What was the Gunpowder Plot? Part 27

Finally we have the king's instructions as to Faukes [_Gunpowder Plot Book_, No. 17]. "The gentler tortours are to be first usid unto him, _et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur_,[458] and so G.o.d speede your goode worke."[459] Guy's signature of November 9th is sufficient evidence that it was none of the "gentler tortours" which he had endured.

In the violently Protestant account of the execution of the traitors,[460] we read: "Last of all came the great Devil of all Faukes, who should have put fire to the powder. His body being weak with torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder, but with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to brake his neck with the fall."

APPENDIX L. (p. 227).

_Myths and Legends of the Powder Plot._

AROUND the Gunpowder Plot has gathered a ma.s.s of fabulous embellishment too curious to be pa.s.sed over in silence. This has chiefly attached itself to Guy Faukes, who, on account of the desperate part allotted to him has impressed the public mind far more than any of his a.s.sociates, and has come to be erroneously regarded as the moving spirit of the enterprise.

One of the best authenticated facts regarding him is that when apprehended he was booted and spurred for a journey, though it is usually said that he was to have travelled by water.

There is, however, a strange story, told with much circ.u.mstantiality, which gives an elaborate but incomprehensible account of a tragic underplot in connection with him. This is related at considerable length in a Latin hexameter poem, _Venatio Catholica_, published in 1609, in the _History of the Popish Sham Plots_, and elsewhere. According to this tangled tale the other conspirators wished both to get rid of Faukes, when he had served their purpose, and to throw the suspicion of their deed upon their enemies, the Puritans. To this end they devised a notable scheme. A certain Puritan, named Pickering, a courtier, but a G.o.dly man, foremost amongst his party, had a fine horse ("Bucephalum egregium"). This, Robert Keyes, his brother-in-law, purchased or hired, and placed at the service of Faukes for his escape. The steed was to await him at a certain spot, but in a wood hard by a.s.sa.s.sins were to lurk, who, when Guy appeared, should murder him, and having secured the money with which he was furnished, should leave his mangled corpse beside the Bucephalus, known as Mr. Pickering's. Thus Faukes would be able to tell no tales, and--though it does not appear why--suspicion would be sure to fall on the Puritan, and he would be proclaimed as the author of the recent catastrophe.

"Hoc astu se posse rati convertere in hostes Flagitii infamiam, causamque capessere vulgo Qua Puritanos invisos reddere possent, Ut tantae auth.o.r.es, tam immanis proditionis.

Cognito equo, et facta (pro more) indagine caedis, Aulicus hic sceleris tanquam fabricator atrocis Proclamandus erat, Falso (ne vera referre Et socios sceleris funesti prodere possit) Sublato."

Many curious circ.u.mstances have likewise been imported into the history, and many places connected with it which appear to have no claim whatever to such a distinction.

Thus we hear (_England's Warning Peece_) that the Jesuit Cresswell came over from Spain for the occasion "to bear his part with the rest of his society in a victorial song of thanksgiving." Also that on November 5th, a large body of confederates a.s.sembled at Hampstead to see the House of Parliament go up in the air.

In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, February, 1783, is a remarkable description of a summer house, in a garden at Newton Hall, near Kettering, Northamptons.h.i.+re, in which the plotters used to meet and conspire, the place then belonging to the Treshams; "and for greater security, they placed a conspirator at each window, Guy Faukes, the arch villain, standing in the doorway, to prevent anybody overhearing them."

According to a wide-spread belief Guy Faukes was a Spaniard.[461] He has also been called a Londoner, and his name being altered to Vaux, has been said to have a family connection with Vauxhall. He was in fact a Yorks.h.i.+reman of good family, though belonging to a younger branch of no great estate. His father, Edward Faukes, was a notary at York, where he held the office of registrar and advocate of the cathedral church. Guy himself was an educated man, more than commonly well read. He is always described in the process as "Guido Faukes, Gentleman."

Another most extraordinary example of an obvious myth, which was nevertheless treated as sober history, is furnished by the absurd statement that the astute and wily Jesuits not only contrived the Plot, but published its details to the world long before its attempted execution, in order to vindicate to themselves the credit of so glorious a design. Thus Bishop Kennet, in a fifth of November sermon, preached at St. Paul's before the Lord Mayor, in 1715, tells us:[462]

"It was a general surmise at least among the whole Order of Jesuits in foreign parts: or else one of them could hardly have stated the case so exactly some four or five years before it broke out. Father Del-Rio, in a treatise printed An. 1600, put the case, as if he had already looked into the Mine and Cellars, and had surveyed the barrels of powder in them, and had heard the whole confessions of Faux and Catesby."

This "general surmise" does not appear to have been confined to the Jesuits themselves. Another ingenious writer, nearly a century earlier,[463] tells a wonderful story concerning the sermon of a Dominican, preached in the same year, 1600, wherein it was related how there was a special h.e.l.l, beneath the other, for Jesuits, so thick and fast did they arrive as to need extra accommodation. The preacher avowed that he had, in his vision of the place, given warning to the demon in charge of it, "to search them with speed, for fear that they had conveyed hither some gunpowder with them, for they are very skilfull in Mine-workes, and in blowing up of whole States and Parliament-houses, and if they can blow you all up, then the Spanyards will come and take your kingdom from you."

Another notable specimen of the way in which reason and probability were cast to the winds is afforded by two letters written from Naples in 1610, one to King James and the other to Salisbury, by Sir Edwin Rich,[464] who announced that Father Greenway--who of all the Jesuits was said to be most clearly convicted as a traitor--intended to send to the king a present of an embroidered satin doublet and hose, which, being craftily poisoned, would be death to him if he put them on.

FOOTNOTES:

[458] "And so by degrees to the uttermost."

[459] These instructions furnish an interesting specimen of the king's broad Scotch, _e.g._, "Quhat Gentlewomans Letter it was y^t was founde upon him, and quhairfor doth she give him an other Name in it y^n he giues to himself. If he was ever a papiste; and if so, quho brocht him up in it. If otherwayes, hou was he convertid, quhair, quhan, and by quhom."

The following pa.s.sage is very characteristic of the writer:

"Nou last, ye remember of the crewellie villanouse pasquille y^t rayled upon me for y^e name of Brittanie. If I remember richt it spake something of harvest and prophecyed my destructi[=o] about y^t tyme. Ye may think of y^s, for it is lyke to be by y^e Laboure of such a desperate fellow as y^s is."

[460] _The Arraignment and execution of the late traitors_, etc., 1606.

[461] See, for instance, _London and the Kingdom_ (mainly from the Guildhall Archives), by Reginald R. Sharpe, ii. 13.

[462] P. 9.

[463] Lewis Owen, _Unmasking of all popish Monks_, etc. (1628), p. 49.

[464] _Dom. James I._ lvii. 92-93, October 5th.

APPENDIX M.

_Sir William Waad's Memorial Inscriptions._

IN a room of the Queen's House in the Tower, in which the conspirators are supposed to have been examined by the Lords of the Council, Sir William Waad has left a series of inscriptions as memorials of the events in which he played so large a part. Of these the most noteworthy are the following:

I.

Jacobus Magnus, Magnae Britanniae rex, pietate, just.i.tia, prudentia, doctrina, fort.i.tudine, clementia, ceterisq. virtutibus regiis clariss'; Christianae fidei, salutis publicae, pacis universalis propugnator, fautor auctor acerrimus, augustiss', auspicatiss'.

Anna Regina Frederici 2. Danorum Regis invictiss' filia sereniss^a, Henricus princeps, naturae ornamentis, doctrinae praesidiis, gratiae Muneribus, instructiss', n.o.bis et natus et a deo datus, Carolus dux Eboracensis divina ad omnem virtutem indole,[465]

Elizabetha utriusq. soror Germana, utroque parente dignissima Hos velut pupillam oculi tenellam providus muni, procul impiorum impetu alarum tuarum intrepidos conde sub umbra.

[This is evidently intended for a Sapphic stanza, but the last two words of v. 3 have been transposed, destroying the metre.]

II.

Robertus Cecil, Comes Sarisburiensis, summus et regis Secretarius, et Angliae thesaurarius, clariss' patris et de repub. meritissimi filius, in paterna munera successor longe dignissimus; Henricus, comes Northamptoniae, quinq. portuum praefectus et privati sigilli custos, disertorum litteratissimus, litteratorum disertissimus; Carolus comes Nottingamiae, magnus Angliae admirallus victoriosus; Thomas Suffolciae comes, regis camerarius splendidissimus, tres viri n.o.bilissimi ex antiqua Howardorum familia, duc.u.mq.

Norfolciae prosapia; Edwardus Somersetus, comes Wigorniae, equis regiis praefectus ornatissimus; Carolus Blunt, comes Devoniae, Hyberniae prorex et pacificator, Joannes Areskinus,[466] ill.u.s.tris Marriae comes, praecipuarum in Scotia arcium praefectus; Georgius Humius, Dunbari comes, Scotiae thesaurarius prudentiss'

omnes ill.u.s.triss' ordinis garteri milites; Joannes Popham, miles, justiciarius Angliae capitalis, et just.i.tiae consultissimus:

Hi omnes ill.u.s.trissimi viri, quorum nomina ad sempiternam eorum memoriam posteritati consecrandam proxime supra ad lineam posita sunt, ut regi a consiliis, ita ab eo delegati quaesitores, reis singulis incredibili diligentia ac cura saepius appellatis, nec minore solertia et dexteritate pertentatis eorum animis, eos suis ipsorum inter se collatis responsionibus convictos, ad voluntariam confessionem adegerunt: et latentem nefarie conjurationis seriem, remq. omnem ut hactenus gesta et porro per eos gerenda esset, summa fide erutam, aeterna c.u.m laude sua, in lucem produxerunt, adeo ut divina singulari providentia effectum sit, ut tam praesens, tamq.

f[oe]da tempestas, a regia majestate, liberisq. regiis, et omni regno depulsa, in ipsos autores eorumq. socios redundarit.

III.

Conjuratorum Nomina, ad perpetuam ipsorum infamiam et tantae diritatis detestationem sempiternam.

Thomas Winter Thomas Percy Robert Winter Robert Catesby _Monachi_ { Henry Garnet John Winter John Wright _salutare_ { John Gerrard Guy Fawkes Christopher Wright _Jesu_ { Oswald Tesmond Thomas Bates Francis Tresham _nom[=e]_ { Ham[=o] Everard Digby, K. Thomas Abbington _ement.i.ti_ { Baldw[=i] Am' Rookewood Edmond Baineham, K.

John Graunt William Stanley, K.

Robert Keyes Hughe Owen.

Henry Morg[=a]

IV.

Besides the above there is a prolix description of the Plot, devised against the best of sovereigns, "a Jesuitis Romanensibus, perfidiae Catholicae et impietatis viperinae autoribus et a.s.sertoribus, aliisq.

ejusdem amentiae scelerisq. patratoribus et sociis susceptae, et in ipso pestis derepente inferendae articulo (salutis anno 1605, mensis Novembris die quinto), tam praeter spem quam supra fidem mirifice et divinitus detectae."

There is, moreover, a sentence in Hebrew, with Waad's cipher beneath, and a number of what seem to be meant for verses. The following lines are evidently the Lieutenant's description of his own office: