What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence. Gerard John
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. 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 horses4 at Warwick, and arms at Whewell Grange, a seat of Lord Windsor's. 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 who had undoubtedly been participators in the treason. Of these Faukes, as we have seen, was already in the hands of justice. Another, Francis Tresham, had not fled with his associates, but remained quietly, and without attempting concealment, in London, even going to the council and offering them his services; after a week he was taken into custody. The eleven who either betook themselves to the country, or were already there, awaiting the issue of the enterprise, and prepared to co-operate in the rising which was to be its sequel, were Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, Robert and Thomas Winter, John and Christopher Wright, John Grant, Robert Keyes, Ambrose Rokewood, Sir Everard Digby, and Thomas Bates. All were Catholics, and all, with the exception of Bates, Catesby's servant, were "gentlemen of blood and name," some of them, notably Robert Winter, Rokewood, Digby, and Tresham, being men of ample fortune.
On Friday, November 8th, 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.5 Torture, it is evident, was employed with this object.
Meanwhile, on November 9th, King James addressed to his Parliament a speech, wherein he declared that the abominable crime which had been intended was the direct result of Catholic principles, Popery being "the true mystery of iniquity." In like manner Chichester, the Lord Deputy in Ireland, was informed by Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, his Majesty's Secretary of State, that the Plot was an "abominable practice of Rome and Satan,"6 while the monarch himself sent word to Sir John Harington that "these designs were not formed by a few," that "the whole legion of Catholics were consulted," that "the priests were to pacify their consciences, and the Pope confirm a general absolution for this glorious deed."7
Then follows an interval during which we know little of the course of events which were proceeding in the seclusion of the council-room and torture-chamber; but on December 4th we find Cecil complaining that he could obtain little or no evidence against the really important persons: "Most of the prisoners," he writes,8 "have wilfully forsworn that the priests knew anything in particular, and obstinately refuse to be accusers of them, yea, what torture soever they be put to."
On January 15th, 1605-6, a proclamation was issued declaring that the Jesuit fathers, John Gerard, Henry Garnet, and Oswald Greenway, or Tesimond, were proved to have been "peculiarly practisers" in the treason, and offering a reward for their apprehension. On the 21st of the same month Parliament met, having been prorogued immediately after the king's speech of November 9th, and four days later an Act was passed for the perpetual solemnization of the anniversary of the projected crime, the preamble whereof charged its guilt upon "Many malignant and devilish papists, jesuits, and seminary priests, much envying the true and free possession of the Gospel by the nation, under the greatest, most learned, and most religious monarch who had ever occupied the throne."9
In consequence of this Act, was introduced into the Anglican liturgy the celebrated Fifth of November service, in the collect of which the king, royal family, nobility, clergy, and commons are spoken of as having been "by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages;" while the day itself was marked in the calendar as the "Papists' Conspiracy."
It will thus be seen that the Powder Plot was by this time officially stigmatized as the work of the Catholic body in general, and in particular of their priests; thus acquiring an importance and a significance which could not be attributed to it were it but the wild attempt of a few turbulent men. As a natural corollary we find Parliament busily engaged upon measures to insure the more effectual execution of the penal laws.10
On January 27th the surviving conspirators, Robert and Thomas Winter, Faukes, Grant, Rokewood, Keyes, Digby, and Bates,11 were put upon their trial. In the indictment preferred against them, it was explicitly stated that the Plot was contrived by Garnet, Gerard, Greenway, and other Jesuits, to whose traitorous persuasions the prisoners at the bar had wickedly yielded. All were found guilty, Digby, Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates being executed at the west end of St. Paul's Church, on January the 30th, and the rest on the following day in Old Palace Yard.
On the very day upon which the first company suffered, Father Garnet, whose hiding-place was known, and who had been closely invested for nine days, was captured, in company with another Jesuit, Father Oldcorne. The latter, though never charged with knowledge of the plot, was put to death for having aided and abetted Garnet in his attempt to escape. Garnet himself, being brought to London, was lodged first in the Gatehouse and afterwards in the Tower.
As we have seen, he had already been proclaimed as a traitor, and "particular practiser" in the conspiracy, and had moreover been officially described as the head and front of the treason. Of the latter charge, after his capture, nothing was ever heard. Of his participation, proofs, it appeared, still remained to be discovered, for on the 3rd of March Cecil still spoke of them as in the future.12 In order to obtain the required evidence of his complicity, Garnet was examined three-and-twenty times before the council, and, in addition, various artifices were practised which need not now be detailed. On the 28th of March, 1606, he was brought to trial, and on May 3rd he was hanged at St. Paul's. The Gunpowder Conspirators were thenceforth described in government publications as "Garnet, a Jesuit, and his confederates."
Such is, in outline, the course of events which followed the discovery of November 5th, all circumstances being here omitted which are by possibility open to dispute.
It will probably be maintained, as our best and most circumspect historians appear to have assumed, that we are in possession of information enabling us to construct a similar sketch of what preceded and led up to these events, – whatever obscurity there may be regarding the complicity of those whose participation would invest the plot with the significance which has been attributed to it. If it were indeed but the individual design of a small knot of men, acting for themselves and of themselves, then, though they were all Catholics, and were actuated by a desire to aid the Catholic cause, the crime they intended could not justly be charged upon the body of their co-religionists. It would be quite otherwise if Catholics in general were shown to have countenanced it, or even if such representative men as members of the priesthood were found to have approved so abominable a project, or even to have consented to it, or knowingly kept silence regarding it. Of the complicity of Catholics in general or of their priesthood as a body there is no proof whatever, nor has it ever been seriously attempted to establish such a charge. As to the three Jesuits already named, who alone have been seriously accused, there is no proof, the sufficiency of which may not be questioned. But as to the fact that they who originated the Plot were Catholics, that they acted simply with the object of benefiting their Church, and that the nation most narrowly escaped an appalling disaster at their hands,
Also described as "Great Horses," or "Horses for the great Saddle."
"The great object of the Government now was to obtain evidence against the priests." – Gardiner,
See his despatch in reply.
See Harington's account of the king's message,
To Favat. (Copy) Brit. Mus. MSS. Add. 6178, fol. 625.
Statutes: Anno 3o Jacobi, c. 1.
This work was taken in hand by the Commons, when, in spite of the alarming circumstances of the time, they met on November 5th, and was carried on at every subsequent sitting. The Lords also met on the 5th, but transacted no business.
Tresham had died in the Tower, December 22nd. Although he had not been tried, his remains were treated as those of a traitor, his head being cut off and fixed above the gates of Northampton (
"That which remaineth is but this, to assure you that ere many daies you shall hear that Father Garnet … is layd open for a principall conspirator even in the particular Treason of the Powder." —