Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/215

Rh filled two hogsheads, and some 32 small barrels; all which he had cunningly covered with great store of billets and faggots; and on Monday, at night, as he was busy to prepare his things for execution, was apprehended in the place itself, with a false lantern, booted and spurred. There was likewise found some small quantity of fine powder for to make a train, and a piece of match, with a tinder-box to have fired the train when he should have seen time, and so to have saved himself from the blow, by some half an hour's respite that the match should have burned.

'Being taken and examined, he resolutely confessed the attempt, and his intention to put it into execution (as is said before) that very day and hour when his Majesty should make his oration in the Upper House. For any complices in this horrible act, he denieth to accuse any; alleging, that he had received the Sacrament a little before of a Priest, and taken an oath never to reveal any; but confesseth that he hath been lately beyond the seas, both in the Low Countries and France, and there had conference with divers English priests; but denieth to have made them acquainted with this purpose.

'It remaineth that I add something, for your better understanding, how this matter came to be discovered. About 8 days before the Parliament should have begun, the Lord Mounteagle received a letter about six o'clock at night (which was delivered to his footman in the dark