I will persevere till she yields.

With Father Oldcorne to back my suit, I am assured of success.

She is necessary to my purpose, and shall be mine." Descended from an ancient Northamptonshire family, and numbering among his ancestry the well-known minister of the same name who flourished in the reign of Richard the Third, Robert Catesby,--at this time about forty,--had in his youth led a wild and dissolute life; and though bred in the faith of Rome, he had for some years abandoned its worship.

In 1580, when the Jesuits, Campion and Persons, visited England, he was reconciled to the church he had quitted, and thenceforth became as zealous a supporter and promoter of its doctrines as he had heretofore been their bitter opponent.

He was now actively engaged in all the Popish plots of the period, and was even supposed to be connected with those designs of a darker dye which were set on foot for Elizabeth's destruction,--with Somerville's conspiracy,--with that of Arden and Throckmorton,--the latter of whom was his uncle on the maternal side,--with the plots of Bury and Savage,--of Ballard,--and of Babington.