Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/111

unto your Lordship: And so referring our selves wholly to your honored discretion, we humbly take our leaves. Daventrie in Northam. this VIII^th day of Novem : 1605.

'Your honours in all duty,
'Eusebie Andrewe.
'Tho: Burnabye.'

The prompt action of the country gentlemen,^[1] gave the conspirators but little breathing time, and all the loyal fighting men in the shires of Worcester, Warwick, and Northampton, including even some Roman Catholics, took arms in support of the Crown. Catesby's attempt to turn Digby's 'hunting-party'^[2] into a Roman Catholic army, destined to pull down the Government and the Established Church in favour of a new sovereign and a new Creed, had proved a prodigious failure. Holbeach provided the last scene in the tragedy, and the fall of the curtain was not long delayed. Sir Richard Walshe, Sheriff of Worcestershire, hung on to the skirts of the conspirators' force until it was safe inside the walls of Holbeach House (four miles from Stourbridge), in the proximity of which he awaited with equanimity the arrival of men marching to his aid, for he knew that the little garrison inside was caught within a trap.

1. Of whom Sir Richard Verney did the most effective service.
2. 'To their dismay, every Catholic from whom they solicited aid on the road shut his doors against them, and the sheriffs of each county followed, though at a respectful distance, with an armed force' (Lingard).