Note 295 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The part played in the conspiracy by Thomas Percy is undoubtedly very singular, and the more so when we learn something of the history and character of the man. Till within some three years previously[295] he had been a Protestant, and, moreover, unusually wild and dissolute. After his conversion, he acquired the character of a zealous, if turbulent, Catholic, and is so described, not only by Father Gerard and Father Greenway, but by himself. In a letter written so late as November 2nd, 1605,[296] he represents that he has to leave Yorkshire, being threatened by the Archbishop with arrest, "as the chief pillar of papistry in that county."