It is to be lamented that Catesby, not content with giving an account of the failure of the plot to Sir Everard Digby, added to it a lie. In his examination,[271] Digby stated that Catesby “told him that now was the time for men to stirre in the Catholick cause, for though the sayd Ro. Katesbie had bin disappointed of his first intention, yet there was such a pudder bredd in the State by ye death of the King and the Earle of Salisburie, as if true Catholiques would now stirre, he doubted not but they might procure to them selves good conditions. Wherefore by all the bondes of frendshippe to him self and all which that cause might require at this examts. handes, he urged this examt. to proceede in that businesse as him self and all that companie would do, and as he had great assurance all other Catholiques in those parts would do the like: telling me that there were two gentlemen in the companie, naming the Littletons, that would bring 1000 men the next day.”
The King and Lord Salisbury both killed, and a promise of a thousand men from one family alone!
This was something to start with, even though the parliament had not been destroyed; and in the general “pudder”that had been “bredd,”the Catholics might possibly succeed in obtaining good terms, if not the reins of government. So was Sir Everard persuaded by Catesby, who was not only a traitor to his country, but a deceiver of his friends.
The conspirators assumed that their names would be soon, if not already, known to the Government, as Fawkes would almost certainly be tortured until he revealed them; and, brave as he was, there was no saying whether he would be able to withstand the temptations of putting an end to his agonies on the rack by giving the names of his employers and accomplices.
Besides all this, Catesby pretended that their case was by no means hopeless. No Catholics were more discontented with the Government than those in Wales and the English counties which bordered on it; few, again, as a body, were more powerful. Let the party at Dunchurch, therefore, start at once, said Catesby, with their servants and retainers, ride through Warwickshire and Worcestershire into Wales, rallying the Catholic gentry with their followers to their standard as they went along; and, so soon as they should be in considerable numbers, let them proclaim a general insurrection of the Catholics of England. Were it once to be known that a Catholic army was established in the West, others would certainly be raised in different parts of the country.
One man of power and influence he felt sure he could count upon: this was Talbot[272] of Grafton—a place not far from Coughton. Talbot was a zealous Catholic; he was heir presumptive to the Earldom of Shrewsbury; and his wife was a daughter of the Sir William Petre who had been Secretary of State to Queen Mary. He would be the more likely to join them, as he had suffered imprisonment and penalties for his religion under Elizabeth. Another reason for hoping for his adherence was the fact that his son-in-law, Robert Winter, was already one of the sworn conspirators, and had slept at his house only two nights earlier. Percy also came in and said that he was certain “all forces in those parts about Mr Talbot would assist”them. This assurance evidently weighed considerably with Sir Everard; for he afterwards wrote[273]:—“We all thought if we could procure Mr Talbot to rise that ... that was not little, because we had in our Company his Son-in-Law, who gave us some hope of, and did not much doubt of it.”
Of one thing there could be no sort of question; if action was to be taken at all, it must be taken at once, and without the delay of a moment: time was everything; the rapid journey of the conspirators from London was already much in their favour, and this advantage would be thrown away if there were to be any dallying or indecision. Grafton, Talbot’s place, was about five and twenty miles from where they were then standing, and it would be of the utmost importance to reach it, or send an envoy there, early the next morning.
Before condemning Digby for proceeding further, now that the main plot had failed, we must remember that he had sworn to be faithful to the conspiracy, and that, in their present straits, it might have been as much as his life was worth to refuse to go on with Catesby and his fellows. We have seen how narrowly Tresham escaped Catesby’s dagger.
There were others, however, not bound by any oath or promise, whose immediate support was required. The so-called hunting-party assembled at the inn must needs be enlisted in the service. Scraps of the terrible news had already been passed from one to the other; for many, if not most of them, were well acquainted with the fugitives from London, and were eagerly questioning them concerning particulars. Digby and Catesby found the party in a state of great excitement when they went to summon them formally to join in the insurrection.
To the surprise of Sir Everard Digby and the disgust of Catesby, instead of rallying as one man to the call to arms, almost as one man they refused, with horror, to have anything whatever to do with an enterprise which had begun with an attempt at wholesale massacre, and promised to end in the hanging, drawing, and quartering of all who had a share in it.
Sir Everard’s own uncle, Sir Robert Digby,[274] was the very first to charge the conspirators with being a band of traitors, and to order his men and horses to be got ready for immediate departure. With scarcely any exceptions, the other guests followed his example, not only condemning the treason, but also reproaching the traitors with having gravely injured the Catholic cause. To join in a legitimate warfare, even a civil warfare, was one thing; to acquiesce in an attempted murder, a murder on a gigantic scale, and to endeavour to profit by the terror brought about by that attempted murder, was quite another. And besides all this; if they complained of having been invited to hunt and hawk at Dunchurch on false pretences, who could blame them? No doubt they were very angry. Besides, they were but mortal, and to be suddenly disturbed and required to decide hastily upon a most serious question, involving immediate action, is more disagreeable during the process of digestion, just after the principal meal of the day, than at any other time; and as the country squires, who had come to Dunchurch to enjoy good sport, scrambled into their uncleaned, and very likely but half-dried riding-clothes, and went out into the dark, damp night, to mount their horses for long, dreary journeys over bad roads towards their homes, they cannot have felt in the best of tempers.
It may be worth noticing here, that Sir Robert was not the only member of the Digby family who gave the Government assistance in respect to the Gunpowder Plot.[275] “Lord Harrington, who had the care of the Princess Elizabeth, having received some intimation of an attempt to seize her, immediately sent up John Digby, a younger son of Sir George Digby, to court, with an account of all he knew; where the young gentleman told the tale so well as to acquire thereby the King’s good graces, who not long after knighted, employed him in long negotiation in Spain, and Sep. 15th, 1622, created him Earl of Bristol. His son was the famous George Digby, &c.”Accordingly, if the Gunpowder Plot marred the fortunes of one branch of the Digby family, it made those of another!
Sir Everard was as much astonished as he was dispirited at finding that the “powder-action,”far from being approved of, was repudiated with horror by the friends whom he had assembled at Dunchurch. He had expected them to have looked at the matter in a very different light. He can scarcely have failed now to see that, even if the plot had succeeded, the Catholics, as a body, would have condemned it, and refused to profit by it. Still he was weak enough to yield to Catesby’s urgent requests to proceed with the insurrection and to endeavour to raise forces in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Wales.
The band of conspirators, with the very few friends who chose to stay with them, then held a council of war; they were “prepared to stand in Armes and raise rebellion,”[276] and they determined to start at once on their journey, so as to enlist Mr Talbot to their support, as early as possible on the morrow, and give him the whole day to rally his numerous retainers round the standard of the little army of traitors and would-be murderers.
Although five of the party had just ridden eighty miles at considerable speed, they swung themselves into the saddle again for a long night’s march. Even if the whole hunting-party had remained there would not have been a large body of horsemen; in all the number present at Dunchurch was only eighty;[277] but some of the friends who had refused to have anything to do with the expedition were influential men, who could soon have raised substantial troops, even from among their own retainers. The party that actually started from Dunchurch under the command of the conspirators, according to Sir Everard Digby,[278] “were not above fiftie horse.”
It was a wretched little cavalcade: if it had anything military about it, it was more of a recruiting party than an army, and its stealthy creeping forth from the inn, that November night, in darkness and dejection, was very different from the triumphant dash of the entire “hunting-party”upon Combe Abbey, to seize the Princess Elizabeth and take her from the keeping of Lord Harington, which had been laid down in the programme. The discovery of the plot, the arrest of Fawkes, and the seizure of the gunpowder was bad enough; and now, the refusal of the trusted, influential, and powerful Catholic landowners who had been assembled at Dunchurch to have hand or part in what they considered a detestable rebellion, added ten-fold to the disappointment of Sir Everard and his companions.
The road of the rebels lay through Warwick, and it was remembered that there, in the stable of a poor horse-breaker of cavalry re-mounts, they would be able to supply themselves with fresh horses. Even two of the leading conspirators—I wish I could say that Sir Everard Digby had been one of them—winced at this act of felony! Rookwood, as he subsequently admitted in examination,[279] “meant not to adventure himself in stealing any”horses, as he had already fifteen or sixteen; and Robert Winter[280] tried to persuade Catesby “to let it alone, alleging that it would make a great uproar in the country, and that once done,”they “might not rest anywhere, the country would so rise about”them.
Catesby’s reply was ominous. “Some of us may not look back.”
“But others,”said Winter, “I hope, may, and therefore, I pray you, let this alone.”
Then Catesby spoke words in ill accordance with those which he had used to encourage Digby before leaving Dunchurch. “What! hast thou any hope, Robin? I assure thee there is none that knoweth of this action but shall perish.”
On reaching Warwick, they left the trunk-horses with their attendants[281] at the entrance to the town, in case their intended raid should lead to any scrimmage or retaliation; and then they proceeded to the horse-breakers’ stable and stole nine or ten horses. This took about half-an-hour, and when the robbery had been accomplished, they sent back for the trunk-horses and proceeded on their night-journey.
It was not far from Warwick to Norbrook, the house of John Grant, one of the conspirators. Here they made a brief halt, and, on entering the hall, they found two tables furnished with muskets and armour.[282] After taking a very short rest—William Handy, one of Sir Everard’s servants, says half-an-hour;[283] but Jardine says an hour or two,[284] and Richard Hollis, a servant of Sir Everard’s, says, “some howres,”[285]—the cavalcade again started on its dark nocturnal march. The intention of its leaders was to ride to Huddington, near Droitwich, the house of Robert Winter; and on the way thither, to send a messenger a little to the right of their road, with a letter to Father Garnet at Coughton, explaining the desperate position in which they were placed. On arriving at Huddington, their host was to be sent to his father-in-law, Talbot of Grafton, to inform him of all that had happened, and to urge him to join the insurrection with as many men as he could muster.
Some time after sunrise, which does not take place at that time of the year till after seven o’clock, they drew near Alcester, and despatched their messenger to Coughton. The man chosen was Catesby’s servant, Thomas Bates, the only menial who was a sworn conspirator. Besides the letter to Father Garnet, he was entrusted with one for Lady Digby, written by her husband.
The most trying part of Sir Everard Digby’s long and gloomy ride must have been to pass within a couple of miles of his wife and children, as he went through Alcester in the early morning, without going to see them. Well-horsed, as he was, it might almost appear that he could have made time to visit them for at least a few minutes, and then ridden on to Huddington, where the expedition was to make a long halt. Did he hesitate to go to Coughton through fear of Catesby, or was he afraid to trust himself in the presence of his wife?
When Bates arrived at Coughton, he was taken at once to Father Garnet, who was in the hall,[286] and he handed the letter to the priest, who opened it and read it in silence.
I will give Father Garnet’s own description[287] of this letter, which “was subscribed by Sir E. Digby and Catesbye.”“The effect of this letter was to excuse their rashness, and required my assistance in Wales, and persuade me to make a party, saying that if I had scrupulosity or desire to free myself or my Order from blame and let them now perish, I should follow after myselfe and all Catholics.”
While Father Garnet was reading the letter, Father Greenway came in and asked what was the matter. Thereupon Father Garnet read the letter in the hearing of Bates, and said to Greenway, “They would have blown up the Parliament House, and were discovered and we all utterly undone.”Father Greenway replied that in that case “there was no tarrying for himself and Garnet.”Then Bates begged Father Greenway to go with him to Catesby, his master, if he really wished to help him. Father Greenway answered that he “would not forbear to go unto him though it were to suffer a thousand deaths, but that it would overthrow the state of the whole society of the Jesuits’ order.”
When Father Garnet had read the letter to Father Greenway, the latter exclaimed, “All Catholics are undone.”
Father Garnet, in an intercepted letter, gives a pathetic account of the effect of her husband’s letter upon Lady Digby.[288] “My Lady Digby came. What did she? Alas! what, but cry.”
He tells us, too, the answer which he gave to the messenger, Bates. “That I marvelled they would enter into such wicked actions and not be ruled by the advice of friends and order of His Holiness generally given to all, and that I could not meddle but wished them to give over, and if I could do anything in such a matter (as I neither could nor would) it were in vain now to attempt it.”
Then the two fathers drew aside and talked together for half-an-hour, while Bates walked up and down the hall. After this, Father Greenway went to prepare himself for his journey, and presently came out with Bates, mounted a horse, and rode with him to Huddington in order to see his penitent, Catesby.
Father Greenway’s riding companion was not only one of the conspirators, but had helped[289] “in making provision of their powder.” He confessed in prison the whole matter of his having been sent by Catesby, his master, with a letter to Father Garnet at Coughton, and that Father Greenway had accompanied him from that house to Huddington in order to visit Catesby.
We must return to Sir Everard, as he rode from Alcester to Huddington. One of his servants, named Hardy, came up to him, during this part of his journey, and asked him[290] what was to become “of him and the rest of his poore servants,”who, as he pitifully protested, had not been “privy to this bloudy faction.”Such a question, although it did not savour of mutiny, showed an inclination to defection, and must have added considerably to his master’s discouragement. The answer which he gave to it was as follows:—“I believe you were not;”i.e., privy to the plot; “but now there is no remedy.”The servant then let out that it was not solely on his own account that he had asked the question; for he went on to implore his master to yield himself to the king’s mercy; whereupon Sir Everard said sharply that he would permit no servant to utter such words in his presence.
Catesby and his band of warriors, brigands, horse-stealers, professors of physical force, or whatever else the reader may please to call them, reached Huddington about two o’clock on the Wednesday afternoon.[291] The first thing they did was to place sentinels round the house,[292] which was rendered suitable for defence by its moat.[293] Then they proceeded to take their first long rest, that is to say, until early on the following morning, a sorely needed period of refreshment and repose, especially for those who had ridden the whole way from London. Where so large a party can have been entertained and lodged at Huddington, it is difficult to understand, as the house, which is now used as a farm, rich as it is in carved oak, is not, and probably never was, a large one.
During the first few hours of their stay, however, the leading conspirators were awaiting the return of the envoy from Grafton with too much anxiety to be able to sleep or take their ease. Almost everything hung upon the reply of Talbot. The assistance of the large number of men and horses which it was in his power to supply was of the utmost importance at that very critical moment, and on his influence and example might depend the attitude of all the Catholic gentry in Worcestershire, as well as in several of the counties adjoining it.
Just as it was beginning to grow dark, two horsemen rode up to the door of Huddington, and the ambassadors, Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton, entered the house. Sir Everard Digby and Catesby eagerly went up to them and asked the result of their embassy; but, before they had had time to reply, it was evident from the expression of their faces that they brought bad news. On reaching Grafton, said Winter, they found that the report of the Gunpowder Plot and its failure had arrived there before them. Their approach had been observed, perhaps watched for, and, as they rode up to the curious “L”-shaped house, with its gothic chapel at one end of it, Sir John Talbot himself stood at its arched doorway,[294] with a frown upon his countenance.[295] As soon as they were within earshot, he forbade them to enter his house. He then told them that he had already heard of the plot, which he condemned in the strongest terms, together with all that had been, or were, connected with it, whether personal friends of his own or otherwise. He was a very zealous Catholic, and he regarded the whole conspiracy as one of the worst evils that could possibly have befallen the Catholics of England, since it would bring scandal upon their very name, and increase the persecutions which they suffered.
When Robert Winter not only defended the plot but urged Sir John to join the band of Catholics who intended to make a struggle for their freedom, his father-in-law threatened that, although he was a Catholic, a neighbour, and his son-in-law, he would have him arrested if he did not make off as quickly as his horse’s legs could carry him.[296]
As soon as Robert Winter had finished his story, the conspirators were plunged into the deepest dejection. Not one of them would be more depressed by the bad news than Sir Everard Digby. The rest were all more or less of a wild adventurous spirit, and probably had realised sooner than he to what a desperate issue the conspiracy had already arrived; but Sir Everard had been deceived by Catesby into believing the king and Salisbury to be dead, and until now he had clung to the hope that the best Catholics in England, when they heard of what had been attempted, would unite with himself and his companions in a holy war. Sir John Talbot was the type of Catholic by whose side he had hoped to fight for the faith, a man full of zeal and unflinching energy for the Catholic cause, as well as an honourable English gentleman. It was chiefly on the guarantee of his adherence and assistance, too, that Sir Everard had consented to Catesby’s entreaties to ride away from Dunchurch with the rest of the conspirators, and attempt to raise the Catholics against the Government; and now Sir John Talbot repudiated Sir Everard, his friends, and his actions.
A more gloomy party than that at Huddington can rarely have been assembled at an English country house. The hostess, Robert Winter’s wife, was indeed to be pitied. In her presence there was[297] “no talk of rebellion,”as she afterwards declared; but she must have known what was going forward, and have learned something of the disastrous failure of the appeal to her father, whose censure of her husband must have caused her the greatest pain. A few weeks later she was made to endure the distress of an examination before officials on the subject.[298]
In the course of the day, Father Greenway came to Huddington with Catesby’s servant, Thomas Bates. Sir Everard does not appear to have seen him, for he wrote[299]:—“They said Mr Greenway came to Huddington when we were there and had speech of Mr” [probably Catesby], “but I told them it was more than I took note of, and that I did not know him very well.”
Catesby, however, received Father Greenway with delight. On first seeing him, he exclaimed that “Here at least was a gentleman who would live and die with them.”[300] But Greenway seems to have paid them a very short visit; and he was evidently commissioned by Catesby to go to a neighbouring landlord and enlist him to the cause; for he rode away the same afternoon to Henlip, or Hindlip,[301] a house about four miles off, belonging to Thomas Abington, or Habingdon, a man famed for his hospitality to priests flying from persecution. On arriving at Hindlip, Father Greenway told Abington that he had[302] “brought them the worst newes that ever they hade, and sayd they were all undone”; that “ther were certayne gentlemen that meant to have blown upp the Parliament house, and that ther plot was discovered a day or two before, and now ther were gathered together some forty horse at Mr Wynter’s house, meaning Catesbye, Percye, Digby, and others, and tould them,”i.e., Abington and his household, “their throates would be cutt unlesse they presently wente to joyne with them.”Abington replied, “Alas, I am sorye;”but he said that he[303] “would never ioyne with them in that matter, and chardged all his house to that purpose not to goe unto them.”
Father Oldcorne, another Jesuit, was present at Hindlip[304] when this interview took place, and he also assured Father Greenway that[305] he would have nothing to do with the conspiracy or the insurrection. As we shall have little, if anything, more to do with Father Greenway, it may be worth observing here that he escaped from England[306] in “a small boat laden with dead pigs, of which cargo he passed as the owner,”and that he lived thirty years afterwards. A ridiculous story was reported from Naples, in 1610, by Sir Edwin Rich, that Father Greenway (alias Beaumont) was plotting to send King James some poisoned clothes, which would be death to the wearer.[307]
While at Huddington, Sir Everard and most of the other conspirators probably went to confession to Father Hart, the priest who had said mass for them at Dunchurch; for he was afterwards “charged with having heard the confessions and absolved the conspirators, two days after the discovery of the Plot,”[308] and this is confirmed by Sir Everard’s servant, Handy, who said[309] “that on Thursday morning about three of the clock all the said companie as servaunts as others heard masse, receaved the sacrament and were confessed, wch. masse was said by a priest named Harte, a little man, whitely complexion and a little beard.”If the conspirators really made full confessions with true sorrow for their terrible sins, on this occasion, nothing could have been better or more opportune. If not,—well, the less said the better! The same witness stated that on that Thursday morning, at about six o’clock, Sir Everard, who had had four fresh horses sent to him from Coughton,[310] and the rest of the party were again in the saddle, and the whole band started in a northerly direction for Whewell Grange, a house belonging to Lord Windsor, having added to the procession “a cart laden wth. trunckes, pikes, and other munition,” from Huddington. On their way towards Whewell Grange “four of the principall gent.”[311] rode in front of the procession, and four behind it “to kepe the company from starting away,”i.e., deserting.
They reached Lord Windsor’s house,[312] about noon, and all dismounted, “saving some fewe whoe sate on their horses to watch whoe should come unto the howse.”They then made their second raid. It was not for horses, as at Warwick; this time they sought for arms and armour, of which there was a large store at Whewell Grange. They appear to have met with no resistance, from which we may infer that, to use a modern and vulgar phrase, “the family were from home.”When they had all armed themselves, they put the remainder into a cart, while they filled another with a quantity of powder. These two carts then formed part of the procession. Sir Everard Digby can scarcely have failed to feel shame at the plunder of Whewell Grange. What had Lord Windsor done that his house should be pillaged? He had served his country as a sailor, and he eventually became a Rear Admiral of the Fleet. Why should his things be taken feloniously from his home during his absence? His father had died only seven months earlier, and the funeral hatchment was most likely hanging over the doorway when these thieves entered. While the robbers were ransacking the house—I fear that Sir Everard Digby was among them—some of the neighbouring peasants and villagers came up, out of curiosity, to see what was going on. As he came out of the house, Catesby saw from twenty to thirty of them standing about.[313]
“Will you come with us?”said he.
“Maybe we would, if we knew what you mean to do,”was the reply.
“We are for God and the country!”said Catesby.
Then one of the men, who was leaning with his back against a wall, struck the ground with his stick and cried, “We are for the King James, as well as for God and the country, and we will not go against his will.”
And now, with their arms, armour, gunpowder, and horses, which had been for the most part begged, borrowed, or stolen, the little party of filibusters started again, in a northerly direction, towards Holbeche House, Stephen Littleton’s place in Staffordshire. Although more soldierlike in appearance, owing to their armour—their want now was not of armour, but of men to wear it—they felt much less martial at heart than on leaving Dunchurch two days earlier. They were greatly discouraged at finding that no volunteers rallied to their ranks; that, when they rode up to the houses of any of the Catholic gentry, they were invariably driven with reproaches and ignominy from their doors as the greatest enemies of the Catholic cause, which they were told they had brought into disrepute by their misguided and iniquitous zeal.[314]“Notwithstanding of their fair shews and pretence of their Catholick cause,”says Bishop Barlow, “no creature, man or woman, through all that countrey would once so much as give them willingly a cup of drink, or any sort of comfort or support, but with execrations detested them.”This not only chilled the hearts of the leaders, but also alarmed their followers, who saw them leaving one large Catholic house after another crestfallen in expression and without a single recruit in their train. To add to their depression, the roads were bad, and in many places deep with mud, and the weather was stormy and very wet.[315] Instead of increasing, as Sir Everard and his friends had hoped and expected, their numbers steadily diminished, and they were soon reduced to thirty-six or less.[316] Their men still further lagged behind and disappeared, and the leaders of the expedition threatened those who remained that the next man who attempted to desert should be instantly shot. When they rested, Sir Everard and his companions took it in turn to watch their men with a loaded pistol, determined to make an example of the first deserter they could get a shot at. When they rode on, they endeavoured to be equally vigilant; but with such a straggling, wearied, undisciplined cavalcade, in a wooded country like Worcestershire, on a dark and misty November afternoon, it was impossible to prevent men from sneaking away unperceived, and the desertions hourly continued.
Sir Everard’s spirits drooped more and more. “Not one man came to take our part, though we expected so many,”[317] he says. As to the common people in the villages and the small towns through which the irregular train passed, they merely stood and gazed at them without showing the least inclination to join them.
In the course of the day (Thursday, Nov. 7th), Sir Everard and his allies had a fresh cause of anxiety. On looking back, one of them descried a small body of horsemen in the distance. Filled with hope, thinking that it consisted of Catholics from the neighbourhood coming to join them, they halted, to enable the riders to come up, but, to their disappointment, the other party pulled up also. This was suspicious, and still more so when the mysterious group moved slowly after them on their starting again. Evidently the horsemen in their rear were watching their movements with no friendly intentions. To the conspirators, their distant but ever following figures must have produced sensations not unlike those caused to worn-out travellers by the appearance of vultures in the desert. So long as it was light, they kept catching occasional glimpses of them, and, worst of all, the band of “shadowers”was increasing in numbers and venturing nearer and nearer. The conspirators and their followers were not in actual flight; indeed, they professed to be recruiting for their “army”; but they were none the less steadily, if slowly, pursued by a body of horsemen exceeding their own in numbers, though not so well armed.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more wretched than the little band of conspirators as they wended their way through the Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire lanes and villages. Fagged and haggard were the men, on jaded and weary steeds, and their helmets, pikes, and pistols gave them an almost comical appearance of martial masquerade. The cart-loads of unused armour and weapons were terribly suggestive of failure, and the conspirators’ appeals to the able-bodied men, who stood gazing at them from the doors of wayside inns and from village cross-roads, were met either with insult, laughter, or stolid indifference.
To a man like Sir Everard Digby, who had been accustomed to meet with respect, honour, and deference wherever he went, all this must have been exceptionally galling, and it would be made the more bitter by his observing that several of his companions were passing through a part of the country where they were well known and once honoured. He had expected to be received with cheers and enthusiasm at every Catholic house on his route for his attempt to better the condition of his co-religionists, and to see squires, yeomen, and peasants either hurrying to horse and to arms, or imploring for a headpiece and a sword or halberd from the store in the waggons of the little train; and what did he find?—the door of every Catholic house shut against him, or only opened for an out-pouring of reproaches and repudiations; the Catholics, from the highest to the lowest, shaking their heads at him and bidding him begone; and his carts of arms, armour, and gunpowder eyed with anger, scorn, and derision. Instead of regarding him as the best friend of their cause, the Catholic squires treated him as if he were its worst enemy; and, as they turned their backs upon himself and his friends and his followers, they gave him to understand that they considered the “powder-action,”which he protested was intended for the relief of the professors of the ancient faith, one of the most madly-conceived, iniquitous, and prejudicial projects ever undertaken by people bearing the name of Christians.
When we think of Sir Everard Digby accoutred and armed as if he were the leader of an army numbered by thousands, but actually surrounded by little more than a couple of dozen bedraggled and disheartened horsemen, all heavily, indeed over-armed, yet weary and unmilitary-looking to the last degree, himself haggard and anxious in countenance, yet vainly endeavouring to keep up a martial, knightly, and prosperous bearing, under conditions that rendered any such attempt ridiculous, we are inevitably reminded of that famous character of fiction, Don Quixote de la Mancha.
FOOTNOTES: