Netherlands had become less volatile under the new rule of Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella, who would become known as the Archdukes. Under these circumstances, Guy may simply have been seeking new adventures, or even have been looking to act upon a diplomatic mission in the Catholic cause; this is something that William Stanley himself embarked upon on a fairly frequent basis, so soldiers and officers were permitted time away from their military duties on occasion.
By this time Guy had become a great success as a soldier, and he was prized by Stanley and other military leaders such as Colonel Bostock. Guy would have taken part in many engagements with the English regiment and other units of the Spanish army, and we know that he was present at the Siege of Calais of 1596,17 a victory for the Spanish forces.18
Warfare was going through a transformation in the Elizabethan age. While old weapons such as clubs, halberds and swords were still very much in use, gunpowder was creating a host of new weapons that would change the face of fighting for ever. The battles Guy took part in saw hand to hand combat using swords, as well as ranged attacks from crossbows and gunfire from weapons like the arquebus – slow to load and use, unreliable in its aim, and yet deadlier than anything that had been seen before.
Many of the battles of the Eighty Years War involved sieges of various duration, with defending troops taking up position in castles and fortified towers. Gunpowder transformed the art of the siege as well, as specialists in explosives would carefully position charges before firing them using a long train – a slow burning wick that would give the lighter time to reach safety before the huge explosions occurred. Given his later recruitment to the gunpowder plot, and his noted presence at sieges such as Calais, it is likely that Guy Fawkes had become an expert in the dark arts of gunpowder.19
Guy’s prowess as a soldier is demonstrated by his rise through the ranks of the Spanish army’s English Regiment, eventually reaching the rank of alferez which is similar to the English rank of ensign, just below that of a lieutenant. Military records at the Royal Archives in Brussels also show that by 1603 he was being considered for promotion to the rank of captain.
One of the deadliest battles Guy fought in was the Battle of Nieuwpoort, which took place on 2 July 1600. Maurice of Nassau and Sir Francis Vere were in charge of the Dutch Protestant army, and the Spanish troops were led by Archduke Albert himself, with Colonel Bostock in charge of the English regiment.20 One of the factors that made it such a bloody and chaotic battle was that the Dutch ranged themselves along a bank of sand dunes, leading to the engagement becoming known as the Battle of the Dunes. Fighting in sand, weighed down with armour and weaponry, was an arduous and some might say idiotic task, and the golden dunes were soon stained red with the blood of both sides. Officially hailed as a Dutch victory, it was a pyrrhic one, with both sides losing more than 2,000 troops. Alferez Fawkes was forced to take a position of command during the battle – particularly after his regimental leader Colonel Bostock was slain, alongside thirty-six other high-ranking officers.21 The retreat from the slaughter would have been difficult and terrifying, but although around 500 Spanish were captured Guy escaped to fight another day. To do so, he had to hack his way through one opponent after another, his legs sinking into the sand beneath him, and it is possible that this battle was the cause of the scars across Guy’s chest that his interrogators noticed in November 1605.22
The Jesuit Father Tesimond, who narrowly escaped with his life after the gunpowder plot, described Guy in these glowing terms:
He was a man of considerable experience as well as knowledge. Thanks to his prowess he had acquired considerable fame and name among the soldiers. He was also – something decidedly rare among soldiery, although it was immediately obvious to all – a very devout man, of exemplary life and commendable reticence. He went often to
the sacraments. He was pleasant of approach and cheerful of manner, opposed to quarrels and strife: a friend, at the same time, of all in the service with him who were men of honour and good life. In a word, he was a man liked by everyone and loyal to his friends.23
Tesimond also praised him as a ‘man highly skilled in matters of war’,24 but he had seen more than simply war and killing during his time in Flanders. There is one strange and unaccounted-for reminder of his service that Guy carried with him. In 1605, during his interrogation and while under the guise of John Johnson, a letter was found in his pocket referring to him as Guido Fawkes:
The letter that was found about him, was from a gentlewoman married to an English man named Bostock, in Flanders. The reason why she calls him by another name, was because he called himself Fawkes.25
It is one question that Guy will never yield an answer to and we will return to it in a later chapter.
As a soldier Guy Fawkes had looked death in the face, seen his colleagues fall by his side, gained scars and taken lives. He had also found respect and camaraderie, and although he’d faced physical hardship and want, he was fighting for a cause he truly believed in. As the sixteenth century turned into the seventeenth, however, events were happening in England that would change his destiny forever.
Guy was about to leave the sword and musket behind and become a diplomat on a top-secret mission. When that mission failed, he was to take a step that would condemn him to everlasting infamy.
Chapter 10
An Open Enemy, and an Enemy of their Beliefs
The fearful abounding at this time in this country, of these
detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters, hath
moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following
treatise of mine to resolve the doubting both that such assaults
of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the
instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished
King James I, Daemonologie
Agnes Sampson was a midwife from the south east of Scotland. Known as ‘The Wise Woman of Keith’, she was also reputed to be a healer, and at this time when medical knowledge and assistance was scanty she was often called upon by locals. It was a dangerous reputation to have in Scotland in the late sixteenth century, for it led Agnes to become embroiled in one of the most shameful episodes in the country’s history: the North Berwick witch trials.1
Agnes had to endure terrible tortures, from being deprived of sleep and food, to being imprisoned wearing a ‘witches bridle’ – a metal clamp with four spikes that stuck into the tongue and cheeks. Despite the physical pain inflicted upon her, from savage beatings to having her nails ripped out, she refused to confess to the charges conjured up against her. Her chief interrogator worked himself into a fury. It was commonly believed that witches would have a mark of Satan on their body, so Agnes’ interrogator knew what to do, as a contemporary account reveals:
By special commandment this Agnes Sampson had all her hair shaven off, in each part of her body, and her head thrown with a rope according to the custom of that country, being a pain most grievous, which continued for almost an hour, during which time she would not confess anything until the Devils’ mark was found upon her privates. Then she immediately confessed whatsoever was demanded of her, and justifying those persons aforesaid to be notorious witches.2
Throughout these tortured confessions, the interrogator laughed and berated the naked, broken wretch before him, but Agnes wasn’t interrogated at home or in a prison cell, and the interrogator was no priest or witch finder. Agnes was in the grand hall of Holyrood Palace, and the pitiless man before her was none other than the King himself: James VI of Scotland. The woman’s fate was sealed: Agnes was strangled and then burned to death on 28 January 1591.
James Stuart lived in an age of superstition, and he embraced it fulsomely. James had long held a belief that people were trying to do him harm, quite reasonably given the violent Stuart history; what seems more unusual to us at our distance of four centuries is that he believed that the danger came from supernatural as well as physical sources.
This belief was strengthened when in 1590 he sailed back from Oslo after marrying Anne, daughter of the King of Denmark and Norway.3 A great storm put their life in peril, and a Danish Admiral informed King James that the storm was surely the result of witchcraft, caused by a woman he had insulted in port.4 An investigation in Norway led to two women being burned at the stake, but James was now struck with the fear that home-grown witches were also behind the plot. It was this fear that lay behind the North Berwick witch trials. But there were many similar trials across Scotland. Throughout the sixteenth century, and in the decades on either side, around 4,000 were accused of being witches in Scotland with around 2,500 burned – approximately twice as many as in the much more populous realm of England.5
King James himself not only encouraged these witch hunts and executions, he was the driving force behind them thanks to his 1597 book entitled Daemonologie.6 The book is full of rituals, and essays on the behaviour of witches and how to find them. It also touches on subjects as esoteric as werewolves and vampires. It is rather different to the other tome that famously bears his name, the King James Bible of 1611. Daemonologie is not a book that inspires confidence in the thought processes of a man who would come to rule not one kingdom but two.
As we see from the example of Agnes Sampson, King James sometimes delighted in being present at the inquisition of those who he thought had tried to claim his life – an irresistible opportunity to display his power and sate his sadistic streak. This was something that Guy Fawkes was to discover fifteen years later.
King James’s other great terror was gunpowder and it is easy to explain why it held such a horror for him. James’s childhood saw him placed on the Scottish throne aged just thirteen months, but it was a base tragedy rather than a regal fairytale.7 James Stuart was the son of Mary, known today as Mary Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
Mary was a controversial figure in Scotland, unpopular with many of the nobles and much of the populace. She had acceded to the Scottish throne even earlier than James did, at just six days old, and after her first husband, King Francis II of France, died she married Darnley, who was her cousin.
Darnley was a vain, often drunk, and frequently violent man, and these character faults put a strain upon his marriage to Mary. The Queen turned to her private secretary David Rizzio for solace, and perhaps more. It was widely rumoured that Rizzio was the father of the Queen’s unborn child, and in a fury Darnley stabbed Rizzio to death in front of his pregnant wife on 9 March 1566.8
Not content with being the Queen’s consort, Darnley wanted to take power himself. In doing so he estranged the Scottish nobles further, and it was this that sealed his fate. On 9 February 1567, Darnley was staying at Kirk o’ Field, an Edinburgh church, while he recovered from a disease (probably syphilis9). Unknown to him two barrels of gunpowder had been placed beneath his bed chamber. Darnley survived the initial explosion but was caught by his assassins running from the church, and strangled to death wearing just his night shirt.10
Suspicion fell upon Queen Mary herself and upon the Earl of Bothwell, whom she married shortly afterwards. This led to Mary being confronted on the battlefield at Carberry Hill and forced to abdicate the throne, which in turn necessitated her flight to England, which led eventually to her execution by Queen Elizabeth, like a series of dominoes falling one against another.
Thus it was that James Stuart, son of Mary and Henry Stuart (unless the Rizzio rumours were true), acceded to the Scottish throne as a 1-year-old; he would hold onto it for nearly fifty-eight years. Gaining power at such an early age must have exerted a profound effect on his ego, but he would also have a lifelong fear of assassination, and especially of gunpowder: it was gunpowder and its aftermath that had swept his father and mother away from him while still a baby; although his mother Mary lived until her son
James was 21 they would never see each other after her exile.
James was always born to be King of Scotland, but at the age of 35 he came into possession of a throne he could never have expected: the throne of England.
Queen Elizabeth of England’s refusal to marry may have been based upon the example of what marriage had done to her mother, Anne Boleyn, or she may have taken the decision to ensure that she retained power for herself rather than being subjugated to a man. But as she grew older it created an ever increasing problem of the royal succession, until it became a shadow hanging over the land, seen by all but spoken of by nobody – at least not in public. One parliamentarian, Peter Wentworth, was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1593 simply for raising a petition to discuss Elizabeth’s successor, and he died a captive three years later.
There were a number of possible claimants considered throughout Elizabeth’s reign. Some of these claims were based upon ancient history, including Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon, and later the scourge of York. He had Plantagenet blood, on the Yorkist side that had been defeated by Henry VII.
Mary Queen of Scots was the preferred choice of many Catholics, those remaining in England and those who had fled overseas, but the succession of plots revolving around her led, as we’ve seen, to her beheading. Catholics now found another champion in the form of the Spanish infanta Isabella, later Archduchess Isabella. Isabella’s claim was an ancient one indeed, as she traced her direct lineage back to John of Gaunt, founder of the House of Lancaster and father of King Henry IV.11
Despite the distance of her claim, many Catholics supported Isabella as a way of returning England to its former faith. A tract written by the exiled Jesuit priest Father Robert Persons entitled A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England, Divided into Two Parts, where unto is Added a New & Perfect Arbour or Genealogy promoted Isabella as the perfect and rightful Queen. It was smuggled into England and became as dangerous as dynamite.12
