William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle
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England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
peer, Lord of Morley
Morley Saint Botolph
Morley Saint Botolph is a small village in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated 4 km south-west of the town of Wymondham and 23 km south-west of the city of Norwich...
, Hingham
Hingham, Norfolk
Hingham is a market town and civil parish in the Forehoe district in the heart of rural Norfolk, in England. The civil parish covers an area of and had a population of 2,078 in 944 households as of the 2001 census. Grand architecture surrounds the market place and village green...
, Hockering
Hockering
Hockering is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 628. By 2007 the district estimated that this had risen to 665.-Geography:...
, &c., in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, the eldest son of Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley
Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley
Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley was an English peer, Lord of Morley, Hingham, Hockering, &c., in Norfolk, the son of Henry Parker, 11th Baron Morley and Lady Elizabeth Stanley....
(died 1618), and of Elizabeth Stanley, daughter and heiress of William Stanley, 3rd Baron Monteagle (died 1581).
When quite a youth he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham
Thomas Tresham II
Sir Thomas Tresham was a Catholic recusant politician at the end of the Tudor dynasty and the start of the Stuart dynasty in England....
, and was styled Lord Monteagle in right of his mother. He was allied with many Roman Catholic families, and during the reign of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
was in sympathy with their cause. He was knighted while with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...
in Ireland in 1599, and in 1601 he took part in the latter's rebellion in London. He was punished by imprisonment and a fine of £8,000.
He subsequently in 1602 joined in sending the mission to Spain inviting Philip III
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...
to invade England. He was intimate with Robert Catesby
Robert Catesby
Robert Catesby , was the leader of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605....
and others, and according to Father Garnet
Henry Garnet
Henry Garnet , sometimes Henry Garnett, was a Jesuit priest executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Derbyshire, he was educated in Nottingham and later at Winchester College, before moving to London in 1571 to work for a publisher...
expressed an opinion some few months before the Gunpowder Plot
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.The plan was to blow up the House of...
that the Romanists had a good opportunity of making good their claims by taking up arms against the King. It is certain that he was one of those who acquiesced in James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
's accession and assisted Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley , 3rd Earl of Southampton , was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, Countess of Southampton, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu...
in securing the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
for the King.
He was taken into favour, and received a summons to attend the parliament of the 5th of November 1605 as Lord Monteagle. On 26 October 1605, while sitting at supper at Hoxton
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...
, he received a letter warning of the gunpowder plot, perhaps written by Sir Francis Tresham
Francis Tresham
Francis Tresham , eldest son of Sir Thomas Tresham and Merial Throckmorton, was a member of the group of English provincial catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a conspiracy to assassinate King James I of England...
. After having caused it to be read aloud by Ward, a gentleman in his service and an intimate friend of Robert Wintour, one of the chief conspirators, he took it to Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
and showed it to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG, PC was an English administrator and politician.-Life:He was the son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Mildred Cooke...
and other ministers. It is believed by some historians (such as Lady Antonia Fraser
Antonia Fraser
Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, DBE , née Pakenham, is an Anglo-Irish author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction, best known as Antonia Fraser...
), however, that he authored the letter himself in order to win acclaim and favour with the King.
On 4 November he accompanied Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk
Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk
Admiral Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, KG, PC was a son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk by his second wife Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk, the daughter and heiress of the 1st Baron Audley of Walden....
, the Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
, in his visit to the vault under the parliament house, where Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes , also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.Fawkes was born and educated in York...
was found. Monteagle received £700 a year for his services in averting the disaster. In 1609 he was chosen a member of the council of the Virginia Company
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
and subscribed to its funds. The same year disorders in his house are reported, probably referring to his harbouring of Roman Catholic students from St Omer
Saint-Omer
Saint-Omer , a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais. The town is named after Saint Audomar, who brought Christianity to the area....
(Cal. of St Pap. Dom. 1603–1610, p. 533).
In 1618, on the death of his father, he was summoned to parliament as Baron Morley and Baron Monteagle. He died on the 1st of July 1622 at Great Hallingbury
Great Hallingbury
Great Hallingbury is a village and a civil parish near the M11 motorway, in the Uttlesford District, in the English county of Essex. It is near the town of Bishop's Stortford- Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 :...
, Essex, where he was buried.
By his marriage with Elizabeth Tresham he had, besides daughters, three sons, the eldest of whom, Henry, (died 1655) succeeded him as 14th Baron Morley and 5th Baron Monteagle. These baronies fell into abeyance when Henry's son Thomas died in about 1686. His daughter Catherine Parker married John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers
John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers
-Family:Savage was the first son of Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Darcy, 1st Earl Rivers. He succeeded to the Savage viscountcy in 1635 on the death of his father, and succeeded to the Rivers earldom on the death of his grandfather in 1640, by a...
.