by Tracy Borman
Longford Castle plays an important part in the novel, and is greatly beloved of its heroine, Frances. I am deeply indebted to William Pleydell-Bouverie, 9th Earl of Radnor, whose family has lived in the castle for three centuries, for allowing me to visit and for providing such an enlightening tour of his beautiful home. I am also very grateful to Alexandra Ormerod and Jane Pleydell-Bouverie for helping to arrange the visit.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my friend Stephen Kuhrt, who read each chapter as soon as it was written, and sustained me throughout with his unstinting encouragement. It is thanks to Stephen’s enthusiastic responses (usually received before I had even arrived home from the British Library) that my confidence in the story and characters increased as the novel took shape. My botanist friend Honor Gay supplied me with invaluable advice on the medicinal herbs and plants that would have been used in the early seventeenth century. I was also fortunate to draw upon the expertise of Mark Wallis and Kathy Hipperson of Past Pleasures Ltd with regard to ladies’ riding styles and side saddles.
My final thanks go to the family and friends who have, yet again, lent their support. I am particularly grateful to my parents, my daughter Eleanor and my husband Tom for their practical help, encouragement and, at times, forbearance. Thank you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although little is known of her life, Frances Gorges really existed. She was the third of eight children born to Elizabeth I’s favoured attendant, Helena Snakenborg and her second husband, Thomas Gorges. The fact that precious few details about Frances survive in the contemporary sources makes her an ideal heroine for a novel. I have stayed true to those details, but have drawn upon my own imagination to fill the long gaps in between.
Frances’s home, Longford Castle, still survives today and is one of the finest examples of the Elizabethan prodigy houses. Built in an unusual triangular formation, which was often a device to express an owner’s Catholic faith, it was the inspiration for Philip Sidney’s ‘Castle of Amphialeus’ in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.
The historical context for Frances’s story is also largely accurate, and I have drawn upon contemporary sources and quotes for the narrative. The early years of James I’s reign were a dangerous time to be alive. The new Stuart king was cut from a very different cloth to his predecessor. Intolerant and dogmatic, he had no intention of upholding Elizabeth’s policy of not ‘making windows into men’s souls’. It was soon obvious that he was going to stamp his extreme brand of Protestantism onto the English people, which spelt danger for any subject who still clung to the old Catholic faith.
The new king also brought with him the violent persecution of suspected witches that had seen thousands of innocent women put to the flames in Scotland. A woman had only to be unmarried, poor, or be practised at healing to be under suspicion, and an accusation alone was enough to bring her to trial. The horrors that thousands of women underwent in order to determine their guilt before they even reached the courts are not exaggerated in this book. They included the notorious practise of ‘witch-pricking’, whereby a blade would be thrust into every mark on the body of the accused. When one was found that did not bleed, it was declared to be the Devil’s Mark. Other tortures included sleep deprivation and the notorious ‘test by water’, whereby a suspect’s hands and arms would be bound together and they would be thrown into a body of deep water. If they rose to the top, they were guilty; if they sank, they were innocent and hauled out – although often not in time.
For all James’s staunch Protestantism, with its emphasis upon virtue and restraint, the court over which he presided was shockingly decadent. In place of the cultural vibrancy and strict morality that had defined the Elizabethan court was drunkenness, depravity and excess in every form. Little wonder that James’s new subjects soon harked back to the ‘Golden Age’ of Elizabeth and began nurturing a dangerous resentment against their new king.
James’s consort, Anne of Denmark, is a fascinating character. She was just fourteen when she married James, then king of Scots, in 1589. She gave birth to Prince Henry, the vital son and heir, four years later, and went on to bear another six children, including the future Charles I. But despite their numerous offspring, Anne’s marriage to James was in other respects a sham. Her husband made little secret of his homosexuality and flaunted a succession of handsome young favourites at court.
Anne bore the humiliation with admirable fortitude. But beneath her calm, somewhat aloof exterior, lay a woman who bitterly resented her husband’s behaviour and beliefs. Although she had been raised a Protestant, it was rumoured that she had secretly converted to the Catholic faith. Pope Clement VIII sent her a rosary as a token of his esteem.
Whether Anne’s Catholic sympathies drove her to support the Gunpowder Plot will probably never be known for certain. The plotters themselves hinted that some great person was behind their schemes. Historians have long since debated who this might have been. One theory is that it was Robert Cecil himself. The wily minister may have realised that the plot would be so abhorrent to most Englishmen that there would be a devastating backlash against the Catholics as a result. But Anne, too, had a strong motive for supporting the plot, viewing it as a means to rid herself of her husband and re-establish the Catholic faith in England.
I have stayed as close as possible to the known facts about the plot and those involved, with one exception. There is no record that the plotters ever met Princess Elizabeth, although they certainly intended to make her queen and their strong court connections make it at least possible that their paths might have crossed.
Thomas Wintour (or Winter) and his brother Robert were the sons of a Worcestershire gentlemen and cousins to the plot’s leader, Robert Catesby. Thomas was a well educated and intelligent man, who could speak several languages and was trained as a lawyer. He served for a time in the English army, and fought in the Low Countries and France. He converted to Catholicism in 1600 and became a fervent advocate for that faith, working tirelessly to secure Spanish support for an invasion on behalf of England’s Catholics. When his pleas fell upon deaf ears, he threw in his lot with Catesby and they began plotting the murder of James and his entire government.
As I have related in the novel, Sir Everard Digby’s role in the plot was to kidnap the princess. Catesby ordered him to rent Coughton Court, which was within easy access of where Elizabeth was staying at Coombe Abbey, so that he could be ready to seize her when he received the signal. There is no evidence that Digby was a double agent, but it is likely that one of the plotters turned informant.
Shortly before Parliament was due to meet, Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter warning him not to attend. He showed it to Cecil, who alerted the king. It took little to ignite James’s paranoia, and he immediately ordered a search of Westminster. His officials uncovered the plot just a few short hours from it being put into action.
When Guy Fawkes was arrested and a huge quantity of gunpowder was discovered in a cellar beneath the House of Lords, most of his fellow plotters fled from the capital. But Thomas Wintour held his nerve and went to Westminster to try to find out what had happened. Only when he learned that the King now knew all about the plot and those involved did he too flee north. He joined Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood and John and Christopher Wright at Holbeach House in Staffordshire for a last, desperate stand against the sheriff’s men. Thomas was first to be shot, in the shoulder, followed by the Wright brothers and Rookwood. Catesby and Percy were killed by the same bullet.
Along with the other surviving plotters, Thomas was taken to the Tower of London, where he signed his confession on 23 November 1605. Much of what is written about the Gunpowder Plot derives from this document, although there is reason to believe that it was forgery drafted by the King’s officials.
The plotters were tried and condemned on 27 January in Westminster Hall, and they met their grisly deaths a few days later. Thomas was the first to mount the scaffold in the Old Palace Yard at Westmins
ter on 31 January. Eyewitnesses observed that he was ‘a very pale and dead colour’. When invited to say a few last words, he retorted that it was ‘no time to discourse: he was come to die.’ He did, though, ask his fellow Catholics to pray for him and declared his undying allegiance to the faith.
