“SHALL we always, gentlemen, talk and never do anything?”

Thomas Percy’s opening words at a clandestine meeting at the Duck and Drake in The Strand in London would, within 18 months, lead to his death in a bloody shoot-out after the failed attempt to kill the king and blow up Parliament.

More than 500 years later, Guy Fawkes is still remembered as the public face of the Gunpowder Plot and Robert Catesby as its zealot architect, but it was the connections of Thomas Percy, constable of Alnwick Castle, which brought the Plot within a whisker of changing history.

AT first glance, Thomas Percy seems an unlikely character to risk his life for the cause of religion.

The aristocratic great-grandson of Henry Percy, the fourth earl of Northumberland, he was born in Yorkshire in 1560 and in his youth he earned a reputation for being reckless in his private life and ruthless in business.

Jesuit priest John Gerard wrote about Percy that “for the most part of his youth he had been very wild more than ordinary, and much given to fighting”.

Fellow priest Father Oswald Tesimond described him as “rather wild and given to the gay life, a man who relied much upon his sword and personal courage”.

Belligerent and eccentric, with "surges of wild energy subsiding into sloth,” the talented swordsman would tour the country with friend and future co-conspirator John Wright to fight others for sport.

By all accounts, he was tall and physically impressive, “of serious expression, but with an attractive manner” although he appears to have gone prematurely grey and had a skin condition which made him sweat so profusely he had to change his shirt twice a day.

After studying at Cambridge, Percy took up a position in the service of his cousin Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland, and was eventually promoted to the post of constable of Alnwick Castle.

While responsible for collecting rents on the family’s northern estates, Percy’s lack of scruples only seemed to improve his standing. More than 30 charges of dishonesty were brought against him by tenants, including unlawful imprisonment, forgery and unlawful evictions, but the earl retained his services.

Even in 1596, when Percy killed a Scot named James Burne during a border skirmish and was sent to jail in London, Northumberland's brother-in-law the earl of Essex intervened to get the prisoner released.

His friends in high places were so impressed with Percy’s talents that they chose him for a secret mission which would set him on the road to his death.

PERCY is said to have turned his back on his unruly life after his marriage in 1591 to pious Catholic Martha Wright, sister of two of the future Gunpowder Plotters.

Father Tesimond wrote: “He then changed his ways in remarkable fashion, giving much satisfaction to Catholics and considerable cause for wonder for those who had known him previously”.

The earl of Northumberland, harboured Catholic sympathies and, with the Scottish King James VI likely to inherit the throne on the death of the childless Elizabeth, sent his servant Thomas Percy north of the border on three clandestine missions during 1602 carrying secret messages to the future king.

Although details were vague, what Percy reported back reassured the English Catholics that they would receive kinder treatment and more freedom of worship under the new king.

These assurances brought south by Percy led Catholics throughout England to support the new King James I and fed the bitter sense of betrayal when the greater toleration which was hoped for failed to materialise.

IN secret, Percy made his feelings known, claiming in an outburst to friend Robert Catesby that he was prepared to kill the king with his own bare hands.

Unknown to Percy at the time, Catesby was already recruiting plotters to his cause and in May 1604, Percy was sworn into the conspiracy.

The following month, Percy was admitted to the gentleman pensioners, a royal bodyguard to the new king and a respectable position which gave Percy the chance to advance the Gunpowder Plot. The time for talking was over.

Early in 1605, Percy leased a ground-floor vault directly under the House of Lords where Guy Fawkes, posing as Percy’s servant, began to amass 36 barrels of gunpowder, concealed under piles of firewood.

The plan was to explode the Gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament and kill the king, while Percy himself used his connections at court to study the daily movements of Prince Charles, the king’s son, who he planned to kidnap.

Percy spent the autumn collecting his lord’s rents, and on October 30 was in York with four men arranging for the monies to be safely delivered, before abruptly leaving for London.

But when the authorities searched the cellar on the eve of the attempted assassination, they caught Fawkes red-handed, posing as servant John Johnson, servant of Thomas Percy.

On the morning of November 5, a warrant was issued for Percy’s arrest, describing him as a tall, florid man, with a broad beard—‘the head more white then the beard’—and stooping shoulders, being also ‘long footed, small legged’.

Percy told his servant “I am undone” and fled on horseback to the Midlands, to join his fellow conspirators.

They were pursued north to Holbeach House, in Staffordshire where they were cornered by 200 men serving the sheriff of Worcestershire.

At 11am on November 8, the posse moved in for the kill. Percy stood back-to-back with Catesby for their desperate last stand in the courtyard and both were felled by a single musketball: Percy killed instantly; Catesby living long enough to crawl back inside the house.

Afterwards, Percy’s body was buried near the spot where he fell, but was later exhumed and his head taken to London.

His severed head, skewered on a spike, was put on public display outside the House of Lords –above the cellar where his earlier promise in a London tavern of turning talk into action came within hours of being fulfilled.