Ambrose Rookwoode

On the 31st January 1606, Thomas Wintour and Robert Keyes were drawn from the Tower to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, Guy Fawkes was brought to the scaffold too, but he was made to watch as his fellow plotters were hanged and quartered. Twenty-eight-year-old Ambrose Rookwood was another of the Gunpowder Plotters who also went to the gallows that day. 

Rookwoode had spent over two months in the Tower of London, and below you can see a carving by  Ambrose Rookwoode on the wall of the Martin Tower. There were, in fact, two men known by the name of Ambrose Rookwoode - the above-named Rookwoode and his great-grandson, a Jacobite soldier who was tried for treason and executed at Tyburn on 29 April 1696, ninety years after his namesake. However, it is not quite clear which Rookwoode was responsible for the carving, or which one of them was held in this tower. The fact that Henry Percy was held in the same tower adds weight to it being Rookwoode senior. Incidentally, for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, Henry Percy spent the following seventeen years incarcerated there. 

Rookwood, ‘well-built and handsome, if somewhat short’, 'genial', ‘well-lettered’, and ‘very secret.’ was a member of an ancient family of Stanningfield in Suffolk who were wealthy and staunchly Catholic. His wife, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt's family were also a prominent Catholic family from Lincolnshire.

By the end of 1605, according to his confession, Rookwoode was approached by Catesby, Winter, and Wright, he stated that he hadn't known the reason for supplying the men with gunpowder at a house in Lambeth. This may be true, Catesby, as the ring leader, was a determined man and also charming and it may be that Rookwoode was easily persuaded.

After the capture of Fawkes, Rookwoode was among the men fighting the king's forces at Holbeche House in Staffordshire, he was shot in the right arm and his face burnt, he was captured and taken to London and 'questioned at great length.' During his trial, he stated that he was led astray by Catesby and pleaded not guilty. Labeled a traitor, he was destined for a traitor's death, four days after his trial he was drawn to his death. Rookwoode asked to be taken past his home where his dutiful wife Elizabeth was waiting at the window, he is said to have shouted 'Pray for me, pray for me!'

Rookwoode met his death on the gallows at Westminster Yard, even though he showed remorse, he was left to hang for longer than the others, a small mercy perhaps - he would be dead before they disemboweled him!