The seeds of discontent at the treatment of Catholics in England, which ultimately
led to the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, were first sown in the late 1520s during
the reign of Henry VIII. Henry had been declared Defender of the Faith by the
pope and had written tracts against Protestantism. However, dissatisfied with
the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon,
Henry broke away from the See of Rome, extinguished all papal power in England, and
executed his investiture as the head of the Church of England.
This was followed by the methodical Dissolution of the Monasteries, under the
supervision of Thomas Cromwell, which aided the English war chest and was instrumental
in eroding the English power of the Catholic Church. Henry's Church of England
was initially not Protestant, but remained closer to his traditional belief of
Catholicism.
In the turbulent years that followed Henry's death, England swayed back and forth on
a theological pendulum. Henry's successor, his son Edward VI, steered the
Anglican Church down the path of Protestantism, whereas his sister "Bloody" Mary I
attempted to violently restore England to Catholicism through severe Protestant
persecution, until Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, when the tide was again
reversed.
Fearful of a now encroaching Catholic Europe, Elizabeth embarked upon a systematic
course of repression and persecution of Catholics within her own country, in an
attempt to ensure that there was no discontented populace which could assist a
foreign invasion, or which could be seen as a beacon if a foreign invasion occurred.
When the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, Elizabeth had all but
extinguished the hopes for an end to persecution of those Catholics in England who
saw Spain as their great ally.
The previous year she had had her rival, the deposed and imprisoned
Mary Queen of Scots, executed in order to prevent
underground Catholic cells rallying to Mary's cause and attempting to depose
Elizabeth. Such activities as this had been only too evident in the
Babington Plot of 1586 which uncovered Mary's coveting of the English crown
and which was subsequently a main reason for her eventual execution.
Mary's claim to the English throne came through her grandmother Margaret Tudor,
Henry VIII's eldest sister, who had married James IV of Scotland. When
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, there was disagreement about her right to follow
Mary I. Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn, was according to some, not legally
married, because Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon was not legal as it would
not be ratified by the Pope (the reason Henry broke away from the Catholic Church).
So, upon Anne Boleyn's execution for treason, Elizabeth was separately
declared a bastard, then removed from the succession by an act of the Privy Council.
However, Henry placed her back in the succession, but never legitimized her.
Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Catholic strongholds in the north of
England, who had been instrumental in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536/37 and the
Norfolk and Northern Uprising of 1569, began sending envoys to both Phillip II of
Spain and James VI of Scotland (the son of Mary Queen of Scots). It had become
illegal to talk of the succession, yet James was commonly seen as Elizabeth's
heir by both Protestants and Catholics, by virtue of closeness of blood to Henry
VIII.
The Essex Rebellion of 1601 brought the names of many of those who were at the
forefront of the Catholic cause to the attention of the Government, including
that of Robert Catesby, who was later to become the leader of the Gunpowder Plot.
The Catholics, relieved at the prospect that the son of a Catholic monarch
had seemingly been guranteed the throne after Elizabeth's death, had acquired from
James the promise of toleration in the event that he did succeed Elizabeth. However,
their embassies to Spain, dubbed the Spanish Treason, had been met with a lukewarm
response by the Spanish Government, and in fact England and Spain signed a peace
treaty soon after the last of these embassies had returned home.
When James eventually succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 as James I, there was initial
celebration by the Catholic leaders, who under Elizabeth had been persecuted to
such an extreme that any sign of Catholic sympathy risked the severest of penalties,
including death. James, however, was not to be their saviour. No sooner
had the Hampton Court Conference ended -- with no compromise being given to either the
Puritan faction or the Catholics -- than James re-introduced the harsh penalties
for recusancy.
Within a few weeks of this, the five core members of the Gunpowder Plot -- Robert
Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas Wintour, John Wright and Guy Fawkes -- met together
and swore an oath on the Holy Sacrament to blow up James and the Houses of
Parliament when next the Parliament sat.
Catesby was the charismatic son of Sir William Catesby, a prominent leader in the
Catholic community who had been tried and imprisoned in 1581 for harbouring Father
Edmund Campion, the English Superior of the Jesuits.
Thomas Percy was descended from the Earls of Northumberland, who had come to
prominence in earlier Catholic uprisings involving Mary Queen of Scots, and now
worked for his kinsman Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland.
Wintour and Wright, also members of the gentry, had both experienced first-hand
the severity of the anti-Catholic government. Fawkes was a soldier who had
spent more than ten years fighting in the Low Countries under the flag of Spain in
the regiment of English exiles led by Sir William Stanley, himself a self-imposed
Catholic exile.
The conspirators first hired lodgings which were close to Parliament House, and
began digging a tunnel that they hoped would take them under their target. Some
modern theorists claim that authenticity of the tunnel story is dubious, and its
brief mention in the plotters' confessions never confirms its existence one way
or the other. Popular belief, though, indicated that the tunnel soon became
unusable due to water seeping in from the Thames, or that the thick walls of the
Parliament buildings prevented further advancement, so a cellar was soon acquired
by Thomas Percy within the Parliament buildings. In this cellar the conspirators
placed 36 barrels of gunpowder which were carefully hidden by billets of wood and
pieces of iron.
The exercise was becoming costly and more hands were required, so Catesby drew more
accomplices into the inner circle of the plot, including his servant Thomas Bates,
John Wright's brother Christopher Wright, and Thomas Wintour's brother Robert Wintour.
In the ensuing months, Parliament's sitting was continually delayed, allowing
Fawkes to return to Flanders to get more powder to replace the powder which had begun
to spoil, and Catesby to organise further support (and, some claim, to meet with
Jesuit priests, including leaders of the order such as Father Henry Garnet and
Father John Gerard.
John Grant, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Keyes, Ambrose Rookwood, and Catesby's cousin
Francis Tresham were subsequently brought into the plot. Tresham was the son
of Sir Thomas Tresham, one of the leading Catholics of the later Elizabethan period,
and one who had suffered greatly for his faith at the hands of the government.
Grant was the brother-in-law of Robert and Thomas Wintour, and Digby, Keyes and
Rookwood were also disaffected members of Midland Catholic families. All but
Fawkes and Bates were related either by blood or marriage.
On the 26th of October 1605, ten days before Parliament was due to sit, an unknown
messenger delivered a letter to William Parker, Lord Monteagle at his house in
Hoxton, outside London. Monteagle had been a staunch Catholic whose ardour had
cooled after he had obtained favour under the new regime. The "Monteagle Letter"
was an attempt to warn Monteagle not to attend the opening of Parliament because
of a great calamity that would consume it. Monteagle at once delivered the
letter to Robert Cecil, James' Secretary of State. Within hours, word was
received by the conspirators that the letter existed. Catesby and Thomas
Wintour immediately suspected that Tresham had written the letter, although Tresham
convinced them that he had not been the author.
Over the next few days, the conspirators played a waiting game. Through their
own efforts, and through information that found its way to them, they concluded that
the letter had not alerted the government to their plans, and they continued with
their actions. On the night of the 4th of November 1605, the day before
Parliament was scheduled to open, Fawkes was caught in the cellar beneath the
Parliament buildings with the powder. On his person were found the tools
necessary to fire the powder train. He was immediately arrested and brought
before the king. Over the next few days, Fawkes was tortured, until gradually
he began to reveal details of the plot. At first he maintained the facade of
John Johnson, servant to Thomas Percy, but in time he revealed his true identity and
the names of his fellow conspirators.
In the early hours of 5 November 1605, news spread of Fawkes' capture. The
remaining plotters saddled their horses and left London for the midlands in
twos and threes, except for Tresham who had decided to remain in London. The
conspirators arrived in Dunchurch in Warwickshire and rendezvoused with a group
of followers who had been gathered by Digby ostensibly as a hunting party. This
group -- which numbered about 60, although this figure varied depending on the
source consulted -- arrived at Holbeche House on the Staffordshire border in the
evening hours of the 7th of November. Holbeche was owned by the recusant
Littleton family who had been involved in many of the Catholic uprisings, as well
as the Essex Rebellion, and it was to be the last stand of the Gunpowder Plot
conspirators.
That evening, several of the plotters were injured by an accidental explosion which
occurred while they were drying powder in front of an open fire. This accident
lowered their morale even further. Between this evening and morning of the
following day, several members of the group fled, while others still tried valiantly
to rally support from the surrounding area. Just before midday on the 8th of
November, the Sheriff of Worcester arrived with a posse of men and surrounded the
house. After several attempts to have the conspirators surrender, a skirmish
developed. Catesby, the two Wrights and Thomas Percy were all fatally wounded.
The remaining known conspirators were apprehended (except Robert Wintour and Stephen
Littleton who had fled), imprisoned in Worcester jail, and then transported to London
to await trial. Four days after the siege at Holbeche, Francis Tresham was
arrested in London and sent to the Tower of London. After spending two months
on the run, Wintour and Littleton were eventually apprehended at Hagley House.
Thomas Wintour, the most senior of the plotters still alive, made his celebrated
confession at the end of November. Conjecture exists today as to the
authenticity of this confession, and it should be understood that the two primary
sources from which most of the factscome down to us today come from this confession
and the confession of Fawkes. By the 23rd of December, Francis Tresham had
succumbed to a urinary tract infection and had died in the Tower. The
mysterious circumstances surrounding this death still generate debate over Tresham's
true role in the Gunpowder Plot, and whether he was in fact poisoned or whether he
was allowed to escape.
The government now made extensive plans to track down the Jesuit priests, led by
Henry Garnet, who they were still convinced were the masterminds behind the plot.
Although all the plotters categorically denied any involvement by Garnet
and his Jesuit colleagues, Robert Cecil was still trying to pin the blame on the
Jesuits as justification for the Government's severe anti-Catholic legislation.
Garnet was eventually captured at Hindlip, home of the recusant Thomas Habington,
along with the Jesuit Edward Oldcorne and Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay-brother who
was skilled in the building of "priest holes". The information on Garnet's
whereabouts was supplied by Humphrey Littleton, who had been with the plotters
on the 8th of November, and was now trying to buy himself a pardon. This
attempt was ultimately to no avail, as Littleton was eventually executed for
complicity in the Plot.
On the day of Garnet's capture, the 27th of January 1606, the trial of the eight
surviving conspirators began. None denied the charge of treason, and all
were condemned to be executed. On Thursday the 30th of January, Digby, Robert
Wintour, John Grant and Thomas Bates were executed in St. Paul's Churchyard.
The following day, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes and Guy Fawkes were
executed in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster.
All eight men were hanged, drawn and quartered as was customary for traitors.
Those who died at Holbeche were exhumed, and their heads removed to be displayed on
pikes.
Father Henry Garnet was executed on the 3rd of May 1606.
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