Rookwood (novel) of "Rookwood" and many more added in later editions. Of the other songs, some were sung by gypsies about love, some were hymns, and some were used to further the gothic setting. The name Rookwood alludes to the old Recusant (Roman Catholic) family of that name, most famous of whom was Ambrose Rookwood, executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot (the conspiracy which forms the theme of Ainsworth's 1841 novel "Guy Fawkes"). Ainsworth, perhaps consciously, paid a double homage to this family, in that his later historical romance "The Spendthrift" concerns an eighteenth-century heir of the Gage
Robert and Thomas Wintour Percy, it was for the latter that the government's first arrest warrant was issued. Thomas guessed as much, and told Wright to go to Percy and "bid him begone". As the rest of those conspirators still in London fled the city, undaunted, he went over to Westminster to try and discern what he could. In author Alan Haynes's opinion, this demonstrated an impressive degree of trust in Fawkes's ability to confound his interrogators, but when Thomas heard for himself that the treason had been uncovered, he left for Huddington, stopping at his sister's house in Norbrook along the way. The