Ancient & Medieval Traitors
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Later that year he was given the opportunity to prove himself again to the queen, as he was put in charge of an important expedition to encourage the French king Henry IV to reject the efforts of the Catholic league. Early the next year he was able to offer assistance to the Protestant king, acting to forge a strong relationship between England and France. In 1596 the Earl of Essex reached the peak of his military career when he assisted with the command of an expedition that captured Cadiz from the Spanish. He was greeted in England as a national hero and at this point in his life was most revered by the Queen of England.
THE REBELLION IN IRELAND
As recognition for his impressive victory in Cadiz, Devereux was able to appoint himself as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1599. He had clearly proved his merits in battle and the queen was eager to send him to Ireland in the hope of a similar level of success. However, he was not prepared for the fact that this would actually lead to his eventual downfall. Elizabeth’s aim was to use the Earl of Essex to suppress a rebellion led by the Earl of Tyrone. He was backed very well in terms of the military force behind him; 17,000 troops were sent with him. Clearly Queen Elizabeth I viewed the situation in Ireland as being a great threat and she did not expect Robert Devereux to think otherwise.
Unfortunately for this earl, the campaign seemed doomed from the start. Shortly after the departure of his forces, many were overcome by disease and subsequently perished. This meant that Devereux was forced to lead a somewhat less impressive army to Ireland. It was as if he had lost his mind when he directed his party via a tortuous route through Munster which allowed his opposition, the Earl of Tyrone, to greet him face on as he headed northwards. Understandably this put him in a compromising position, but what he did next ensured that he was never to regain the queen’s favour. The Earl of Essex entered into a foolish truce with the Earl of Tyrone, not only against the wishes of the queen but also in her own name. Word of this imprudence quickly spread to England and he was summoned by the queen immediately.
She forced him to explain his conduct instantly and he was deprived of all his offices and placed under house arrest. This came as a great blow to the man who had once been one of Elizabeth’s greatest friends and he fought for the next year to regain her favour. In 1600 the Earl of Essex felt that he had taken just as much as he could from his old friend. After the queen had refused to renew the lease and patent on his farm wines, he decided to make his own bid for power.
A COUP AGAINST THE QUEEN
In 1601 Devereux rallied various supporters of his scheme, mainly dissatisfied nobles and soldiers but also the more influential support of James VI of Scotland, who he proposed to be placed upon the throne of England. The group marched into London with the expectation of being greeted by followers of their cause but because no such support was realised, the rebellion collapsed and they were tried for treason. He was sentenced to death later that year and it was with regret that Queen Elizabeth signed his death warrant.
Although the Earl of Essex had been a close friend of the queen for much of her later life, he had also revealed himself to be an impulsive and fiery person and, as a consequence, made some bad decisions which led to his downfall. The queen was forced to take serious action against all those who betrayed her, and the blow fell hardest when she was forced to put her own friends to death. However, Devereux had betrayed her and should have known not to offend the monarch, having been witness to her behaviour for many years.
Guy Fawkes and Associates
Guy Fawkes was born in 1570, the only son of Edward Fawkes of York and his wife, Edith Blake. His background was very religious because his father was a proctor of the ecclesiastical courts. His mother’s side had descended from the Harrington family who were aldermen and eminent merchants of York. Fawkes was secure in his connections and had his youth filled with many influential figures. As a young man Fawkes began to develop a very strong religious conviction under the tutelage of John Pulleyn, a devout Catholic whose teachings had a lasting effect upon his young pupil. What also emerged throughout this time was that Fawkes had become an increasingly impulsive and difficult person to be around, and he began to have disagreements with contemporaries, even from his youth. He did not feel a strong allegiance to his country and continuously sought opportunities overseas. After he had come of age in 1591 he hastily sought out chances to spend his generous inheritance and with his cousin he moved to Flanders in 1593. As a devout Catholic, Fawkes was angry that he was not able to worship freely in England under the rule of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, and he sought opportunities abroad to bring the English government to its knees.
FAWKES IN THE SPANISH ARMY
After a short period of time in Flanders, Fawkes quickly enrolled in the Spanish army under Archduke Albert of Austria, who later became governor of the Netherlands. Guy Fawkes was greatly respected within the Spanish army and proved himself to be both a great fighter and a powerful leader when he was offered a post of command when the Spaniards took Calais in 1596. He also attracted considerable attention with his own appearance; a commanding man with a great frame and flaming red hair, he was marked out from the rest of the Spanish army simply by the way he looked. His dedication to the army was noted primarily through his popularity amongst the other soldiers, as he promptly shifted his allegiance to the Spanish, and more importantly Catholic, side.
Such was Fawkes’s dedication that he attracted the attention of some very important backers, Lord Stanley being one of the most prominent. Stanley allowed Fawkes a brief leave from the Spanish army in order to visit the Spanish King Philip II in person, and reveal to him the position of the Catholics in England. King Philip was concerned about the prevalence of Protestantism in England at this time as all evidence of Catholicism had been removed from the country. After a failed attempt to invade England upon the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth, Fawkes was met by the constable of Castile who was on his way to England to discuss a treaty between England and Spain. Peace was temporarily established between the two countries and Guy returned to England.
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT
Following the accession of King James I Scotland, another Protestant, the anger of the Catholics increased. In 1604 Fawkes met with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Thomas Wintour at the Strand, where they all agreed under oath to participate in the gunpowder plot. This oath taking took on a religious side as the men renewed their Catholic vows by performing mass and allowing the re-administration of sacraments performed by a Jesuit priest. In this way they felt that the act that they were preparing to commit, in order to kill the King of England, was justified as it had effectively been endorsed by God. Furthermore, there was general unrest in England due to the arrival of the new ruler James I. Since Elizabeth had neglected to provide an heir, her nearest relative, the King of Scotland finally came to the throne. This united the kingdoms of England and Scotland, but not everyone was prepared to accept this.
As the plan was formulated, the men were careful to cover their tracks and assume new identities to hide their involvement in such a serious plot. All were aware of the risks that such a dangerous mission would entail and none was more careful than Fawkes, who went to great lengths to re-establish his identity as one of Percy’s servants. He also removed all previous evidence of having been someone who had defected to Spain in order to fight the Protestants in England. By 1605 the plan had really begun to come into formation and the group had rented out a cellar below the Houses of Parliament. Their idea was to place an enormous amount of gunpowder in the cellar and to disguise the room as a sort of storage facility by hiding the gunpowder beneath some iron bars and faggots. Whilst this was going on Fawkes was nominated to take news of the plot overseas to Flanders, and inform Stanley of their plans.
Upon his return, Fawkes was alarmed to discover that his landlady had suspected him of being a Catholic and he was forced to move out of his lodgings to avoid further suspicion. To make matters worse the progress being made was severely
limited as none but Fawkes had been militarily trained and therefore did not possess the same amount of strength. More conspirators were enlisted. This alarmed Fawkes greatly as he was aware that the more people who were involved, the increased risk there was in their plot being exposed. Nevertheless, things fell into place and the plot looked like it was near to completion by the end of the summer of 1605. Unbeknown to the conspirators, however, was the fact that the famous Monteagle letter was soon to come into the hands of William Parker, an influential member of the government, and the details of the plot were no longer a secret.
Oblivious to this, the plotters met on the night of 3 November 1605 and agreed unanimously that the authorities were as yet unaware of any plotting against them. Aside from Fawkes, each man had made plans to make a rapid exit from the country, once the gunpowder had been detonated. Unfortunately for Fawkes, his military service did not stand in his favour this time, since he was the only one who had experience with gunpowder and therefore had been assigned to stay in the cellar and perform the detonation before making a quick getaway.
All seemed to be going to plan until the following day when Guy Fawkes was seemingly caught in the act. The Lord Chamberlain Thomas Howard, the Earl of Suffolk, Monteagle and John Wynniard burst into the cellar and immediately began interrogating Fawkes about the contents of the cellar. Fawkes probably thought he was safe when the four men conducted a brief search of the cellar and discovered only the faggots. The men quickly returned to the king and told him that there was nothing out of the ordinary to be found in the cellar. Not one to take a possible attempt on his life lightly, King James I ordered the men to conduct a more rigorous search. They duly returned and were astounded to find a huge amount of gunpowder concealed in the damp cellar. When questioned, Fawkes claimed that he had no knowledge of the plot and was merely a servant to Thomas Percy. This became harder to believe, however, when he was found with matches on his person. Ultimately it seemed futile to deny his involvement in the plot and instead Fawkes claimed that their motivation was to ‘blow the Scotsmen present back to Scotland’.
In January of 1606, and following a difficult few months rounding all the conspirators up, the trial of the eight survivors began in Westminster Hall. The trial was more of a formality than anything else, as the guilty verdict had already been established. Despite this the men refused to plead guilty and instead tried to place the blame upon the Jesuits. Shortly afterwards they were found guilty and hung, drawn and quartered in the old palace yard at Westminster.
Although these men undoubtedly attempted to commit a very serious crime against both the ruler and government of England, they were sure in their convictions that what they were doing was right. As with many of the traitors of the past, Fawkes’s religious fervour was what caused his feelings of dissatisfaction regarding the governing of England. He took matters into his own hands in order to change what he did not like and as a result he paid with his life.
Charles I
Unlike many of the traitors described in this book, Charles I did not possess the same strength of mind and raw ability as the others. In addition, his case was rather different because he was a monarch and, in fact, the first English ruler to be put on trial. He grew up in a privileged household and was the fourth child of King James VI Scotland, who ultimately became James I of England after his cousin Elizabeth died. Charles’s family was very secure in its standing and his mother Anne was the daughter of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway. The family had alliances with a number of different countries and held a firm footing in both England and Scotland.
In 1603, at the tender age of three, Charles was named as the Duke of Albany. However, the family were struck down by tragedy in 1612 when Charles’s older brother Henry came down with an unexplained illness and died suddenly. This came as a huge disappointment to the king, not merely as he had lost his first male heir to the throne, but more importantly because Charles was a very feeble and frail child. Not only had the youngster experienced problems with his stammer, he also had trouble with his coordination, resulting in an inability to walk. After the death of his brother, pressure was put on Charles to overcome these defects and with the help of Lady Carey he was finally able to make some progress in correcting them.
Charles had always sought out a foreign marriage alliance and in his youth he took the arduous journey to Spain in an attempt to court a Spanish infanta. He was not successful in his first quest, but shortly after his father had died in 1625, Charles married the Catholic French princess, Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. The pairing seemed quite well-matched and they had a number of children. The eldest was Mary who, at the age of nine, was promised in marriage to the Prince of Orange and later became the mother of Great General William III, Prince of Orange. Although this union was successful on a personal level, it proved controversial to the people of England and Scotland. Under the auspices of James I, the religion of the two countries had been stabilised as Protestant and many people were worried that a marriage alliance with a Catholic would cause Charles to lift restrictions on Roman Catholics. Parliament in particular was opposed to the marriage and vigorously argued against it.
THE FALL OUT WITH PARLIAMENT
Like his father James, Charles was a great believer in the divine right of kings. This meant that a ruler was given almost religious infallibility surrounding the decisions they made because they had supposedly been appointed by God. In effect, a ruler’s authority was unquestionable. In 1628 the parliament attempted to protect their status by drafting the Petition of Right, which meant that the king could not levy taxes or impose martial law on civilians without parliament’s consent. As a result of their murmuring against his decisions, the king decided to abolish parliament in 1629. Naturally the consequences were dramatic. No one liked the idea of the king becoming a dictatorial figure who did not consider the views of his people, particularly when he had seriously raised their taxes to pay for his own ventures.
The disagreement with parliament was only a tiny portion of Charles’s dramatic reforms; it was his religious reform which had the greatest effect upon turning his subjects against him. Initially distrust spread as Charles seemed to be changing his attitude towards the Protestant church. Firstly he had allied himself with controversial religious figures associated with Calvinism and Catholicism, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud. These relationships seemed to spur the king on to make some radical religious changes in a bid to move the Church of England away from Calvinism towards a more traditional and sacramental direction. The bad feeling towards him in Scotland was such that his proposal of a new prayer book resulted in full scale rebellion throughout the country.
THE DECLINE OF THE KING
Charles’s biggest problem was that his high ambitions for England and Scotland were not realisable with the limited funding that was available to him. He constantly sought to adopt a very protective foreign policy and in order to achieve this he raised money by selling monopolies and instituting a shipping money tax. When he had demanded these taxes in the years before parliament was dismissed, he had taken swift action to arrest five members of parliament who had previously opposed him. However, after eleven years of ruling on his own, the struggle for supremacy led to civil war within England and Scotland. The civil war began in 1642 and was fought between the supporters of the monarchy, Cavaliers and the supporters of parliament, Roundheads. The first civil war came to a close in 1646 when he was forced to surrender to the Scots and was handed over to the English. In 1648 after six years of fighting had torn the previously united England and Scotland apart, Charles fled to Hurst Castle. This move provoked a second civil war in the country as Charles I was refusing to face the consequences of his actions. Later that year he was brought to trial in Westminster Hall and found guilty of treason by a minute margin of 68 votes to 67. His execution day was set for the start of the next year and his fate was eventually sealed when he was beheaded in Whitehall.
The case of Charles’
s execution was an unusual one because it resulted in a king being tried for crimes. This showed that rulers were not necessarily infallible and were not above the law. Charles’s decision to dismiss his parliament led to widespread unrest through England and Scotland resulting in two civil wars. Undoubtedly Charles seemed to think that he was doing what was best for his people, but his choices ultimately ended up causing more damage than good.
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