John and Christopher Wright - Family and Life Before 1604

Family and Life Before 1604

John and Christopher Wright were born to Robert Wright and his second wife, Ursula Rudston, daughter of Nicholas and Jane Rudston of Hayton. John was baptised at Welwick in Yorkshire, on 16 January 1568, and Christopher was born in 1570. Their sister, Martha, married Thomas Percy in 1591.

The brothers were pupils at St Peter's School in York, along with Guy Fawkes, whose name has become synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot. Although outwardly conformist, the school's headmaster John Pulleine came from a notable family of Yorkshire recusants, and his predecessor at St Peter's had spent 20 years in prison for his recusancy. Three Catholic priests, Oswald Tesimond, Edward Oldcorn and Robert Middleton, were also educated at St Peter's. John and Christopher were both married, to Dorothy and Margaret respectively. John had a daughter, born some time in the late 1590s.

As a precautionary measure, in 1596 they were each arrested during Queen Elizabeth I's illness. They were incarcerated at the White Lyon prison in 1601 for their involvement in the Earl of Essex's rebellion. Both were skilled swordsmen, and John was renowned for his courage. The Jesuit priest Oswald Tesimond wrote that he possessed a "good physique and sound constitution. Rather on the tall side, his features were pleasing. He was somewhat taciturn in manner, but very loyal to his friends, even if his friends were few". Christopher's appearance was slightly different to that of his brother, "not like him in face, as being fatter and a lighter coloured hair and taller of person". According to Father John Gerard, John's involvement with Essex coincided with his conversion to Catholicism. Gerard also noted that John's household, Twigmoor Hall in Lincolnshire, was a place where "he had Priests come often, both for his spiritual comfort and their own in corporal helps", although the government's description, "a Popish college for traitors", was somewhat less favourable. Following his conversion John became "a man of exemplary life". Two years later, as the queen's health waned, a nervous government ensured that John and Christopher were again imprisoned, the English antiquarian William Camden describing them as men "hunger-starved for innovation". Christopher may have travelled to Spain in 1603 using the alias Anthony Dutton, seeking Spanish support for English Catholics, although biographer Mark Nicholls mentions that Dutton's role may have been attributed to Christopher by Fawkes and Thomas Wintour, held in the Tower of London after the failure of the plot.