The Real Guy Fawkes

by Nick Holland

  This report could easily have resulted in the arrest of Catesby and caused the collapse of the plot, but it was too far-fetched to be believed. Turner, in his desire to prove his worth, had fabricated information and added it to the real information he did know, creating a mixture of truths, half-truths and damned lies. It was beyond comprehension that Spanish troops would attack England so shortly after their peace negotiations.

  Sir Thomas Edmondes sent the letter on to Cecil in September 1605, with the caveat that Turner was an untrustworthy man who couldn’t be believed.15 Turner also passed his report onto England’s ambassador in Paris, Sir William Parry, but Parry felt it to be of such little importance that he didn’t forward it until 28 November,16 long after the explosion and uprising would have taken place. Guy had narrowly escaped this time, but the report passed on by Edmondes may have brought his name to the attention of the ever vigilant Cecil.

  Guy said his goodbyes to Owen, Baldwin and Stanley in August 1605, but he fully expected that he would see them again before the year was out. Guy’s role within the plot had been further extended. A ship was to be held in readiness in London. After firing the slow match, Guy would make his way to this boat which would take him to the continent once more. It would then be his job to make contact with the Pope in Rome, presumably through the auspices of the Jesuit superior in the city, Father Persons, and explain why they’d acted as they had. Guy would then rally the English exiles in Rome and Flanders ready to support Catesby and the others if required.17

  Before returning to England, Guy had one more call to make – and it reveals a lot about his thoughts at this time. In August 1605, a matter of months before he intended to light the match that would leave hundreds dead and maimed, he made a pilgrimage to the revered shrine of Our Lady of Montague in Brabant, southern Belgium.18

  The shrine was centred upon a reputedly holy tree, on the site of which now stands the Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel. Legend had it that the oak tree contained a statue of the Virgin Mary in its branches. One day a passing shepherd noticed that the statue had fallen from the branches, but clutching the statue he found himself unable to move. Once the Madonna had been taken from him and returned to the branches, the shepherd regained his mobility. The story had become widespread by the start of the seventeenth century, and Guy would have followed the pilgrim’s tradition of walking three times round the tree while praying for what he most wanted. Guy’s thrice-said prayers to Mary, his Queen of peace, were for the plot to proceed smoothly, and for the King, his heir, his lords and bishops, to be killed and wiped from the face of the earth. To Guy Fawkes there was no contradiction in a prayer for destruction.

  Guy’s clear conscience about taking life on a grand scale was shared by Robert Catesby, but he knew that others may be more troubled by the prospect, and so while Guy was in continental Europe, Catesby was busily trying to obtain the backing of the church, and specifically from the head of England’s Jesuits, Father Henry Garnet.

  Father Garnet and Robert Catesby were well known to each other; Catesby had provided the priest with shelter under his own roof on many occasions. Catesby reasoned that if he had Garnet’s approval of his plot, he could use this to allay the fears and misgivings that anyone else recruited to the plot may have. He also knew, however, that Father Garnet was unusually peace loving and conciliatory for a Jesuit priest, so he would have to be approached carefully.

  A meeting was arranged between the two men on 8 June 1605, probably in a room within an inn. After copious amounts of wine, Catesby dropped a question into the conversation: whether the church thought it was lawful to kill an innocent man, or men, for the greater good?19 Catesby produced an example based upon the wars in Flanders, one that he had probably heard from Guy: sometimes in a siege the Protestant forces would put Catholic prisoners along the ramparts to prevent them being fired upon by those who shared their faith. To fire upon the ramparts would cost innocent lives, but to fail to do so would prevent the success of the siege, and prevent the final good from being achieved. Father Garnet was immediately worried by this line of questioning, but responded with what he understood church doctrine to be: the principle of double-effect.20 That it is only legitimate to do bad when it is essential for the achievement of a proportionate good, when the bad effect has not been wished for or sought after, and when the two events happen simultaneously and unavoidably. Catesby smiled and said he would speak to him again on this subject in greater length.

  Throughout the summer Catesby travelled across the country telling people that he was to be made a colonel in the Spanish army, and recruiting people to fight alongside him. The recent peace treaty with Spain made this an entirely legal thing to do, and Catesby even talked to Sir Robert Cecil personally on this matter to gain the King’s permission and to obtain a passport.21 There is no record of such a passport being issued to Catesby at this time, as there is to others including Lord Vaux and Francis Tresham, but interestingly the book that records these issues, the Docquet Book of the Signet Office, is missing two pages that have been ripped from it. We can conclude that these pages were expunged from the records after the gunpowder plot’s discovery to cover up the fact that Cecil had indeed given Catesby a passport.22

  Garnet knew Catesby too well, far better than Robert Cecil or any of the gentry that had agreed to join his regiment when it formed; he was deeply troubled by Catesby’s line of questioning, and understood immediately that there was an underlying motive unrelated to talk of Flanders. At future meetings, Catesby would ask Garnet to hear his confession, but guessing something of its content and realising the danger it would put him in Father Garnet refused.

  Father Garnet was bound by the seal of the confessional. He had gathered that Catesby had a plan that would risk innocent lives, but if he heard his confession he too could be held complicit, and his sacred code would not allow him to inform the authorities. Garnet took to trying to put Catesby off his plans, whatever they were, by referring repeatedly to the Pope’s instruction to England’s Catholics to seek peaceful remedies, and to leave their fate in the hands of God.

  Father Tesimond recalls one such occasion that summer, when many Jesuit priests and lay people were gathered around a table. Father Garnet repeated his familiar sermon of patience and forbearing, and reminded them of the injunction they had received from the Holy Father. Catesby was furious, and stood up to address those present:

  Mr Catesby said, as if speaking for the others, that some were not lacking who had grown tired of putting up with ill fortune and did not give willing ear to that teaching. They were asking if there was any authority on earth that could take away from them the right given by nature to defend their own lives from the violence of others. They were saying openly that the doctrine took away from Catholics spirit and energy, leaving them flaccid and poor-spirited. It put them in a worse position than slaves. Indeed, for that very reason they were called by their enemies out of contempt, ‘God’s lunatics’.23

  Former friends, Catesby and Father Garnet now tried to avoid each other’s company whenever possible, but Father Tesimond, who as Catesby’s confessor already knew about the plot, engineered further meetings. Tesimond also asked his superior to hear his own confession, but mindful of what it would contain Father Garnet again refused, saying that he could not allow Father Tesimond to break the confessional seal.24

  The decisive moment came on 24 July at White Webbs, the home of Anne Vaux. Garnet once more refused to hear Catesby’s secret but said that whatever plan he had, he should seek papal permission before proceeding. Catesby agreed on condition that Garnet sent a letter along with his, and that his choice of envoy should carry them to Rome. The envoy chosen was Sir Edward Baynham, a Catholic of good pedigree who was renowned as a drunken brawler and had spent time in prison for it.25 He was also a firm friend of Catesby, who secretly told him not to travel to Rome at all, knowing that the Pope would refuse to approve his plan, but to instead wait in France for news from England, and then
return.26

  The die was now cast for Father Garnet, and he knew it. Whatever plan Catesby had, and he had surely guessed the target of it, there was now evidence linking his name to it. Catesby would happily tell his conspirators and potential recruits that he had sought permission from the Jesuits and they had not ruled against his plan. Garnet, however, tried to distance himself from the plot, literally.

  On 28 August, Father Garnet set out from White Webbs in Enfield with a large contingent: his destination was St. Winifred’s shrine at Holywell in North Wales. Around thirty people took part in the pilgrimage, including Anne Vaux and her sister Eleanor, Fathers John Gerard, Oswald Tesimond, and Edward Oldcorne, and Sir Everard Digby and his wife Mary.27

  They walked over 200 miles, with the last section undertaken barefooted. As Catholics they were used to practising in secret, but were now professing their faith openly in public. It was a bold and reckless act, it was a provocative act, but that was exactly what Father Garnet intended.

  Garnet was a highly intelligent man, and understood perfectly how perilous his situation was. He reasoned that this public pilgrimage would give the authorities no option but to arrest him, and that this meant he would be in prison whenever Catesby’s plot was enacted, giving him an alibi of sorts. Unfortunately for Father Garnet he was not arrested and, amazingly, the pilgrimage was completed peacefully and unmolested. Garnet was right to have been worried, for in the aftermath of the plot he and Father Oldcorne were arrested, charged with complicity (which was far from the truth), and then hung, drawn and quartered.28

  Guy Fawkes arrived back in England in September 1605, and found that, for tactical and financial reasons, Robert Catesby had inducted two more into their brethren: Ambrose Rookwood and, fresh from his pilgrimage to Holywell, Sir Everard Digby. He was also to recruit one further man to bring the total members of the plot’s inner circle to thirteen: Francis Tresham. Tresham was an old friend of Catesby, and a much-loved cousin, but his admission to their circle would have caused consternation among some of the conspirators. Their concerns would be proved correct.

  Chapter 18

  A Terrible Blow

  Though those that are betray’d

  Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor

  Stands in worse case of woe

  William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

  It had been obvious to the conspirators for some time that extra recruits would be needed if their plot was to succeed in both London and the Midlands, and from there spread over the country as a whole. One pressing concern was the need to raise extra finances, as Robert Catesby himself had been bearing the bulk of this burden and was now finding it a severe strain.

  The costs already incurred included the buying of gunpowder and arms, the renting of several houses across London and beyond, and the ship that was now in constant readiness for use by Guy Fawkes after he had lit the slow fuse leading to the gunpowder barrels.1 Thomas Percy had initially said he would supplement Catesby’s funds by giving him the cream from the rent he was collecting for the Earl of Northumberland, a practice he was well used to, but if he did do this it didn’t make as significant a contribution as hoped for. At a meeting in Bath, a rump of the conspirators gave Catesby permission to recruit whomsoever he thought best.2

  This presented the opportunity to gain new sources of funds, but it also presented more dangers: it would only take one misplaced word or one untrustworthy recruit to send them all to the gallows. There were no such worries about Catesby’s first recruit in the autumn of 1605. Ambrose Rookwood was in his mid-twenties, making him younger than his fellow conspirators, but he was also full of youthful confidence and enthusiasm.

  Rookwood was born into a wealthy Catholic family, and both his education at the Saint-Omer seminary and the fines and imprisonment of family members fired his zeal for Catholic action against the Protestant ruling elite. His wife, Elizabeth, was a cousin of Robert Keyes, creating yet another family connection within the conspiracy, and more importantly for his recruitment he was not only rich in his own right, he was also a breeder of horses. Under the instructions of Catesby, who had known him since he was a child, he rented Clopton Hall near Stratford-upon-Avon and stabled a string of horses there ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice.3

  Once again, Rookwood would leave a young family to mourn him, so he was sure that the plot would succeed, or perhaps beguiled by the charismatic Catesby:

  He left behind him at his death a wife who was beautiful and of gentle birth, together with two or three small children, and with them everything else he had on this earth. He preferred the companionship of this most wretched and foolhardy plot. In my opinion, one can tell from this how deep was the conviction which they cherished that the business would succeed.4

  The hold that Catesby had over his fellow plotters was so strong that, as we shall see, most didn’t flinch or flee in the face of terrible danger – even though that danger would fall not only upon themselves but upon all who they loved and held dear. Catesby had become a messianic figure to them, taking on the commands of Jesus who told his disciples that ‘anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me’.5

  Horses would be essential for the success of the plot and the uprising to follow, and it was imperative to have them strategically positioned around the country. Rookwood’s stable would supplement the horses that earlier recruit John Grant had in place at Warwick Castle,6 a choice of location that would prove a fatal mistake.

  Although Rookwood was among the last three people to be formally inducted into the plot, it seems that he had provided financial assistance half a year earlier, probably under the illusion that he was helping Catesby’s plans for a new regiment in Flanders. In his confession of 30 November 1605, Robert Keyes stated that ‘Ambrose Rookwood about half a year since bought four barrels of powder and he and Christopher Wright brought them to Lambeth and took them to this examinate’s [Keyes’s] lodging, whereafter they were conveyed into the cellar’.7

  Next to be recruited into the conspiracy was Sir Everard Digby. He, like Ambrose Rookwood, was younger than the other members of the plot, and his Catholic credentials were unquestionable. Although he had been raised as a Protestant, despite being born to Catholic parents, he had converted to Catholicism under the auspices of Father Gerard and was noted for his piety, as shown by his place on the Holywell pilgrimage alongside his cousins Anne Vaux and Eleanor Brooksby.8 He and his wife Mary now lived at Gayhurst House in Buckinghamshire, complete with priest holes designed by Nicholas Owen, where they housed their own priest and confessor, and former schoolmate of the Wrights and Guy Fawkes, the Jesuit Father Edward Oldcorne.9

  There was one reason above all others that Sir Everard was recruited to the plot: he was wealthy. After hearing the plot’s details, he promised Catesby that he would supply him with £1,500. Digby was also told to rent Coughton Court near Alcester in Warwickshire for a month,10 and also to be prepared to rent it for longer if necessary, and was then given the vital task of bringing the Catholic gentry together for a hunt at the time that the explosion would be taking place in London. Digby was known for organising hunts, and so no difficulty was seen in him being able to attract a large number of followers who would, at first, have no idea that they were actually being recruited for a Catholic uprising across the Midlands.

  Digby’s role as head of the hunt, as head of the uprising that would capture the King’s daughter Elizabeth, was a particularly dangerous one, but Digby had the courage and strength to succeed in it. He was another imposing figure who could strike fear into men or inspire them to follow him, as we can see from this description of him by Father Tesimond:

  He [Sir Everard Digby] was some six feet tall. Although this was less than Mr Catesby’s height, he was rather more strongly built, and somewhat more vigorous. I do not think that in the whole
of England there were two gentlemen who were their equals.11

  Like the other members of the plot, Digby had to take the oath of secrecy, but it was telling of his reputation for honesty and trustworthiness, and possibly of his elevated social position compared to the others, that he was not asked to seal the vow with the sacrament of the Eucharist, as the others had been – thereby condemning their souls to damnation if they broke their promise. In Digby’s case Catesby instead presented him with a dagger and asked him to swear an oath of secrecy upon it:12 the message was clear, if Digby or anyone broke the oath they would pay with their life.

  The days, weeks and months leading to the planned execution of the plot must have been torturous for those involved, especially when the official opening of Parliament was prorogued once more because of further worries about the plague. Such were the fears about this outbreak that on October 5 London’s theatres were closed to the public.13 The opening of Parliament was moved from October to 5 November 1605, and the official notice of this delay was read at Parliament on 28 July.14 Present at the reading of this decree were the Lord Chancellor, members of the Privy Council and some lords. Also present, as a very interested bystander, was Thomas Wintour.15 He was pleased with what he saw, reasoning that if there was any knowledge of the gunpowder stored under the chamber at the time then this gathering of England’s leaders would not have taken place. Even so, the delay was not a welcome one, and even outwardly calm men such as Guy Fawkes must have been feeling tense and nervous, if a little excited, inside.

  Around the time of Parliament’s prorogation, Guy decided to make a further check on the cellar and the gunpowder within it. He had placed certain indicators, invisible to others, that would show whether anyone had entered the chamber, but was relieved to find that no-one had been inside during his months spent overseas.