Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-04
'ASHBY ST. LEDGERS.
Where the "Guy Fawkes Gun.
powder Plot" Originated.
HOME OF THE CONSPIRATOR.
The Grand Historic Sweep Embraced in
the Abstract of TitIe-The Manor
House Seven Hundred Years
Old-Its Owner.
AsHBY ST. LEpGERs, ENGLAND,


!, Special Correspondence OF the Gazette
v One feels quite prideful thrill of origi-
nal discovery if he can hit an object or
.tplace in all Europe where the great Amer
lean globe trotter has not already come /;
took a hasty glance; photographed every
body and everything with a snap camera or
upon his majestic memory: Clipped of a
piece of the object or shrine for his collec-
9tion; made half dozen notes with a Stylo-
graphic pen for future reference; cut his
dname and the date of his visit upon any
davailaole woodwork about the spot, or 9TH
eerwise left his mark; and then with q
r"biff!" and ''zip"' projected himself mete-
eorically through space to the next pleasing
for hideous object of interest.
l have found one spot in Great Britain
where there is at least no local record of
the species. The fact is noteworthy one
land the place itself possesses extraordinary
! interest Ii is called Ashby St. Ledgers.
. To be very definite regarding a locality so
distinctive for its SO far quite unknown
beauties and interest, 1t is but tiny ''vil-
Ilage four miles north from Daventry, six
: teen from Northampton, in the mid-division
q of the county of NORTHAMPTON, hundred of
. Fawsley, petty seasonal division, union
and county court district of Daventry
rural deanery of Daventry, archdeaconry
of Northampton and diocese of Peter
borough
{ The tax-gatherers of the crown have
thus infinitely located the village and par
. ish and to make it perfectly accessible to
those who do" ireland, Scotland and En-
gland in one week or less, it should be
added that Ashby St. Ledgers is but tif-
teen minutes walk westward from Wilton
station, on the main line of the London and
. Northwestern railway from London to
the noted school town of Rugby, and that
the most noted conspiracy in English his
Gun Powder Plot" was connected within
the sunny, slumberous precincts of its now
.crumhling and ivy covered walls.
To the casual student OF history the chief
incidents of the plot may properly be re-
lcalled. Stripped of their usual bigoted YER
biagc it was plan originated by Sir Rob
'ert Catesby, lord of this very manor and
other malcontents, including Thomas Percy,
christopher and John Wright, Thomas and
Robert Winter, one Bates, and their drawer
tool, Guido Tor Guy Faux Tor Fawkes),
representing the enemies of James l., then
recently elevated to the throne under the
union of the English and Scottish crowns,
and shortly thereafter proclaimed king OF
Great Britain--to remove an obnoxious
government in the concrete, king, lords and
commons, at single explosion of gunpow-
der. instead of by a great and protracted
waste of gunpowder through prolonged
cruel civil war, in which an entire nation is
OFTEN ALL But DESTROYED.
This was probably the conspirators' con-
siderate and pleasant view OF the matter
They rented Il fine cellar Immediately un-
der parliament house and succeeded in con-
cealing within it thirty barrels and four
hogsheads of gunpowder, covered with
billets and faggots of wood, great iron bars,
Stones" etc, besides young aud ambitious
Mr.. Fawkes, wrapped in cloak and
booted and spurred," and provided with "a
dark lanthorn and d finder boxe with which
to set off the touch-wood," which, COM
municating with the thirty barrels and
four hogsheads of guIpowder, at the
instant of the kings converting parliament,
November 5, 1908, was expected to give
immediate relief to the political situation.
However, b. means an an anonymous let
ter to Lord Monteagle, whom some one of
was discovered, young Mr.. Fawkes, whom
the pictures represent as having for some
time neglected his hair and beard. was
dragged out of his mysterious surround
ings, spread upon a convenient rack, Undue
ing confession, and shortly after hung;
while Percy, Catesby, Winter and the two
Wrights were chased from this place
Warwickshire to Holbeach, in
Staffordshire, where they were all slain,
fighting to the death, except Winter. He
was captured alive, to die on the gdllowS
and sufficient number Of others, directly
or suppositiously connected with this mad
effort 10 proclaim the young Princess Eliza
beth queen In the place of James, to appease
the most fastidious and eXacting religio-
political feeling of the time, and cause sue
ceeding generations to
Pemember remember