Robert Catesby

1573–1605

Robert Catesby was the principal organiser of the Gunpowder Plot. Frustrated by the failure of relief for English Catholics, he recruited conspirators for an attempt to destroy Parliament and was killed after the plot was exposed.

Robert Catesby was born in Warwickshire and died in Staffordshire. After the plot was discovered, Catesby fled London with other conspirators and attempted to rally Catholic support in the Midlands; he was shot and killed at Holbeche House on 8 November 1605.

In Peter Tonkin’s Shadow of Treason, An explosion at a gunpowder mill brings Robert Poley face to face with the fugitive Catholic Robert Catesby. In Antonia Fraser’s The Gunpowder Plot, Fraser follows Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators as they moved from grievance and secrecy to a plan to destroy Parliament and kill James VI and I.

Periods

Periods linked to Robert Catesby

Gunpowder Plot1605 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Robert Catesby (1 series)

The Queen’s Intelligencer in Order

by Peter Tonkin 5 books 4.2(3,490)

The Queen’s Intelligencer series fictionalises the career of Robert Poley, a real Elizabethan agent associated with the Babington Plot and the death of Christopher Marlowe. In publication order, Poley infiltrates the Essex circle, manages the 1603 succession, follows the Gunpowder conspirators, works against a poison network during the…