Gunpowder Plot

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby.

The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James's nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the new head of state. Catesby is suspected by historians to have embarked on the scheme after hopes of greater religious tolerance under James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow conspirators were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.

On 26 October 1605, an anonymous letter of warning was sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, a Catholic member of Parliament, who immediately showed it to the authorities. During a search of the House of Lords on the evening of 4 November, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested. Hearing that the plot had been discovered, most of the conspirators fled from London while trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a last stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcestershire and a posse of his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing gunfight Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the surviving conspirators, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

Some details of the assassination attempt were allegedly known by the principal Jesuit of England, Henry Garnet. Although Garnet was convicted of high treason and put to death, doubt has been cast on how much he really knew. As the plot's existence was revealed to him through confession, Garnet was prevented from informing the authorities by the absolute confidentiality of the confessional. Although anti-Catholic legislation was introduced soon after the discovery of the plot, many important and loyal Catholics remained in high office during the rest of King James I's reign. The thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot was commemorated for many years afterwards by special sermons and other public events such as the ringing of church bells, which evolved into the British variant of Bonfire Night of today.

Background

Religion in England

thumb|alt=A three-quarter portrait of a middle-aged woman wearing a tiara, bodice, puffed-out sleeves, and a lace ruff. The outfit is heavily decorated with patterns and jewels. Her face is pale, her hair light brown. The backdrop is mostly black.|[[Elizabeth I, queen from 1558 to 1603]]

Between 1532 and 1540, King Henry VIII took control of the English Church from Rome, the start of several decades of religious tension in England. English Catholics struggled in a society dominated by the newly separate and increasingly Protestant Church of England. Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, responded to the growing religious divide by introducing the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which required anyone appointed to a public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the Church and state. The penalties for refusal were severe; fines were imposed for recusancy, and repeat offenders risked imprisonment and execution. Catholicism became marginalised and its adherence shrank to remote areas that were far from London.

Succession

Queen Elizabeth, unmarried and childless, steadfastly refused to name an heir. Many Catholics believed that her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, was the legitimate heir to the English throne, but she was executed for treason in 1587. The English Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, negotiated secretly with Mary's son and successor, King James VI of Scotland. In the months before Elizabeth's death on 24 March 1603, Cecil prepared the way for James to succeed her.

Some exiled Catholics favoured Philip II of Spain's daughter, Isabella, as Elizabeth's successor. More moderate Catholics looked to James's and Elizabeth's cousin Arbella Stuart, a woman thought to have Catholic sympathies. As Elizabeth's health deteriorated, the government detained those they considered to be the "principal papists", and the Privy Council grew so worried that Arbella Stuart was moved closer to London to prevent her from being kidnapped by papists.

Despite competing claims to the English throne, the transition of power following Elizabeth's death went smoothly. James's succession was announced by a proclamation from Cecil on 24 March, which was generally celebrated. Leading papists, rather than causing trouble as anticipated, reacted to the news by offering their enthusiastic support for the new monarch. Jesuit priests, whose presence in England was punishable by death, also demonstrated their support for James, who was widely believed to embody "the natural order of things". James ordered a ceasefire in the conflict with Spain, and even though the two countries were still technically at war, King Philip III sent his envoy, Don Juan de Tassis, to congratulate James on his accession.

For decades, the English had lived under a monarch who refused to provide an heir, but James arrived with a family and a clear line of succession. His wife, Anne of Denmark, was the daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark. Their eldest child, the nine-year-old Henry, was considered a handsome and confident boy, and their two younger children, Elizabeth and Charles, were proof that James was able to provide heirs to continue the Protestant monarchy.

Early reign of James I

James's attitude towards Catholics was more moderate than that of his predecessor, perhaps even tolerant. He swore that he would not "persecute any that will be quiet and give an outward obedience to the law", and believed that exile was a better solution than capital punishment: "I would be glad to have both their heads and their bodies separated from this whole island and transported beyond seas." Some Catholics believed that the martyrdom of James's mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, would encourage James to convert to the Catholic faith, and the Catholic houses of Europe may also have shared that hope.

James received an envoy from Albert VII,

During James I's reign the European wars of religion were intensifying. Protestants and Catholics were engaged in violent persecution of each other across Europe following the Protestant Reformation. Catholics made several assassination attempts on Protestant rulers in Europe and in England, including plans to poison James I's predecessor, Elizabeth I. In 1589, during the French Wars of Religion, the French King Henry III was mortally wounded with a dagger by Jacques Clément, a fanatic member of the Catholic League of France. Nine years later, the Jesuit Juan de Mariana's 1599 On Kings and the Education of Kings (De rege et regis institutione) argued in support of tyrannicide. This work recounted the assassination of Henry III and argued for the legal right to overthrow a tyrant. Perhaps due in part to the publication of De rege, until the 1620s, some English Catholics believed that regicide was justifiable to remove 'tyrants' from power. Much of the "rather nervous" political writing from James I was "concerned with the threat of Catholic assassination and refutation of the [Catholic] argument that 'faith did not need to be kept with heretics'".

Early plots

In the absence of any sign that James would move to end the persecution of Catholics, as some had hoped for, several members of the clergy (including two anti-Jesuit priests) decided to take matters into their own hands. In what became known as the Bye Plot, the priests William Watson and William Clark planned to kidnap James and hold him in the Tower of London until he agreed to be more tolerant towards Catholics. Cecil received news of the plot from several sources, including the Archpriest George Blackwell, who instructed his priests to have no part in any such schemes. At about the same time, Lord Cobham, Lord Grey de Wilton, Griffin Markham and Walter Raleigh hatched what became known as the Main Plot, which involved removing James and his family and supplanting them with Arbella Stuart, James' first cousin. Amongst others, they approached Philip III of Spain for funding, but were unsuccessful. All those involved in both plots were arrested in July and tried in autumn 1603. George Brooke was executed, but James—keen not to have too bloody a start to his reign—reprieved Cobham, Grey, and Markham while they were at the scaffold. Raleigh, who had watched while his colleagues sweated, had been due to be executed a few days later, but was also pardoned. Arbella Stuart denied any knowledge of the Main Plot. However, the two priests, Watson and Clark—condemned and "very bloodily handled"—were executed.

The Catholic community responded to news of these plots with shock. The Bye Plot revealed by Catholics was instrumental in saving them from further persecution, and James was grateful enough to allow pardons for those recusants who sued for them, as well as postponing payment of their fines for a year.

On 19 February 1604, shortly after he discovered that his wife, Queen Anne, had been sent a rosary from Pope Clement VIII via one of James's spies, Sir Anthony Standen, James denounced the Catholic Church. Three days later, he ordered all Jesuits and all other Catholic priests to leave the country, and reimposed the collection of fines for recusancy.

James changed his focus from the anxieties of English Catholics to the establishment of an Anglo-Scottish union. He also appointed Scottish nobles such as George Home to his court, which proved unpopular with the Parliament of England. Some Members of Parliament made it clear that, in their view, the "effluxion of people from the Northern parts" was unwelcome, and compared them to "plants which are transported from barren ground into a more fertile one". Even more discontent resulted when the King allowed his Scottish nobles to collect the recusancy fines. There were 5,560 convicted of recusancy in 1605, of whom 112 were landowners. The very few Catholics of great wealth who refused to attend services at their parish church were fined £20 per month. Those of more moderate means had to pay two-thirds of their annual rental income; middle class recusants were fined one shilling a week, although the collection of all these fines was "haphazard and negligent". When James came to power, almost £5,000 a year (equivalent to almost £12 million in 2020) was being raised by these fines.

On 19 March, the King gave his opening speech to his first English Parliament in which he spoke of his desire to secure peace, but only by "profession of the true religion". He also spoke of a Christian union and reiterated his desire to avoid religious persecution. For the Catholics, the King's speech made it clear that they were not to "increase their number and strength in this Kingdom", that "they might be in hope to erect their Religion again". To John Gerard, these words were almost certainly responsible for the heightened levels of persecution the members of his faith now suffered, and for the priest Oswald Tesimond, they were a repudiation of the early claims that the King had made, upon which the papists had built their hopes. A week after James's speech, Edmund, Lord Sheffield, informed the king of over 900 recusants brought before the Assizes in Normanby, and on 24 April, the Popish Recusants Act 1605 was introduced in Parliament which threatened to outlaw all English followers of the Catholic Church.

Plot

The conspirators' principal aim was to kill King James, but many other important targets would also be present at the State Opening of Parliament, including the monarch's nearest relatives and members of the Privy Council. The senior judges of the English legal system, most of the Protestant aristocracy, and the bishops of the Church of England would all have attended in their capacity as members of the House of Lords, along with the members of the House of Commons. Another important objective was the kidnapping of the King's daughter, Elizabeth. Housed at Coombe Abbey near Coventry, she lived only ten miles north of Warwick—convenient for the plotters, most of whom lived in the Midlands. Once the King and his Parliament were dead, the plotters intended to install Elizabeth on the English throne as a titular queen. The fate of her brothers, Henry and Charles, would be improvised; their role in state ceremonies was, as yet, uncertain. The plotters planned to use Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, as Elizabeth's regent, but most likely never informed him of this.

Initial recruitment

Robert Catesby, a man of "ancient, historic and distinguished lineage", was the inspiration behind the plot. He was described by contemporaries as "a good-looking man, about six feet tall, athletic and a good swordsman". Along with several other conspirators, he took part in the Essex Rebellion in 1601 during which he was wounded and captured. Queen Elizabeth allowed him to escape with his life after fining him 4,000 marks (equivalent to more than £6 million in 2008), after which he sold his estate in Chastleton. Wintour had also attempted to convince the Spanish envoy Don Juan de Tassis that "3,000 Catholics" were ready and waiting to support such an invasion. Concern was voiced by Pope Clement VIII that using violence to achieve a restoration of Catholic power in England would result in the destruction of those that remained.

According to contemporary accounts, in February 1604, Catesby invited Thomas Wintour to his house in Lambeth, where they discussed Catesby's plan to re-establish Catholicism in England by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. His uncle, Francis Ingleby, had been executed for being a Catholic priest in 1586, and Wintour later converted to Catholicism. Despite his reservations over the possible repercussions should the attempt fail, Wintour agreed to join the conspiracy, perhaps persuaded by Catesby's rhetoric: "Let us give the attempt and where it faileth, pass no further."

Wintour travelled to Flanders to enquire about Spanish support. While there, he sought out Guy Fawkes, a committed Catholic who had served as a soldier in the Southern Netherlands under the command of William Stanley, and in 1603 had been recommended for a captaincy. Accompanied by John Wright's brother Christopher, Fawkes had also been a member of the 1603 delegation to the Spanish court pleading for an invasion of England. Wintour told Fawkes that "", and that certain gentlemen "". The two men returned to England late in April 1604, telling Catesby that Spanish support was unlikely. Thomas Percy, Catesby's friend and John Wright's brother-in-law, was introduced to the plot several weeks later.

Percy had found employment with his kinsman the Earl of Northumberland, and by 1596, was his agent for the family's northern estates. About 1600–1601 he served with his patron in the Low Countries. At some point during Northumberland's command in the Low Countries, Percy became his agent in his communications with James I. Percy was reputedly a "serious" character who had converted to the Catholic faith. His early years were, according to a Catholic source, marked by a tendency to rely on "his sword and personal courage". Northumberland, although not a Catholic himself, planned to build a strong relationship with James I in order to better the prospects of English Catholics, and to reduce the family disgrace caused by his cousin's separation from his wife Martha Wright, a favourite of Elizabeth I.

Thomas Percy's meetings with James seemed to go well. Percy returned with promises of support for the Catholics, and Northumberland believed that James would go so far as to allow Mass in private houses, so as not to cause public offence. Percy, keen to improve his standing, went even further, claiming that the future king would guarantee the safety of English Catholics.

Initial planning

right|thumb|300px|alt=Engraving|Engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by [[Crispijn van de Passe. Missing are Digby, Keyes, Rookwood, Grant, and Tresham.]]

The first meeting between the five conspirators took place on 20 May 1604, probably at the Duck and Drake Inn, just off the Strand, Thomas Wintour's usual residence when staying in London. Catesby, Thomas Wintour, and John Wright were in attendance, joined by Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy. Alone in a private room, the five plotters swore an oath of secrecy on a prayer book. By coincidence, and ignorant of the plot, John Gerard (a friend of Catesby's) was celebrating Mass in another room, and the five men subsequently received the Eucharist.

Further recruitment

The adjournment of Parliament gave the conspirators, they thought, until February 1605 to finalise their plans. On 9 June 1604, Percy's patron, the Earl of Northumberland, appointed him to the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, a mounted troop of 50 bodyguards to the King. This role gave Percy reason to seek a base in London, and a small property near the Prince's Chamber owned by Henry Ferrers, a tenant of John Whynniard, was chosen. Percy arranged for the use of the house through Northumberland's agents, Dudley Carleton and John Hippisley. Fawkes, using the pseudonym "John Johnson", took charge of the building, posing as Percy's servant.

The building was occupied by Scottish commissioners appointed by the King to consider his plans for the unification of England and Scotland, so the plotters hired Catesby's lodgings in Lambeth, on the opposite bank of the Thames, from where their stored gunpowder and other supplies could be conveniently rowed across each night. Meanwhile, King James I continued with his policies against the Catholics, and Parliament pushed through anti-Catholic legislation, until its adjournment on 7 July.

right|thumb|250px|alt=The medieval House of Lords was part of a complex of buildings alongside the north bank of the River Thames, in London. The building which the plotters planned to destroy was at the southern end of the complex of Parliamentary buildings, alongside a minor alley that led to a staircase known as Parliament Stairs.|The House of Lords (highlighted in red) on [[John Rocque's Map of London, 1746|John Rocque's 1746 map of London, within the Old Palace of Westminster. The River Thames is to the right.]]

right|thumb|250px|alt=A monochrome illustration of several short buildings clustered in a small space. A yard in the foreground is filled with detritus.|An early 19th-century illustration of the east end of the Prince's Chamber (extreme left) and the east wall of the House of Lords (centre)

Following their oath, the plotters left London and returned to their homes.

The conspirators returned to London in October 1604, when Robert Keyes, a "desperate man, ruined and indebted", was admitted to the group. His responsibility was to take charge of Catesby's house in Lambeth, where the gunpowder and other supplies were to be stored. Keyes's family had notable connections; his wife's employer was the Catholic Lord Mordaunt. He was tall, with a red beard, and was seen as trustworthy and—like Fawkes—capable of looking after himself. In December Catesby recruited his servant, Thomas Bates, into the plot, after the latter accidentally became aware of it. If the story is true, by 6 December 1604 the Scottish commissioners had finished their work, and the conspirators were busy tunnelling from their rented house to the House of Lords. They ceased their efforts when, during tunnelling, they heard a noise from above. The noise turned out to be the then-tenant's widow, who was clearing out the undercroft directly beneath the House of Lords—the room where the plotters eventually stored the gunpowder.

By the time the plotters reconvened at the start of the old style new year on Lady Day, 25 March 1605, three more had been admitted to their ranks; Robert Wintour, John Grant, and Christopher Wright. The additions of Wintour and Wright were obvious choices. Along with a small fortune, Robert Wintour inherited Huddington Court (a known refuge for priests) near Worcester, and was reputedly a generous and well-liked man. A devout Catholic, he married Gertrude, the daughter of John Talbot of Grafton, from a prominent Worcestershire family of recusants. Christopher Wright, John's brother, had also taken part in the Earl of Essex's revolt and had moved his family to Twigmore in Lincolnshire, then known as something of a haven for priests. John Grant was married to Wintour's sister, Dorothy, and was lord of the manor of Norbrook near Stratford-upon-Avon. Reputed to be an intelligent, thoughtful man, he sheltered Catholics at his home at Snitterfield, and was another who had been involved in the Essex revolt of 1601.

Undercroft

In addition, 25 March was the day on which the plotters purchased the lease to the undercroft they had supposedly tunnelled near to, owned by John Whynniard. The Palace of Westminster in the early 17th century was a warren of buildings clustered around the medieval chambers, chapels, and halls of the former royal palace that housed both Parliament and the various royal law courts. The old palace was easily accessible; merchants, lawyers, and others lived and worked in the lodgings, shops and taverns within its precincts. Whynniard's building was along a right-angle to the House of Lords, alongside a passageway called Parliament Place, which itself led to Parliament Stairs and the River Thames. Undercrofts were common features at the time, used to house a variety of materials including food and firewood. Whynniard's undercroft, on the ground floor, was directly beneath the first-floor House of Lords, and may once have been part of the palace's medieval kitchen. Unused and filthy, its location was ideal for what the group planned to do.

left|thumb|250px|alt=The medieval complex of Parliamentary buildings was mapped by William Capon around the turn of the 18th century. This image shows a plan view of the ground floor levels, where each building is clearly described in text. Reference is made in the House of Lords undercroft, to Guy Fawkes.|William Capon's map of Parliament clearly labels the [[undercroft used by "Guy Vaux" to store the gunpowder.]]

left|thumb|250px|alt=A monochrome illustration of a stone and brick-walled room. An open doorway is to the right. The left wall contains equally spaced arches. The right wall is dominated by a large brick arch. Three arches form the third wall, in the distance. The floor and ceiling is interrupted by regularly spaced hexagonal wooden posts. The ceiling is spaced by wooden beams.|The undercroft beneath the House of Lords, as illustrated in 1799. At about the same time it was described as 77 feet long, 24 feet and 4 inches wide, and 10 feet high.

In the second week of June, Catesby met in London the principal Jesuit in England, Henry Garnet, and asked him about the morality of entering into an undertaking which might involve the destruction of the innocent, together with the guilty. Garnet answered that such actions could often be excused, but according to his own account later admonished Catesby during a second meeting in July in Essex, showing him a letter from the pope which forbade rebellion. Soon after, the Jesuit priest Oswald Tesimond told Garnet he had taken Catesby's confession, in the course of which he had learnt of the plot. Garnet and Catesby met for a third time on 24 July 1605, at the house of the wealthy Catholic Anne Vaux in Enfield Chase. Garnet decided that Tesimond's account had been given under the seal of the confessional, and that canon law therefore forbade him to repeat what he had heard. Without acknowledging that he was aware of the precise nature of the plot, Garnet attempted to dissuade Catesby from his course, to no avail. Garnet wrote to a colleague in Rome, Claudio Acquaviva, expressing his concerns about open rebellion in England. He also told Acquaviva that "there is a risk that some private endeavour may commit treason or use force against the King", and urged the pope to issue a public brief against the use of force.

According to Fawkes, 20 barrels of gunpowder were brought in at first, followed by 16 more on 20 July. The supply of gunpowder was theoretically controlled by the government, but it was easily obtained from illicit sources.