"This applies also to the famous cultural gatherings in London taverns like the Mermaid at which Jonson aired his celebrated wit.
The meetings were attended by poets and actors as well as by young men of gentle blood interested in the arts and the stage. . . .
One such meeting attended by Ben Jonson took place in October 1605 at William Patrick’s ordinary in the Strand: among those present besides Jonson were the Lords Mordant and Mounteagle, Francis Tresham, Thomas Winter and Robert Catesby (three of the leading gunpowder conspirators),
Sir Jocelyn Percy
(who planned to serve with the regiment of English Catholics fighting in Flanders),
and John Ashfield (near kinsman of the Catholic Ralph Sheldon and married to a Winter). . . . it was undoubtedly Jonson’s known relations with other Catholics including Catesby, Tresham and Winter..."
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