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
Ambrose Rookwood it was "a potentially dangerous statement of faith". Ambrose and two of his brothers, Robert and Christopher, were educated by Jesuits at Saint-Omer, then in Flanders. Both brothers became priests (Ambrose's elder brother, Henry, became a Franciscan), and his half-sisters Dorothea and Susanna became nuns. According to the Jesuit Oswald Tesimond, Rookwood was "well-built and handsome, if somewhat short", which he compensated for by his taste in extravagant clothing. In author Antonia Fraser's opinion, this affectation was somewhat inappropriate at a time when "clothes were supposed to denote rank rather than money". In or shortly before 1599 he married Elizabeth,