POLITICAL HISTORY 



pursued, with the assistance of several gentlemen and the power and force of 

 the country.' 



We made against them upon Thursday morning, and freshly pursued them until the 

 next day, at which time about twelve or one of the clock in the afternoon we overtook 

 them at the said Holbeche House, the greatest part of their retinue, and some of the better 

 sort being dispersed and fled before our coming, whereupon and after summons and warning 

 first given, and proclamation in his highness's name to yield and submit themselves, who 

 refusing the same we fired some part of the house and assaulted some part of the rebellious 

 persons left in the said house, in which assault one Mr. Robert Catesby is slain, and three 

 others verily thought wounded to death as far as we can learn are Thomas Percy gentleman, 

 John Wright and Christopher Wright, gentlemen ; and these are apprehended and taken, 

 Thomas Winter, John Grant, Henry Morgan, Ambrose Rokewood, gentlemen, and six 

 others of inferior degree. The rest of that rebellious assembly is dispersed. 261 



Percy, John Wright, and his brother died of their wounds, so that only 

 Fawkes and Thomas Winter of the original five fell into the government's 

 hands alive. In the meantime Fawkes, under dreadful torture in the Tower, 

 was telling the council the whole of the plot, and it was not long before the 

 plotters were tried and punished. 



James I visited Staffordshire more than once ; his fondness for hunting 

 attracted him to Needwood, where his favourite eminence for resting and 

 looking at the scenery was called ' The King's Standing.' 263 In 1 6 1 7 he visited 

 Stafford, and was received most loyally, and in 1619, 1621, and 1624 he was 

 at Tutbury, the scene of so much of his mother's misery. 



In 1625 Staffordshire gentlemen were fined for their non-appearance at 

 the coronation of Charles I to receive the order of knighthood, the qualifica- 

 tion for which had been fixed in the reign of Henry VI at the annual income 

 of 40, an increase from the 20 enacted by the Statute ' de Militibus.' 

 The fines had been levied at the coronations of Edward VI, Mary, and 

 Elizabeth, but not by James I. 



The average fine imposed upon a defaulter in Staffordshire was 10, 

 whereas the average fee for knighthood was between 60 and 70. So 

 wide was the net cast that in Staffordshire a yeoman was summoned. 



The coronation was on 2 February, 1625-6, but it was not until 1630 

 that decisive steps were taken to enforce the fines on defaulters residing at a 

 distance from the capital, when special commissions were issued to prominent 

 persons in each county, that relating to Staffordshire being addressed to 

 Robert Earl of Essex, Walter Lord Aston, Sir Hugh Wrottesley, and Sir 

 William Bowyer, kts., and Richard Weston, esq. 



Another commission was issued on 12 February, 16301, and another 

 on 9 June, 1631. Altogether about 260 gentlemen compounded, the com- 

 positions varying from 10 to $o, the former sum being that generally 

 paid, and no doubt the far-reaching nature of these exactions helped to turn 

 the country gentlemen against the king. The abolition of compulsory 

 knighthood was one of the first Acts of the Long Parliament. 263 



In 1636 the Roman Catholics in the county felt the benefit of Charles' 

 more lenient treatment of their co-religionists, to which he was urged by 

 Henrietta Maria and the Archbishop of York. Wentworth and others were 

 commissioned to lease to recusants in Staffordshire and other northern counties 



M1 S. R. Gardiner, What Gunpowder Plot Was, 46-7 ; Cal. S.P. Dam. 1603-10, pp. 247, 255. 



161 Mosley, Hist, of Tutbury, 207. * B 1 6 Chas. I, cap. 20. 



255 



