Robert Catesby

1573-1605. Originator of the Gunpowder Plot,* which he devised in 1603-4. Of a recusant* family in Warwickshire, his father having suffered in the second half of Elizabeth's reign for befriending Roman emissaries, Robert was educated at Douai and at Gloucester Hall-later part of Worcester College-Oxford, the recusant parallel to Peterhouse, Cambridge. On the death of his father in 1598 he became very rich, but suffered a heavy fine for his support of Essex's rebellion in 1601. After the failure of the Gunpowder Plot he fled to Holbeche in Staffordshire, where he was killed while allegedly resisting arrest.