Ambrose Rookwood the House of Lords, Guy Fawkes, was discovered there and arrested. Rookwood fled the city, and informed Catesby and the others of the plan's failure. Together the remaining conspirators rode to Holbeche House in Staffordshire, where on 8 November they were attacked by the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men. Catesby was killed, but Rookwood survived, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Rookwood and the survivors were arraigned on 27 January 1606 in Westminster Hall. Pleading not guilty, he claimed to have loved Catesby "above any worldly man". His subsequent request for mercy was ignored, however, and
Robert and Thomas Wintour would nott answere". With the addition to the conspiracy of Thomas Percy (John Wright's brother-in-law), the five plotters met at the Duck and Drake inn, in the fashionable Strand district of London, on 20 May 1604. From hereon Thomas Wintour remained at the heart of the conspiracy. The group leased properties in London, one in Lambeth for storing the gunpowder that was rowed across the Thames to its destination. His confession has the plotters digging a tunnel toward their target during one of the several prorogations of Parliament, abandoned when the chamber directly beneath the House of Lords became available.