Page:Guy Fawkes, or, The history of the gunpowder plot.pdf/14

14 off his coals in order to remove. Fawkes carefully surveyed this large vault situated immediately below the House of Lords, and perceived its fitness for their purpose. The difficulties connected with breaking through the wall, its thickness, the damp of the situation, for water was continually oozing through the stone work, and the danger of discovery from noise, disposed the confederates to abandon their operations, and to possess themselves of the cellar of Bright. The vault was immediately hired, and thirty-six barrels of powder were carried by night from Lambeth; iron bars and other tools that had been used in mining were also thrown among the powder that the breach might be the greater, and the whole was covered over with faggots. Lumber of various kinds was placed in the cellar, to prevent any suspicion of the curious or the watchful.

In May 1605, the preparations were complete: the conspirators, having marked the door, in order that it might be seen if any one entered the vault, consented to separate. Before their separation, however, it was proposed that an attempt should be made to obtain foreign co-operation, by informing Sir William Stanley and Owen of the project. This was agreed to on condition of their being sworn to secrecy, and Fawkes was despatched to Flanders for the purpose of conferring with them. Sir Edmund Baynham was also sent on a mission to the Pope, that, when the news of the explosion arrived at Home, he might be prepared to negotiate on behalf of the conspirators, and to explain that the design of the plot was the re-establishment of Catholicism.