On the morning of Tuesday, November 5, 1605 which day was appointed for the opening of a new Parliamentary session, London rang with the news that in the course of the night a diabolical plot had been discovered, by which the King and legislature were to have been destroyed at a blow. In a chamber beneath the House of Lords had been found a great quantity of gunpowder, and with it a man, calling himself John Johnson, who fully acknowledged his intention to have fired the magazine while the royal speech was being delivered, according to custom, overhead, and so to have blown King, Lords, and Commons into the air. At the same time, he doggedly refused to say who his accomplices were, or whether he had any.

Johnson, whose true name was presently found to be Guy, or Guido Faukes, 1 proved, it is true, a most obstinate and unsatisfactory witness, and obstinately refused to give any evidence which might incriminate others. But the actions of his confederates quickly supplied the information which he withheld.

It was known that the cellar in which the powder was found, as well as a house adjacent, had been hired in the name of one Thomas Percy, a Catholic gentleman, perhaps a kinsman, and certainly a dependent, of the Earl of Northumberland. It was now discovered that he and others of his acquaintance had fled from London on the previous day, upon receipt of intelligence that the plot seemed at least to be suspected. Of one we may mention is Sir Dudley Carlton (b.1572) who was secretary to the Earl of Northumberland, which a few years later had nearly been the cause of bringing his promising career to a very unsatisfactory termination; for when detained in France by the illness of Lord Norris, with whom he had made a tour through Spain, he was summoned to England by the Lords of the Council, at the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot; and on suspicion of his having been implicated in it from his connection with his former patron, the Earl of Northumberland, he was placed in confinement, but, on clearing himself, was liberated.

This suspicion, however, for some time acted unfavourably on Carlton’s fortunes, till the year 1610, when he was appointed to succeed Sir Henry Wotton in the Embassy at Venice; the honour of Knighthood was then conferred upon him; but he was soon afterwards appointed Ambassador to the States-General, where he remained from 1616 to 1628, with an interval of one year (1625) when he was joined with the Earl of Holland, as Ambassador extraordinary to the Court of France, to excuse the King’s abrupt dismissal of Henrietta Maria’s French attendants. But this part of his history belongs to the reign of Charles, whose confidence and favour he enjoyed in a very high degree. 2

Returning to our course, not many hours later, the fugitives were heard of in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire, the native counties of several amongst them, attempting to rally others to their desperate fortunes, and to levy war against the crown. For this purpose they forcibly seized cavalry horses 3 at Warwick, and arms at Whewell Grange, a seat of Lord Windsor. These violent proceedings having raised the country behind them, they were pursued by the Sheriffs with what forces could be got together, and finally brought to bay at Holbeche, in Staffordshire, the residence of one Stephen Littleton, a Catholic gentleman.

There proved to have been thirteen men in all (including Guy Fawkes) who had been participators in the treason:

1. Guy Fawkes
2. Francis Tresham
3. Robert Catesby
4. Thomas Percy
5. Robert Winter
6. Thomas Winter
7. John Wright
8. Christopher Wright
9. John Grant
10. Robert Keyes
11. Ambrose Rokewood
12. Sir Everard Digby
13. Thomas Bates

On Friday, November 8, three days after the discovery, Sir Richard Walsh, Sheriff of Worcestershire, attacked Holbeche. Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights were killed or mortally wounded in the assault. The others were taken prisoners on the spot or in its neighbourhood, with the exception of Robert Winter, who, accompanied by their host, Stephen Littleton, contrived to elude capture for upwards of two months, being at last apprehended in January, at Hagley Hall, Worcestershire.

All the prisoners were at once taken up to London, and being there confined, were frequently and diligently examined by the Council, to trace, if possible, farther ramifications of the conspiracy, and especially to inculpate the Catholic clergy. 4 Torture, it is evident, was employed with this object.

December 4 we find Robert Cecil complaining that he could obtain little or no evidence against the really important persons:

“Most of the prisoners,” he writes, 5 “have willfully forsworn that the priests knew anything in particular, and obstinately refuse to be accusers of them, yea, what torture so ever they be put to.”

On January 15, 1605 a proclamation was issued declaring that the Jesuit fathers, John Gerard, Henry Garnet, 6 and Oswald Greenway or Tesimond, were proved to have been ‘peculiarly practisers’ in the treason, and offering a reward for their apprehension.

Before this all happened, on October 26, ten days before the meeting of Parliament, a Catholic peer, Lord Mounteagle, received an anonymous letter, and couched in vague and incoherent language, warning him to absent himself from the opening ceremony. This document Mounteagle at once took to the King’s Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who promptly divined its meaning and the precise danger, indicated, although he allowed James to fancy that he was himself the first to interpret it, when it was shown to him five days later. 7 A French writer 8 has observed that the plots undertaken under Elizabeth I., and James I., have this feature in common, that they proved, one and all, extremely opportune for those against whom they were directed. To this law the Gunpowder Plot was no exception. Whatever be the true history of its origin, it certainly placed in the hands of the King’s Chief Minister a most effective weapon for the enforcement of his favourite policy, and materially strengthened his own position. Without doubt the sensational manner of ‘discovery’ largely contributed to its success in this respect; and if this were ingeniously contrived for such a purpose, may it not be that a like ingenuity had been employed in providing the material destined to be so artistically utilized?

At the period with which we have to deal, the Chief Minister of James I., was Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the political heir of his father, Burghley, and of Walsingham, his predecessor in the office of Secretary. It is clear that he had inherited from them ideas of statesmanship of the order then in vogue, and from nature, the kind of ability required to put these plots successfully in practice. Sir Robert Naunton thus describes him:

This great Minister of State and the staff of the Queen’s declining age, though his little crooked person 9 could not provide any great supportation, yet it carried thereon a head and a headpiece of vast content, and therein, it seems, nature was so diligent to complete one, and the best, part about him, as that to the perfection of his memory and intellectuals, she took care also of his senses, and to put him in Lynceos oculos, or to pleasure him the more, borrowed of Argus, so to give him a perfective sight.

And for the rest of his sensitive virtues, his predecessor had left him a receipt, to smell out what was done in the Conclave; and his good old father was so well seen in the mathematicks, as that he could tell you throughout Spain, every part, every ship, with their burthens, whither bound, what preparation, what impediments for diversion of enterprises, counsels, and resolutions.” The writer then proceeds to give a striking instance to show “how docible was this little man.

While enjoying the entire confidence of Queen Elizabeth, Robert Cecil was engaged in a secret correspondence with King James, which she would have regarded as treasonable and which he so carefully concealed that for a century afterwards and more it was not suspected there remains the other indubitable fact, that while similarly trusted by James, and while all affairs of State were entirely in his hands, he was in receipt of a secret pension from the King of Spain, 10 the very monarch any communication with whom he treated as treason on the part of others.

It is certain that the Earl of Essex, when on his trial, asserted that Robert Cecil had declared the Spanish Infanta to be the rightful heir to the crown, and though the secretary vehemently denied the imputation, he equally repudiated the notion that he favoured the King of Scots. We know, moreover, that one who as Spanish Ambassador had dealings with him, pronounced him to be a venal traitor, who was ready to sell his soul for money, while another intimated that it was in his power to have charged him with ‘unwarrantable practices.’ Similarly, we hear from the French Minister of the ingrained habit of falsehood which made it impossible for the English Secretary to speak the truth even to friends; and, from the French Ambassador, of the resolution imputed to the same statesman, to remove from his path every rival who seemed likely to jeopardize his tenure of power.

Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603. Sir Robert Gary waited under the windows of the Palace at Richmond, until a token ring was thrown to him from the window, with which he posted off to Scotland, and was cordially received by King James, as the bearer of tidings of great joy. James was proclaimed in London the day that Elizabeth died, and the inhabitants that night lighted innumerable bonfires; we may presume, therefore, that grief for the loss of their late mistress, was confined to a few bosoms. 11

This much is certain, that, whatever its origin, the Gunpowder Plot immensely increased Cecil’s influence and power, and, for a time, even his popularity, assuring the success of that anti-Catholic policy with which he was identified. Cecil, in reward of his services on this occasion, received the Garter, May 20, 1606 and was honoured on the occasion with an almost regal triumph.
Of the proceedings subsequent to the Plot we are told:

“In passing these laws for the security of the Protestant Religion, the Earl of Salisbury exerted himself with distinguished zeal and vigour, which gained him great love and honour from the Kingdom, as appeared in some measure, in the universal attendance on him at his installation with the Order of the Garter, on 20 May, 1606 at Windsor.” 12

Welwood 13 is of opinion that Robert Cecil was aware of the Plot long before the ‘discovery,’ and that the famous letter to Mounteagle was ‘a contrivance of his own.’ Oldmixon writes 14

“notwithstanding the general joy, there were some who insinuated that the Plot was of the King’s own making, or that he was privy to it from first to last.”

Carte 15 does not believe that James knew anything of it, but considers it ‘not improbable’ that Robert Cecil was better informed. Burnet 16 complains of the impudence of the papists of his day, who denied the conspiracy, and pretended it was an artifice of the Minister’s

“to engage some desperate men into a plot, which he managed so that he could discover it when he pleased.”

Fuller 17 bears witness to the general belief, but considers it inconsistent with the well-known piety of King James. Bishop Kennet, in his November 5 sermon at St. Paul’s, in 1715 talks in a similar strain. So extreme, indeed, does the incredulity and uncertainty appear to have been, that the Puritan Prynne is inclined to suspect Bancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of having been engaged in the conspiracy; while one of the furious zealots who followed the lead of Titus Gates, mournfully testified that there were those in his day who looked upon the Powder Treason ‘as upon a romantic story, or a politic invention, or a State trick,’ giving no more credence to it than to the histories of the ‘Grand Cyrus, or Guy of Warwick, or Amadis de Gaul,’ or Jack the Giant Killer. Bevil Higgons says:

This impious design, gave the greatest blow to the Catholic interest in England, by rendering that religion so odious to the people. The common opinion concerning the discovery of the Plot, by a letter to the Lord Mounteagle, has not been universally allowed to be the real truth of the matter, for some have affirmed that this design was first hammered in the forge of Cecil, who intended to have produced this plot in the time of Queen Elizabeth, but prevented by her death he resumed his project in this reign, with a design to have so enraged the nation as to have expelled all Roman Catholics, and confiscated their estates.

To this end, by his secret emissaries, he enticed some hot-headed men of that persuasion, who, ignorant whence the design first came, heartily engaged in this execrable Powder Treason. Though this account should not be true, it is certain that the Court of England had notice of this Plot from France and Italy long before the pretended discovery; upon which Cecil framed that letter to the Lord Mounteagle, with a design to make the discovery seem the more miraculous, and at the same time magnify the judgment of the King, who by his deep penetration was to have the honour of unraveling so ambiguous and dark a riddle. 18

Brewer 19 declares it to be quite certain that Robert Cecil had previous knowledge of the design, and that the ‘discovery’ was a fraud. Lodge 20 is of the same opinion, and so is the author of the Annals of England. Jardine 21 inclines to the belief that the government contrived the letter to Mounteagle in order to conceal the means by which their information had in reality been obtained.

Regarding the conspirators, we offer a brief biography of each. Thomas Winter (b.1572) was a Worcestershire gentleman of good family. He was a relative of several of his fellow-conspirators, namely Catesby, Tresham, Grant, and of course (his elder brother) Robert Winter. Percy and the Wrights were relations, so that the plot was quite a family affair. Moreover, Catesby’s son married one of Percy’s daughters. Winter was also a connection by marriage of Lord Mounteagle, to whom the famous letter, revealing the conspiracy, was addressed. He was, so Father Gerard says,

“a reasonable good scholar, and able to talk in many matters of learning, but especially in philosophy or histories very well and judicially. He could speak Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French. He was of mean stature, but strong and comely, and very valiant. He was very devout, and zealous in his faith.”

If Thomas Winter was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his skill in languages and his soldierly reputation.

John Wright (b.1567) was the eldest son of a Yorkshire gentleman. He was a good swordsman, and very fond of using that weapon when a young man, being rude and quick-tempered, though slow of speech. According to Gerard, he became a Romanist about 1600 but it is far more likely that he had been received into the Church some five years or more before that date, for as far back as 1596 he had awakened the suspicions of the government by his close friendship with Catesby. If John Wright was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his being stout-hearted and a handy man.

Guy Fawkes (b.1570) He came of a race of ecclesiastical lawyers, which was also connected with one or two well-known county families. His parents were (from the accession of Elizabeth, at any rate) Protestants, and he was their only son. His father, Edward Fawkes, Registrar of the Consistory Court, dying in 1578, his mother married a gentleman named Baynbridge, of Scotton, in the county. Guy seems to have been on good terms with his step-father, who is reported to have persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic; but soon after his coming of age he left Yorkshire for the Continent, and enlisted in the service of the Spaniards occupying Flanders. His service in the Spanish army readily enough explains the change of his Christian name into ‘Guido.’ Whilst in Spain, Gerard reports that those who knew him

“affirm that as he did bear office in the camp under the English coronel 22 on the Catholic side, so he was a man every way deserving it whilst he stayed there, both for devotion more than is ordinarily found in soldiers, and especially for his skill in martial affairs and great valour, for which he was there much esteemed.”

In 1595 he assisted in the capture of Calais. In 1604, at Catesby’s request, he came over to England, Catesby and Winter having ‘desired one out of Flanders to be their assistant.’ 23 He had, before returning to England, been employed as a delegate of the Jesuits in the mission to obtain aid from Spain after the death of Queen Elizabeth. If Fawkes was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his military qualities, and his face being unknown to the government spies.

Thomas Percy A person of great influence among the conspirators. Indeed, next to Catesby, he was the most important amongst them. He seems to have acted as Catesby’s First Lieutenant. It was he who hired within the precincts of Westminster Palace the little dwelling next to the Parliament House, and it was he who obtained possession of the cellar where the powder was eventually deposited. As soon as the news of the abortive plot leaked out in London on November 5, it was described at first as Percy’s conspiracy.

In common with so many of his confederates, Percy was of illustrious lineage, being a scion of the great feudal house of Northumberland. He was an agent of the head of the family, Henry, the ninth Earl, the political enemy of Robert Cecil. Authorities differ, however, as to how nearly he was related to the Earl. The nearness of the connection has been exaggerated, and he was no nearer in blood to the head of his house than a third or fourth cousin. With this opinion Father Gerard agrees, when he declares that

“he was not very near in blood, although they called him cousin.”

Of Lord Essex he was a warm admirer and devoted adherent. On the accession of James I., whom he had visited (shortly before Elizabeth’s death) with a view to getting from him a promise to help the English Catholics a promise which that monarch deliberately broke, Percy became quite a turbulent recusant, in spite of his position in his patron’s household. If Thomas Percy was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his position at Court and in Lord Northumberland’s household.

Christopher Wright (b.1571). He was actively engaged in the Essex revolt, and had been employed as one of the delegates of the Jesuits on the mission to the Court of Spain. According to Father Gerard, he was

“a grave and sober man, and of great wit and sufficiency, as I have heard divers say that were well acquainted with him. His virtue and valour were the chiefest things wherein they could expect assistance from him; for, otherwise, his means were not great.”

His close intimacy with Lord Mordaunt brought that nobleman into grave trouble with the government, in the same way as Percy’s intimacy with his patron, Northumberland, proved injurious to that unsuspecting peer. At Catesby’s advice, the care of the conspirators’ house at Lambeth, used by them as their London rendezvous, was entrusted to the stern and undaunted Keyes. He was an old and faithful servant of Catesby, to whom he was devotedly attached, and by whom he was admitted into the confederacy, as one upon whom his powerful master could implicitly rely, and who would prove useful as a humble messenger carrying dispatches between the conspirators. If Christopher Wright was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his being stout-hearted and a handy man.

John Grant was a Warwickshire gentleman, his residence, Norlook, being situated between Warwick and Stratford. He was well descended, and connected with several old families in the shires of Warwick and Worcester. Although, according to Father Greenway, of a taciturn disposition, he was of a very fierce and mettlesome temper, in the opinion of Gerard. He was implicated with his friends in the Essex rebellion. Catesby’s chief reason for enrolling him as a member of the confederacy, seems to have been the fact that Grant’s ‘walled and moated’ residence would provide an excellent rendezvous for those of the conspirators who were to foment an armed rising in the Midlands.

He was a devout Roman Catholic, and on the eve of his death on the scaffold expressed himself

“convinced that our project was so far from being sinful as to afford expiation for all sins committed by me.”

If John Grant was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his fortified house.

Robert Winter. Elder brother of Thomas, and son-in-law of John Talbot, of Grafton, an influential Roman Catholic, whom the conspirators tried vainly to inveigle into connection with their schemes. He possessed the estate of Huddington, in Worcestershire. On first hearing of the plot, he expressed his utmost detestation of the whole concern; but eventually permitted himself to be cajoled into joining it, probably at the instance of his brother. His heart, however, was never in the business, and he took no part in stowing away the gunpowder.

He deserted Catesby before the last stand was made at Holbeach. If Robert Winter was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his wealth and his relationship to the Talbots, and other great Roman Catholic families.

Ambrose Rokewood (b.1577). A gentleman of an old family in Suffolk, which had remained Roman Catholic, notwithstanding the severe persecution of several of its members under Elizabeth. Ambrose was the eldest son of his parents, and on his father’s death, some four years before he joined the conspiracy, he became a very wealthy man. His wife, Elizabeth Tyrwhit, was a lady of remarkable beauty, by whom he had two sons. The elder of these quickly wiped out the stain on his name incurred by his father’s treason, and was actually Knighted by the very King whom his father had plotted to destroy.

Rokewood was drawn into the plot by Catesby, whom he ‘loved and respected as his own life,’ and who overcame his scruples against ‘taking away so much blood’ by assuring him, so it seems, that the scheme had received the approbation of his confessor. In Rokewood’s stable at Coldham Hall there was an especially fine stud of horses, and Catesby, who selected each conspirator for some particular reason likely to prove advantageous to his plans, had long coveted Rokewood’s steeds. 24 If Ambrose Rokewood was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his wealth and his horses.

Sir Everard Digby. The only gentleman in regard to birth, education, and behaviour amongst his fellow-conspirators. This theory is, of course, fallacious in the extreme. He was not, for instance, so well educated or so learned as Thomas Winter; he was no better born than at least six of his confederates nor, indeed, so nobly descended as was Percy; in private life he was not more esteemed or better behaved than Ambrose Rokewood; whilst, as a soldier, his reputation was not equal to that of Guido Fawkes, nor, as a swordsman, either to that of Catesby or John Wright. In a word, he is erroneously supposed by the man in the street to have been the only respectable person engaged in the Gunpowder Plot.

Digby became a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and cut quite a gay figure at Court, his ample fortune, no doubt, being a considerable factor in his advancement. His father, a gentleman owning estates in Rutlandshire, had died when Everard was quite a child, and had left him a ward of the Crown, or, as we should now term it, award of Chancery. If Sir Everard Digby was chosen for the Plot, it was on account of his social position, his friendship with influential Roman Catholics, and his wealth.

Francis Tresham (b.1568). Related to the Winters, Catesby, and Lord Mounteagle, he was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Tresham, of Rushton, Northamptonshire, a most ardent Roman Catholic, but chiefly famous for his building operations, an interesting account of which has been compiled in an illustrated treatise by Mr. Alfred Gotch. 25

One of the most remarkable results of his enterprise was the erection of a triangular Lodge at Rushton, built in honour of the Trinity, the idea running through the whole building being Three; 26 e.g. the shape of the house being an equilateral triangle, thirty-three feet in length, the floors three in number, three windows on each floor, triangular rooms, etc. He was also involved in the Essex rebellion; for which outbreak he, or rather his father, was very heavily fined, and he narrowly escaped execution. He had also been a party to Father Garnet’s schemes for obtaining aid from Spain. If Francis Tresham was chosen for the Plot, it was on account for the sake of his cash.

Robert Catesby. Unscrupulous and cunning as he was, selected each conspirator to join the plot on account of his possession of some special quality that would particularly forward the interests of the great design.

Robert Keyes. Chosen on account of his being stout-hearted and a handy man, and last Thomas Bates was chosen on account of his being a useful and trustworthy messenger.

It is an extraordinary fact that so many of the plotters should have been engaged in the Essex rebellion. This suggests that Lord Essex was secretly supported by the Jesuits. Yet, of all the mysterious incidents enveloped in the traditional story of the Gunpowder Plot, none has taken so strong a hold upon the popular imagination as has the famous warning letter, undated and unsigned, written to Lord Mounteagle.
The receipt of this letter by Mounteagle is generally understood to have formed the sole means whereby the plot was discovered, and the lives of King, Lords, and Commons were saved; but, it is evident that the government evidently had some knowledge of what was going on prior to the delivery of the letter to Mounteagle at Hoxton, on Saturday, October 26, 1605. At the same time, it is perhaps rather too wide a definition to refer to all the Members of the government as being possessors of this information. It would be more correct to name instead only Robert Cecil, who seems to have known of the existence of the plot quite six weeks before the receipt of the letter. It may even be argued that he was aware of it as much as three months earlier. But its authorship is not the only puzzle that awaits solution in connection with this letter, for the personal character of Lord Mounteagle himself is almost as much a puzzle.

William Parker, Lord Mounteagle inherited his title in right of his mother, Elizabeth Stanley, heiress of the third Lord Mounteagle, or Monteagle. He was the eldest son of Henry Parker, Lord Morley, who died in 1618. Mounteagle did not succeed to his father’s title until thirteen years after the plot, and he is always known to historians by his earlier title. It would, however, be more correct to call him Lord Morley, for he was summoned to Parliament before he died as Baron Morley and Mounteagle, of which the first-named was by far the oldest dignity. He was, at the date of the receipt of the mysterious letter in his early thirties, and had married a sister of Francis Tresham, the conspirator, in company with whom he had joined in the Essex rebellion, and had been very heavily fined for his pains. A personal friend of both Father Henry Garnet and Robert Catesby, it is clear that he sanctioned the Jesuit missions to the King of Spain, and until the accession of James I., remained a staunch Roman Catholic of the faction directed by Garnet and his colleagues.

Mounteagle frequently met Catesby from the time of the construction of the plot down till the autumn of 1605. This is a circumstance that has been conveniently ignored by those writers who maintain that he was not in any way privy to what was going on among his old allies. That he may, all the time, have been acting, as has been suggested, as a spy on the part of Robert Cecil is probable.

Late on Friday, October 25, Mounteagle gave orders that he would sup the following day at his house at Hoxton. This sudden notice seems to have surprised his servants. To Hoxton he and his household repaired, and when

“ready to go to supper at seven of the clock at night, one of his footmen, whom he had sent of an errand over the street, was met by an unknown man, of a reasonable tall personage, who delivered him a letter,”

which letter was immediately brought to Mounteagle, who handed it to a gentleman in his household, named Warde, and told him to read it aloud. Its contents ran as follows: 27

My Lord out of the love I bear to some of your friends 28 I have a care of your preservation therefore I would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this parliament for god and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time and think not slightly of this advertisement but retire yourself into your country where you may expect the event in safety for though there be no appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them this council is not to be contemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm for the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter and I hope god will give you the grace to make good use of it to whose holy protection I commend you.

How this letter offers particulars to a gunpowder plot, or poking a finger at thirteen plotters, is to be speculated upon. It mentioned no names, no dates, and no facts. Also, the ostentatious manner in which Mounteagle directed Warde who was, it should be noted, an intimate friend of Thomas Winter to read the letter, is in keeping with all his other actions in connection with this enigmatic epistle’s arrival. 29 By handing it to Warde to read aloud, he affected to pretend that such a letter was beneath his notice, and that he merely regarded the message as the production of a lunatic or a practical joker. Notwithstanding this apparent indifference, he hastily set out, after supper, for London, and gave the letter to Robert Cecil, whom he found entertaining some of the principal Ministers of State, such as Suffolk, Northampton, Worcester, and Nottingham. The fact that all these statesmen were to be found late on a Saturday night with Cecil in London, clearly suggests that they had been brought together by Cecil for the special purpose of receiving this letter, the arrival of which was expected.

Robert Cecil’s story that the receipt of the letter took him entirely by surprise, and that its contents proved an enigma to him, is very cleverly told, but is a concoction not to be believed. He omits the fact that, although the letter was received late at night, he lost not a minute in placing it before his colleagues, who were all (suspiciously) close at hand when Mounteagle received post from Hoxton. 30

It is much to be deplored that this letter to Cornwallis has not met with closer attention at the hands of historians, for to those able to read, as it were, between the lines, the contents reveal some important facts about the discovery of the plot. For example, this letter completely contradicts the old story that the government knew nothing of a plot till the arrival of Mounteagle’s letter, for Robert Cecil distinctly says,

“I had sufficient advertisement that most of those that now are fled (being all notorious Recusants) with many other of that kind, had a practice in hand for some stir this Parliament.”

As to the writer’s excuse that he was less forward in causing a strict inquiry to be made than the Lord Chamberlain, it is easy to see that Cecil’s object was not to show his hand too much, but to let others obtain some credit for discovering what was already known to him. That Robert Cecil was well posted up in the facts, and felt quite secure as to the result of his preparations, is evident from the account he renders as to how he determined not to inform the King until the last moment. His astuteness in making no open move thus deceived Catesby, and culminated in the ruin of the unsuspecting conspirators.

After the capture of Guy Fawkes, no time was lost in taking him before the Privy Council, and he was actually brought before the King in his bed-chamber before four o’clock in the morning. This feverish haste to question him is another point in favour of the supposition that the details of the plot were already well known to Cecil. After leaving Whitehall, Guy Fawkes was sent under a strong guard by water to the Tower, where the King directed the Lieutenant that he was to be tortured. 31

Of the thirteen conspirators originally engaged in the plot, no less than eleven were either captured or killed within a period of four days from the fatal day of November 5. Of these eleven men, Catesby, Percy, and the Wrights were dead; Guy Fawkes was in the Tower; Digby, Thomas Winter, Grant, Keyes, Bates, and Rokewood were on their way and under arrest. Of the remaining pair, Francis Tresham was in London, but not yet actually arrested; and Robert Winter was in hiding. By November 12, Tresham also was under lock and key, so that, if we omit the fugitive Robert Winter (the least important of the band), we find the government’s measures for the repression of the conspiracy, both at Westminster and in the Midlands, had been so skillfully executed that it had only taken the authorities seven days to kill or imprison all those who had been actively engaged in the Gunpowder Plot. Of the original number of thirteen, only eight of the conspirators survived to be committed for trial. These eight, namely, Thomas Winter, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Robert Winter, Ambrose Rokewood, Thomas Bates, Robert Keyes, and Digby, were arraigned at Westminster Hall, on January 27, 1606 before a Commission consisting of the Lord Chief Justice (Sir John Popham), the Lord Chief Baron (Sir Thomas Fleming), Sir Peter Warburton (a Judge), and the Earls of Salisbury, Northampton, Nottingham, Suffolk, Worcester, and Devonshire. Sir Everard Digby was separately arraigned, and tried and sentenced immediately after the conclusion of the case against his friends. The Counsel for the Crown was Sir Edward Philips and Sir Edward Coke.

The trial from beginning to end was a mere farce. The prisoners, after having to listen to a very long, by no means truthful, and very violent speech from Coke, and having heard

“their several Examinations, Confessions, and voluntary Declarations, as well of themselves, as of some of their dead Confederates read out, were merely asked, what they could say, wherefore Judgment of Death should not be pronounced against them?”

and the trial was virtually over, so far as the hearing of their case was concerned. The conspirators met their fate with courage, considering the terrible nature of their punishment. Tied to separate hurdles, they were dragged, lying bound on their backs, through the muddy streets to the place of execution, there to be first hanged, cut down alive, drawn, and then quartered. Guy Fawkes, weak and ill though he was, seems to have suffered the least, for he was dead by the time his body was taken down. Ambrose Rokewood lived until he reached the quartering block. Keyes, breaking the rope, was probably killed by the knife; whilst Sir Everard Digby was in full possession of all his senses on being cut down, and even felt the pain of a bruise on the head when his body fell to the ground.

‘That beast Waad,’ as Sir Walter Raleigh called him, had been appointed Lieutenant of the Tower about eleven weeks before the capture of Guy Fawkes at Westminster. Prior to his appointment, however, he had held several very important diplomatic and political posts. He had faithfully served William Cecil, the great Lord Burleigh, and was destined, in the matter of the Powder Plot, to serve with equal fidelity his son, Robert Cecil.

Sir William Waad, under Elizabeth, had been Secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and afterwards Clerk of the Privy Council. He had been sent on frequent diplomatic missions to Madrid, Paris, and the Low Countries. In 1588 he was elected a Member of Parliament, and in 1601 represented Preston, where his Protestant zeal made him very unpopular among the Roman Catholics of Lancashire. Soon after the accession of James I., he was Knighted and in August 1605, he was, at Lord Salisbury’s request, appointed Lieutenant of the Tower.
As an unraveller of plots, Waad certainly seems to have enjoyed a unique career. He had, in fact, been connected with the detection, or attempted detection, of almost every conspiracy hatched in England during the eventful twenty years antecedent to the Gunpowder Plot. He had ransacked the belongings of Mary, Queen of Scots, at the time of Babington’s conspiracy; he had taken a prominent part in the discovery of the mysterious Lopez affair; he had helped to suppress the Essex rebellion; he had been employed in the matter of the proceedings of Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh, as regards their connection with Father Watson’s conspiracy. He was, therefore, likely to prove, in the eyes of the government, an ideal gaoler for the conspirators and Jesuits captured after the failure of the Gunpowder Treason, as well as for Sir Walter Raleigh.

Sir Francis Bacon
To Tobie Matthews
November 1605

Sir,
I perceive you have some time when you can be content to think of your friends; from whom since you have borrowed yourself, you do well, not paying the principal, to send the interest at six months day. The relation which here I send you enclosed carries the truth of that which is public; [the Gunpowder Plot] and though my little leisure might have required a briefer, yet the matter would have endured and asked a larger.

I have now at last taught that child to go, at the swaddling whereof you were. My work touching the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning I have put into two books; whereof the former, which you saw, I count but as a Page to the latter. I have now published them both; whereof I thought it a small adventure to send you a copy, who have more right to it than any man, except Bishop Andrews, who was my inquisitor.

The death of the late great Judge concerned not me, because the other was not removed. I write this in answer to your good wishes; which I return not as flowers of Florence, but as you mean them; whom I conceive place cannot alter, no more than time shall me, except it be to the better.

On January 23, 1606 the chiefest matter in Parliament handed over a project for the making of the fifth day of November a holiday forever,

“in thankfulness to God for our deliverance, and detestation of the papists.” (Birch).

And of memorial peculiarities:

“My last letters advertised you of what had lately happened concerning Cotton, who yielding himself to the King’s clemency, doth nevertheless utterly disavow the book, and constantly denieth to be the author of it. Hereupon, his study hath been searched, and there divers papers found, containing many several pieces of the said book, and (which renders the man more odious) certain relics of the late Saints of the Gunpowder Treason, as one of Digby’s fingers, Percy’s toe, some other part either of Catesby or Rookwood (whether I well remember not), with the addition of a piece of one of Peter Lambert’s ribs, to make up the full mess of them. If the proofs which are against him will not extend to the touching of his life, at least they will serve to work him either misery or affliction enough.” 32

The greatest precautions were taken to prevent Catholics securing relics. From Campion’s execution, a young man who dropped his handkerchief into the blood on the ground was taken and committed. Another contrived to possess himself of a finger, and later on one of the arms was taken from the gate where it was nailed. Father Parsons managed to buy the rope in which his martyred friend was bound or hanged, and died with it round his neck. Parsons had hired lodgings near Bridewell Church, and close to the Thames, a most convenient meeting-place for priests and other Catholics, and also for the work of his publications. It was more suitable for this purpose because it belonged to a Protestant bookseller, and so was not likely to be suspected. Here, Parsons deposited his stock of rosaries, medals, crucifixes, and pious objects he had brought from Rome. 33

The following account of the execution of the Gunpowder Conspirators, is taken in general from a Narrative in the Harleian Miscellany, 34 but contains some circumstances derived from other sources. The account given in the Harleian Miscellany is partial, and cannot be considered as a faithful relation of what took place. It is however, the only account to be found, excepting one given by Father Greenway which, on the ground of partiality, appears to be equally objectionable.

The prisoners, after their condemnation and judgment, being sent back to the Tower, remained there till the Thursday following, on which day four of them, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, were drawn upon sledges and hurdles to a scaffold erected at the western end of St. Paul’s Churchyard.

Great pains were taken in the city to render the spectacle of the execution all positioned as possible. Among other arrangements made in order to be prepared against any popular tumult, a precept issued from the Lord Mayor to the Alderman of each ward in the city, requiring him to “cause one able and sufficient person, with a halbard in his hand, to stand at the door of every several dwelling-house in the open street in the way that the traitors were to be drawn towards the place of execution there to remain from seven in the morning until the return of the Sheriff.” 35

Now these four above-named being drawn to the scaffold, made on purpose for their execution, first went up Digby, a man of a goodly personage, and of manly aspect; yet might a wary eye, in the change of his countenance, behold an inward fear of death, for his colour grew pale and his eye heavy; notwithstanding that he enforced himself to speak, as stoutly as he could. His speech was not long, and to little good purpose, only, that his belied conscience being but indeed a blinded conceit, had led him into this offence, which in respect of his religion, alias indeed idolatry, he held no offence, but, in respect of the law, he held an offence, for which he asked forgiveness of God, of the King, and the whole kingdom; and so, with vain and superstitious crossing of himself, betook him to his Latin prayer, mumbling to himself, refusing to have any prayers of any but of the Romish Catholics; went up the ladder, and, with the help of the hangman, made an end of his wicked days in this world.

After him went Winter up the scaffold, where he used few words to any effect, without asking mercy of either God or the King for his offence; went up the ladder and, making a few prayers to himself, staid not long for his execution.

After him went Grant, who abominably blinded with his horrible idolatry, though he confessed his offence to be heinous, yet would fain have excused it by his conscience for religion; a bloody religion, to make so bloody a conscience; but better that his blood, and as much as he was, should be abed by the justice of the law, than the blood of many thousands to have been shed by his villainy, without law or justice. Having used a few idle words to ill effect, he was, as his fellows before him led to the halter; and so, after his crossing of himself, to the last part of his tragedy.

Last of them came Bates, who seemed sorry for his offence, and asked forgiveness of God and the King, and of the whole kingdom; prayed to God for the preservation of them all, and, as he said, only for his love to his master, drawn to forget his duty to God, his King, and country, and therefore was now drawn from the Tower to St. Paul’s Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered for his treachery. Thus ended that day of business.

The next day, being Friday, were drawn from the Tower to the old palace in Westminster, over against the Parliament House, Thomas Winter the younger brother, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guido Fawkes the miner, justly called ‘the Devil of the Vault;’ for had he not been a devil incarnate, he had never conceived so villainous a thought, nor been employed in so damnable an action. Winter first being brought to the scaffold made little speech, but seeming after a sort, as it were, sorry for his offence, and yet crossing himself, as though those were words to put by the devil’s stockades, having already made a wound in his soul; of which he had not yet a full feeling, protesting to die a true Catholic, as he said; with a very pale and dead colour went up the ladder, and after a swing or two with a halter, to the quartering-block was drawn, and there quickly dispatched.

Next him came Rookwood, who made a speech of some longer time, confessing his offence to God in seeking to shed blood, and asking therefore mercy of his Divine Majesty; his offence to the King, of whose Majesty he likewise humbly asked forgiveness, and his offence to the whole state, of whom in general he asked forgiveness; beseeching God to bless the King, the Queen and all his royal progeny, and that they might long live to reign in peace and happiness over this kingdom. But last of all, to spoil all the pottage with one filthy weed, to mar this good prayer with an ill conclusion, he prayed God to make the King a Catholic, otherwise a Papist, which God for his mercy ever forbid; and so beseeching the King to be good to his wife and children, protesting to die in his idolatry, a Romish Catholic, he went up the ladder, and, hanging till he was almost dead was drawn to the block, where he gave his last gasp.

After him came Keyes, who, like a desperate villain, using little speech, with small or no show of repentance went stoutly up the ladder, where, not staying the hanging man’s turn he turned himself off with such a leap, that with the swing he brake the halter, but, after his fall, was drawn to the block, and there was quickly divided into four parts.

Last of all came the great devil of all, Fawkes, alias Johnson, who should have put fire to the powder. His body being weak with torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder, but yet with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck with the fall; who made no long speech, but after a sort, seeming to be sorry for his offence, asked a kind of forgiveness of the King and the state for his bloody intent; and with his crosses and idle ceremonies, made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of the beholders, that the land was elided of so wicked a villainy.