What would link a centre for power like Westminster and the sleepy village of Kingswinford? Terrorism. Not modern-day terrorism but the 17th-century kind, driven by religious fanaticism, prejudice and the suppression of catholics by a newly invented, protestant "United Kingdom of Great Britain" (formerly seperate kingdoms of England and Scotland). The plot was genuinely Big. If it had been successful the results would have decapitated the elite of the new kingdom, opening the way to a revolution or foreign intervention
But it failed (or was sabotaged?). And so the plotters fled back to the home of one of them, Stephen Littleton, Holbeche House near Wall Heath, Kingswinford. Thomas Wintour, Jack Wright, Kit Wright and Ambrose Rookwood were soon shot in the courtyard, perhaps attempting to quell a fire that Walsh and his men had started in an attempt to drive the conspirators from the house. The two Wrights were moribund, but Thomas Wintour managed to make it back to the house, where Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy were the only defenders left who were not incapacitated by their injuries.
a map of the prominent places associated with the Gunpowder Plot, click on blue blobs for info and use arrows/slider to navigate
View Gunpowder Plot in a larger map
"Stand by me, Mr. Tom," said Catesby, "and we will die together."The three men stood close inside the door of the house, and went outside to face their death. Catesby and Percy, standing side by side, were supposedly felled by a single shot. According to the account by Father Oswald Tesimond, Robert Catesby managed to crawl back inside the house, and finding a picture of the Virgin Mary, clutched it in his arms until he died. Littleton was captured later and hung at Worcester as was his kinsman Humphrey Littleton (who Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton was named after, they're the same family) Both Humphrey and John were relatives of John Lyttelton, Catholic, who'd rebelled against Elizabeth I a few years earlier http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/lyttelton-john-1561-1601 .
Holbeche House - the plotters last stand, now a nursing home, a photo by John Smart http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20634320
But it failed (or was sabotaged?). And so the plotters fled back to the home of one of them, Stephen Littleton, Holbeche House near Wall Heath, Kingswinford. Thomas Wintour, Jack Wright, Kit Wright and Ambrose Rookwood were soon shot in the courtyard, perhaps attempting to quell a fire that Walsh and his men had started in an attempt to drive the conspirators from the house. The two Wrights were moribund, but Thomas Wintour managed to make it back to the house, where Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy were the only defenders left who were not incapacitated by their injuries.
a map of the prominent places associated with the Gunpowder Plot, click on blue blobs for info and use arrows/slider to navigate
View Gunpowder Plot in a larger map
"Stand by me, Mr. Tom," said Catesby, "and we will die together."The three men stood close inside the door of the house, and went outside to face their death. Catesby and Percy, standing side by side, were supposedly felled by a single shot. According to the account by Father Oswald Tesimond, Robert Catesby managed to crawl back inside the house, and finding a picture of the Virgin Mary, clutched it in his arms until he died. Littleton was captured later and hung at Worcester as was his kinsman Humphrey Littleton (who Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton was named after, they're the same family) Both Humphrey and John were relatives of John Lyttelton, Catholic, who'd rebelled against Elizabeth I a few years earlier http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/lyttelton-john-1561-1601 .
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