What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence

443

To the ambassadors.

444

Father Blount's account is undoubtedly in keeping with what we know of the Earl, and especially of his Countess, who was a sister of Sir Thomas Knyvet, the captor of Guy Faukes. Suffolk, in 1614, became Lord High Treasurer, but four years afterwards grave irregularities were discovered in his office; he was accused of embezzlement and extortion, in which work his wife was proved to have been even more active than himself. They were sentenced to restore all money wrongfully extorted, to a fine of £30,000, and to imprisonment during pleasure.

445

In this letter all proper names are in cipher, as well as various other words.

446

Church History, x. 40.

447

We have four Latin epigrams of Milton's, In proditionem Bombardicam, which, though pointless, are bitterly anti-Catholic. A longer poem, of 226 lines, In quintum Novembris, is still more virulent.

It is somewhat remarkable that the universal Shakespeare should make no allusion to the Plot, beyond the doubtful reference to equivocation in Macbeth (ii. 3). He was at the time of its occurrence in the full flow of his dramatic activity.

448

See Appendix L, Myths and Legends of the Powder Plot.

449

Brit. Mus. Print Room, Crace Collection, portf. xv. 28. This is reproduced, as our frontispiece.

450

There was a new moon at 11.30 p.m. on October 31st.

451

The reasons assigned in the proclamation for this prorogation are plainly insufficient: viz., "That the holding of it [the Parliament] so soone is not convenient, as well for that the ordinary course of our subjects resorting to the citie for their usuall affaires at the Terme is not for the most part till Allhallowtide or thereabouts." Why, then, had the meeting been fixed for so unsuitable a date?

452

November 7th, 1605. (Dom. James I.)

453

Tanner MSS. lxxv. 44.

454

Ibid.

455

On his arrival in England, as Osborne tells us (Memoirs, p. 276), King James "brought a new holiday into the Church of England, wherein God had publick thanks given him for his majestie's deliverance out of the hands of Earle Goury;" but the introduction was not a success, Englishmen and Scots alike ridiculing it. Gunpowder Plot Day was more fortunate.

456

Harleian Miscellany, iv. 251.

457

"And so by degrees to the uttermost."

458

These instructions furnish an interesting specimen of the king's broad Scotch, e. g., "Quhat Gentlewomans Letter it was yt was founde upon him, and quhairfor doth she give him an other Name in it yn he giues to himself. If he was ever a papiste; and if so, quho brocht him up in it. If otherwayes, hou was he convertid, quhair, quhan, and by quhom."

The following passage is very characteristic of the writer:

"Nou last, ye remember of the crewellie villanouse pasquille yt rayled upon me for ye name of Brittanie. If I remember richt it spake something of harvest and prophecyed my destructi[o about yt tyme. Ye may think of ys, for it is lyke to be by ye Laboure of such a desperate fellow as ys is."

459

The Arraignment and execution of the late traitors, etc., 1606.

460

See, for instance, London and the Kingdom (mainly from the Guildhall Archives), by Reginald R. Sharpe, ii. 13.

461

P. 9.

462

Lewis Owen, Unmasking of all popish Monks, etc. (1628), p. 49.

463

Dom. James I. lvii. 92-93, October 5th.

464

At the time of the Plot Charles was not quite five years old.

465

Erskine.

466

Dom. James I. lxxii. 129.