Early Life
Born sometime about 1578, Ambrose Rookwood was the second of four sons born to Robert Rookwood and his second wife, Dorothea. During his first marriage to Bridget Kemp, Robert had sired four sons, but all predeceased their father.
The Rookwood family had lived at Stanningfield in Suffolk for 300 years. Wealthy, and staunch Catholics, the authorities viewed them as trouble-makers. Ambrose's Papist cousin Edward had spent ten years in prison for his faith, but in 1578 he entertained Queen Elizabeth I at his home, Euston Hall. It was an expensive visit that made a serious dent in the family's finances, and which neutered their influence for years thereafter. Ambrose's parents had been imprisoned for their recusancy, and he was indicted on the same charge in February 1605. However, he was apparently happy to advertise his faith; in the summer of 1605 he commissioned a London cutler, John Craddock, to place a Spanish blade into a sword hilt engraved with the story of the Passion of Christ. As such weapons were generally worn in public, it was "a potentially dangerous statement of faith".
Ambrose and two of his brothers, Robert and Christopher, were educated by Jesuits at Saint-Omer, then in Flanders. Both brothers became priests (Ambrose's elder brother, Henry, became a Franciscan), and his half-sisters Dorothea and Susanna became nuns. Ambrose married into the Tyrwhitts, a prominent family of Catholics from Kettleby in Lincolnshire, and with his wife Elizabeth (cousin to Robert Keyes) had at least two sons, Robert and Henry. According to the Jesuit Oswald Tesimond, Rookwood was "well-built and handsome, if somewhat short", which he compensated for by his taste in extravagant clothing. In author Antonia Fraser's opinion, this affectation was somewhat inappropriate at a time when "clothes were supposed to denote rank rather than money". On his father's death in 1600, Rookwood inherited Coldham Hall, which subsequently became a refuge for priests. The following year he joined the Earl of Essex's abortive rebellion against the government, for which he was captured and held at Newgate Prison.
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