The Gunpowder Plot (History16th17th Century History) by Haynes Alan

Author:Haynes, Alan [Haynes, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: The Gunpowder Plot
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

After Midnight

It soon proved impossible to withhold news of the discovery and arrest, and by five o’clock on Tuesday morning Thomas Winter was alerted by the younger of the Wright brothers. Winter sent him to the Essex Gate to glean what further information he could, which when Wright rehearsed it on his return seems to have amounted to no more than before. Winter then sent him off to Thomas Percy bidding him to leave London although he meant himself to stay ‘and see the uttermost’. The situation was not yet clear so Winter now went to the Court Gates and found them heavily guarded so that no one could enter. From there he went briskly to Parliament and in the middle of King Street had an encounter with a guard who would not let him pass. Making his way back to the Duck in the Strand where he was staying, he overheard someone say ‘There is a treason discovered, in which the King and the Lords should have been blown up’, which confirmed in essence Wright’s prediction that ‘all was known’.1 Winter must have had an unshakeable faith in the ability of Fawkes to resist interrogation because he remained in London far into the morning, concerning himself with the fate of his fellow-plotters. As it happened, his assessment was well judged because the interrogation proved to be a difficult one for the cluster of councillors about the king. Fawkes (using his alias of John Johnson) appeared quite self-possessed, calm in aspect and lucid, if gruff, in speech. There was no immediate revelatory babble from him; the martial spirit held for a precious few days and gave his confederates more than enough time to quit London. Perhaps he even hoped that they could successfully regroup in the Midlands to initiate the revolt there; associates of theirs on the spot did not remain idle over the days of the crisis.

On Sunday 3 November, Grafton Manor, near Bromsgrove, the seat of (Sir) John Talbot, saw assemble a large company of his kinsmen and friends. From Huddington, some nine miles away, had come Robert Winter, whose reluctance months before to follow his own brother and Catesby has been noted. His companions now were Robert Acton* and his two sons, and the quartet stayed the night at Grafton, before departing on the morning of 4 November with Talbot who probably left them at Bromsgrove to ride on to his other estate at Pepperhill, near Albrighton, in Shropshire.2 Robert Winter’s servants had brought along several remounts, horses just recently sent to Huddington by Sir Everard Digby, and the party now went on to Coventry where they spent the night at the Bull Inn in Smithford Street. Here they were joined by Winter’s cousins, the Littletons, Stephen and Humphrey, and together they left the town on the morning of 5 November to join the rendezvous at Dunsmore Heath, the party picking up more horsemen as they went. At Dunchurch Winter left the Littletons and rode on to

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