 Father
John Gerard had already escaped by rope from the Tower once and, due to
his relationship to the Gunpowder plot, saw himself heading there again.
Father Gerard was at Harrowden where he was Chaplain. He was there on November
5 when Henry Huddleston, a friend of the Vaux
family, brought him news: the plot had been discovered.
He had met Catesby,
Percy
and the Wrights on the road. Huddleston
and two priests were on the way to warn Father Garnet
and were captured on route. Father Gerard did not go with them. He stayed
at Harrowden, a house riddled with hiding places constructed by the famous
lay-brother Nicholas "Little John" Owen.
On the 12th of
November, a Tuesday, William Tate, sent by Cecil,
came to Harrowden to search for Father Gerard. One hundred men searching
the house could not find the priest. The search lasted nine solid days.Cecil
brings in Elizabeth Vaux for questioning to shed light on the matter.
Father Gerard
was hiding all along in a room in which he could sit but not stand up.
Being brought food, he survived while other priests rooms in the house
were revealed to the searchers. Suffering from the cold of winter, Father
Gerard survived the search, getting away just before Cecil
received a tip that he was indeed still in the building.
Lady Anne Markham,
once Father Gerard's friends, was willing to betray him to free her husband.
Father Gerard remained hidden until the third of May 1606 at which time
he crossed the channel to France.
Another house
modified for the Jesuits was Hindlip. Little John Owen also fitted it out
well with priest hides and secret rooms of all kinds. Father Garnet
arrived there with Hall, the Vaux sisters
and Little John around December 4. Like Father Gerard, Father Garnet
was used to being on the run. He had been so for about 20 years. He probably
stayed at Coughton until the search let
up a bit and then headed directly to the safer place, Hindlip Hall, three
miles north east of Worcester. Hindlip was a palace of secret rooms, all
constructed by Little John.
As a result of
the capture of Fathers Strange and Singleton, the knowledge of the escape
of Gerard from Harrowden and other bits of information, Cecil,
by process of elimination, sent his men to search for Garnet
at Hindlip. Most other houses had been searched and priests were know to
have been found at Hindlip in the past. The proclamation to search Hindlip
included Gerard's name.
Bates,
under questioning, had tried to put the government off of the scent of
Tesimond
had gone to Hindlip. This was an unfortunate coincidence. The proclamation
for the arrest of Fathers Gerard,Cecil
had instructed Hindlip searched before the proclamation was issued. Detailed
plans for the search of Hindlip were given by Cecil
himself.
The house had
a commanding view of the countryside and the approach of Pursuivants could
be seen. Sir Henry Bromley arriving early on January 20 1606 and found
the beds still warm- four more warm beds than people! The lookout had not
been close enough. A hundred or more armed men surrounded the house. As
the men knocked on the gate servants rushed to hide religious articles
as well as the Jesuits. The man of the house, Thomas Abingdon, was away
but the women employed delaying tactics, sending servants to talk back
and forth.
Bromley broke
down the gates, but this process was time consuming and the Jesuits were
safely hidden away along with the religious articles. Bromley read his
proclamation to Mary Abingdon. She of course denied hiding priests and
gave Bromley the keys. Bromley wrote to Cecil-
"I did never hear so impudent liars as I find here... all recusants, and
all resolved to confess nothing, what danger so ever they incur." He wrote
of Mary Abingdon:"I could by no means persuade the gentlewomen of the house
to depart the house without I should have carried her, which I held uncivil
as being so nobly born as I have and do undergo the greater difficulties
thereby." Interestingly Mary Abingdon was Lord Mounteagle's
sister. She had to be treated carefully.
Thomas Abingdon
returns to find his house being torn apart. Thomas Abingdon also denies
the presence of priests. Floors were ripped up and oak paneling was taken
down. Walls were removed and ceilings prodded.
After three days
Bromley was about to give up, but just then "a number of Popish trash hid
under the floor boards" was found and the trail became fresh. All kinds
of secret hides were discovered, all unused and dusty. Thomas Abingdon's
property deeds were found in one of the hides, indicating that he had lied
about their existence.
Nicholas Owen,
the great architect of it hall, had gone into hiding so quickly on Monday
evening that he had taken no food, only one apple for two men and by Thursday
they were quite hungry. They were also without water for four days.
Out of an apparently
solid wall two men appeared. Bromley had left, fearing that the search
was a waste. The house was further destroyed as the search was intensified.
On Monday the 27th of January the secret chamber tucked away in an angle
of the chimney breast was discovered. The priests had sucked a mixture
of wine and eggs through a straw through a wall into another room. They
had obtained broth and other drinks as well by this technique. The two
men, Fathers Garnet
and Hall, were in pain from lack of movement. Their limbs were swollen.
Father Garnet eventually came out. "When we came forth we appeared like
2 ghosts yet I the stronger though my weakness lasted longer..." and so
without a fight as Father Garnet wrote: "Fiat voluntas ejus" (his will
be done.)
Father Garnet
never knew that the proclamation was issued in his name. He thought that
Humphry Littleton had sold him out. That in fact was a lie planted in Father
Garnet's mind by Cecil.
At the same Garnet
and Hall were being taken out of his hiding place on the 27th, the others
in our story: Fawkes,
The Winters, Digby,
Rookwood, Keyes,
Grant and Bates, were being taken from the
Tower to the Star Chamber for their treason trial. They had been all condemned
to death by the time news reached London of the capture from Bromley. Cecil
delayed the transportation of the prisoners so they would not meet at the
hearing.
Bromley was to
write the official letter of the capture and date it several days later
on the 30th of January. First Fathers Garnet
and Hall were moved to the jail at Worcester on the 27th. Then they were
taken to Holt Castle. The two priests were treated like royalty, probably
on the instructions of Cecil.
The time delay in the transport of the prisoners was such that the eight
men who could have cleared them of complicity in the plot were silent.
On January 30,
three days after word of the capture of the two priests reached Cecil,
Robert Winter, Sir Everard Digby,
John Grant
and Thomas Bates were hanged, drawn and quartered
in St. Paul's Churchyard. The following day at Old Palace Yard, Thomas
Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes
and Guy Fawkes
met the same fate.
On February 12,
six days after Garnet
arrived in London, Cecil
wrote to Sir Thomas Edmondes, the ambassador in Brussels, "Since their
execution, Garnet,
the provincial Jesuit, with some other Jesuits, is taken at Mr. Abingdon's
house in Worcestershire and brought to London".
We shall soon talk of further interrogations and executions
followed by a most amazing miracle.
End Of Part 3 Click here
to go onward to Part 4
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The
Plot, Part 3
