Note 168 — Chapter LXVII

— The Government, it is said, appointed a special Commission to try Humphrey Littleton and some others at Worcester. The following quotation is taken from “the Relation of Humphrey Littleton, made January 26th, 1605-6,” written by one Sir Richard Lewkner to the Lords of the Privy Council. Lewkner was one of the Commissioners.

This sentence is to be specially noted in this “Relation”: — “The servant of the said Hall [i.e., Oldcorne] is now prisoner in Worcester Gaol, and can, as he thinks, go directly to the secret place where the said Hall lieth hid.”

Now, what was the name of this servant? It certainly was not Ralph Ashley (alias George Chambers), Jesuit lay-brother, for he and Nicholas Owen, the servant of Garnet, who died in the Tower, “in their hands,” whatever that may mean, were not captured at Hindlip until a few days before their masters. This treacherous servant of Oldcorne, whoever he was, was possibly the self-same person who told the Government that Ashley “had carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy.” — See Gerard’s “Narrative,” p. 271. — The man may have shrewdly suspected it from something in Ashley’s deportment or from his riding up and down the country in a way that portended that something unusual was afoot. He may have been a “weak or bad Catholic” servant of Mr. Abington, whom that gentleman placed at the special disposal of Oldcorne for a class of work which could be done by one who was not a Jesuit lay-brother. The Government had evidently got a clue to something from somebody, because I find Father Oldcorne making answer in the course of one of his examinations: — “He sayth he bought a black horse of Mr. Wynter at May next shall be three yeares, and sould him againe.” Examination, 5th March, 1606. — See Foley’s “Records,” vol. iv., p. 224.

According to Foley’s “Records,” Oldcorne was indicted at Worcester for —

(1) Inviting Garnet, a denounced traitor, to Hindlip.

(2) Writing to Father Robert Jones, S.J., in Herefordshire, to aid in concealing Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter, thus making himself an accomplice.

(3) Of approving the Plot as a good action, though it failed of effect.

Father Jones had provided a place of concealment at Coombe, in the Parish of Welch Newton, on the borders of Herefordshire, which then abounded in Catholics. Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter, being captured at Hagley, in Worcestershire, were executed as traitors according to law. Hagley House is now the residence of Charles George Baron Lyttelton and Viscount Cobham.