What was Coventrys connection with the Gunpowder Plot?
Coombe Abbey, close to Coventry, was central to the Warwickshire men who planned and carried out the plot to blow up King James I and all those attending Parliament on the 5th November 1605. Apart from one Yorkshire man, who was known to both the English and Spanish courts and could speak fluent Latin, Spanish and Italian, and a internationally renowned explosives expert, the ringleaders were Warwickshire men, lead by Robert Catesby and the Wright brothers. Nearly all the plotters were in some way related to each other, and known troublemakers. Catesby and the Wright’s were arrested and sent to prison in 1596 when Elizabeth I fell ill, ‘just in case of trouble’.
