The Gunpowder Plot

by Antonia Fraser

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  These Wretches

  [The Powder Treason] shameth Caligula, Erostratus, Nero and Domitian, who were but each of them fly-killers to these wretches.

  LORD HARINGTON

  6 January 1606

  In the new year of 1606, the popular mood concerning the recent Powder Treason was one of mingled revulsion and relief, but also that secret delight which the contemplation of horrors narrowly averted inevitably produces. The opening of a poem appearing on 3 January, entitled The Devil of the Vault, captures this particular mood of gleeful shuddering:*

  So dreadful, foul, chimera-like

  My subject must appear:

  The Heaven amaz’d and hell disturbed

  The earth shall quake with fear.1

  But the King himself was not gleeful: he was sour and angry. The courage and statesmanship he had shown in his speech to Parliament of 9 November had given way to something a good deal less attractive and a good deal more vengeful. With time, the memory of his kindnesses to the Catholics – the ungrateful Catholics – was beginning to loom large in his own mind, while the important distinction between the guilty and the innocent Papists was beginning to blur. To the Venetian Ambassador, Niccolò Molin, he ranted for an hour on the subject of ‘this perfidious and cursed doctrine of Rome’ which produced English subjects who believed they could plot against their lawful Prince. James told Molin that the Catholics threatened to ‘dethrone him and take his life’ unless he gave them liberty of conscience. In consequence of their behaviour: ‘I shall, most certainly, be obliged to stain my hands with their blood,’ although, with his reputation as a merciful sovereign to maintain, he added: ‘sorely against my will.’2

  The blood with which the government was hoping to stain the King’s hands – in addition to that of the Plotters – was Jesuit blood. By 15 January, it was decided that enough material had been accrued to proceed against certain priests. The official proclamation listed Father Garnet, Father Gerard and Father Greenway (Tesimond) and issued the usual meticulous descriptions employed in these circumstances. Father Garnet, for example, was said to be a man ‘of middling stature, full faced, fat of body, of complexion fair, his forehead high on each side, with a little thin hair coming down… the hair of his head and beard grizzled’. His age was reckoned to be between fifty and sixty (life in hiding had aged Father Garnet: born late in 1555, he was only just fifty). At least his gait was said to be ‘upright and comely’ for a man who was so weak.3 This proclamation marked a radical and ironic shift in the direction of the prosecution. From now on, with tragic irony, the names of the Jesuits headed the list of conspirators in the Plot which they had so desperately attempted to circumvent.

  In London, Father Tesimond had the unnerving experience of reading details of his ‘good red complexion’ and his tendency to wear showy clothes ‘after the Italian fashion’ when the proclamation was posted up. Then the priest’s eyes met those of a man in the crowd and he realised that his appearance was being checked out. When the stranger suggested that they go together to the authorities, Tesimond with seeming docility allowed himself to be led away, until they reached a quiet street, where the priest took to his heels and ran off. Tesimond then rapidly and discreetly left London, managing to smuggle aboard a cargo of dead pigs headed for Calais. From there he went to St Omer and finally on to Rome. Here a long and comparatively happy life awaited him: Father Tesimond survived for another thirty years after these tumultuous events. Most importantly he was one of those who lived to tell the tale from the Catholic angle.4

  The escape of Father Tesimond was one ray of light in the rapidly encircling gloom of the Catholic situation. On 9 January, two months after their flight from Holbeach, Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton were captured. It had been a time of great hardship, as well as fear, for these fugitives, who had to camp out in barns, or at best in poor men’s houses, in midwinter. They were discovered in one hiding-place, in the outbuildings belonging to a tenant farmer of Humphrey Littleton, by a drunken poacher whom they had to imprison in order to make their escape. Since New Year’s Day they had holed up at Hagley, the Worcestershire house where ‘Red Humphrey’ Littleton lived with his widowed sister-in-law Mrs Muriel Littleton. The treachery of a cook, John Finwood, led to the fugitives’ arrest: the man suspected the extraordinary amount of food being sent up for his mistress’s consumption. It was a feat for which Finwood would be rewarded with an annual pension.5

  When the authorities arrived, Red Humphrey, who was not personally being sought by the government, since he had left Dunchurch without joining the conspirators, tried to prevent their entrance. Fatally for his own cause, he denied the presence of Wintour or his nephew. Another servant, David Bate, knew better and led the searchers round to the back door. Wintour and Stephen Littleton were captured in the adjoining courtyard. Humphrey Littleton then jumped on his gelding and rode away; he had got as far as Prestwood in Staffordshire, before he was seized.

  Red Humphrey was imprisoned first at Stafford, and then at Worcester, where he was condemned to death. At this point, his morale collapsed – not all the recusants were heroes. He ‘offered to do good service’ if his execution might be reprieved. Father Tesimond later commented contemptuously on Littleton’s behaviour: here was a man ‘who had no further hope of life but was desperately anxious to save it’.6 Tesimond’s contempt is understandable, for Red Humphrey’s testimony played its part in the last act of the drama currently being enacted, not far away from Worcester, at Hindlip. Here Father Garnet, together with two lay brothers, Little John and Ralph Ashley, had retreated at the beginning of December. Father Oldcorne, the regular chaplain there, better known under his alias of Hall, was also in residence.

  Hindlip was traditionally one of the safest Catholic houses, in spite of the known recusancy of Thomas Habington, himself a convicted conspirator in the previous reign. Like Coughton, it occupied a good position, with views of the surrounding countryside. In addition, it had been custom built by Habington’s father in the middle of the last century, to act as a labyrinth of refuges when necessary. (It was infinitely easier to construct these holes and secret closets at the start because there were no tell-tale signs of renovation – sawdust, brick-dust, fresh plaster – to be detected.) An early-nineteenth-century description of Hindlip referred to ‘its every room’ as having ‘a recess, a passage, a trap door, or secret stairs; the walls were in many places false. Several chimneys had double flues, one for a passage for the smoke, the second for the concealment of a priest.’*7

  All in all, there were at least a dozen hiding-places in use at Hindlip by this date. A search was always a game of cat and mouse. Father Garnet’s decision to desert Coughton for Hindlip was based on the premise that at Hindlip the cat might suspect that there were mice to be found, but could not place the precise whereabouts of the mouseholes.

  It was ‘at break of day’ on Monday 20 January that a local Justice, Sir Henry Bromley, and his retainers arrived outside the house. Sir Henry was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Bromley, who as Lord Chancellor had presided over the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. Yet Muriel Littleton, one of his many sisters, was a recusant, which illustrates the remarkable mixture of religious loyalties which any large family could show at this period. Sir Henry carried with him a commission from the Privy Council. The promise of a ‘bountiful reward’ for the capture of the miscreant priests meant that he and his men set about the task with enthusiasm. He also had detailed practical instructions on how the search was to be conducted, from the use of a gimlet to pierce panelled walls, to the inspection of any lofts under the roof, ‘for these be ordinary places of hovering’.8

  As it happened, Thomas Habington was absent from Hindlip on business when Bromley arrived. When, on his return, Habington was shown the official proclamation for the arrest of the three Jesuits, and Bromley’s commission, he strongly and passionately denied the presence of the priests. Indeed, he volunteered to die there and then at his own
gate if any Catholic priests were to be found lurking under his roof. This ‘rather rash’ speech cut no ice with Sir Henry.9 So for the next three days the most thorough search possible was mounted, regardless of the family’s protests.

  In this way, a series of hiding-places was uncovered, including two cavities in the brickwork in the gallery over the gate, and three others in the chimneys, where planks of wood had been darkened with soot to match the brick. Altogether eleven ‘secret corners and conveyances’ were probed, all of them containing ‘Popish trumpery’ – vessels and books necessary to the celebration of the Mass – except for two which had been uncovered at an earlier date and thus left empty. Thomas Habington, with admirable sang-froid, continued to maintain his stance of absolute ignorance. The revelation of each hiding-place in turn was greeted by him with great surprise. It was only when the vital title deeds to his lands were discovered lodged in one hole for safe-keeping – which might argue for a certain degree of knowledge on the owner’s part – that Habington had to waver in his denials.10

  Then on Thursday morning 24 January there was a breakthrough of sorts, or so Sir Henry hoped. Two stealthy figures emerged from the wainscot in the gallery. The figures were in fact Nicholas Owen and his fellow lay brother Ralph Ashley and they were starving, having had nothing but one apple between them to eat since the search began on Monday. (Before that, lying in ‘a lower chamber descending from the dining-room’, they had been able to get food.)11 It is possible that Owen and Ashley intended to give themselves up, to distract attention from the presence of their superiors Garnet and Oldcorne, concealed elsewhere. But it seems more likely that the two men were attempting to make a bold getaway, choosing a moment when the gallery was, as they thought, empty. Little John in particular knew that, if he were tortured a second time and were compelled to reveal the secrets of his clandestine profession, he would bring ruin not only upon himself, but also upon the entire recusant community.

  Unfortunately one of the searchers turned back into the gallery and saw these unexpected strangers. Even now, Owen and Ashley attempted to bluff their way out by pretending to be mere recusants, rather than lay brothers. As for Sir Henry, in his report to Salisbury of the same day, he huffed and puffed about the impudence of the Catholics and their wicked lies, as though the host who hid the priests should have immediately revealed their whereabouts. He then expressed the proud hope that he had found Tesimond (Greenway) and Oldcorne (Hall).12

  But of course Sir Henry had not found them. When this became apparent, the search was renewed. Bromley did attempt to evacuate the lady of the house, Mary Habington – sister to Monteagle, the hero of the hour – as her presence was obviously awkward for him. But Mary defiantly refused to leave ‘without I should have carried her’, and Bromley thought this would be conduct unbecoming towards one ‘so well born’. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the searchers were as rampant as ever, calling to mind Anne Vaux’s description of an earlier search at Baddesley Clinton in the 1590s: ‘the poursuivants behaved just like a lot of boys playing Blind Man’s Bluff, who, in their wild rush, bang into tables and chairs and walls and yet haven’t the slightest suspicion that their playfellows are right on top of them and almost touching them’.13

  It was on the Sunday, 26 January, that Humphrey Littleton, prisoner in nearby Worcester, decided to save his neck – as he hoped. The ‘good service’ which he offered to do was to betray the names and hiding-place of ‘certain Jesuits and priests, which had been persuaders of him and others to these actions’. Hindlip was described as a haunt of priests in general and of Father Hall (Oldcorne) in particular. In addition, Littleton said he was quite sure that Hall was ‘in Habington’s house at this present’, while Hall’s own servant, currently in Worcester jail, ‘can, he thinks, go directly to the secret places where Hall lies hid’. Littleton backed up these topographical details with a highly damaging account of a conversation he had had with Oldcorne.14

  Littleton said that he had recently visited ‘Father Hall’ to consult him about the future of his nephew Stephen. Was it his, Humphrey’s, duty to arrest him? According to Littleton, Oldcorne replied that on the contrary the Powder Treason itself had been ‘commendable’ and that it should not be in any way measured by its lack of success. This was just what the government wanted to hear – a Jesuit priest openly approving of the Plot. These promising confidences caused the Sheriff of Worcester to stay Littleton’s execution, to see if he remembered anything else.

  It transpired later that what Father Oldcorne had actually said was somewhat different. On the Plot’s lack of success, he cited the instance of Louis XI of France, who had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, directed by St Bernard of Clairvaux. Plague had twice struck the King’s camp, decimating his men the first time and killing the King himself the second, while his enemies went untouched. Nevertheless these disasters did not necessarily reflect upon the validity of the expedition. In short, an act was ‘not to be condemned or justified’ by the criterion of its success or failure but, rather, according to its objective and ‘the means that is used for effecting the same’. Since Father Oldcorne knew nothing of Catesby’s objectives, nor yet of his means, he declared himself as neither approving nor condemning the recent disastrous enterprise: he was content to leave it ‘to God and their consciences’.15 Given that Humphrey Littleton had been wondering whether to hand over his own nephew to the authorities, this was sensible and humane rather than bloodthirsty advice. But of course it could and would be twisted into a very different shape.

  Ironically enough, Red Humphrey’s treachery may not have been, strictly speaking, the key factor in the apprehension of Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne at Hindlip. On Monday 27 January, the two men emerged of their own accord, looking so like ghosts after an eight-day sojourn in a tiny cramped space that it was their pursuers who were the terrified ones and at first ran away from them. According to Garnet’s own account, they had spent most of their time sitting as the hole was not high enough for them to stand up to their full height, nor long enough for them to stretch their legs completely. As a result, their legs, especially those of Father Garnet, were terribly swollen.16

  The physical ordeal as the two priests listened to the searchers overhead had not been pleasant. It was true that they had been able to receive warm drinks through a quill or reed inserted into a narrow aperture which passed through one chimney – a typical Little John touch – into another chimney in ‘the gentlewoman’s chamber’. This chamber probably belonged to Anne Vaux, and she would have administered the liquids, including caudle, a sweet spicy kind of gruel especially designed for invalids, through the reed. Marmalade and sweetmeats, staples of this kind of siege, were found in their hole afterwards and must have been brought in with them by the priests themselves. But there was no drainage or earth closet (Little John sometimes managed to effect this – as at Sawston – but had not been able to do so in this particular hiding-place).

  That was the trouble. Father Garnet said later that if only they had had half a day of freedom, they could have secured ‘a close-stool’ (commode). With the aid of that, they could have lasted for another three months. So it was what Sir Henry Bromley would call ‘those customs of nature which must of necessity be done’ that finally drove out the two priests. Even their captors blanched at the conditions which they found.17

  Yet before we acquit Humphrey Littleton of all practical contribution to the arrest (morally his culpability remains the same) it must be remembered how long the search had already lasted without the result that the government really wanted. Bromley suspected that there were further priests to be discovered, but he was not absolutely sure – they could have escaped before 20 January. Without further information, Bromley might have given up just a moment before the priests themselves decided to surrender. Humphrey Littleton’s Sunday revelations, however, clinched the matter. When the message came to Hindlip – only four miles from Worcester where Littleton was held – Bromley knew that sooner or later the
prey would be his. On the Monday, Father Garnet and Father Oldcorne, emaciated and wretched, stepped out into his eager arms.

  Garnet and Oldcorne were taken to Sir Henry Bromley’s home at Holt Castle until further orders concerning their fate were received from London. They were neither shackled, nor held in collars, nor in any other way treated brutally. Although the whole basis of the official proclamation was that the Jesuits had been the prime persuaders in the recent devilish Plot, their treatment was in no sense that normally meted out to desperadoes. There was a paradox here. Sir Henry Bromley told Garnet that although the proclamation meant that he had to hold him ‘strait’ yet he honoured him as ‘a learned man and a worthy priest’.18

  In London, Parliament had reassembled on Tuesday 21 January; it had not met since that Saturday in November when the King had made his celebrated speech. In the Commons one of the first actions was to consider measures of safety, with reference to ‘the Danger of Papistical Practices’. Two days later Sir Edward Montague, the Member for Northamptonshire, introduced a bill, drafted by himself, for a public thanksgiving to be said annually on 5 November. Sir Edward was often thought to be numbered among the Puritans, being ‘a man of plain and downright English spirit’.19 He was eager to be reinstated in the King’s favour after delivering a petition against the suspension of non-conforming clergy which had annoyed James. The Papists’ disgrace provided a perfect opening. Montague now introduced the concept of a plain and downright English festival which survived in one form or another for nearly four hundred years.

  A more immediate festivity – of a sort – awaited the curious, many months before 5 November 1606. On Monday 27 January, the day of the capture of Father Garnet and Father Oldcorne, the trial of the eight surviving conspirators began in Westminster Hall. Seven of them were brought by barge from the Tower of London to Whitehall, early in the morning: these were Guy Fawkes, Thomas and Robert Wintour, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Everard Digby and Robert Keyes. Thomas Bates’ inferior status was marked by the fact that he was held in the less important Gatehouse prison. So ‘these wretches’, compared to whom villains of the Ancient World such as Nero and Caligula were said to be mere ‘fly-killers’, prepared to face judgement.20