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 the plot, and asked to be hanged on his behalf as well as his own. Robert merely begged for mercy. At the end of the trial, the jury pronounced them all guilty of high treason. Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were executed on Thursday 30 January 1606. Dragged by horse to Old St Paul's Cathedral, Robert was the second to be executed, praying quietly to himself before he was hanged, drawn and quartered. The following morning, the remaining four were dragged to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, opposite the building they had planned to destroy.