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 signature, 'Thomas Winter', differs from his normal signature, 'Thomas Wintour' (it was the former that was invariably used by the government). The signature, possibly forged by lieutenant of the Tower of London William Waad, was made only weeks after Thomas had been shot in the shoulder during the siege at Holbeche House. Biographer Mark Nicholls views the difference in signatures as a significant and puzzling lapse, if a "master forger" is presumed to be responsible for the document. He views the handwriting on the confession as "convincingly that of Winter [Wintour]", pointing out that it appears to be the work