A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Campion,^ who may possibly have sprung from a Northamptonshire family 

 of that name.' For a time he was hiding at Great Harrowden, where the 

 third Lord Vaux had provided his manor-house with facilities for the secret 

 conduct of Roman Catholic services.^ Campion also received hospitality at 

 Rushton, where there were doubtless similar means of eluding persecution.* 

 For harbouring so dangerous a papist Sir Thomas Tresham was summoned in 

 August, 1 58 1, to London, as was also Lord Vaux,' and in November they 

 and Sir William Catesby were tried before the Star Chamber for having 

 refused, at their previous examination, to state on oath whether Campion 

 had been at their houses.* But notwithstanding this persecution, both Sir 

 Thomas Tresham and Lord Vaux remained conspicuously faithful to their 

 sovereign, and kept aloof from all secret negotiations with Spain. ^ 



Campion was far from being the only representative of the Society of Jesus 

 who found shelter in this part of the country. Thus in 1581 and 1582 the 

 Privy Council was making efforts for the apprehension of one Edmond or 

 Edward Chambers, ' a wandring and sedityous Jesuite,' who seems to have 

 been moving about in Northamptonshire, Rutland, and Huntingdonshire.* 

 Among those required to take part in the search for him were Sir Edmund 

 Brudenell and (as far as the first two counties were concerned) the bishop of 

 Peterborough," to whom the council further issued a letter (19 April, 1582) 'for 

 the searching of certain houses in the counties of Northampton and Rutland,* 

 and the apprehension not only of Chambers, but of ' such other Jesuits or 

 seminary priests as are presently or hereafter shall be known to remain and lurk 

 within the said counties.' " Toward the end of the reign Great Harrowden 

 seems to have been for a time the headquarters of the noted Jesuit, John 

 Gerard, who was sheltered here by Elizabeth Vaux, widow of a son of the 

 third Lord Vaux." A hiding place at Rushton, the home of the Treshams, 

 is said to have sheltered Gerard's colleague, Edward Oldcorne.' ^^ 



The recusancy of Sir Thomas Tresham and Sir William Catesby assumed 

 a more dangerous form in their children. Francis Tresham, the eldest son 

 of Sir Thomas, did not inherit his father's loyalty to the state. He was 

 involved in a notorious intrigue with Spain, and in the Gunpowder Plot, nor 

 has his reputation been much bettered by the fact that he was almost certainly 

 the betrayer of that conspiracy.'' His complicity therein was probably the 

 immediate cause of the concealment of those interesting family documents 

 which were so curiously discovered at Rushton in 1828. '* He died of disease 

 in the year of the plot, but his head, as that of a traitor, was afterwards 

 publicly exposed at Northampton. '^ 



Even more deeply involved in the conspiracy was Robert, second son of 

 Sir William Catesby. According to one view, the idea of destroying the 

 Protestant king and Parliament, and setting up a Roman Catholic government 

 in their stead, was his conception.'* On the discovery of the plot it was to 



'Simpson, loc. cit. 'Ibid. ^ Diet. Nat. Biog. LVIII, 196. ■* Ibid. LVII, 204. 'Ibid. loc. cit. 



^ Cal. of the Rushton Papers, by J. Taylor (Tracts relating to Northants, Second Ser. 1881), bdle. vi, 

 Nos. II, 13. ^ Cal. S.P.Dom. Eliz. ccxxxix, 26. 



^ Acts of P. C. (New Ser.), xiii, 259, 362, 387, 411, 421. 'Ibid. 363, 385-6. 



'"Ibid. 386-7. 



" J. Morris, S. J., Life of Father John Gerard, 332 et seq. Allan Fea, Secret Chambers and Hiding-places, 

 52-4. 



^ Ibid. 59. " Gardiner, Hist, of Engl. 1603-42, i, 251. 



" Taylor, preface to Cal. of Rushton Papers. '^ Gardiner, op. cit. i, 268. "Ibid. 235, 



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