Sir Everard Digby had rented Coughton, near Alcester, in Warwickshire, from Thomas Throckmorton, Esquire, as a base for the warlike operations, which were to be conducted in the Midlands as soon as intelligence had arrived from London that the King, Lords Spiritual and Temporal, together with the Gentlemen of the House of Commons, “were now no more.”

On Sunday, the 3rd of November, the young knight rode from Coughton to Dunchurch, near Rugby.

Robert Winter the same day left Huddington and, sleeping on the Sunday night at Grafton, at the house of his father-in-law, John Talbot, Esquire, rode on to Coventry, in company with the younger Acton, of Ribbesford, and attended by several servants.

At Coventry, Robert Winter was joined by Stephen Littleton, of Holbeach House, in Staffordshire, just over the borders of Worcestershire; and also by his cousin, Humphrey Littleton, brother to the then late John Littleton,[A] of Hagley House, Worcestershire, who had been engaged in the Essex rising.

On the following Tuesday, November the 5th, the whole party proceeded towards Dunchurch, the armed cavalcade continually increasing in numbers.

The plan was, that at Dunsmore Heath, under a feigned hunting or coursing match, there should be a gathering of the Midland Catholic clans, then very numerous and powerful. Dunsmore Heath, in fact, was to be the rendezvous of the insurgents.

Robert Winter left the cousins Littleton at “the town’s end” of Dunchurch, and rode on to Ashby St. Legers, the ancestral seat of the Catesbies, where, indeed, the Dowager Lady Catesby was then residing.

Here Robert Winter hoped to meet Catesby, with whom, after the latter had reported progress with reference to things done in London on that Tuesday morning, Winter purposed to gallop off to the rendezvous at Dunsmore Heath.

Ambrose Rookwood was one of the latest to leave for the provinces. He owned many fine horses; and he had placed relays of horses all the way from London to Dunchurch. Rookwood rode one horse at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. Riding for dear life, he overtook Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights, near Brickhill. Percy and John Wright cast off their cloaks and threw them into the hedge to ride the more swiftly.[155]

About six o’clock in the evening of Tuesday, just as Lady Catesby, Robert Winter, and some others were about to sit down to supper in the old mansion-house, there fell upon their ears a mingled din, occasioned by horses’ feet and men’s excited voices.

Soon in rushed, with scared faces and travel-stained garb, grievously fatigued and intensely agitated, the son of the house (Robert Catesby), Thomas Percy, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Ambrose Rookwood. Their announcement was the capture of Guy Fawkes early that Tuesday morning.

After holding a short council of war, the whole band of conspirators, snatching up all the weapons of warfare they could lay their hands on, took horse again and rode off to Dunchurch.

Sir Everard Digby, his uncle (Sir Robert Digby, of Coleshill), Stephen Littleton, Humphrey Littleton, and many others were awaiting their arrival at Dunchurch, in an inn.

The six fugitive conspirators, all bespattered with the mire of November high roads, with dejected looks and jaded aspect, arrived in due time to tell their tale.

Soon Sir Robert Digby departed with one of his sons, then Humphrey Littleton, and speedily many others of the hunting party.

It was determined by the ringleaders to make for Wales; for the Catholics of the Principality were then very strong,[A] and the Counties of Warwick, Worcester, and Stafford were to be traversed, from all of which valuable reinforcements were expected.

About ten o’clock on Tuesday night the full company, now about thirty strong, set out for Norbrook,[A] the house of John Grant.

Thence, it will be recollected, Bates was sent with a note from Catesby and Sir Everard Digby to Father Garnet, at Coughton, urging Garnet to join the rebels in Wales.

Lady Digby had also a letter from her husband, but the poor young wife, we are told, could, alas! do naught but cry.

After a halt of about two hours for refreshments and the procuring of more arms, the insurgents once more slipped their feet into the stirrups, and on they rode for Huddington, near Droitwich, where they arrived at two o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 6th. Sentinels were posted at the passage of every way at Huddington, possibly by the order of John Winter, half-brother to Robert and Thomas Winter.

Here they were joined by Thomas Winter, who had come down from London with the latest news; also by the Jesuit, Father Tesimond, whom Catesby hailed with joy.

They rested for a good few hours at Huddington; and, as we have seen already, at about three o’clock in the morning of Thursday all the gentlemen assisted at Father Nicholas Hart’s Mass, went to Confession, and received, at the Jesuit’s, hands, what most of them from their childhood had been taught to believe was “the Bread of Angels,” and “the Food of Immortality.”[B]

Before daybreak of Thursday the fugitives were on the march north-westward again. For “there is no rest for the wicked.”

The rebels made for Whewell Grange, the seat of the Lord Windsor, one of the numerous Worcestershire Catholic families.

At Whewell Grange the traitors helped themselves to a large store of arms and armour.

Then they sped on towards Holbeach House, near Stourbridge, in Staffordshire. Their number was then about sixty all told, although earlier in the march it had increased to about a hundred. In two days they had traversed about sixty miles, “over bad and broken roads, in rainy and inclement weather.”

To the dire disappointment of Catesby, Sir Everard Digby, and the rest, John Talbot, of Grafton, drove Thomas Winter and Stephen Littleton from his door when they sought his aid for the rebellion.[A]

And Sir Everard was constrained to avow that of the wealthy Catholic gentry “not one man came to take our part though we had expected so many.”[B]