Ancient and Medieval Traitors - Back-stabbers, turncoats and conspirators (True Crime) by Gordon Kerr Page B

removed from the country. After a failed attempt to invade England upon the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth, Fawkes was met by the constable of Castile who was on his way to England to discuss a treaty between England and Spain. Peace was temporarily established between the two countries and Guy returned to England.

    T HE  G UNPOWDER  P LOT

    Following the accession of King James I Scotland, another Protestant, the anger of the Catholics increased. In 1604 Fawkes met with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Thomas Wintour at the Strand, where they all agreed under oath to participate in the gunpowder plot. This oath taking took on a religious side as the men renewed their Catholic vows by performing mass and allowing the re-administration of sacraments performed by a Jesuit priest. In this way they felt that the act that they were preparing to commit, in order to kill the King of England, was justified as it had effectively been endorsed by God. Furthermore, there was general unrest in England due to the arrival of the new ruler James I. Since Elizabeth had neglected to provide an heir, her nearest relative, the King of Scotland finally came to the throne. This united the kingdoms of England and Scotland, but not everyone was prepared to accept this.
    As the plan was formulated, the men were careful to cover their tracks and assume new identities to hide their involvement in such a serious plot. All were aware of the risks that such a dangerous mission would entail and none was more careful than Fawkes, who went to great lengths to re-establish his identity as one of Percy’s servants. He also removed all previous evidence of having been someone who had defected to Spain in order to fight the Protestants in England. By 1605 the plan had really begun to come into formation and the group had rented out a cellar below the Houses of Parliament. Their idea was to place an enormous amount of gunpowder in the cellar and to disguise the room as a sort of storage facility by hiding the gunpowder beneath some iron bars and faggots. Whilst this was going on Fawkes was nominated to take news of the plot overseas to Flanders, and inform Stanley of their plans.
    Upon his return, Fawkes was alarmed to discover that his landlady had suspected him of being a Catholic and he was forced to move out of his lodgings to avoid further suspicion. To make matters worse the progress being made was severely limited as none but Fawkes had been militarily trained and therefore did not possess the same amount of strength. More conspirators were enlisted. This alarmed Fawkes greatly as he was aware that the more people who were involved, the increased risk there was in their plot being exposed. Nevertheless, things fell into place and the plot looked like it was near to completion by the end of the summer of 1605. Unbeknown to the conspirators, however, was the fact that the famous Monteagle letter was soon to come into the hands of William Parker, an influential member of the government, and the details of the plot were no longer a secret.
    Oblivious to this, the plotters met on the night of 3 November 1605 and agreed unanimously that the authorities were as yet unaware of any plotting against them. Aside from Fawkes, each man had made plans to make a rapid exit from the country, once the gunpowder had been detonated. Unfortunately for Fawkes, his military service did not stand in his favour this time, since he was the only one who had experience with gunpowder and therefore had been assigned to stay in the cellar and perform the detonation before making a quick getaway.
    All seemed to be going to plan until the following day when Guy Fawkes was seemingly caught in the act. The Lord Chamberlain Thomas Howard, the Earl of Suffolk, Monteagle and John Wynniard burst into the cellar and immediately began interrogating Fawkes about the contents of the cellar. Fawkes probably thought he was safe when the four men conducted a brief search of