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

163

November 23rd, 1605.

164

The Gunpowder Plot, by L., 1805. It seems highly probable that the "cellar" was used as a public passage.

165

Hugh F. Martyndale, A Familiar Analysis of the Calendar of the Church of England (November 5th). London, Effingham Wilson.

166

Letter to Cornwallis and Edmondes, November 9th, 1605.

167

H.F. Martyndale, ut sup.

168

Letter to the Ambassadors, ut sup.

169

An Advertisement written to a Secretarie, etc. (1592), p. 13.

170

Sir R. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (Harleian Miscellany, ii. 106).

171

Blount to Parsons (Stonyhurst MSS.), Anglia, vi. 64.

172

Such letters are found amongst the State Papers.

173

The amount, it would seem, cannot have been less than this. A barrel of gunpowder, containing four firkins, weighed 400 lb., and had the casks in the cellar all been barrels, in the strict sense of the word, the amount would therefore have exceeded six tons. Some of these casks, we are told, were small, but some were hogsheads. The twenty barrels first laid in are described as "whole barrels." (Faukes, January 20th, 1605-6.)

174

An interesting illustration of this point is furnished by a strange piece of evidence furnished by W. Andrew, servant to Sir E. Digby. Sir Everard's office was to organize the rising in the Midlands, after the catastrophe, but he apparently forgot to supply himself with powder till the very eve of the appointed day. Andrew averred that on the night of November 4th, his master secretly asked him to procure some powder in the neighbouring town, whereupon he asked, "How much? A pound, or half a pound?" Sir Everard said 200 or 300 lb. Deponent purchased one pound. (Tanner MSS. lxxv. f. 205 b.)

One Matthew Batty mentioned Lord Monteagle as having bought gunpowder. (Ibid. v. 40.)

In the same collection is a copy of some notes by Sir E. Coke (f. 185 b), in which the price of the powder discovered is put down as £200, i. e. some £2,000 of our money.

175

Gunpowder was measured by the last = 2,400 lb. (Tomline's Law Dictionary.) In 1607 there were delivered out of the store 14 lasts and some cwts. In 1608 the amount in various strong places is entered as: "Dover Castle, 4 lasts; Arcliffe Bullwark, 1 last; Walmer, 1 last, 8 cwt.; Deal Castle, 1 last; Sandown Castle, 2 lasts, etc.; Sandgate, 1 last; Camber, 1 last."

176

The position and character of the "cellar" admit of no doubt, as appears from the testimony of Smith's Antiquities of Westminster, Brayley and Britton's Ancient Palace of Westminster, and Capon's notes on the same, Vetusta Monumenta, v. They are, however, inconsistent with some circumstances alleged by the government. Thus, Sir Everard Digby's complicity with "the worst part" of the treason, which on several occasions he denied, is held to be established by a confession of Faukes, which cannot now be found among the State Papers, but which is mentioned in Sir E. Coke's speech upon Digby's arraignment, and is printed in Barlow's Gunpowder Treason, p. 68. In Sir E. Coke's version it runs thus: "Fawkes, then present at the bar, had confessed, that some time before that session, the said Fawkes being with Digby at his house in the country, about which time there had fallen much wet, Digby taking Fawkes aside after supper, told him he was much afraid that the powder in the cellar was grown damp, and that some new must be provided, lest that should not take fire."

Seeing, however, that the powder stood above ground, within a most substantial building, and could be reached by the rain only if this should first flood the Chamber of the Peers, it does not seem as if the idea of such a danger should have suggested itself.

Another interesting point in connection with the "cellar" is that the House of Lords having subsequently been removed to the Court of Requests, and afterwards to the Painted Chamber, "Guy Faukes' Cellar" on each occasion accompanied the migration. From Leigh's New Picture of London we find that in 1824-5, when the Court of Requests was in use, and the old cellar had completely disappeared, Guy's Cellar was still shown; while a plate given in Knight's Old England, and elsewhere, represents a vault under the Painted Chamber, not used as the House of Lords till after 1832. Such a cellar seems to have been considered a necessary appurtenance of the House.

177

Afterwards the Electress Palatine.

178

Gardiner, Hist. i. 245; Lingard, vii. 59; T. Winter, November 23rd, 1605.

179

Faukes, November 17th, 1605.

180

Harry Morgan, Examination (R.O.), November 12th, 1605.

181

T. Winter, November 23rd and 25th, 1605. As the information about Prince Henry was alleged to have been communicated by Lord Monteagle, the passage has been mutilated in the published version to conceal this circumstance.

182

Faukes, November 5th, 1605.

183

Sir E. Digby, Barlow's Gunpowder Treason, App. 249.

184

Faukes, November 17th, 1605.

185

Digby, ut sup.

186

History, i. 239.

187

There is also an allusion to the same in the confession of Keyes, November 30th, 1605; but this document also is of a highly suspicious character. Of the seven miners, none but these three were taken alive; Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights being killed in the field. Strangely enough, though Keyes may be cited as a witness on this subject, on which his evidence is of such singular importance, the government, for some purpose of its own, tampered with the confession of Faukes wherein he is mentioned as one of the excavators, substituting Robert Winter's name for his, and placing Keyes amongst those "that wrought not in the myne." See Jardine's remarks on this point, Criminal Trials, ii. 6.

188

His detailed notes and plans are given in Vetusta Monumenta, vol. v.