page_title: Robert Catesby
section_title: Further recruitment
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Catesby / Gunpowder Plot / Further recruitment
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of James VI and 1, c. 1606, by John de Critz
context_page_description: Robert Catesby was the leader of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
  Born in Warwickshire, Catesby was educated in Oxford. His family were prominent recusant Catholics, and presumably to avoid swearing the Oath of Supremacy he left college before taking his degree. He married a Protestant in 1593 and fathered two children, one of whom survived birth and was baptised in a Protestant church. In 1601 he took part in the Essex Rebellion but was captured and fined, after which he sold his estate at Chastleton.
  The Protestant James I, who became King of England in 1603, was less tolerant of Catholicism than his followers had hoped. Catesby therefore planned to kill him by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament, the prelude to a popular revolt during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the English throne. Early in 1604 he began to recruit other Catholics to his cause, including Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes.
context_section_description: Although the State Opening of Parliament was planned for February 1605, concern over the plague delayed it until 3 October. A contemporaneous government account has the plotters engaged in digging a tunnel beneath Parliament by December 1604, but no other evidence exists to prove this, and no trace of a tunnel has since been found. If the story is true, the plotters ceased their efforts when the tenancy to the undercroft beneath the House of Lords became available. Several months later, early in June 1605, Catesby met the principal Jesuit in England, Father Henry Garnet, on Thames Street in London. While discussing the war in Flanders, Catesby asked about the morality of "killing innocents". Garnet said that such actions could often be excused, but according to his own account during a second meeting in July he showed Catesby a letter from the pope which forbade rebellion. Catesby replied, "Whatever I mean to do, if the Pope knew, he would not hinder for the general good of our country." Father Garnet's protestations prompted Catesby's next reply, "I am not bound to take knowledge by you of the Pope's will." Soon after, Father Tesimond told Father Garnet that while taking Catesby's confession he had learned of the plot. Father Garnet met with Catesby a third time on 24 July at White Webbs in Enfield Chase, the home of Catesby's wealthy relative Anne Vaux, and a house long suspected by the government of harbouring Jesuit priests. Without acknowledging that he was aware of the precise nature of the plot, the priest tried in vain to dissuade Catesby from his course.
  By 20 July 1605, 36 barrels of gunpowder had been stored in the undercroft, but the ever-present threat of the plague yet again prorogued the opening of Parliament, this time until 5 November 1605. Catesby had borne much of the scheme's financial cost thus far, and was running out of money. As their plans moved closer to fruition, during a secret meeting at Bath in August at which he, Percy and Thomas Wintour were present, the plotters decided that "the company being yet but few" he was to be allowed to "call in whom he thought best". Catesby soon added Ambrose Rookwood, a staunch Catholic who was both young and wealthy, but who most importantly owned a stable of fine horses at Coldham. For the plan to work Rookwood and his horses needed to be close to the other conspirators, and so Catesby persuaded him to rent Clopton House at Stratford-upon-Avon. Francis Tresham was brought into the plot on 14 October. Also descended from William Catesby, Tresham was Robert's cousin, and as young children the two had often visited White Webbs. Although his account of the meeting is weighted with hindsight (when captured he sought to distance himself from the affair), he asked Catesby what support for the Catholics would be forthcoming once the king had been killed. Catesby's answer, "The necessity of the Catholics [was such that] it must needs be done", in Fraser's opinion demonstrates his unwavering view on the matter, held at least since his first meeting with Thomas Wintour early in 1604. The final conspirator to be brought in was Everard Digby, on 21 October, at Harrowden. Catesby confided in Digby during a delayed Feast of Saint Luke. Like Rookwood, Digby was young and wealthy, and possessed a stable of horses. Catesby told him to rent Coughton Court near Alcester, so that he would "the better to be able to do good to the cause [kidnap Princess Elizabeth]".
  The day after Tresham's recruitment, Catesby exchanged greetings in London with Fawkes's former employer, Lord Montague, and asked him "The Parliament, I think, brings your lordship up now?" Montague told him that he was visiting a relative, and that he would be at Parliament in a few weeks' time. Catesby replied "I think your Lordship takes no pleasure to be there". Montague, who had already been imprisoned for speaking out in the House of Lords against anti-Papist legislation, and who had no inclination to be present while more laws were introduced, agreed. Following the plot's failure he became a suspect and was ar
caption: James I, by John de Critz, c. 1606
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