The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 283, November 17, 1827

On the arrest of Guy Fawkes, such of the conspirators as at the time were in London, fled into the country to meet Catesby at Dunchurch, according to previous arrangement; and after taking some horses out of a stable at Warwick, they reached Robert Wintour's house, at Huddington, on the Wednesday night. On Thursday morning the whole party, amounting to about twenty persons, confessed themselves to Hammond, a priest, received absolution from him, and partook of the sacrament together, and then, with their followers and servants, proceeded to Lord Windsor's house, at Hewell, from whence they took a great quantity of armour and weapons. They then passed into Staffordshire, and by night reached the house of Stephen Littleton, called Holbeach house, about two miles from Stourbridge. By this time the whole country was raised in pursuit of the rebels; and a large party, under the direction of Sir Richard Walshe, high sheriff of Worcestershire, early on Friday morning arrived at Holbeach house. The party in the house—consisting of Catesby, Percy, Sir E. Digby, Robert, John, and Thomas Wintour, Grant Rookewood, the two Wrights, Stephen Littleton, and their servants,—finding their condition now to be desperate, determined to fight resolutely to the last, treating the summons to surrender with contempt, and defying their pursuers. A singular accident, however, put an end to all conference between the parties. Some gunpowder, which the conspirators had provided for their defence, proving damp, they had placed nearly two pounds in a pan near the fire to dry; and a person incautiously raking together the fading embers, a spark flew into the pan, ignited the powder, which blew up with a great explosion, shattered the house, and severely maimed Catesby, Rookewood, and Grant; but the most remarkable circumstance was, that about sixteen pounds of powder, in a linen bag, which was actually under the pan wherein the powder exploded, was blown through the roof of the house, and fell into the court-yard amongst the assailants, without igniting, or even bursting.

Sir R. Walshe then gave orders for a general assault to be made upon the house; and, in the attack that followed, Thomas Wintour, going into the court-yard, was the first who was wounded, having received a shot in the shoulder, which disabled him; the next was Mr. Wright, and after him the younger Wright, who were both killed; Rookewood was then wounded. Catesby, now seeing all was lost, and their condition totally hopeless, exclaimed to Thomas Wintour, "Tom, we will die together." Wintour could only answer by pointing to his disabled arm, that hung useless by his side, and as they were speaking, Catesby and Percy were struck dead at the same instant, and the rest then surrendered themselves into the hands of the sheriff.

At the end of January, 1606, the whole of the conspirators, at that time in custody, being eight in number, were brought to their trial in Westminster Hall, and were all tried upon one indictment, except Sir E. Digby, who had a separate trial. On Thursday, January 30th, Sir E. Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, were executed at the west end of St. Paul's Church, and on the next day Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookewood, Robert Keys, and Guy Fawkes, suffered within the Old Palace-yard at Westminster.

On the 28th of February, 1606, Garnet was brought to trial at Guildhall, before nine Commissioners specially appointed for that purpose. Of his participation in the plot there was no doubt; and he admitted himself criminal in not revealing it, although, as he asserts, it was imparted to him only in confession: but it is more than probable that the valuable papers, lately rescued from oblivion, and preserved in his Majesty's State Paper Office, will be able to prove his extensive connexion with the plot, his knowledge of it, both in and out of confession, and his influential character with all the conspirators.

Garnet was hanged on the 3rd of May, 1606, on a scaffold, erected for that purpose, at the west end of St. Paul's Church. Held up to infamy by one party as a rebel and a traitor, and venerated as a saint and a martyr by the other; the same party spirit, and the same conflicting opinions, have descended from generation to generation, down to the controversialists of the present day.

We subjoin the Autographs of some of the principal conspirators, from the same source as the preceding narrative, as an appropriate and equally authentic accompaniment:—

Robert Catesbye.—Taken from an original letter from Catesbye to his cousin, John Grant, entreating him to provide money against a certain time. This autograph is very rare.

Guido Fawkes.—Taken from his declaration made in the Tower on the 19th of November, and afterwards acknowledged before the Lord's Commissioners.

Thomas Percy.—From an original letter to W. Wycliff, Esq. of York, dated at Gainsborough, November 2nd, 1605.

Henry Garnet.—From one of his examinations, wherein he confessed to have been in pilgrimage to St. Winifred's Well.

Ambrose Rookewood.—From an original letter, declared that he had felt a scruple of conscience, the fact seeming "too bluddy."

Thomas Wintour.—From an original examination before the Lord's Commissioners, on the 25th of November, 1605.

Francis Tresam.—From his examination relative to the book on Equivocation. Tresam escaped being hanged by dying in the Tower, on the 23rd of December, 1605.

Sir Everard Digby.—From an original examination. He was related to John Digby, subsequently created Baron Digby and Earl of Bristol, and was a young man of considerable talent. He was in the twenty-fourth year of his age when executed.

To the Right Hon. the Lord Mounteagle.—The superscription to the anonymous letter that led to the discovery of the plot. By whom it was written still remains a mystery.

All the principal conspirators were married and had families; several of them possessed considerable property, and were highly, and, in some instances, nobly related.

L.

THE SKETCH BOOK No. XLIX

THE AUBERGE

(For the Mirror.)

"Tais-toi, Louise," exclaimed the landlady of a small but neat auberge at – to her daughter, a sweet child, about seven years of age, who, playing with a little curly French dog, was sitting on a three-legged stool, humming a trifling chanson which she had gleaned from a collection of ditties pertaining to an old woman, who, when the landlady might be busily engaged, attended the infant steps and movements of Louise. "Tais-toi, ecoutez, la diligence s'approche;" the truth of the good woman's remark being vouched for by the heavy rumbling of that ponderous machine, the "Vite, vite" of the postilion, and the "crack, crack" of his huge whip. This was shortly after the battle of Waterloo, when our troops, crowned with laurels, were hastily leaving the continent, burning with anxiety to revisit their native soil, and their countrymen of the peace department were as hastily leaving it, fired with curiosity to behold the spot where such laurels had been so hardly earned. At least such was undoubtedly the most prevalent cause of the great influx of continental visiters at that period; but there were, by way of contrast to these votaries of curiosity, too many whose contracted brow and thoughtful melancholy cast of visage betrayed forcibly their owners' curiosity to be otherwise and more feelingly worked upon; 'twas the anxiety, the wish to gather information respecting relatives or friends, killed or wounded in the late dire struggle, which had caused those appearances. But to my subject. 'Twas at the close of a very hot July day that the diligence drew up to the door of the before-mentioned auberge. "A diner," as the postilion (nearly smothered in his tremendous "bottes fortes," genteelly taking from his head a hat almost as small as the boots were in comparison large) was politely pleased to term it. No pressing invitation was requisite to incline our English travellers to take their seats around the table well arranged with French fare, and fatigue seemed to lose itself in the exhilaration proceeding from the chablis, champagne, and chambertin; but there was one traveller, whose melancholy defied eradication—an English lady, genteelly but plainly habited, to appearance about seven and twenty years of age; her features handsome and strongly marked; when in health of mind and body, they might have possessed the "besoin du souci," habitual to the country in which she was then travelling, but were now too deeply clouded with that "apparence de la misère," to which the English seem alone to give fullness of effect—a fault, perhaps, but a sentimental one, worthy of that or any other country. She had with her a beautiful boy, whose age might be about five, who, attracted partly by the pretty appearance of the dog, by signs and childish frolics, soon formed acquaintance with the hostess's daughter, the little Louise. For some time previous to the arrival of the diligence at the auberge, a storm had been expected; and the distant thunder and heavy drops of rain beating against the casements before the dinner was half over, gave appearance of justice and reason to the entertainment of such anticipations, and caused a general congratulation at the party being so safely housed. As the storm was increasing every minute, much argument was not necessary to induce the postilion to delay proceeding until it might abate. Some of the party adhered to the bottle, some resorted to a book, and some to cards, to wile away the time. The lady requested to be conducted to a private apartment, wherein to pass with her dear child (remote from the noisy mirth of her companions, so little according with her then feelings) the time, until the diligence might again be ready to start. But half an hour had scarce elapsed from the formation of this arrangement ere admission was sought and gained by a brigade of English soldiers, six of whom, on a support formed by muskets, bore what seemed to be the corpse of an officer, whose arm, hanging down, gave to another officer the hand. Such a scene soon attracted general attention. In a few minutes a couch, by the junction of two or three chairs, was made, and on that the body laid. The soldiers who had formed the support, with arms grounded and grief deeply marked on their countenances, presented a melancholy group; whilst the young officer, kneeling by the couch, and gazing intently on his friend, but served to heighten the melancholy of the scene. A long silence of anxiety, interrupted but by the rolling of the thunder and the pattering of the rain, ensued. "'Tis no use," at length exclaimed the friend of the wounded man, "'tis now no use even to hope, my brave fellows; the surgeon was deceived, and rash to consent to his removal. Your commander has sunk beneath the fatigue. I thought it would be so. Peace," he exclaimed, as the tears fell fast from his eyes, "peace to thy manes, brave, generous St. Clair." An agonizing shriek from above startled all; and in another moment the lady (the traveller in the diligence) fell on what appeared to be the soldier's bier. "Heavens! what dream is this?" exclaimed the officer who had been so assiduous in his attention to the unfortunate man; "my sister here!—let me intreat, let me beg—" "No, Albert Fitzalleyn—no, brother, no," uttered Mrs. St. Clair, "remove me not—I am calm, resigned, very, very calm—I expected this—if I cannot live I can die with him. St. Clair, awake—your wife, your Charlotte calls—what not one smile?—look here," she cried, pulling the frightened, trembling, weeping child towards the body, "your child, your boy, your dearest Edward calls for you too. O, agony! he does not move. Dead! no, no, it cannot be—my life, my love, my husband." And there was something, it did seem, in that sweet voice which reached the dying warrior's heart, for he opened those eyes already partly glazed with the film of death, and if in them expression remained, it beamed on his afflicted wife. Reason and strength too returned, but their dominion was momentary, for with one hand feebly grasping that of his wife, his other resting on the head of his dear boy, and his sunken eyes directed from the one to the other, the brave, the respected, the beloved St. Clair died! He sank on the rough, uncouth couch, and with him the senseless form of his fond wife. The stillness of the corpse scarcely surpassed that which for a time was reigning over the group assembled there; at length the brother gently raised the wretched widow from her sad resting-place; but the fair sufferer was released from all earthly pain; with her husband she could not live, but she indeed with him had died! Their son, Edward St. Clair, is in existence, living with, and beloved by, his uncle, Albert Fitzalleyn,

THE PAINTER.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

ROMEO COATES

What was Kemble, Cooke, Kean, or Young, to the celebrated Diamond Coates, who, about twenty years since, shared with little Betty the admiration of the town? Never shall I forget his representation of Lothario at the Haymarket Theatre, for his own pleasure, as he accurately termed it; and certainly the then rising fame of Liston was greatly endangered by his Barbadoes rival. Never had Garrick or Kemble, in their best times, so largely excited the public attention and curiosity. The very remotest nooks of the galleries were filled by fashion, while in a stage-box sat the performer's notorious friend, the Baron Ferdinand Geramb.

Coates's lean Quixotic form, being duly clothed in velvets and in silks, and his bonnet richly fraught with diamonds, (whence his appellation,) his entrance on the stage was greeted by such a general crowing, (in allusion to the large cocks, which as his crest adorned his harness,) that the angry and affronted Lothario drew his sword upon the audience, and actually challenged the rude and boisterous inhabitants of the galleries, seriatim, or en masse, to combat on the stage. Solemn silence, as the consequence of mock fear, immediately succeeded. The great actor, after the overture had ceased, amused himself for some time with the baron, ere he condescended to indulge the wishes of an anxiously expectant audience. At length he commenced; his appeals to his heart were made by an application of the left hand so disproportionably lower than the "seat of life" has been supposed to be placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word "breach," and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of "the gallant and the gay;" but who shall describe the prolonged agonies of the dark seducer! his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people for medical aid to accomplish his eternal exit. Then, when in his last throes his bonnet fell, it was miraculous to see the defunct arise, and after he had spread a nice handkerchief on the stage, and there deposited his head-dress, free from impurity, philosophically resume his dead condition; but it was not yet over, for the exigent audience, not content "that when the man were dead, why there an end," insisted on a repetition of the awful scene, which the highly flattered corpse executed three several times to the gratification of the cruel and torment-loving assembly.

Coates, too, was destined to participate somewhat in the celebrated fête in honour of the Bourbons in 1811. Having no opportunity of learning in the West Indies the propriety of being presented at court, ere he could be upon a more intimate footing with the prince, he was less astonished than delighted at the reception of an invitation on that occasion to Carlton house. What was the fame acquired by his cockleshell curricle, (by the way, the very neatest thing seen in London before or since;) his scenic reputation; all the applause attending the perfection of histrionic art; the flatteries of Billy Finch, (a sort of kidnapper of juvenile actors and actresses, of the O. P. and P. S. in Russell-court;) the sanction of a Petersham; the intimacy of a Barrymore; even the polite endurance of a Skeffington to this! To be classed with the proud, the noble, and the great. It seemed a natural query, whether the Bourbon's name were not a pretext for his own introduction to royalty, under circumstances of unprecedented splendour and magnificence. It must have been so. What cogitations respecting dress, and air, and port, and bearing! What torturing of the confounded lanky locks, to make them but revolve ever so little! then the rich cut velvet—the diamond buttons—ay, every one was composed of brilliants! The night arrived: ushered by well-rigged watchmen to clear the way, the honoured sedan bore its precious burthen to the palace, and the glittering load was deposited in the royal vestibule itself. Alas! what confusion, horror, and dismay were there, when the ticket was pronounced a forgery! All that the considerate politeness of a Bloomfield or a Turner might effect was done to alleviate the fatal disappointment. The case was even reported instanter to the prince himself; but etiquette was amongst the other "restrictions" imposed upon his royal highness; and, however tempered by compliment and excuse, "the diamonds blaze" reached not farther than the hall, and were destined to waste their splendour, for the remainder of the night, in the limited apartments of Craven-street.

New Monthly Magazine.

THE VOICE OF NATURE

I heard a bird on the linden tree,From which November leaves were falling,Sweet were its notes, and wild their tone;And pensive there as I paused alone,They spake with a mystical voice to me,The sunlight of vanish'd years recallingFrom out the mazy past.I turned to the cloud-bedappled sky,To bare-shorn field and gleaming water;To frost-night herbage, and perishing flower;While the Robin haunted the yellow bower;With his faery plumage and jet-black eye,Like an unlaid ghost some scene of slaughter:All mournful was the sight.Then I thought of seasons, when, long ago,Ere Hope's clear sky was dimm'd by sorrow,How bright seem'd the flowers, and the trees how green,How lengthen'd the blue summer days had been;And what pure delight the young spirit's glow,From the bosom of earth and air, could borrowOut of all lovely things.Then my heart leapt to days, when, a careless boy,'Mid scenes of ambrosial Autumn roaming,The diamond gem of the Evening Star,Twinkling amid the pure South afar,Was gazed on with gushes of holy joy,As the cherub spirit that ruled the gloamingWith glittering, golden eye.And oh! with what rapture of silent bliss.With what breathless deep devotion,Have I watch'd, like spectre from swathing shroud,The white moon peer o'er the shadowy cloud,Illumine the mantled Earth, and kissThe meekly murmuring lips of Ocean,As a mother doth her child.But now I can feel how Time hath changedMy thoughts within, the prospect round us—How boyish companions have thinn'd away;How the sun hath grown cloudier, ray by ray;How loved scenes of childhood are now estranged;And the chilling tempests of Care have bound usWithin their icy folds.'Tis no vain dream of moody mind,That lists a dirge i' the blackbird's singing;That in gusts hears Nature's own voice complain,And beholds her tears in the gushing rain;When low clouds congregate blank and blind,And Winter's snow-muffled arms are clingingRound Autumn's faded urn.DELTA.Blackwood's Magazine.

CALAIS

Calais will merit to be described by every Englishman who visits it, and to be read of by every one who does not—so long as Hogarth, and "Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England!" shall be remembered, and—which will be longer still—till the French and English become one people, merely by dint of living, within three hours' journey of each other. Calais has been treated much too cavalierly by the flocks of English, who owe to it their first, and consequently most fixed impressions of French manners, and the English want of them. Calais is, in fact, one of the most agreeable and characteristic little towns in France. It is "lively, audible, and full of vent"—as gay as a fair, and as busy as a bee-hive—and its form and construction as compact.

Calais, unlike any English town you could name, is content to remain where it is—instead of perpetually trying to stretch away towards Paris, as our's do towards London, and as London itself does towards them. Transporting you at once to the "Place" in the centre of the town (an entirely open square, of about 150 paces by 100,) you can scarcely look upon a more lively and stirring scene. The houses and their shops (they have all shops) are like nothing so much as so many scenes in a pantomime—so fancifully and variously are they filled, so brightly and fantastically painted, and so abruptly do they seem to have risen out of the ground! This last appearance is caused by the absence of a foot-path, and of areas, porticoes, railings, &c.—such as, in all cases, give a kind of finish to the look of our houses. The houses here seem all to have grown up out of the ground—not to have been built upon it. This is what gives to them their most striking effect of novelty at the first view. Their brilliant and various colourings—so unlike our sombre brick-work—is the next cause of the novel impression they produce. The general strangeness of the effect is completed by the excellence of the pavement, which is of stones, shaped like those of our best London carriage-ways, but as white as marble in all weathers, and as regular as the brick-work of a house-front. The uniformity of the "Place" is broken (not very agreeably) by the principal public edifice of Calais—the Town Hall; a half-modern, half-antique building, which occupies about a third of the south side, and is surmounted at one end by a light spiring belfry, containing a most loquacious ring of bells, which take up a somewhat unreasonable proportion of every quarter of an hour in announcing its arrival; and, in addition, every three hours they play "Le petit chaperon rouge" for a longer period than (I should imagine) even French patience and leisure can afford to listen to it. Immediately behind the centre of this side of the "Place" also rises the lofty tower, which serves as a light-house to the coast and harbour, and which at night displays its well-known revolving lights. Most of the principal streets run out of this great Square. The most busy of them—because the greatest thoroughfare—is a short and narrow one leading to the Port—(Rue du Havre:) in it live all those shopkeepers who especially address themselves to the wants of the traveller. But the gayest and most agreeable street is one running from the north-east corner of the "Place" (Rue Royale.) It terminates in the gate leading to the suburbs (Basse Ville,) and to the Netherlands and the interior of the country. In this street is situated the great hotel Dessin—rendered famous for the "for ever" of a century or so to come, by Sterne's Sentimental Journey. The only other street devoted exclusively to shops is one running parallel with the south side of the "Place." The rest of the interior of Calais consists of about twenty other streets, each containing here and there a shop, but chiefly occupied by the residences of persons directly or indirectly connected with the trade of Calais as a sea-port town.

If you believe its maligners, Calais is no better than a sort of Alsatia to England, a kind of extension of the rules of the King's Bench. The same persons would persuade you that America is something between a morass and a desert, and that its inhabitants are a cross between swindlers and barbarians; merely because its laws do not take upon them to punish those who have not offended against them! If America were to send home to their respective countries, in irons, all who arrive on her shores under suspicion of not being endowed with a Utopian degree of honesty—or, if (still better) she were to hang them outright, she would be looked upon as the most pious, moral, and refined nation under the sun, and her climate would rival that of Paradise. And if Calais did not happen to be so situated, that it affords a pleasant refuge to some of those who have the wit to prefer free limbs and fresh air to a prison, it would be all that is agreeable and genteel. It seems to be thought, that a certain ci-devant leader of fashion has chosen Calais as his place of voluntary exile, out of a spirit of contradiction. But the truth is, he had the good sense to see that he might "go farther and fare worse;" and that, at any rate, he would thus secure himself from the intrusions of that "good company," which had been his bane. By-the-by, his last "good thing" appertains to his residence here. Some one asked him how he could think of residing in "such a place as Calais?" "I suppose," said he, "it is possible for a gentleman to live between London and Paris."