Robert Keyes

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Robert Keyes
The surviving conspirators, Keyes amongst them, are executed in Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Born	c.1565 England
Died	31 January 1606 Westminster, England
Spouse	Christina

Robert Keyes was one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, an unsuccessful attempt by a group of English Roman Catholics to blow-up Westminster Palace and kill King James I (James VI of Scotland) and members of both houses of the Parliament, during the opening session of Parliament on 5 November 1605, while the king addressed a joint assembly of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

[edit] Biography

Born around 1565, he was the son of Edward Keyes, the Rector of Stavely in North Derbyshire. His mother, who was a daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt from Kettleby, Lincolnshire, was related to the Babthorpes of Osgodby who were staunch Catholics. Through his mother he was related to co-conspirators Ambrose Rokewood, John and Christopher Wright and Robert and Thomas Wintour. He was almost certainly brought up as a Protestant but by the time of the plot he had converted to Catholicism.

He and his wife Christina were employed by Lord Mordaunt in 1604. Keyes' role is not known (he was possibly a property manager), but Christina worked as governess for Lord Mordaunt's children. Keyes was not a rich man. Although he had a servant, William Johnson, he claimed that he had lost his possessions at some time as a result of persecution, and he may have been attracted to the plot by the possibility of enriching himself in a new Catholic state. At any rate, Robert Catesby, the leader of the plot, considered him a trustworthy and honest man.

He was the sixth person to join the conspiracy, and little is known of his role in the early part of the plot. As the details of the plot were being finalized, he (along with Francis Tresham) spoke in favour of warning the Catholic lords, particularly his employer Lord Mordaunt, so that they could excuse themselves from the opening. Catesby was dead set against a warning for Mordaunt, claiming "he would not for the chamber full of diamonds acquaint him with the secret, for that he knew he could not keep it". It is possible that Keyes knew that Mordaunt had already excused himself from the opening for business reasons and he did not insist on informing him over Catesby's objections. Tresham was later blamed for the anonymous note to Lord Monteagle which led to the discovery of the plot.

In the run up to the night of 5 November, Keyes was entrusted with guarding the explosives at Catesby's house in Lambeth. On 4 November, he and Ambrose Rokewood spent the night at the house of Elizabeth More near Temple Bar, London. Guy Fawkes visited them at the house, and Keyes gave him a watch (to time the fuses) which had been left in his care by Thomas Percy.

Early on 5 November 1605, the two men heard news that the plot had been discovered and Fawkes arrested. They decided to stay in London for a while awaiting further news, but after a few hours Keyes left the house and started to make his way back to Lord Mordaunt's house, either to attempt to hide out there while his master was away or to inform his wife of the failure of the plot and wish her goodbye (although there is evidence to suggest she may have also been away on holiday at the time). Rokewood left the house sometime after Keyes, but having a faster horse, caught up with him at Highgate, and the two journeyed on to Bedfordshire before separating. Rokewood was captured along with others of the group after a siege at Holbeach House in Staffordshire.

Keyes was eventually taken in Warwickshire on 9 November, and during his interrogation revealed that he had been travelling to see Rokewood's family, having heard that Rokewood had been captured. He was sent to London on 16 November, and interrogated again in the Tower of London on 30 November.

The conspirators were tried on 27 January 1606 at Westminster Hall. Keyes pleaded not guilty (as did all the other conspirators apart from Sir Everard Digby), and claimed that his motive had been to promote the common good. He stated that he had hoped that England would have become a Catholic state once again and also that the violence of the present persecutions had forced him into the conspiracy. He was found guilty, and on 31 January 1606, he, Rokewood, Thomas Wintour and Fawkes were taken to the Old Palace Yard in Westminster. Rokewood and Winter were executed first, and then Keyes ascended the gallows, apparently unrepentant. Rather than hanging and dying by strangulation he leapt from the ladder before the hangman could push him off "with such a leap that, with a swing he brake the halter". He was quickly taken down, drawn and quartered.

[edit] References

• Robert Keyes. Gunpowder Plot Society.
• The King's Book. Gunpowder Plot Society.