Page:Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot.pdf/22

22 of the night had been spent in examination, Fawkes was sent with a guard to the Tower.

After having received the news of the apprehension of Fawkes, it was agreed by the conspirators, who had assembled at Ashby Ledgers, to take up arms with the few followers they could collect, and to endeavour to excite to rebellion the Roman Catholics in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, and Stafford, together with those of Wales. This scheme was immediately adopted; arms and horses were seized upon, and different parties despatched over the country. But all their efforts were in vain, and the failure of the project so complete, that their proceedings served no other purpose than to point them out as members of the confederacy. A party of the King's troops pursued some of the conspirators to Holbeach, and here an obstinate defence, was made, in which the two Wrights, Percy, and Catesby were killed, and Rookwood and Thomas Winter wounded. The others were eventually taken. Tresham died a natural death in prison; and on the 27th January 1606, eight persons, namely, Robert Winter, Thomas Winter, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Thomas Bates, were tried at Westminster by a special commission for being concerned in the Powder Plot. Sir Everard Digby was arraigned and tried separately for the same crime. Upon the trials, no witness was orally examined; the evidence consisted of the written declaration of Digby's servant and of the prisoners themselves. There is reason to believe that Fawkes was tortured in order to make him confess more fully. All the prisoners were found guilty,