William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle

Having close ties with the extremist Catholic faction during Queen Elizabeth I's rule, and a hand in organising Thomas Winter's mission to Spain in 1602, William Parker later declared to be "done with all formal plots"[3] after King James I took the throne.

It would also seem that he was specifically rejecting the Papacy and becoming an Anglo-Catholic, like the Earl of Northampton, rather than wholly adopting the Protestant faith, which would then make his subsequent actions with respect to the Catholic community more understandable.

When King James I began his reign, English Catholics had hoped that the persecution felt for over 45 years under his predecessor Queen Elizabeth would finally end.

[4] Though more tolerant than others before him, James was still faced with plots and schemes by priests and rebels trying to end the mistreatment of Catholics through force (Fraser 63).

In 1604 Robert Catesby, a devout Catholic with a magnetic personality, recruited friends and rebels to meet and discuss his plot to blow up the House of Lords in an attempt to reestablish Catholicism in England.

[5] With the imminent threat of plague, Parliament postponed re-opening until 5 November 1605, which gave the plotters ample time to lease out a small house in the centre of London where Fawkes would live under the alias "John Johnson" as Thomas Percy's servant while gathering the gunpowder necessary (Fraser 174).

Fraser posits that the note was from someone who wanted to protect Monteagle (either his family, such as his sister Mary Habington, or a friendly conspirator).

It seems somewhat suspicious that the author of the Jesuit account knew of this information when it had never been made public and the plotters were very careful not to talk to anyone outside their own circle prior to the discovery and even tried to maintain ignorance of the gunpowder element initially after their arrest.

The Jesuit history also imparts the information that when Thomas Wintour told this to Francis Tresham on the Sunday, he seemed to be "a man who had lost control of himself" and insisted "without a doubt, the plot was discovered".

On 4 November, Monteagle joined Thomas Howard in searching the basement of Parliament, where they found the stash of gunpowder and explosives.

[4] Parker used his influence to protect his brother-in-law, Thomas Habington, from the possible consequence of death, after harbouring the forbidden priests at Hindlip.

His eldest son of six children, Henry Lord Morley, was also a known Catholic[4] and in 1609, he was suspected of sheltering students from St. Omer's seminary.

He died on 1 July 1622 at Great Hallingbury in Essex and was reported to have received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church before his death.