Robert and Thomas Wintour - Trial and Death

Trial and Death

The trial of the eight surviving conspirators began on Monday 27 January. The two brothers were brought with the other plotters by barge from the Tower (Catebsy's servant, Thomas Bates, arrived from the Gatehouse Prison), to Whitehall. They were kept in Star Chamber, before being led into Westminster Hall. Charged with high treason, and with no defence counsel, the outcome was never in doubt. The Spanish Treason was a feature of Attorney General Edward Coke's rhetoric, although the Spanish king was "reverently and respectfully spoken of". The Jesuits, such as Henry Garnet, were condemned. Each of the brothers' confessions were also read aloud. While in the Tower, Robert and Fawkes had shared adjacent cells, and were able to speak to each other. However, their private conversation was secretly recorded, and read aloud during the trial.

When asked if he had anything to say, "wherefore judgement of death should not be pronounced", Thomas spoke of his regret at having introduced Robert to the plot, and asked to be hanged on his behalf as well as his own. Robert merely begged for mercy. At the end of the trial, the jury pronounced them all guilty of high treason.

Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were executed on Thursday 30 January 1606. Dragged by horse to Old St Paul's Cathedral, Robert was the second to be executed, praying quietly to himself before he was hanged, drawn and quartered. The following morning, the remaining four were dragged to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, opposite the building they had planned to destroy. Thomas was the first to mount the scaffold. It was customary to grant the condemned a speech, but Thomas, "a very pale and dead colour", said it was "no time to discourse: he was come to die". He absolved the Jesuits of any involvement in the plot, asked for Catholics to pray for him, and declared his adherence to the Roman religion. He was hanged for only a few seconds, and then taken to the block for the remainder of his grim sentence. Their half-brother John was executed at Red Hill near Worcester, on 7 April.