Flight
On 6 November the fugitives raided Warwick Castle and managed to secure more horses, before moving on to Norbrook to collect stored weapons. From there they continued their journey toward Huddington. Catesby ordered his servant (and fellow plotter) Thomas Bates to deliver a letter to Father Garnet at Coughton Court. Catesby and Digby asked Garnet to excuse their recklessness, before asking for his help in raising an army in Wales. Garnet's reply begged them to stop their "wicked actions", and to listen to the Pope's teachings. When the priest tried to comfort Mary Digby, also at Coughton Court, she burst into tears.
With their ever-decreasing band of supporters, the remaining fugitives arrived at Huddington at about 2:00 pm. Any expectation they had of support began to vanish; almost everyone they met showed concern only for their own safety, fearful of being involved with traitors. The next morning they rode through the rain, stopping briefly to help themselves to supplies from the home of the absent Lord Windsor at Hewell Grange. Still the locals refused to have anything to do with them; Digby later admitted that "not one man" joined them. They arrived that night at Holbeche House on the border of Staffordshire, and tired and desperate, spread out some of the now-soaked gunpowder in front of the fire, to dry out. A spark from the fire landed on the powder and the resultant flames engulfed Catesby, Rookwood, Grant, and another man.
Read more about this topic: Everard Digby
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Parnassus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)