Read Online The Gunpowder Plot (History/16th/17th Century History) by Alan Haynes - Free Book Online

began to look as if that would come too late and though he regained some composure he had no last words prepared. The sheriff therefore halted proceedings and Markham was granted two hours in the great hall of the castle.
    When Grey was brought to the scaffold his countenance was so cheerful ‘that he seemed a dapper young bridegroom’. When he declared ringingly that he did not deserve to die the crowd may have anticipated a moment or two of high drama, but what they got was a dull interlude in the rain while for half an hour Grey prayed for the king’s health. Then the sheriff again intervened and Grey was escorted to the castle as well. Finally Cobham was brought out, and Carleton evidently expected a farcical end for him, only again the sheriff held up the business, and this time both Grey and Markham were brought back to confront Cobham looking ‘strange one upon the other, like men beheaded and met again in the other world’. The climax of the day came with the sheriff announcing the king’s pardon. This brought hoots and cheers from the crowd which echoed round the town, while Ralegh, watching the scene and anticipating his own death the following Monday, must have ‘had hammers working in his head to beat out the meaning of this stratagem’. In London the announcement from the throne stirred applause from those nearest the king and it made its way around the court. The reprieved men after had various fortunes. Grey remained in prison until his death in 1614; Cobham was imprisoned until shortly before his death in 1619, by which time Ralegh had been executed on the old conviction. As for Markham, he was held in prison for a short time, until paroled and exiled to the Low Countries. This routine is a very familiar one and certainly suggests that he went as a spy for Cecil even though he joined the ‘English’ regiment. Lady Markham evidently thought it was worth staying in England and she spent some time lobbying hard for the rehabilitation and return of her husband, until patience exhausted she ended up making a bigamous marriage.
    Dudley Carleton made a mordant quip about the execution of Watson and Clarke when he noted that ‘the priests led the dance’. Among Catholics abroad their fate seems to have elicited a certain grim relish. Robert Owen thought they had failed to obey their spiritual superiors and merited their fate. His brother Hugh writing to Captain Elyot thought it God’s justice that those who had accused the Jesuits of being perturbators of kingdoms should be the first to offend against ‘him whom themselves set up’. Even Clement VIII condemned the two priests without equivocation and even sent a secret envoy to the English court expressing his abhorrence of all acts of disloyalty. In addition he offered to withdraw any missionary from England and Wales who was unacceptable to the king and council. For a time James seemed to be benignly influenced by this gesture and as part of his coronation festivities allowed pardons to all Catholics who came forward to seek one. The momentum for a change seemed to be underlined by a meeting at some time between March and July 1603; Cecil met Sir Thomas Tresham, a prominent Catholic from one of the leading families of Northamptonshire, whose brother William had become a captain in the service of Spain. However, Sir Thomas himself was loyal, and a week before his coronation on St James’ day, the king met him and a group of Catholics. For a time the fines were halted and the income from the two-thirds of goods and property fell sharply. Evidently James and his councillors, familiar and new, thought it politic to try to buy off opposition; and the shift may have tempted men like the exiled Stanley who had begun to hanker for his estates. Even so, in despatches from Brussels to Spain, James was still described as truly hostile to Jesuit sympathizers and Stanley himself at this time was a member of the archducal Council of War.
    Early in July 1603,