Mary Habington or Abington, née Parker was an English recusant. Antiquarian writers thought that she was the author of the anonymous letter to her brother William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle which warned of the Gunpowder Plot."Historical Particulars Regarding the Gunpowder Plot", The Gentleman's Magazine (March 1835), p. 253. This theory is dismissed by modern historians. She sheltered a number of Catholic priests and recusants at her Worcestershire home Hindlip Hall.John Amphlett, A Survey of Worcestershire, 1 (Oxford, 1894), p. 9.
Family background
She was the eldest daughter of Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley and Elizabeth Stanley, a daughter of William Stanley, 3rd Baron Monteagle.George K. Stanton, Rambles and researches among Worcestershire churches (London, 1886), p. 87. Around the year 1593, she married Thomas Habington (1560–1647) of Hindlip Hall, a son of Queen Elizabeth's cofferer John Habington and his wife, Catharine Wykes.Jan Broadway, "Thomas Habington: Recusancy and the Gentry of Early Stuart Worcestershire", Midland History, 29:1 (2004), p. 3. She signed her letters "Mary Abington".Aileen M. Hodgson & Michael Hodgetts, Little Malvern Letters, 1 (Boydell, 2013), p. 124 no. 103.
Dorothy Habington, described as Mary Habington's sister-in-law, was a Catholic convert by 1590.Philip Caraman, John Gerard: The Autobiography of an Elizabethan (Longmans, 1951), pp. 43–45. She was identified as a recusant and "spinster" in a list made in 1594.Hugh Bowler, "Recusant Roll no. 2, 1593–1594", Catholic Record Society Publications, 57 (1965), p. 194 She was said to have been brought up a Protestant at Elizabeth I's court and converted by Edward Oldcorne.John Amphlett, A Survey of Worcestershire by Thomas Habington, 1 (Oxford: James Parker, 1895), p. 11. Thomas Habington's stepmother Dorothy Habington née Bradbelt (died 1577) had been a member of the royal household.Charlotte Merton, "Women, Friendship, and Memory", Alice Hunt & Anna Whitelock, Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 248.
Dorothy Habington resided at Hindlip, receiving priests including Richard Broughton alias Rowse,Michael Hodgetts & Paul Hodgetts, Secret Hiding Places: Priest Holes: An Incredible True Story of Faith and Ingenuity (Pear Branch Press, 2024), pp. 163, 262. and Oldcorne was so frequently at Hindlip that locals thought he was a relative of the family.Francis Edwards, The Gunpowder Plot: The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond (Folio Society, 1973), pp. 167, 171. The 1594 roll of recusants names Thomas Habington's wife as "Dorothy Abyngton", rather than Mary, by mistake.Hugh Bowler, "Recusant Roll no. 2, 1593–1594", Catholic Record Society Publications, 57 (1965), p. 195. Adding to possible confusion, an 18th-century writer Treadway Russell Nash mentions another Dorothy Habington, a niece of Mary and daughter of Richard Habington, who, he writes, was brought up at court.T. R. Nash, Collections for the history of Worcestershire, 1 (1781), p. 587
Career Monteagle letter
The suggestion that Mary Habington wrote the anonymous letter to her brother in October 1605, hinting at the Gunpowder plot,Harleian Miscellany, 4, pp. 242–243 appears in John Williams's The History of the Gunpowder-treason (1678), attributed to an account of the plot given by her husband Thomas Habington to a "worthy person" in 1645.Gilbert Burnet, "A History of Gunpowder Treason", A Collection of Several Tracts (London: Richard Chiswell, 1685), pp. 19-20: (John Williams),The history of the gunpowder-treason (London: Richard Chiswell, 1679), p. 20 (ESTC R1987; Wing W2705) The suggestion that Mary was the author was attributed to William Dugdale in Anthony à Wood's Athenae Oxonienses published in 1691.John Sherren Brewer, The Church History of Britain by Thomas Fuller, 5 (Oxford, 1845), p. 348 fn: Philip Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses, 3 (London, 1817), p. 224 Simon Archer was a mutual aquaintaince of Habington and Dugdale.Susan M. Cogan, "Social Networks in Post-Reformation Warwickshire", Christopher Dyer, Changing Approaches to Local History: Warwickshire History and Its Historians (Woodbridge, 2022), p. 144: Aileen M. Hodgson & Michael Hodgetts, Little Malvern Letters, 1 (Boydell, 2013), p. 165 no. 153.
Elsewhere in the Athenae Oxonienses, Wood attributes the letter to Francis Tresham.Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1 (London, 1691), p. 282 In 1781, a historian of Worcestershire, Treadway Russell Nash wrote that Mary Habington's authorship of the letter was a local tradition. It has also been suggested that Mary Habington dictated the letter to her friend Anne Vaux."Gunpowder Plot: Letter to Lord Monteagle", Gentleman's Magazine, 9:2 (1828), pp. 601–602.
According to Oswald Tesimond's narrative, a member of Lord Monteagle's household told the conspirator Thomas Winter about the letter. The conspirators were perturbed, and arranged a meeting on Enfield Chase between Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham. They suspected Tresham, whose sister Elizabeth was married to Monteagle. Tresham convinced them he was not the author.Francis Edwards, The Gunpowder Plot: The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond (Folio Society, 1973), pp. 117–118.
The centrality of the letter to the discovery of the cellar, gunpowder, and plot, and the official narrative has often been doubted.Stephen Alford, All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil (Allen Lane, 2024), p. 311: Samuel Rawson Gardiner, What Gunpowder Plot Was (Longmans, 1897), pp. 115–116, 123. Some writers, including Antonia Fraser, see the letter as a kind of fake, a political ruse engineered by the Earl of Salisbury.Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 (Arrow, 1999), p. 156. Nevertheless, Hindlip Hall came to be celebrated, as it was believed that, "as much of the plot was there hatch'd, so it was from thence that it came to be prevented".John Williams, The History of the Gunpowder-treason (London: Richard Chiswell, 1679), p. 19Gilbert Burnet, "A History of Gunpowder Treason", A Collection of Several Tracts (London: Richard Chiswell, 1685), p. 19
Journey to Hindlip
One of the Gunpowder suspects, the priest Thomas Strange (alias Anderton or Hungerford), a cousin of Thomas Habington, and a friend of Ben Jonson,Ian Donaldson, Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford, 2011), p. 223. was arrested in November 1605. He said he first heard the news of the plot discovery from Henry Huddleston (a son of Edmund Huddleston of Sawston Hall),John Morris, Life of Father John Gerard, of the Society of Jesus, p. 97. while he was at Harrowden (home of the Vaux family and Elizabeth Vaux née Roper) and decided to go to Hindlip. He took a route avoiding Warwick, as he was advised travellers were being "stayed". Strange did not make it to Hindlip, but was arrested at Kenilworth and taken to the Tower of London.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1603–1610, pp. 240, 245, 259, 300: Henry Foley, Records of the English Province, 4 (London, 1878), pp. 11, 15.Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1598–1606 (Brill, 2007), p. 507.Philip Caraman, The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest: John Gerard (San Francisco, 2012), p. 250.Michael Hodgetts, "Thomas Strange and the Powder Plot", Midlands Catholic History, 19 (2012), pp. 1–15.
Strange was questioned about his interest in a Papal dispensation for the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, the parents of King James.Henry Foley, Records of the English Province, 4 (London, 1878), p. 13: M. S. Giuseppi, HMC Salisbury Hatfield, 18 (London, 1940), pp. 66–67. Meanwhile, Oswald Tesimond alias Greenway came to Hindlip from Huddington Court bringing news of the plot discovery.Michael Hodgetts & Paul Hodgetts, Secret Hiding Places: Priest Holes: An Incredible True Story of Faith and Ingenuity (Pear Branch Press, 2024), p. 175: Francis Edwards, The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond (Folio Society, 1973), p. 221. Thomas Habington refused to help the plotters or suspects.Henry Foley, "Life of Father Edward Oldcorne", Records of the English Province, 4, p. 225: Francis Baugh Andrews, Memorials of Old Worcestershire (G. Allen, 1911), p. 231. At least four priests, with lay brothers, and servants came to Hindlip, after travelling from Coughton Court and Evesham before Christmas.Philip Caraman, Henry Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot (Longmans, 1964), pp. 330–331, 336.
Hindlip, January 1606
On 15 January 1606, a proclamation was made for the arrest of John Gerard alias Brooke, Henry Garnet, and Oswald Tesimond. These three were thought to have been complicit in the Gunpowder Plot. It would be a crime for anyone to harbour or conceal them.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, 16, pp. 639–640
Mary Habington and her friend Anne Vaux were at Hindlip Hall.Nadine Akkerman & Pete Langman, Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade (Yale, 2024), p. 175: C. Don Gilbert, Thomas Habington's Account of the 1606 Search at Hindlip, Recusant History, 25:3 (2001), pp. 417, 420. After Thomas Habington left on business on 18 January, William Colles of Hallow, their tenant and a recusant, came to Hindlip and told Mary Habington that a search was intended. Thomas Lister alias Butler (Dorothy Habington's priest) and Richard Fullwood left immediately.C. Don Gilbert, Thomas Habington's Account of the 1606 Search at Hindlip, Recusant History, 25:3 (2001), p. 417. The house was raided two days later by Henry Bromley of Holt Castle, a magistrate searching for Catholic priests.Alice Hogge, God's secret agents : Queen Elizabeth's forbidden priests and the hatching of the Gunpowder plot (Harper perennial, 2005), p. 357: John Humphreys, "The Habingtons of Hindlip and the Gunpowder Plot", Transactions of the Birmingham and Midlands Institute, 31 (1905), pp. 47–66. She accepted the authority of his warrant, but he could "never get from Mrs Abington, nor any other in the house, the least glimmering of any of these traitors, or any other treason to be here".Francis Edwards, The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond (Folio Society, 1973), p. 168: Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1603–1610 (London, 1857), pp. 295–297: Henry Foley, Records of the English Province, 4, p. 75: David Jardine, A Narrative of the Gunpowder plot, p. 185.
The fugitives hid in carefully concealed priest holes in the long gallery behind panelling (the gallery at Hindlip went around the house "four square" probably at attic level),Michael Hodgetts & Paul Hodgetts, Secret Hiding Places: Priest Holes: An Incredible True Story of Faith and Ingenuity (Pear Branch Press, 2024), pp. 251–52. and built into the chimneys of the house. Bromley and his men stayed at Hindlip, hoping to starve them out of their hiding places. Some of the priests were supplied with drinks and caudle using a quill or straw from a gentlewoman's bedchamber,Jessie Childs, God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England (Oxford, 2014), pp. 325–332. presumably by Mary Habington, Dorothy Habington, or Anne Vaux, or their trusted servants.Godfrey Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden: A Recusant family (Newport, 1953), p. 336.