Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/23

Rh of illustrious lineage; whilst the elder Winter, Rookewood, Tresham, and Digby, were landed proprietors of large fortune. Several of them, moreover, were bound by domestic ties of so pleasant a nature as to render life and liberty especially dear to them; and the wives, for instance, of Digby and Rookewood were both young and handsome. How these men, therefore, should risk so much by taking part in such a hare-brained scheme, can only be explained by our knowledge of the terrible persecutions which they underwent at the hands of the Government. Otherwise the notion that courtly country gentlemen, of ancient race and ample fortune, could be induced to play the part of common cut-throats would seem incredible.

That King James himself had incurred personally the hatred of the conspirators is an important factor. They accused him of treachery, of having promised, in Scotland, to grant a measure of relief to the Romanists, and of having deliberately broken his solemn word on succeeding to the English throne, notwithstanding that his wife, Anne of Denmark, greatly favoured their oppressed religion. That they had been grossly deceived, is patent from an examination of the list of names of the county families who hurried to