Introduction
English Catholics had hoped that the persecution of their faith would end when James succeeded Elizabeth I, as he appeared to be more moderate toward Catholics than his predecessor, but Robert Catesby, a religious zealot also imprisoned for his involvement in the Essex rebellion, had grown tired of James's supposed perfidy and planned to kill the king. This he would achieve by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder, and then inciting a popular revolt to install James's daughter Princess Elizabeth as titular Queen.
Catesby had recruited 11 fellow Catholics to his cause but was running out of money. Even with his debts, with an annual income of over £3,000 Tresham was one of the wealthiest people known to the plotters, and Catesby's mother was Anne Throckmorton, an aunt of Tresham's. The two cousins had been raised together, and shared a close relationship.
Despite this and their earlier involvement with Tresham in the Spanish Treason, the plotters chose not to reveal the plot to him until 14 October 1605, shortly after his father died, and just weeks before the planned explosion. According to his confession, the meeting took place in Clerkenwell at the home of Tresham's brother-in-law, Lord Stourton. Tresham claimed to have questioned Catesby on the morality of the plot, asking if it was spiritually "damnable". Catesby replied that it was not, at which point Tresham highlighted the danger that all Catholics would face should the plot succeed. Catesby replied, "The necessity of the Catholics" was such that "it must needs be done". He wanted two things from Tresham: £2,000, and the use of Rushton Hall; Catesby received neither. Tresham had no money to spare, his father's debts having reduced his inheritance. Following the meeting, he hurried back to Rushton Hall and closed his household taking care to hide family papers (not discovered until 1838), before returning to London with his mother and sisters. Tresham did, however, pay a small sum to Thomas Wintour on the understanding that he was travelling to the Low Countries. On 2 November he also acquired a licence to travel abroad with his servants and horses.
Read more about this topic: Francis Tresham
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