Thomas Habington’s Account of the 1606 Search at Hindlip

The details of the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605 are well known. This article deals with one of the consequences of the failure of that Plot, the search at Hindlip, Worcestershire, in January 1606, and the sequel to that, as related by the man whose house at Hindlip was searched. It is now generally accepted that Fr. Henry Garnet, the Jesuit Superior, was aware of the Plot from information acquired in confession. The Jesuit Fr. Oswald Tesimond seems certainly to have been privy to the Plot. The authorities, determined to implicate the Jesuits, issued a proclamation against three Jesuits—Garnet, Tesimond and Fr. John Gerard (who was not privy to the Plot)—on 15 January 1605–6. Garnet was in hiding at Hindlip House, a house near Worcester belonging to Thomas Habington, from early December. The house had a large number of secret hiding places. It was searched in January 1606 by a local magistrate, Sir Henry Bromley of Holt, and Garnet, Fr. Edward Oldcorne alias Hall, S. J., and the Jesuit lay brothers Nicholas Owen (who had probably built most of the hides in the house) and Ralph Ashley were discovered. Three of them were later executed; Owen died in the Tower as the result of the torture to which he had been subjected.