Research presented by York’s Bar Convent suggests that Guy Fawkes and fellow York conspirators may have been closer to Catholic martyr Margaret Clitherow’s family than previously recognised.
The investigation centres on the Middleton Vestment. Special collections manager Dr Hannah Thomas says it belonged to Clitherow’s family and probably to Robert Middleton, whom she believes was Clitherow’s nephew. Middleton was approximately Fawkes’s age; Clitherow’s son and stepson were also close in age to Fawkes and the Wright brothers.
Clitherow was executed in York in 1586 after being accused of sheltering Catholic priests. Middleton was executed for being a priest in 1601, four years before the Gunpowder Plot. Thomas proposes that shared schooling and York’s Catholic networks could have connected the young men and strengthened their anger at persecution.
This is a historical reconstruction. The surviving evidence does not establish a personal friendship or prove that these relationships motivated the plot.
Report dates: The diocesan account appeared on 2 November; the Yorkshire Post covered it on 5 November. We revisit the research after Bonfire Night. The Bar Convent exhibition continues until 5 December.