Among the many plots to assassinate the monarch, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was the closest to succeeding. Many of the descendants of Thomas Richards alias Fermor had a role. The following is excerpted and edited from the book, Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney.
King James I & VI and Sir George Fermor
After the death of Queen Elizabeth on 24 March 1603, James VI of Scotland, her nearest relative, seemed most likely to inherit the throne. However, a statute dated 1351 prevented foreigners from being heirs to English land and Henry VIII’s will of 1547 forbade Scottish relations from inheriting the throne. Despite the uncertainty and complications, James VI of Scotland ascended the throne on 24 March as James I, King of England and Ireland, known as the Union of the Crowns.
On 25 June the king set out from Windsor, and on 27 June 1603 arrived at Sir George Fermor’s home at Easton Neston.[1] Meanwhile, the queen, Anne of Denmark, was travelling from Scotland toward London with their eldest son, the young Prince Henry, and her household.
The royal visit to Easton Neston may have had a more political motive. Sir George by marriage, acquaintance, and political connection was intimately aware of the persecution endured by Catholics during the forty-five year reign of Queen Elizabeth, as well as the ongoing recusant activities that continued to endanger the lives around him. Sir George, with his political experience in arbitrating disputes, may have played a leading part in voicing to the new sovereign the hopes in offering tolerance toward Catholics.
As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, James was baptized as a Catholic, but was raised as a Protestant while his mother was imprisoned. Hopes were high that James would implement a policy of religious toleration when he promised not to prosecute any “that will be quiet, and give but an outward obedience to the law, neither will I spare to advance any of them that will by good service worthily deserve it.”[2] As observed by a Catholic woman in Oxfordshire who said, “Now we have a king who is of our religion and will restore us to our rights.”[3]
Main Plot & Bye Plot
While Sir George was entertaining the new king and queen, a disagreement among Catholics led William Watson to conspire with Sir Griffin Markham, Sir George Brooke, and Anthony Copley to overthrow James and seat Lady Arabella Stuart[4] on 24 June. Fearing retribution if the “Bye Plot” should fail, George Blackwell and two Jesuit priests, John Gerrard and Henry Garnet, informed the authorities in June 1603, and the plot was foiled. During the investigation, another conspiracy led by Sir George’s brother, Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, was uncovered in July 1603, again to replace James with Lady Arabella Stuart, who was also Cobham’s cousin. Sir Griffin Markham and Sir Walter Raleigh were imprisoned in the Tower of London for their participation in the “Main Plot.”
While the Main and Bye Plots were relatively minor, James’ councilors pressed him on the grave political danger Catholics presented. All hopes of religious tolerance quickly disappeared on 19 February 1604 when the king denounced the Catholic Church and instructed that the recusancy fines be collected. Three days later, James banished all Jesuits and Catholic priests to leave the country. This prompted a call to action from a very displeased Robert Catesby of Ashby St. Ledger, Northamptonshire.
Robert Catesby
Robert Catesby invited Thomas Wintour and John Wright to his house in Lambeth to discuss a plan of re-establishing Catholicism in England. Their plan: blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament next year on 05 November 1605.
Wintour, who had served for Lord Monteagle, and whose uncle, Father Francis Ingleby, was hanged, drawn, and quartered at York on 02 June 1586 for being a priest, then travelled to Flanders to inquire about Spanish support. While there, he sought out Guido “Guy” Fawkes, a committed Catholic who had served as a soldier, engineer, and gunpowder expert in southern Netherlands.
Wintour later recruited Thomas Percy, Robert Keyes (son of a Protestant rector), Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour (brother of Thomas Wintour), Christopher Wright (brother of John Wright), John Grant (who had married Dorothy Wintour, the sister of Thomas and Robert), Ambrose Rookwood, and Sir Everard Digby. On 14 October 1604, Catesby invited Francis Tresham.
All thirteen of them, with exception to Bates, were “gentlemen of name and blood.”[5]
Gunpowder Plot
The wives of the plotters became increasingly concerned by what they suspected was about to happen. On Saturday, 26 October 1605, Tresham’s brother-in-law, William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, received an anonymous letter.
The letter was shown to the king on Friday, 01 November, following his return to London. Upon reading it, James immediately seized upon the word “blow” and felt that it hinted at “some strategem of fire and powder.” This led to two searches of the newly leased cellar directly under the House of Lords.
Around midnight on 4/5 November, Fawkes, still using the alias John Johnson, was discovered in an undercroft, dressed in a cloak and hat, wearing boots and spurs, and carrying a lantern. He was arrested and a search revealed a pocket watch, several slow matches, and touchwood. Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder Fawkes had moved there by March 1605 were discovered hidden under piles of wood and coal.
Sir Richard and Agnes (Fermor) Wenman
Sir George and Lady Mary Fermor happened “by accident” to stop at Harrowden on Wednesday, 06 November, and tell Elizabeth (Roper) Vaux what had happened in London. Sir George was there to inquire about a letter Vaux sent to his daughter Agnes Wenman around Easter (after the gunpowder had been collected and stored.)
The letter had been intercepted by Agnes’ mother-in-law, Lady Jane Tasburgh, who had given it to her son Sir Richard Wenman. Vaux’s comment to Agnes that “Tottenham would soon turn French” convinced many that Vaux knew about and supported the plot. Vaux confessed she wrote the letter, but of course, insisted she had no recollection of the letter’s contents, except the reference to turning French.
The authorities arrested Sir Richard and his wife Agnes, who were questioned separately in December 1605. Agnes was released after a short confinement in custody. On 03 December, Sir Richard testified that he “disliked their intercourse, because Mrs. Vaux tried to pervert his wife.” He also strongly disapproved of his wife’s company of friends, particularly John Gerard, who probably had some mutual animosity as he would describe Sir Richard in his 1609 autobiography as “a knight with a large estate, who hoped one day to become a baron, and is still hoping…”[6]
On 05 December, Chief Justice John Popham instructed Sir Richard to “send up the letters written to his wife by Mrs. Vaux and Lady Fermor, with a true account, from those who saw Mrs. Vaux’s letter, of its contents.”[7] By the end of the day, Sir Richard had complied. According to Agnes,
I. Examination of Agnes Lady Wenman. She kept Mrs. Vaux’s letter at first, to shew it to her husband, because she was angry with her mother-in-law, Lady Tasburgh, for opening it, but has lost or burnt it since; her mother [Lady Fermor] wrote to ask her to send it, or a copy of it, to Mrs. Vaux, who had heard that she was called in question for it, but she could not; it was chiefly about Lord Vaux’s marriage with Lady Suffolk’s daughter, and about the disgrace of the Catholics; adding, “Notwithstanding pray, for Tottenham may turne French.”
Elizabeth (Roper) Vaux
The 07 December examination of Elizabeth (Roper) Vaux and Sir George Fermor’s testimony at Easton Neston begins with Sir Edward Coke to the Earl of Salisbury,
The last declaration of Faukes is safe, and herewith I send it to you. I have observed out of Mrs. Vaux’s and Sir George Fearmor’s examinations such things as I think fit, which also I send unto you, because it may be you will think it fit that Sir George be re-examined and that the letter written to the Lady Weyneman (who lies now in child-bed) be sent for…
Endorsed: 1605. Mr. Attorney General, with observations concerning Mrs. Vaux and Sir George Farmour.
[Enclosure, endorsed in Coke’s handwriting] “My observations concerning Mrs. Vaux and Sir Geo. Fearmor”[8]
Elizabeth would testify that Sir George relayed reports that it should have been performed by five Scots. Sir George would testify that he was angry with Elizabeth for it was she who had sent for him that Wednesday to tend to her son Edward in London, but then changed her mind, and it was she who first told him about the news after hearing it from a servant.[9]
Sir George had requested a copy of the infamous letter, but it was “lost.”
My Lady Tasburgh being examined goes further that there was contained in that letter that Mrs. Vaux persuaded the Lady Wayneman to be of good comfort and not to destroy (sic), for ere it were long there should be a remedy or a toleration for religion, and that the Lady Tasburgh said there was treason in the letter; and that since Mrs. Vaux went to the Lady Weynman in Oxfordshire and willed her to keep the letter for both their discharges…[10]
Aftermath
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 put a decisive end to further discussions of religious toleration and was the last real major plot by a radical Catholic faction.
Swayed by the threat of treason, the public applauded a policy of repression with penal laws against recusants enlarged to included women and then enforced with greater vigor. Catholics were forbidden to appear at Court, despite the fact that the queen, Anne of Denmark, had recently converted to Catholicism. They were banned from coming within ten miles of London and had to remain within five miles of their homes, unless granted a special license. They were excluded from many professions, including medicine and the law. All holders of public office were now required to take Communion annually according to the Anglican rite. The penalties for secret Catholic baptisms were increased by an additional £100 fine. It was also illegal for Catholics to hold the patronage of Anglican benefices, and Catholic landowners who had retained these ancient rights from pre-Reformation times found them divided between Oxford University and Cambridge University. The 1606 Oath of Allegiance contained a declaration that the Pope had no political authority in England, which most Catholics and the Archpriest of England agreed and signed, but as the wording could also be construed as rejecting the Pope’s spiritual authority, the Pope condemned it and replaced the Archpriest.[11]
It was assumed Catholics would become submissive and cease to be a problem to the authorities. In the years following the Gunpowder Plot recusants lost none of their resolve and unyieldingly adhered to their faith. For most recusants, they had no choice but to endure their persecution in silence and pay their recusancy fines without complaint or redress.[12] Sir George Fermor was observed on 09 April 1610 “at the sermon at Towcester.”[13] Although Sir Richard Wenman was cleared of any part in the plot, he was removed from the commission of the peace for many years.
Today, the “Guy Fawkes” mask is used worldwide during protests, particularly those where public opinion is swayed by the idea of government conspiracy or overreach of authority.
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” tracing the family history from 1420 to 1685, and “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh” following their 1685 arrival from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky.
[1] Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England (1733), p.403; Echard, The History of England, ed.3 (1720), p.378; Tighe et al, Annals of Windsor, vol.2 (1858), pp.48-49; Chester, Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley (1878), p.111. Other accounts have Sir George Fermor entertaining King James and Queen Anne at Easton Neston 11 June 1603. The king and queen would visit with Sir George Fermor again in October 1604 to reunite with their son Prince Charles, Duke of Albany.
[2] Hankins, “Papists, Power, and Puritans: Catholic Officeholding and the Rise of the ‘Puritan Faction’ in Early-Seventeenth-Century Essex,” The Catholic Historical Review, vol.95 no.4 (October 2009), p.697.
[3] Hadland, Thames Valley Papists, From Reformation to Emancipation, 1534-1829 (April 2004), p.82.
[4] Lady Arabella Stuart (1575-1615), the only child of Elizabeth Cavendish and Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox, secretly married William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, the son of Katherine Grey and Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Hertford, the son of Anne Stanhope and Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who also had a daughter, Elizabeth Seymour, who married Sir Richard Knightley after the death of Mary Fermor, daughter of Anne Browne and Richard Fermor. Anthony Copley, son of Sir Thomas Copley, was brother to Margaret Copley who married Sir John Gage, and their son Sir Thomas Gage married a descendant of Thomas Richards alias Fermor… Mary Chamberlain, daughter of Sir John Chamberlain and Katherine Plowden.
[5] Spink, The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle’s Letter (1902), p.21.
[6] Davidson et al, “Wenman, Sir Richard (c.1573-1640), of Thame Park, Oxon. and Twyford, Bucks,” The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629 (2010); Harding, “Wenman, Sir Richard (1573-1640), of Thame Park, Oxon. and Twyford, Bucks,” The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (1981).
[7] Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, 1603-1610 (1857), pp.265-277.
[8] Giuseppi, Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, vol.17 (1938), pp.554-570.
[9] Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I, 1603-1610 (1857), pp.265-277; Giuseppi, Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, vol.17 (1938), pp.554-570. The latter stating, “All which is denied by [Sir George Fearmor struck out] Mrs. Vaux…”
[10] Giuseppi, Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, vol.17 (1938), pp.554-570.
[11] Hadland, Thames Valley Papists, From Reformation to Emancipation, 1534-1829 (April 2004), p.87.
[12] Owen, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable The Marquess of Salisbury Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, pt.14 (1976), pp.vii-viii.
[13] Rowse, Sir Walter Rallegh, His Family and Private Life (1962), p.298.