A noted Jesuit, son of a Nottingham schoolmaster, implicated in the Gunpowder Plot; bred in the Protestant faith, he early turned Catholic and went abroad and joined the Jesuit order; in 1588 he returned to England as Superior of the English Jesuits, and engaged in various intrigues; on the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot he was arrested, found guilty of cognisance of the Plot, and executed (1555-1606).