The 'plot room' at Ashby St Ledgers

Robert Catesby, who lived at Ashby St Ledgers, near Daventry, was a devout Catholic.

He was a popular, fashionable man, more than six-feel-tall, handsome, a courageous horseman and admired swordsman. He seems to have charisma by the bucket-load and was, perhaps, a born leader.

His father had been imprisoned for harbouring a Catholic priest, and he himself left university without a degree to avoid taking the Protestant Oath of Supremacy.

Robert Catesby

1573 - born 1586 - to university (Gloucester Hall, Oxford) 1593 - married Catherine Leigh. 1594 shelters two Catholic priests at his house 1596 - arrested and held in the Tower of London whilst Queen Elizabeth I is unwell. As Catesby was a known Catholic, this was a precautionary measure until the Queen recovered. 1601 - Catesby is involved in the unsuccessful Essex Rebellion which claimed to bring religious toleration to England. He is fined for his involvement. 1603 - Thomas Percy visits Catesby at Ashby St Ledgers. November 4th 1605 - the gunpowder plot is foiled. November 8th 1605 - Catesby is shot dead at Holbeach House, Staffordshire.

Catesby became the leader of the small band of conspirators.

It started around June 1603, Thomas Percy, a disgruntled Catholic, came to Northamptonshire to visit Robert Catesby. It's thought that they met in the old half-timbered gatehouse to the manor at Ashby St Ledgers. The building still stands and the place they met is known as the 'plot room'.

Percy told Catesby he would kill the King with his own hands. Catesby urged him to hold back - he wanted to consult with others first.

Catesby was also joined by someone else from Northamptonshire...

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