The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document / Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy Fawkes

CHAPTER XVII.

Now we know that Marmaduke Warde was of Mulwaith (or Mulwith) in the year 1585. For the “Life” of his daughter Mary expressly states that she was born at Mulwith in that year. And if a Thomas Warde was of Mulwaith (or Mulwith) only six years prior to 1585, and again of Mulwith in 1590, when he lost his wife, the inevitable inference is that the said Marmaduke Warde and the said Thomas Warde belonged to one and the same family, and that, in all probability, they were akin to each other as brothers.[68]

Again, the Register of Ripon Minster records on the 6th day of October, 1589, the baptism of Edward,[A] the son of a certain Christopher Wright, of Bondgate, Ripon.

[A] If this Edward Wright is the same as a certain Prebendary Edward Wright, of Ripon Minster, who received his nomination from King James I. on the 26th of March, 1613, then at least one cousin of Mary Ward must have conformed to the Established Church.— See “Memorials of Ripon,” in 3 vols. (Surtees Society.)

He would be about 23 years of age when the royal favour was thus vouchsafed to him.

An Edward Wright was Mayor of Ripon in the year 1635.— Gent’s “Ripon.”— Probably the son of Prebendary Edward Wright.

Another cousin of Mary Warde, I find, had likewise conformed— a Dr. Warde, the Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He belonged, I think, to the Wardes, of Durham, descended from a brother of Sir Christopher Ward.

On the 23rd day of July, 1594, of Eliza, daughter of Christopher Wright, of Newbie.[69]

The baptism on the 12th day of July, 1596, of Francis, son of Christopher Wright, of Newbie.

And furthermore, on the 3rd day of February, 1601, the baptism of Marmaduke, the son of Christopher Wright, of Skelton.

Now, when we recollect that a Marmaduke Warde was certainly brother-in-law to a Christopher Wright; and when we recollect that we have proof that a Thomas Warde and a Marmaduke Warde were, respectively, of Mulwaith (or Mulwith) in the Parish of Ripon, and that a Christopher Wright was of Bondgate, Newbie, and Skelton, all likewise in the Parish of Ripon; and when we further recollect that these three gentlemen were of these several places in the closing decades of the years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, only one conclusion is forced upon the mind of even the most sceptical, namely, that the said three gentlemen must have known, and been known to, one another personally, without the shadow of any reasonable doubt.

And again; that between those years, 1589 and 1590 inclusive, the said Thomas Warde and the said Christopher Wright had known each other intimately, by meeting within the bounds of the Parish of Ripon,— nay even within the chapelry of Skelton— is surely one of the likeliest things in the world.

Furthermore, it is possible that the Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith (or Mulwith), was in the diplomatic service of Queen Elizabeth in the Netherlands, along with Queen Elizabeth’s well-known diplomatist and Treasurer of the Chamber, Sir Thomas Heneage, the step-father of Lord Southampton, Lord Mounteagle’s friend, as well as Shakespeare’s patron.

For I find that the great Sir Francis Walsingham, in a letter dated from “the Court,” the 24th of March, 1585— six years after the marriage of Thomas Warde, of Mulwaith, to Marjory Slater, and five years before her lamented death— that the great Sir Francis Walsingham, in a letter to the Earl of Leicester, “Lord Lieutenant-General of Her Majesty’s Forces in the Low Countries,” speaks of a “Mr. Warde.”[A]

[A] See the “Leicester Correspondence” (Camden Soc.), p. 187.

Now we know for certain from Winwood’s Memorials[B] that a Mr. Walter Hawkesworth, of the Hawkesworths of Hawkesworth Hall, in the Parish of Otley, in the County of York, was in the diplomatic service of King James I., and that, according to Foster’s “Pedigrees of Yorkshire Families” he was poisoned at Madrid when on an embassy there.

[B] See also Sir Ralph Sadler’s Papers. Edited by Sir Walter Scott.

Hence, is it quite within the bounds of possibility that his remote kinsman, Thomas Warde, of Mulwith, may have been in the diplomatic service of Queen Elizabeth. The Hawkesworths and the Wardes had, in days long gone by, twice formed alliances by marriage, so that the families were distantly akin. Indeed it was from Sir Simon Warde, of Esholt, in the Parish of Otley, and of Givendale, in the Parish of Ripon, that the Hawkesworths of Hawkesworth had by marriage alliance gained the Hawkesworth Estate.— See Foster’s “Pedigrees of Yorkshire Families.”

But is there any evidence that links Thomas Ward (or Warde), of Mulwaith (or Mulwith), and the Ward (or Warde) family in general, of Givendale, Newby and Mulwith, with the Lord Mounteagle?[C]

[C] It will be seen as this narrative further unfolds itself that it is almost certain that Thomas Warde (or Ward) was in the service of the Government as a Catholic diplomat under Walsingham. And, moreover, it will appear probable that the servant Warde (or Ward) “had as much, off” as the master Walsingham.

And, first of all, is there any evidence to show that Marmaduke Ward ever had a brother in London, who lived at Court?

There is.

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