Permission obtained from The Gunpowder Plot Society to publish research from their website:

The Main Conspirators

Four hundred and fifteen years have elapsed since the memorable Gunpowder Plot; yet so great was the perversion of circumstances connected with this atrocious act by religious and political parties, that it is was two centuries before a true knowledge of the event was uncovered.  Indeed, even now some of is still masked in mystery.  It was the policy of James I, and his Ministers, to represent the Gunpowder Plot as having been encouraged by the Pope and approved of by the great body of Roman Catholics in England.  For this purpose, before the trial of the conspirators, an artfully concocted, but dishonest narrative, entitled “A Discourse of the Gunpowder Plot” was industriously circulated in England and, after translation into various languages, was diligently spread over every part of Europe.  In the published account of the examinations and trial of the suspected parties, the evidence is misrepresented in some parts and altogether suppressed in others.  The result of these and similar measures to deceive the world, has been to leave everything concerning ‘the plot’ by Roman Catholics to destroy The King, Lords and Commons in doubt and questionable almost to the present day.  

There has been much research made among documents relating to this plot in the State Paper and in the Crown Offices. It was well known that upon the accession of James I to the English throne the Roman Catholics of the realm had good reasons for presuming that they would no longer be subjected to the oppression which they had endured during the reign of Elizabeth.  The new Monarch was born of Catholic parents, and it was said approved of several ordinances of the Roman Church.  Indeed, some declared that the King had given express assurance before he came to England of his intentions to tolerate the Roman Catholic religion.  One of the early acts of his reign seemed to confirm this intention.  He arrived in London in the beginning of April, in the July he sent for many recusants of distinction who were assured by the Lords of the Privy Council that “it was his Majesty’s intention to exonerate the English Roman Catholics from the pecuniary fine of £20 a month for recusancy imposed by the statute of Elizabeth”. For two years after this assurance the fines for recusancy appear to have been nearly all remitted.  But the Roman Catholics soon discovered from the treats and declarations of James I that he had no intention of granting them toleration.

An act passed both Houses declaring that all the laws of Elizabeth against Jesuists and Priests were to be re-instated and were duly executed. Two-thirds of the estates of recusants, and all their movable goods, were seized in payment of the £20 a month fine.  A bill was introduced to the effect that ‘all persons who had been educated in Roman Catholic seminaries abroad should be incapable of possessing property within the King’s dominions’.  These and other proceedings of still greater severity were resented by the Roman Catholics. Among those in whom these measure rankled most bitterly was Robert Catesby, a gentleman descended from an ancient and opulent family in Northamptonshire.  Catesby’s father, who had become a convert to the Roman Catholic religion in the time of Elizabeth, had been more than once imprisoned for recusancy. Robert at one time had abandoned Catholicism and impaired his fortune by a course of gross licentiousness.  However, in 1598 he returned to the religion of his youth, and devoted himself to the task of making proselytes to the Catholic faith and to devising means to liberate himself and brethren from the yoke under which they suffered.  

With this in mind, he engaged in the ill-judged insurrection of the Earl of Essex. Catesby was wounded and taken prisoner and only obtained his freedom by the strenuous exertions of his friends, and at the cost of three thousand pounds.  After his release he became involved in several seditious plans to prevent the succession of the Scottish King.  Failing in all, desperate of redress and lacking of sufficient foreign aid, he at length planned vengeance which required no help from abroad and required the  co-operation of a few close associates.  His project was to blow-up the Palace of Westminster with gun powder during the State Opening thus assassinating The King, The House Lords and The Commons.  

He disclosed his horrendous scheme to Thomas Winter, a young gentleman of Worcestershire, who was shocked at the proposal. At this was the moment Velasco, the Constable of Castile, had reached Flanders to conclude a peace between England and Spain.  It was decided to postpone Catesby’s dreadful plan until they had endeavoured to obtain the mediation of the Spaniard with King James I for the repeal of the penal laws against Roman Catholics.  Winter moved to the Netherlands, but it wasn’t long until word reached him that there was no hope of obtaining what he sought through Velasco.  Passing to Ostend, he encountered an old fellow-traveller and countryman, one Guy (or Guildo) Fawkes.  

Of the early education and history of Fawkes scarcely anything is known.  It is thought that he spent his inheritance, and down on his heels, enlisted as a soldier of fortune in the Spanish Army of the Netherlands.  It has been the custom to represent this man as a mercenary desperado, but those who knew him well describe him as a ‘gentleman of exemplary temperance, of tried fidelity and dauntless courage, whose society was coveted by all the most distinguished in the Archduke’s camp’.  

Fawkes and Winter returned to England but was for some time kept in ignorance of the desperate part he was to play.  Before their arrival, Catesby had made confidants of two other gentlemen, Thomas Percy and John Wright, and a few days afterwards they all met at Catesby’s lodgings, but he refused to reveal his scheme until every one had sworn a solemn oath of secrecy.  This was agreed to, and the five men again met at a house in the fields near Clement’s Inn.  Here, they swore an oath ‘never to disclose, directly or indirectly, by word or circumstance, the matter proposed, nor desist from the execution of it until the rest should give permission’.  For some time they cherished hopes that James I would listen to Velasco and grant his Roman Catholic subjects some remission of their burdens. The King was inexorable, assuring Velasco that even if he desired to agree a compromise he dared not grant a concession as this would be repugnant to the feelings of his Protestant people.  

Shortly afterwards, it is said that the magistrates received fresh orders to enforce the laws against recusants, and a new commission was appointed for the banishment of all Roman Catholic missionaries.  These proceedings seem to have extinguished the last lingering ray of hope in the breasts of the conspirators, and they hastened to the execution of Catesby’s murderous plan.  

Their first step was to hire a house with a garden strategically positioned to the old Palace of Westminster.  This house was taken by Percy, who, being a Gentleman Pensioner, pretended it was convenient to him for the performance of his official duties.  From the cellar of this house a mine was to be made through the wall of the Parliament House, and a quantity of combustibles was then to be placed beneath the House of Lords. Operations begun excavating the mine, and four of the party laboured night and day, in shifts, with short rest periods.  Fawkes, in the meantime, under the name of Johnson, gave himself out as the servant of Percy, and kept a constant watch on the outside.  After a fortnight of unremitting work, Fawkes brought news that the King had prorogued Parliament to 7 February.  The conspirators agreed to separate, and each went to his own home with an understanding not to communicate in any manner with each other, but to meet again in November.  In the interval it was thought desirable to rent a house at Lambeth, and there they gradually accumulated large quantities of powder and other combustibles, which they later removed to Westminster by water.  The house at Lambeth was committed to Robert Keyes, a Roman Catholic and friend of Catesby, who, after taking the oath had been entrusted with this most dangerous of secrets, and was readily received into the band.  

The Parliamentary Commission arranging the proposed union of England and Scotland had appointed to hold their meetings in the very house taken by Percy.  The work was therefore deferred for a month.  On the 11 December 1604 the confederates again met at the house.  Owing to the great thickness of the party-wall of the Parliament House they found their task to be much more difficulty than they had expected and they sent for Keyes from Lambeth and also enlisted a younger brother of John Wright to aid in the work. All day they dug at the mine, carrying the earth and rubbish at night into the garden and spreading it over the ground.  In this way they laboured without having once shown themselves in the upper part of the House for some weeks.  Fawkes brought intelligence that Parliament was again prorogued from the 7 February to the 3 October 1605.  Once more they arranged to separate, this time till after the Christmas holidays, and then to meet and renew their toil.  In the beginning of February 1605 they resumed, and, by great perseverance and exertion, had pierced about halfway through the wall, when they were alarmed by a rushing noise in a cellar just above their heads.  Fawkes was at once dispatched to ascertain the meaning of the noise, and found that is was caused by the removal of coal belonging to a man who had the cellar.  Upon surveying the place it proved to be an extremely spacious vault situated immediately beneath the House of Lords.  This cellar was speedily taken in Percy’s name for receiving his own coal and wood; about twenty barrels of powder were immediately transported from Lambeth to the cellar and carefully concealed by faggots and billets of wood.  The preparations were complete at the beginning of May 1605. The cellar was sealed, and as Parliament was not to meet till the 3 October 1605 they again parted for some months in order to avoid suspicion.

Shortly after, Parliament was again prorogued to the 5 November 1605.  Catesby was aware of the importance of having a military force to meet any opposition. During the Summer, he set about raising a body of horseman under the pretence that they were to serve in the Spanish force in Flanders.  He collected a large body of discontented gentlemen in this manner, and cautiously introduced among the officers several of the sworn conspirators.  He managed also to enlist as members of the secret band three Roman Catholic gentlemen of wealth and station – Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham and Ambrose Rookwood.

The 5 November approached, and the confederates held frequent consultations at a lone house near Enfield Chase, and another equally desolate on the Marches near Erith.  Here their plan of operations was completed.  Guy Fawkes, a man of tried courage, volunteered to perform the perilous task of firing the mine.  He was to perform this perilous task by the use of a slow match; this would allow him time to escape to a boat moored on the Thames to take him to Flanders.  A list of all the Peers and Commoners whom it was thought desirable to save was made and it was decided that on the morning of the attack each of them should receive an urgent message to withdraw himself from Westminster.

Tresham was anxious that a warning should also be given to Lord Mounteagle, who had married his sister, but Catesby strongly argued against this. Tresham suggested a further delay on the ground that he could not allow the possibility that his brother-in-law may become a victim.  He strengthened his argument by threatening to withdraw his funding. The proposal confirmed the suspicious which Catesby had of Tresham’s loyalty to the group, but Catesby thought it prudent to remain silent. This was the start of the elaborate plan’s demise.  On Saturday 26 October 1605, ten days before the intended meeting of Parliament, Lord Mounteagle ordered a supper to be prepared, not at his residence in town, but at house belonging to him at Hoxton.  While at a table in the evening a letter was delivered to him by one of his pages, who said he received it from a tall man whom he did not recognise.  Mounteagle opened the letter, and seeing that it had neither signature nor date, requested a gentleman in his service, named Ward, to read it aloud.  

Quote… “My lord out of the love I beare to some of youere frends I have a caer of youer preseruacion therfor I would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to devys some excuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament for god and man hath concurred to punishe the wickednes of this tyme and think not slightlye of this advertisment but retyre youre self into youre contri wheare yowe may expect the event in safti for thowghe theare be no appearance of anni stir yet I saye they shall receyve a terrible blowe this parleament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them this cowncel is not to be contemned because it may do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and I hope god will give yowe the grace to mak good use of it to whose holy proteccion I comend yowe” …unquote.

On the following day the very gentleman who had read the letter at Mounteagle’s table co-incidentally called on Thomas Winter.  By way of general conversation he told Winter of the letter the previous evening; adding that his Lordship had passed the mysterious missive to the Secretary of State. He ended the conversation by jesting with Winter that if he were a party to the plot, which the letter hinted at, he should flee at once.  Winter, though alarmed, treated the affair as a hoax.  However, as soon as possible he communicated the intelligence to his colleagues.  Catesby instantly suspected that Tresham was the writer.  

Some days later, Tresham received a letter suggesting that he meet Catesby and Winter in Enfield Chase. Tresham was accused of treachery, but he dismissed the charge with such spirit, and maintained his innocence with so many oaths that although they had decided beforehand to murder him they spared his life. They sent Fawkes to examine the cellar, he found all safe.  Only on his return did they tell him of the new intelligence and they apologised for sending him on so dangerous an errand.  Fawkes, with characteristic coolness, declared he should have gone with equal readiness had he known of the letter; he revisited the cellar once every day till the 5 November.

On 31 October the King, who had been hunting, returned to London and the letter was shown to him.  He read it repeatedly, and spent two hours in consultation with his Minister.  On 3 November the conspirators were advised by Ward that the letter had been shown to the King.  Some proposed to flee; others refuted to credit the story; finally, they decided to await the return of Percy.  Percy exerted all his powers to reassure his colleagues, and after long discussion, Fawkes undertook to keep guard within the cellar, Percy and Winter to superintend the operations in London, and Catesby and John Wright departed for the general rendezvous at Dunchurch. 

On Monday afternoon, 4 November, the Lord Chamberlain, whose responsibility it was to ascertain that preparations were made for the opening of the Session, visited the Parliament House and in company with Lord Mounteagle, entered the vault.  Casting an apparently casual eye, and fixing his eyes on Fawkes, who pretended to be Percy’s servant, he observed there was a large quantity of fuel for a private house and asked who occupied the cellar. He then retired to report his observations to the King, who upon hearing that the man was “a very tall and desperate fellow” gave orders that the cellar should be carefully searched.  Fawkes in the meantime had hurried to inform Percy, and then, such was his determination, returned alone to the cellar.

About two in the morning of 5 November 1605 Fawkes opened the door of the vault and came out, booted and dressed for a long journey.  At that instant, before he could stir, he was seized by a party of soldiers, under the direction of Sir Thomas Knevit.  Three matches were found in his pocket, and a dark-lantern behind the door.  He at once admitted his plan, and declared that if he had been inside the cellar when they took him he would have blown all up together.  The search began, and the removal of the fuel, two hogsheads and thirty-two barrels of gunpowder.  It was nearly four o’clock before the King and Council had assembled to interrogate the prisoner.  Fawkes was then carried to Whitehall, and there, in the Royal bedchamber, underwent examination.  Though bound and helpless, he never for an instant shrank in fear.  He answered every question put to him with perfect coolness.  His name, he said, was John Johnson, his condition that of a servant to Mr Percy.  He declined to say if he had accomplices, but declared his object was, when the Parliament met that day, to have destroyed all there assembled.  Being asked by the King how he could plot the death of his children and so many innocent souls, he answered, “Dangerous diseases require desperate remedie”.  A Scottish nobleman asked him for what end he had collected so much powder, “one of my ends” said he “was to blow Scotchmen back to their native place”.  After, several hours spent in questing him he was conveyed to the Tower of London.