Wintour, Thomas (Tom): background and qualities, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3; mission to Spain, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9; Tassis meets in England, ref 10; and promised Spanish subsidy, ref 11; affection for Catesby, ref 12; in Gunpowder Plot, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15 ref 16; meets Fawkes, ref 17; in Essex rising, ref 18, ref 19; and Northumberland’s role, ref 20; invasion plans, ref 21; and Francis Tresham, ref 22, ref 23; discovers decayed gunpowder, ref 24; Francis Tresham gives money to, ref 25; suspects Francis Tresham of treachery, ref 26; attempts to call off Plot, ref 27; confers with Catesby and Percy, ref 28; and Prince Charles, ref 29; and discovery of Plot, ref 30 flees London, ref 31, ref 32, ref 33; as suspect, ref 34, ref 35; seeks support from Talbot, ref 36; shot and captured at Holbeach, ref 37, ref 38; in Tower, ref 39; confession, ref 40, ref 41, ref 42; trial, ref 43, ref 44, ref 45; executed, ref 46 Anne Vaux reveals movements, ref 47; named at Garnet’s trial, ref 48
Wisbech Castle, Lincolnshire, ref 1
Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Stenhen_ ref 1
Wiseman, Dorothy see Lawson, Dorothy
Wiseman, Mrs (of Braddocks), ref 1
Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, ref 1
women: protect Catholic priests, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6; observing Catholics, ref 7, ref 8; legal status, ref 9; knowledge of Gunpowder Plot, ref 10, ref 11; fear of recusant fines for, ref 12, ref 13; witness executions, ref 14; heroism, ref 15
Wood, Anthony à, ref 1
Worcester, Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4
Wright, Christopher (Kit): qualities, ref 1; schooling, ref 2; joins Gunpowder Plot, ref 3; Catesby joins at White Webbs, ref 4; flees on discovery of Plot, ref 5; as suspect, ref 6, ref 7; on run, ref 8; shot and killed at Holbeach, ref 9, ref 10n named at trial of Plotters, ref 11
Wright, Dorothy (Jack’s wife), ref 1
Wright, John (Jack): qualities, ref 1, ref 2; in Essex rising, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5; schooling, ref 6; in Gunpowder Plot, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9; and Thomas Percy, ref 10, ref 11; at Twigmoor, ref 12; Catesby joins at White Webbs, ref 13; as suspect, ref 14, ref 15; on run, ref 16; shot and killed at Holbeach, ref 17, ref 18 named at trial of Plotters, ref 19
Wright, Margaret (née Ward), ref 1, ref 2
Wright, Father William, ref 1
York, ref 1
Zuñiga, Don Baltasar de, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Illustrations
Elizabeth I with Time and Death: towards the end of her life, Queen Elizabeth fell into a profound melancholy, underlined by the deaths of her old friends.
James I by an unknown artist: King James was thirty-six when he ascended to the English throne. The English found him at first encounter to be affable and ‘of noble presence’.
Accession medal of James I, as emperor of the whole island of Britain: the King (unlike the English courtiers) was enthusiastic about the concept of ‘Britons’.
Anne of Denmark by Marcus Gheerhaerts the Younger, c. 1605–10: there had not been a Queen Consort in England since the days of Henry VIII. The King’s gracious wife was welcomed by the crowds.
Henry Prince of Wales and Sir John Harington by Robert Peake, 1603: the handsome young heir to the throne won golden opinions, a Royal Family being a new phenomenon in England.
Charles Duke of York (the future Charles I) as a child by Robert Peake: unlike his athletic elder brother, Charles was physically frail and only learned to walk at the age of four.
The monuments in Westminster Abbey to two daughters of James I, Mary and Sophia, who died young: Princess Mary, who was born in England in 1605, was considered by some to have a better claim to the throne than her elder siblings born in Scotland.
Arbella Stuart by an unknown artist, 1589: the first cousin of King James, with both Tudor and Stuart blood, but brought up in England, Arbella was a possible contender for the throne.
Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia by Franz Pourbus the Younger, c. 1599: some Catholics hoped that this Habsburg descendant of John of Gaunt – co-Regent, with her husband, in the Spanish Netherlands – would be backed by military force to succeed to the English throne.
Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth of Bohemia) by Robert Peake: the charm and dignity of this nine-year-old girl, who held a little court in the midlands, encouraged the conspirators to think she might make a suitable puppet Queen.
This engraving shows eight of the thirteen conspirators: missing are Digby, Keyes, Rookwood and Tresham.
Both Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare had connections to Catholics on the periphery of the Gunpowder Plot; Macbeth contains allusions to the fate of the ‘equivocating’ Jesuit, Henry Garnet.
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, by Van Dyck: although Northumberland’s actual involvement in the plot remains controversial, he was fined heavily and sentenced to prolonged imprisonment as a result.
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, attributed to John de Critz: equipped with a prodigious intellect, and a capacity for hard work, Salisbury was short and physically twisted at a time when the outer man was often thought to be a key to his inner nature.
Sir Everard Digby: the darling of the court for his handsome looks and sweetness of character, Digby’s fate caused universal consternation even among those who condemned him.
Two contrasted signatures by Thomas Wintour: one indubitably his, in the habitual form in which he signed his name; the other, using a different spelling, on his so-called ‘Confession’, possibly forged by the government.
Thomas Habington of Hindlip and his wife Mary; she was the sister of Lord Monteagle and local tradition has named her as the author of the anonymous Monteagle letter.
Vestment embroidered by Helena Wintour, daughter of Robert and Gertrude, and presented by her to the Jesuits (the legend Ora pro me Helena Wintour can be seen at the bottom); it is still at the Jesuit college, Stonyhurst.
The Browne Brothers by Isaac Oliver: members of a leading recusant family, including Anthony, 2nd Lord Montague who for a short period employed Guy Fawkes as a footman.
Life in a recusant household, illustrated by a scene from the childhood of Mary Ward, founder of the educational religious order, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was a niece of the conspirators, Jack and Kit Wright; on the left can be seen Margaret Garnet, sister of Father Henry Garnet, who became a nun.
Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire; seat of Sir Thomas Tresham, the great Catholic patriarch and builder who was the father of the conspirator Francis Tresham.
Hindlip House in Worcestershire: a celebrated Catholic safe house, with over a dozen hiding-places for priests, where Father Garnet was captured; it was burnt down in the early nineteenth century.
Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, rented by Anne Vaux as a refuge for priests; Nicholas Owen, known as ‘Little John’, constructed hiding-places here, using the moat, the levels of a sewer and secret turret trapdoors.
Coughton Court, Warwickshire, home of the leading recusant family of Throckmorton, which was rented by Sir Everard Digby, at the time of the Gunpowder Plot, allegedly for hunting.
Huddington Court, Worcestershire; home of Robert and Gertrude Wintour, it contains hiding-places probably constructed by Nicholas Owen.
Map of Westminster, showing Parliament and the old House of Lords, beneath which gunpowder and firewood were stored.
Tower of London, c. 1615 by Van Meer; it was both a royal residence and a prison. Guy Fawkes, together with other conspirators and priests, was held and tortured here.
Ashby St Ledgers, Northamptonshire, owned by Lady Catesby, mother of Robert: it is said that the conspirators used this gate-house to plot their treason.
Although the old Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834, this drawing by William Capon of 1799 gives an impression of how the cellar beneath the House of Lords must have been in 1605.
An Interpretation of Guy Fawkes entering Parliament.
Europe took a keen interest in the Gunpowder Plot: a contemporary Dutch print.
> Woodcut showing the delivery of the Monteagle letter to Salisbury, from Vicar’s Mischeefes Mystery, 1617.
The anonymous letter delivered to Lord Monteagle on 26 October 1605; the authorship of – and motive behind – this notorious document, described later as ‘dark and doubtful’, now in the Public Record Office, have never been conclusively established.
Garnet’s straw: this ‘miraculous’ image, an object of reverence to Catholics was found on a straw spotted with Father Garnet’s blood at his death; the straw, whose existence caused great annoyance to the English authorities, was smuggled abroad but vanished at the time of the French Revolution.
Father Henry Garnet SJ, by Jan Wiericx.
St Winifred’s Well, Holywell, Clwyd; Father Garnet led an expedition to this ancient site of pilgrimage (still in existence today) in the late summer of 1605; his companions included Anne and Eliza Vaux, Father Gerard and Sir Everard and Lady Digby Afterwards the government pretended the pilgrimage had been a cover for conspiracy.
Father Garnet’s last letter to his faithful protectress Anne Vaux, written from the Tower of London on 21 April 1606, twelve days before his execution; it ends ‘yours in eternum, as I hope, H G’. He appended a rough drawing and the letters ‘I H S’ for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The entry in the Commons’ Journal for 5 November 1605 (which now hangs in the Noes voting lobby of the House of Commons); it records, in the margin: ‘This last Night the Upper House of Parliament was searched by Sir Thomas Knevett; and one Johnson, Servant to Mr Thomas Percy was there apprehended; who had placed 36 Barrels of Gunpowder in the Vault under the House with a Purpose to blow the King, and the whole company, when they should there assemble. Afterwards divers other Gentle[men] were discovered to be of the Plot.’
Sir Edward Coke, who, as Attorney-General, led the prosecution at the trials of the conspirators and Father Garnet.
Letter of King James authorising the torture of Guy Fawkes which ends: ‘the gentler Tortures are to be first used unto him et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur – and so by degrees proceeding to the worst – and so God speed your good work. James R.’
Instruments of torture at the time of the Gunpowder Plot: manacles and the rack.
A late eighteenth-century print of the execution of the conspirators.
Guido Fawkes’ signatures before and after torture.
Embroidered cushion depicting the defeat of the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, c. 1621.
Engraving of Father Garnet on the scaffold by C. Screta.
The Powder Plot, taken from an anti-Catholic booklet, ‘A Thankful Remembrance of God’s Mercie’ by George Carleton, 1630.
Victorian impression of Guy Fawkes being taken to the scaffold.
Etching of Guy Fawkes laying his sinister trail, 1841; although Catesby was the leader of the band, Guy Fawkes has received the popular odium down the centuries.
The Papists’ Powder Treason: an allegorical engraving done for 5 November 1612 ‘in aeternal memory of the divine bounty in England’s preservation from the Hellish Powder Plot’.
A monument to the Plot’s discovery erected in the council chamber in the house of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London, 1608 by Sir William Waad (still there today).
The search of the cellars of the House of Lords which still takes place on the eve of the Opening of Parliament by members of the Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard; the traditional uniforms and lamps of the searchers contrast with the modern heating pipes above their heads.
Bonfire Night, 1994, in Lewes, Sussex, where celebrations, for better or for worse, continue to flourish.
About the Author
Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works, including the biographies Mary, Queen of Scots (a 40th anniversary edition was published in May 2009), Cromwell: Our Chief of Men, King Charles II and The Gunpowder Plot (CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger; St Louis Literary Award). She has written five highly praised books which focus on women in history, The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England (Wolfson Award for History, 1984), The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (Franco-British Literary Prize 2001), which was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006 and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King. She was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. Antonia Fraser was made DBE in 2011 for her services to literature. She lives in London.
By Antonia Fraser
Mary Queen of Scots
Cromwell: Our Chief of Men
James VI of Scotland, 1 of England
(Kings and Queens series)
King Charles II
The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England
The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter
A Phoenix ebook
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
This ebook first published in 2010 by Phoenix
Copyright © Antonia Fraser 1996
The moral right of Antonia Fraser to be identifed as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eISBN: 978 0 2978 5793 8
This ebook produced by Jouve, France
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Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
Title
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Family Trees
Map of the conspirators in the Midlands
Author’s Note
PROLOGUE : Bountiful Beginnings
PART ONE : Before the Fruit Was Ripe
1 Whose Head for the Crown?
2 The Honest Papists
3 Diversity of Opinions
PART TWO : The Horse of St George
4 A King and his Cubs
5 Spanish Charity
6 Catesby as Phaeton
PART THREE : That Furious and Fiery Course
7 So Sharp a Remedy
8 Pernicious Gunpowder
9 There Is a Risk…
10 Dark and Doubtful Letter
PART FOUR : Discovery – By God or the Devil
11 Mr Fawkes Is Taken
12 The Gentler Tortures
13 Fire and Brimstone
14 These Wretches
PART FIVE : The Shadow of Death
15 The Heart of a Traitor
16 The Jesuits’ Treason
17 Farewells
18 Satan’s Policy?
Notes
Reference Books
Index
Illustrations
About the Author
By Antonia Fraser
Copyright
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
Title
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Family Trees
Map of the conspirators in the Midlands
Author’s Note
PROLOGUE : Bountiful Beginnings
P
ART ONE : Before the Fruit Was Ripe
1 Whose Head for the Crown?
2 The Honest Papists
3 Diversity of Opinions
PART TWO : The Horse of St George
4 A King and his Cubs
5 Spanish Charity
6 Catesby as Phaeton
PART THREE : That Furious and Fiery Course
7 So Sharp a Remedy
8 Pernicious Gunpowder
The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605 Page 48
