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Rh it was decided to try a “quiet way”; and Winter was sent over to Flanders to obtain the good offices of Juan de Velasco, duke of Frias and constable of Castile, who had arrived there to conduct the negotiations for a peace between England and Spain, in order to obtain the repeal of the penal laws. Winter, having secured nothing but vain promises from the constable, returned to England about the end of April, bringing with him Guy Fawkes, a man devoted to the Roman Catholic cause and recommended for undertaking perilous adventures. Subsequently the three and Thomas Percy, who joined the conspiracy in May, met in a house behind St Clement’s and, having taken an oath of secrecy together, heard Mass and received the Sacrament in an adjoining apartment from a priest stated by Fawkes to have been Father Gerard. Later several other persons were included in the plot, viz. Winter’s brother Thomas, John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Robert Keyes, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, a cousin of Catesby and Thomas Bates Catesby’s servant, all, with the exception of the last, being men of good family and all Roman Catholics. Father Greenway and Father Garnet, the Jesuits, were both cognisant of the plot (see ). On the 24th of May 1604 a house was hired in Percy’s name adjoining the House of Lords, from the cellar of which they proposed to work a mine. They began on the 11th of December 1604, and by about March had got half-way through the wall. They then discovered that a vault immediately under the House of Lords was available. This was at once hired by Percy, and 36 barrels of gunpowder, amounting to about 1 ton and 12 cwt., were brought in and concealed under coal and faggots. The preparations being completed in May the conspirators separated. Fawkes was despatched to Flanders, where he imparted the plot to Hugh Owen, a zealous Romanist intriguer. Sir Edmund Baynham was sent on a mission to Rome to be at hand when the news came to gain over the pope to the cause of the successful conspirators. An understanding was arrived at with several officers levied for the service of the archduke, that they should return at once to England when occasion arose of defending the Roman Catholic cause. A great hunting match was organized at Danchurch in Warwickshire by Digby, to which large numbers of the Roman Catholic gentry were invited, who were to join the plot after the successful accomplishment of the explosion of the 5th of November, the day fixed for the opening of parliament, and get possession of the princess Elizabeth, then residing in the neighbourhood; while Percy was to seize the infant prince Charles and bring him on horseback to their meeting-place. Guy Fawkes himself was to take ship immediately for Flanders, spread the news on the continent and get supporters. The conspirators imagined that a terrorized and helpless government would readily agree to all their demands. Hitherto the secret had been well kept and the preparations had been completed with extraordinary success and without a single drawback; but a very serious difficulty now confronted the conspirators as the time for action arrived, and disturbed their consciences. The feelings of ordinary humanity shrunk from the destruction of so many persons guiltless of any offence. But in addition, among the peers to be assassinated were included many Roman Catholics and some lords nearly connected in kinship or friendship with the plotters themselves. Several appeals, however, made to Catesby to allow warning to be given to certain individuals were firmly rejected.

On the 26th of October Lord Monteagle, a brother-in-law of Francis Tresham, who had formerly been closely connected with some of the other conspirators and had engaged in Romanist plots against the government, but who had given his support to the new king, unexpectedly ordered supper to be prepared at his house at Haxton, from which he had been absent for more than a year. While at supper about 6 o’clock an anonymous letter was brought by an unknown messenger which, having glanced at, he handed to Ward, a gentleman of his service and an intimate friend of Winter, the conspirator, to be read aloud. The celebrated letter ran as follows:—

“My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance of this Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow the Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be contemned, because it may do you good and can do you no harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the letter: and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.”

The authorship of the letter has never been disclosed or proved, but all evidence seems to point to Tresham, and to the probability that he had some days before warned Monteagle and agreed with him as to the best means of making known the plot and preventing its execution, and at the same time of giving the conspirators time to escape (see ).

Monteagle at once started for Whitehall, found Salisbury and other ministers about to sit down to supper, and showed the letter, whereupon it was decided to search the cellar under the House of Lords before the meeting of parliament, but not too soon, so that the plot might be ripe and be fully disclosed. Meanwhile Ward, on the 27th of October, as had evidently been intended, informed Winter that the plot was known, and on the 28th Winter informed Catesby and begged him to give up the whole project. Catesby, however, after some hesitation, finding from Fawkes that nothing had been touched in the cellar, and prevailed upon by Percy, determined to stand firm, hoping that the government had put no credence in Monteagle’s letter, and Fawkes returned to the cellar to keep guard as before. On the 4th the king, having been shown the letter, ordered the earl of Suffolk, as lord chamberlain, to examine the buildings. He was accompanied by Monteagle. On arriving at the cellar, the door was opened to him by Fawkes. Seeing the enormous piles of faggots he asked the name of their owner, to which Fawkes replied that they belonged to Percy. His name immediately aroused suspicions, and accordingly it was ordered that a further search should be made by Thomas Knyvett, a Westminster magistrate who, coming with his men at night, discovered the gunpowder and arrested Fawkes on the threshold.

The opinion that the whole plot was the work of Salisbury, that he acted as an agent provocateur and lured on his victims to destruction, repeated by some contemporary and later writers and recently formulated and urged with great ability, has no solid foundation. Nor is it even probable that he was aware of its existence till he received Monteagle’s letter. Even after its reception complete belief was not placed in the warning. A search was made only to make sure that nothing was wrong and guided only by Monteagle’s letter, while no attempt was made to seize the conspirators. The steps taken by Salisbury after the discovery of the gunpowder do not show the possession of any information of the plot or of the persons who were its chief agents outside Fawkes’s first statement, and his knowledge is seen to develop according to the successive disclosures and confessions of the latter. Thus on the 7th of November he had no knowledge of the mine, and it is only after Fawkes’s examination by torture on the 9th, when the names of the conspirators were drawn from him, that the government was able to classify them according to their guilt and extent of their participation. The inquiry was not conducted by Salisbury alone, but by several commissioners, some of whom were Roman Catholics, and many rivals and secret enemies. To conceal his intrigue from all these would have been impossible, and that he should have put himself in their power to such an extent is highly improbable. Again, the plan agreed upon for disclosing the plot was especially designed to allow the conspirators to escape, and therefore scarcely a method which would have been arranged with Salisbury. Not one of the conspirators, even when all hope of saving life was gone, made any accusation against Salisbury or the government and all died expressing contrition for their crime. Lastly Salisbury had no conceivable motive in concocting a plot of this description. His political power and position in the new reign had been already secured and by very different methods. He was now at the height of his influence, having been created Viscount Cranborne