Gunpowder Plot under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow plotters were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives. The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight
Robert and Thomas Wintour plot is based on Thomas's confessions, given in the Tower of London in November 1605. The brothers were tried on 27 January 1606, and hanged, drawn and quartered several days later in London. Robert (b. 1568) and Thomas Wintour (b. 1571–72) were sons of George Wintour of Huddington Court in Worcestershire, and his wife Jane (née Ingleby), daughter of Sir William Ingleby of Ripley Castle near Knaresborough. A sister, Dorothy, married another conspirator, John Grant. Two agnate half-siblings, John and Elizabeth, resulted from their father's marriage to Elizabeth Bourn, following Jane's death. Their paternal grandparents were Robert Wintour of Cavewell