Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/62

48 his friends in the Essex rebellion. Catesby's chief reason for enrolling him as a member of the confederacy, seems to have been the fact that Grant's 'walled and moated' residence would provide an excellent rendezvous for those of the conspirators who were to foment an armed rising in the Midlands. He was a devout Roman Catholic, and on the eve of his death on the scaffold expressed himself 'convinced that our project was so far from being sinful' as to afford an 'expiation for all sins committed by me.'

Robert Winter was the elder brother of Thomas, and was a son-in-law of John Talbot, of Grafton, an influential Roman Catholic, whom the conspirators tried vainly to inveigle into connection with their schemes. He possessed the estate of Huddington, in Worcestershire. On first hearing of the plot, he expressed his utmost detestation of the whole concern; but eventually permitted himself to be cajoled into joining it, probably at the instance of his brother, His heart, however, was never in the business, and he took no part in stowing away the gun-powder. He deserted Catesby before the last stand was made at Holbeach. He cannot be considered in the light of either an active or a willing conspirator, but merely of one who