y connected by blood and matrimonial alliance with some of the most devoted and conspicuous Catholic families of England. Some of their Hastings kinsmen, sons of Francis, Earl of Huntin

, whom she educated to maintain the Catholicity of the family. In 1595, the old Baron, Beaumont's uncle, died-"the infortunatest peer of Parliament for poverty that ever was" by reason of the fines and forfeitures entailed upon him for his religious zeal. Meanwhile, in 1591, we find the daughters of the first marriage, Eleanor, whose husband was an Edward Brookesby, of Arundel House, Leicestershire, and Anne Vaux, concealing in a house in Warwickshire, the well-known Father Gerard and his Superior, Father Garnet, from priest-hunters, or pursuivants. These two cousins of Beaumont are described in Father Gerard's Narrative[29] as illustrious for goodness and holiness, "whom in my own mind I often compare to the two women who received our Lord." The younger, Anne, "was remarkable at all times for her virginal modesty and shamefacedness, but in the cause of God and the defence of His servants, the virgo became virago. She is almost always ill, but we have seen her, when so weakened as to be scarce able to utter three words without pain, on the arrival of the pursuiva

th the Protestants. The plot was betrayed, the priests executed, and the other leaders condemned to death,-then reprieved but attainted. Among those thus reprieved were Lord Grey de Wilton and "a confederate named Brookesby." This Brookesby was Bartholomew, the brother of Eleanor Vaux's husband. When new and more stringent measures were immediately adopted for the

urpose of their meeting, received in an adjoining room the Sacrament from Father Gerard, an unwitting accomplice, in confirmation of their oath; and then, retiring, learned from Catesby that the project intended was to blow up the Parliament House with gunpowder when the King and the royal family next came to the House of Lords. Within a few days "Thomas Percy hired a howse at Westminster," says Fawkes in his subsequent Confession, "neare adjoyning Parlt. howse, and there wee beganne to make a myne about the XI of December, 1604." The rest of the story is too well-known to call for repetition. How the gunpowder was smuggled into a cellar running under the Parliament House; how, when Parliament was prorogued to November 5th, 1605, the conspirators, running short of money to equip an insurrection, added to their number a few wealthy accomplices,-most significant to our narrative, that old friend of the Vauxes, Sir Edward Digby, and Francis Tresham, cousin of Catesby and the Winters, and as I have said of the Vauxes themselves.[32] How Tresham, recoiling from t

he first examination of "John Johnson," November 5th, the identity of that conspirator was established not by any co

c,[34]-therefore, an enterprise likely to implicate his Catholic cousins, indeed. His friend, Ben Jonson, is meanwhile blustering of private informations, and Francis would be likely to hear that Ben has written (November 8) to Lord Salisbury offering his services to unravel the web "if no better person can be found," and averring that the Catholics "are all so enweaved in it as it will make 500 gent. lesse of the religion within this weeke." Then he is apprised that John Wright, Catesby, Percy, etc., have been seen at "Lady" Vaux's on the eighth. The next day, that these three and Christopher Wright have been overtaken and slain; and then that, on the ninth, Fawkes has confessed that they

er quarters, however, it is learned that she bade that lady "be of good comfort for there should soon be toleration for religion," adding: "Fast and pray that that may come to pass which we purpose, which yf it doe, wee shall see Totnam turned French." And Sir Richard, examined concerning the contents of Mrs. Vaux's letter to his wife, affirms that he "disliked their intercourse, because Mrs. Vaux tried to pervert his wife." On December 4, Catesby's servant, Bates, acknowledges that he revealed the whole Plot to Greenway, the priest, in confession, "who said it was a good cause, bade him be secret, and absolved him." From Henry Huddleston's examination, December 6, it appears that Mrs. Vaux has not been telling the whole truth ab

trange and another, of whom I spoke before. This relative of hers was the chief man in the county in which they had been taken, and she thought she could by her intercession with him prevail for their release. But the treacherous man, who had often enough, as far as words went, offered to serve her in any way, proved the truth of our L

' she answered, 'and if I di

door, out of courtesy, and on the way said to her persuasively, 'Have pity on yourself an

with a loud voice, 'The

id not commit her to prison, but sent her to the house of a certain gentleman in the city, and after being held there in custody for a time she was released, but on condition of remaining in London.

d not be likely to filter through; but the Beaumonts ma

he knew that I wished to cross the sea for a time, she bid me not spare expense, so that I secured a safe passage, for that she would pay everything, though it should cost five thousand florins, and in fact she sent me at once a thousand florins for my journey. I left her in care of Father Percy, wh

, in Worcestershire, where for seven days and nights they have been buried in a closet, and nourished by broths conveyed to them by means of a quill which passed "through a little hole in a chimney that backed another chimney into a gentlewoman's chamber." True enough, the deposition, that whithersoever her beloved Father Superior "goethe, Mrs. Ann Vaux doth usually goe"; for she is the gentlewoman of the broths and quill,-she with Mrs. Abington, the sister of Monteagle. Garnet and Oldcorne are taken prisoners to the Tower; and three weeks later Anne is in town again, communicating with Garnet by means of letters, ostensibly brief and patent, but eked out with tidings written in an invisible ink of orange-juice. On March 6, Garnet confesses that Mrs. Anne Vaux, alias Perkins, he, and Brookesby bear the expenses of White Webbs. On March 11, Anne being examined says that she keeps the place at her own expense; that Catesby, Winter, and Tresham have been to her house, but that she knew nothing of the Plot; on the contrary, suspecting some mischief at one time, she had "begged Garnet to prevent it." Examined again on March 24, she says that "Francis Tresham, her cousin, often visited her and Garnet at White Webbs, Erith, Wandsworth, etc., when Garnet would counsel him to be patient and quiet; and that they also visited Tresham at his house in Warwickshire.

al flavour than has hitherto been suspected. An entry from the Docquet, calendared with the State Papers, Domestic, of November 14, 1607, may indicate that John Beaumont, the brother of Francis, though a Protestant, had in some way manifested sympathy with his Catholic relatives during the persecutions which followed the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot:-"Gift to Sir Jas. Sempill of the King's two parts of the site of the late dissolved monastery of Grace-Dieu, and other lands in Leicester, in the hands of the Crown by the recusancy of John Beaumont." At first reading the John Beaumont would appear to be Francis' grandfather, the Master of the Rolls. But the Master lost his lands not for recusancy (or refusal on religious grounds to take the Oath of Allegiance, or attend the State Church), but for malfeasance in office, and that in 1

but his wife, as well, belonged to families affiliated with Roman Catholicism, and that his eulogistic poems addressed to James are all of later years,-after his kinsman, Buckingham, had "drawn him from his silent cell," and "first inclined the anointed head to hear his rural songs, and read his lines"; also that it is only under James's successor that he is honoured by a baronetcy. It is, th

TNO

fe of Father John Ge

., p. 113. See below

Hist. Engl. 160

0. See also, below

am; for he had married Anne Tufton of Hothfield, Kent, granddaughter of Mary Baker who was sister of Sir Richard of Siss

State Papers (Domestic), the Gunpowder Plot Book, and Father Ger

Nov

ife of Father

ris, pp.