New Light on the Gunpowder Plot

In the gathering dusk of an October afternoon in 1605, Sir John Yorke of Nidderdale, coming up the near bank of the river Nidd at the end of a day’s fowling and meeting his kinsman Sir William Ingleby on the other, they both, as they approached a woodside overhanging the river, “in rejoicing manner, in respect of some strange action that presently would ensue,” shot off the guns one after the other, “to the great astonishment”—and no little curiosity—of all the neighbours. Few of the hill-people, the shepherds and farmers of the cragsides, can have had the remotest suspicion of what this “strange action” might be; but some, more intimately connected with Sir John and Sir William, appear to have had a very good idea of what was in the wind; and it is likely that their masters and betters knew a great deal more of its inner secrets than they ever dared afterwards admit. Six weeks before, the dale had been alive with whispers and rumours of mysterious comings and goings. Sir William Ingleby’s nephews, Robert and Thomas Winter, had appeared -unexpectedly overnight and had stayed with their uncle at Ripley Castle, where they were joined on September 15th by their cousins, Mr.