Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/36

22 of their house, when they again swore to be faithful to each other, and they began by night their preparations. Behind the house, in a garden, and adjoining the parliament house, stood an old building. Within this they began to perforate the wall, one keeping watch whilst the others laboured. The watching was allotted to Fawkes, whose person was unknown, and who assumed the name of Johnson, and appeared as the servant of Percy. Three of the others worked whilst the fourth rested. During the day they toiled at undermining the wall, and during the night they buried the rubbish under the earth in the garden. They had laid in a store of eggs, dried meats, and the like, so that no suspicion should be excited in the neighbourhood by their going in and out, or from there being brought in provisions for so many persons. They thus laboured indefatigably for a fortnight, when Fawkes brought them the intelligence that parliament was prorogued from the 7th of February to the 3rd of October. On this they agreed to cease their labours till after the Christmas holidays, and to separate to their respective residences, and agreeing neither to meet in the interim, nor to correspond or send messages to each other regarding the plot.

During their late labours, as they discussed various matters, Catesby, to his dread and mortification, discovered a strong tendency amongst his associates to doubt the lawfulness of their attempt, because innocent people must perish with the guilty, catholics amid the persecuting protestants. In vain he employed all his ingenuity in reasoning, he saw the feeling remain, and he endeavoured to secure a plausible argument before their coming together again. He therefore consulted Garnet, the provincial of the Jesuits, an this point. He had accepted a commission as captain in a regiment of cavalry, to be commanded by Sir Charles Percy, in the service of the archduke. He now observed to Garnet in a large company that he had no doubt about the justice of the war on the side of the archduke; but as he might be called on to make attacks in which the innocent might fall with the guilty, women and children with armed soldiers, could he do that lawfully in the sight of the Almighty? Garnet replied certainly, otherwise an aggressor could always defeat the object of the party invaded by placing innocent persons amongst guilty ones in his ranks. This was enough for Catesby, the principle was admitted; and on the meeting of the conspirators after the recess, he was prepared to banish their scruple by assuring them that it was decided to be groundless by competent ecclesiastical authority.

Catesby had also employed the holidays in bringing over Christopher, the brother of John Wright, and Robert, the brother of Thomas Winter, to his views. They had both suffered severely as recusants, and the storm of persecution, which was now raging amongst the catholic population, stimulated them to thoughts of vengeance. "In the shires and provinces," says Persons, "and even in London itself, and in the eyes of the court, the violence and insolency of continual searches grew to be such as was intolerable; no night passing commonly but that soldiers and catchpoles brake into quiet men's houses when they were asleep, and not only carried away their persons into prisons at their pleasure, except they would brybe excessively, but whatsoever liked them best besides in the house." Gentlewomen were dragged out of their beds to see whether they had anything there concealed. The gaols were crammed with prisoners; priests and missionaries were condemned to death. Sugar, a priest, and Grissold, Baily, Wilbourne, Fulthering, and Brown, suffered death; Hill, Green, Tichbomne, Smith, and Briscow, priests, were sentenced to death, but at the intercession of the French and Spanish ambassadors, were let off with banishment; Skitel, a layman, suffered exile with them for having received a Jesuit into his house. But a case which excited peculiar sympathy was that of an old gentleman of the name of Pound, who had suffered under Elizabeth. He ventured to present a petition to the king, complaining of the sentence of Skitel. Instead of obtaining redress, he was immediately seized and carried into the star-chamber, where all the great lawyers and bishops assailed him with a very tempest of abuse. Coke excelled himself in virulent Billingsgate of the bar, chief justice Popham, chancellor Egerton, Cecil, the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and several of the judges stormed at the poor old man, who stood without a single advocate; but Bancroft, the primate, was thought to exceed them all in violence. They condemned Pound to lose one of his ears in London, and the other in the place whence he came; to be fined one thousand pounds, and to remain a prisoner for ever unless he impeached those who incited him to this course. The queen interceded for the poor old man, but James forbade her ever again to open her mouth in favour of a catholic; however, some time after the French and Spanish ambassador remonstrated on the severity of the sentence, and the old man was suffered to retire to his own house at Belmont, in Hampshire, after standing a whole day in the pillory in London.

The virulence of the storm seemed to increase rather than abate. The penalties were enforced with a rigour which exceeded all past example. The bishops were ordered to excommunicate the more opulent catholics in their dioceses; to sue for writs in chancery by which they would be rendered liable to imprisonment and outlawry, and made incapable of recovering debts, rents, or damages for injuries. Under these inhuman exactions no less than four hundred and nine families in the county of Hereford were suddenly reduced to beggary. The clergyman at Allan Moor, near Hereford, refused to bury a woman because she was a catholic, on the plea that she was excommunicated, which led to a riot, and government were compelled to call in the aid of the earl of Worcester, a catholic, to appease the people, which was done by the aid of the missionaries and priests.

In the midst of this frightful state of things the conspirators again met at their house in Westminster, nerved to desperation by the desolation of almost every catholic family in the kingdom. On the 30th of January, 1605, they resumed their operations. They found the wall through which they had to dig was no less than three yards thick, and composed of huge stones, so that the labour was intense, and the danger of their blows being heard began to alarm them. They had an accession of force to their numbers, the brothers of Wright and Winter, one John Grant, of Norbrook, in Warwickshire, who had married a sister of the Winters. He had suffered much from persecution under Elizabeth, and his house was large and strongly fortified, offering a good depôt for horse and ammunition. Besides these, Catesby had admitted Bates, his confidential servant, into the secret, believing he had more than half-guessed it, and sent him with arms and ammunition to Grant's house in Worcestershire.

Whilst the conspirators were labouring with all their energies to complete the passage through the wall, they