Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/33

Rh long in the fear of God and works of charity, one time as he was walking in the fields, his good Angel appeared and showed him the anatomy of a dead man and willed him to prepare him, for he should die by such a time. The good knight, presently accepting of the message willingly, recommended himself with a fervent prayer unto our Blessed Lady in that place, and then went home and settled all his business both towards God and the world, and died at his time appointed."

'Mr. Catesby's estate in his father's time was great, above three thousand pounds a year, which now were worth much more; but Sir William Catesby, his father, being a Catholic, and often in prison for his faith, suffered many losses, and much impaired his estate. This son of his, when he came to the living, was very wild, and as he kept company with the best noblemen of the land, so he spent much above his rate and so wasted also good part of his living. Some four or five years before Queen Elizabeth died, he was reclaimed from his wild courses.'

After his failure in the Essex rebellion, Robert Catesby seems to have become a bigoted Romanist, and 'grew to be very much respected by the graver sort of Catholics, and of Priests,