History of Warwickshire - Tudor and Stuart

Tudor and Stuart

From the accession of Henry VII in 1485 till the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty under George I in 1714.

Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Coventry in 1566, where she lodged in the house of the mayor and again in 1569 where she was confined in the Bull Inn.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a Warwickshire conspiracy. The conspirators' principal aim was to kill King James, however another important objective was the kidnapping of the King's daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth. Housed at Coombe Abbey near Coventry, the Princess lived only ten miles north of Warwick, convenient for the plotters, most of whom lived in the Midlands. Once the King and his Parliament were dead, the plotters intended to install Elizabeth on the English throne as a titular Queen. Robert Catesby, the prime mover in the conspiratory, was a Warwickshire man, born probably at Bushwood, near Lapworth and John Grant, whose house at Northbrook, Snitterfield, was the rendezvous and powder magazine of the conspirators, was of the gentry of the county. Other conspirators rented houses in the neighbourhood, Ambrose Rokewood rented Clopton House, near Stratford, Everard Digby, to whom the task of rousing the Catholic gentry of the Midlands was assigned rented Coughton Court the home of the Throckmortons under the guise of a "hunting party". The Wrights moved to Lapworth and the rooms in London were rented by Thomas Percy from Henry Ferrers whose home of Baddesley Clinton was in turn rented to the Vaux sisters, relatives of Catesby. After the discovery of the plot and the arrest of Guy Fawkes was known, the conspirators rode from London to Warwickshire, meeting Digby's hunting party at the Red Lion at Dunchurch to discuss their plans. The final flight took place on 6 November, the fugitives raided Warwick Castle for supplies and continued to Norbrook to collect weapons. From there they continued their journey to Huddington. Thomas Bates left the group and travelled to Coughton Court to deliver a letter from Catesby, to Father Garnet and the other priests, informing them of what had transpired, and asking for their help in raising an army. Garnet replied by begging Catesby and his followers to stop their "wicked actions", before himself fleeing. The closing events now take place out of Warwickshire as they continued on to Holbeche House on the border of Staffordshire where they were captured.

During the English Civil War in the 17th century the county was generally on the Parliamentarian side, Lord Brooke of Warwick Castle being one of the fiecest enemies of the king. The Battle of Edgehill (1642) was fought in Warwickshire, near the Oxfordshire border. Prince Rupert, who was in charge of the Royalist forces, marched his soldiers through Henley in Arden in 1643 on his way to Birmingham and pillaged the neighbourhood. Charles II was assisted in his escape following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 by Jane Lane who, disguising the king as her man-servant accompanied him across the county, passing through Wooton Wawen, Stratford-upon-Avon and Long Marston. The footpath the Monarch's Way commemorates the events and approximates the route of his escape where the modern landscape permits.