The Gunpowder Plot (History/16th/17th Century History)

by Haynes, Alan

  So by a lucky coincidence (or something more sinister?) they had a depot for the gunpowder. Historians of the plot generally do not say much about this critical component of the scheme besides noting it had a tendency to dampness that reduced its efficiency. Long known as a simple mixture, gunpowder dated back to the thirteenth century. Its origin is obscure, but out of the controversies which have raged around its first manufacture, the name of Roger Bacon stands pre-eminent as the progenitor of English gunpowder which from the early medieval period onwards consisted of an intimate mixture of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur in varying proportions according to the predilection of the powder maker.3 The earliest form of gunpowder, known as serpentine, suffered from serious drawbacks, the chief of which was indeed its ability to absorb moisture owing to the hygroscopic nature of saltpetre. The solution to this was so-called corned powder, made in definite grains and known from some time in the fifteenth century; it was less susceptible to damp; did not stratify during transport and weight for weight produced more power in a blast.

  In about 1590 George Evelyn obtained a licence to install and equip powder works at Long Ditton (Surrey) and at Leigh Place near Godstone (Surrey). Soon after he and his brothers were approved sole makers of gunpowder in southern England by the privy council, on condition that they delivered a certain quantity of ‘good and serviceable corned powder’ annually into the royal stores. Their quasi private enterprise made the brothers prominent in the gunpowder world and their mills of prime importance. So the notion that gunpowder was a commodity in tight government control and that they had a monopoly of its sale and distribution is untrue. Despite the fact that the records of the stores of it are missing and that one of Lord Monteagle’s relations by marriage evidently had charge of a store of it, some writers on the plot have convinced themselves (if not others) that Catesby and company could only have obtained gunpowder with the active connivance of the government. One Matthew Batty mentioned that Monteagle himself had purchased some, and in a copy of a note made by Sir Edward Coke, the price of the gunpowder discovered on 4/5 November was put down at £200. So how much gunpowder did this buy? The best figure from unfortunately varying estimates may be that of Coke himself who always said thirty-six barrels. Salisbury in writing to English ambassadors abroad described the amount as ‘two hogshead and 32 small barrels’ – which could be the same net weight. Recently a leading explosives expert, Dr Sidney Alford, has calculated that the plotters had something approaching 2,500 kg of gunpowder, which he has also suggested was five times the amount necessary to demolish the building, despite the fact that early seventeenth-century gunpowder was perhaps half as powerful as that manufactured today.4 A reading of the Ordnance records by N.A. Rogers says that 18 cwt was removed from the Tower on 7 November.

  Once in their new (and it was hoped) final resting-place, the casks were covered with firewood, 500 faggots and 3,000 billets, presumably carted in and then unloaded by hired porters. The material was piled over the explosive by Fawkes who now had time for such things, the mining having been ended to all-round relief. In Thomas Winter’s confession of 23 November 1605 (regarded by Catholic historians as a fake, but now reinstated as genuine), he declared that the barrels were completely hidden so ‘we might have the house free, to suffer anyone to enter that would’. Some writers have strangely taken this to mean that anyone could wander in from the street to saunter past the great pile in the underpassage. So how many people would want to go in there and where would they be going? The plotters had been desperate to hire the space because they knew no one paid it any attention – the former kitchen of the palace held no interest for anyone except themselves. Winter obviously meant by ‘the house’ the first premises rented from Whynniard wherein they had spent so much time in grubby and ultimately pointless labour. The plotters may have been too insouciant for their own good, but they were not fools, and they were not hankering to be captured through boldly parading their intent.

  Barrels stacked, they thought their best option was to withdraw from London and Guy Fawkes went back to Flanders. Parliament was prorogued until 3 October, and a plague-city like London while offering diversions was not a comfortable place to be. Thomas Percy kept the key to what had become an explosives warehouse that had to shift for itself. Amongst other places Percy went to Bath to take the waters in company with Catesby. This was intended as a physical restorative, but less easily repaired were his current finances since he was fast being pauperized by his own plot. Percy may expansively have promised to underpin all the expenditure by peeling off monies from Northumberland’s rents, but so far he had done nothing to redeem his commitment. So Catesby very urgently needed to find new funds, and this meant risking approaches to men outside the currently tight posse of mostly inter-related plotters. It made for difficulties, as he knew from some uneasy resistance to the matter put up by his own long-serving retainer, Thomas Bates, who lived with his wife Martha and their children in a cottage on the Ashby estate. He had the distinction of being the only one of the core group who protested against the matter.5 Before Catesby wooed and cajoled him into taking the oath, Bates had been suspicious and subdued, but when he took it and was charged with what it meant this became distressed agitation; and so troubled was his mood that Catesby sent him to confess to the trusted Father Greenway (Tesimond). Bates was to declare that the Jesuit had hushed his scruples by telling him of the merits of the deed, and bidding him be faithful and secret. Catesby was satisfied that his servant would not now betray him in any mode, but he foresaw still possible difficulties with others and he determined to obtain what he called ‘the resolution of the Case’ from his friend Father Garnet.

  The Provincial of the English Jesuits went about unmolested and Catesby had no difficulty in finding where he was and arranging for a private interview on a question of conscience. Not that Catesby’s own atrophied conscience had suddenly flared into action. Poor Henry Garnet was to be simply a pawn to be manoeuvred by a thoroughly unscrupulous man who went from Lambeth by boat, probably at night on 8 June 1605, to meet Garnet secretly at a house in Thames Street. The Jesuit liked a glass of good wine whether in company or not, and since Catesby said he was not consulting his friend ‘sub sigillo confessionis’, it seems likely that they had supper together, with Catesby informally soliciting an opinion. ‘To his fast friend he opened up the Case as far as it was fit and the other willing to know it.’ What Catesby did was fashion a careless curiosity as the talk moved towards the moment for the declaration of the critical question. In the quiet house ‘on Saturday after the Octave of Corpus Christi’ he rolled into the exchanges ‘whether for the good and promotion of the Catholic Cause, the necessity of time and occasion so requiring, it be lawful or not, amongst many Nocents, to destroy and take away some Innocents also.’ Garnet’s later declaration, ‘In truth I never imagined anything of the King’s Majesty nor of any particular and thought it an idle question’ sounds altogether too naive for such a man. It has a hollow ring today and must have seemed even more dubious to his interlocutors. To temper what may seem too harsh a judgment of the Jesuit, it can be said for him that as Catesby’s preliminaries had been to do with war the question may not have seemed glaringly out of place, especially since it had been suggested that Catesby might be going to the Spanish Netherlands to be lieutenant-colonel in a new regiment. Garnet’s reply was more transparent than the question: ‘That if the advantages were greater on the side of the Catholics, by the destruction of the Innocents with the Nocents, than by the preservation of both it was doubtless lawful.’ Catesby still pretended to have doubts, and after a glass or two of wine Garnet was quite willing to reel off his favourite piece of casuistry: ‘That if, at the taking of a town possessed by the enemy there happened to be some friends, they must undergo the fortunes of war, and the general and common destruction of the enemy.’ There was the most compelling statement yet and having given Catesby what he wanted by allowing his tongue to be uncurbed, Garnet suddenly became very fright
ened. Catesby agreed, of course, ‘that he would never be known to have asked me any such question as long as he lived’. The disconcerted Jesuit stared at Catesby who pressed his hand in affirming friendship, called his servant and left. Garnet we learn now ‘began to muse what this should mean and fearing he should intend the death of some great person . . . I would admonish him. This I did after at the house in Essex.’6

  This second meeting took place in July at Fremland. Catesby arrived with Lord Monteagle and his cousin Francis Tresham. Walking in the long gallery, with Monteagle standing apart, Garnet said to Catesby that ‘I wished him to look what he did if he intended anything. That he must first look to the lawfulness of the act itself, and then he must not have so little regard of Innocents that he spare not friends and necessary persons for the Commonwealth.’ Catesby offered to get leave from a third party (Thomas Winter?) to tell Garnet his plans, but the latter declared himself forbidden by papal directive to listen. ‘I told him what charge we all had of quietness and to procure the like in others.’ This did not sit well with an exasperated Catesby: ‘Oh, let me alone for that. Don’t you see how I seek to enter the familiarity with this lord?’ And so saying he moved off to talk to Monteagle. When Garnet felt bold enough to ask Monteagle himself ‘if Catholics were able to make their part good by arms against the King?’ he got a vague reply that James was generally ‘odious to all sorts’. That Garnet had to ask such a question does suggest that he was being marginalized and worse (from his point of view) was to come. As for Catesby, he had evidently been aggrieved by what he considered the priest’s unnecessary shufflings, especially since he was bound to have the ‘resolution of the Case’ as a sound prop when he approached at last those he had singled out to join the plot.

  Soon after the exchange Father Greenway (Tesimond), confessor to Catesby, Winter and probably all the first seven plotters, rode to Fremland. He sought out Garnet in his secret room and begged him to hear him ‘not in confession’ but by way of such. Even an informal communication was horribly unacceptable to Garnet because being a shrewder man than he was sometimes prepared to admit, he had evidently guessed that Greenway knew Catesby’s secrets. He told his fellow priest to keep his penitent’s secrets to himself. This Greenway, now thoroughly agitated, declined to do and he entreated the shrinking Garnet to listen since the matter might injure the faith. The beseeching and cross arguing went on so long that Garnet, tiring of Greenway’s importunings, suggested listening to his confession. This Greenway declined saying it was not his own fault that needed airing, and at length he prevailed on Garnet to hear him out since his risk would be no greater. Perhaps at this point, rather reduced by the argument, Garnet allowed himself a fitful hope that the matter would not chime with his worst fears, so having wrung a reluctant consent from his superior, Greenway told him of the plot.

  It is possible to accept that the full realization of what was going on led to Garnet being shocked and distressed at the wickedness set before him. He believed it invited a common ruin and was a direct danger to him and Greenway. ‘The Pope’, he wailed, ‘will send me to the galleys.’ In contrast to this extravagant hand-wringing, Greenway coolly agreed that the danger was great and that an urgent appeal to the Pope was the only answer. At length the two Jesuits further decided that Catesby should be told by his confessor that Garnet forbade the design which was certain to draw condemnation from Rome. Greenway could also draw Catesby’s attention to the muzzle on Garnet who became guilty of the crime of misprision of treason unless he broke the seal of confession. Of course it is doubtful if Catesby cared a jot for what Garnet thought, having prized out of him already ‘the resolution of the Case’. Snatches of conscience among the other plotters were easily quashed if they arose, and except for Robert Winter the others were in any case too deeply committed to be likely to fall into serious agitation. They seem too to have been dominated by Catesby whose presence and leadership enthralled them and those who joined later. He had energy and administrative ability, while Thomas Winter and Guy Fawkes had the callous temper of soldiers. It was while he was in the Spanish Netherlands that Fawkes told Hugh Owen about the plot, and Stanley would also have been let in on the secret if he had not been absent in Spain. Owen agreed to tell him, even though at this time the old soldier was hoping for a pardon to allow him to return to England. As a realist Owen reckoned that Stanley would not be filled with glee at the wrecking of his personal effort, but when it happened he would go to England to assist in the aftermath. It was not by such men that Catesby’s conspiracy was threatened with discovery; the danger lay with late-comers and innocent friends.

  Garnet’s second conference with Greenway was probably also at Fremland, when he renewed his protests. During this interview he explained to his fellow-priest ‘he hoped to persuade Mr Catesby, who was not a bad man.’ Did Garnet truly believe this or was he trying an oblique approach to secure Greenway’s assistance? Certainly at this point he seems to have been a little more willing to hear Garnet’s plain warning that it was their duty to inform their superiors in Rome, or to urge Catesby himself to submit the case of the English Catholics to the Pope to solicit his direction. Probably Greenway was afraid that stubbornness might push Garnet to declare the confession to be ‘a Reserved Case’ when only the Pope could decide what to do. Now he put it to Garnet that it would be sacrilege to break the Seal, but in the interim he would speak further to Catesby, who had a third interview with Garnet at White Webbs, Enfield around 24 July 1605. It was a favourite rendezvous where the Jesuits met twice yearly to confess and renew their vows in a very discreet half-timbered house full of trap-doors and secret passageways. Hidden among trees and not visible from the Barnet Road, it was rented by the third daughter of Lord Vaux, Mistress Anne Vaux, herself bound by the Jesuit vow of obedience. She was related to Catesby and was a distant cousin of sorts to most of the related plotters. She was also very wealthy and so endlessly hospitable to all Jesuits and secular priests who were called ‘journeymen and workmen’ by their friends.7 As many as fourteen Jesuits at a time sometimes slept at White Webbs, two beds to a room – a ratio better than many inns. Anne Vaux was wont to assume the style ‘Mrs Perkins’ and to pose as the sister of Father Garnet (called Mr Meaze). In another persona she pretended to be a widow and it was as such that she was known to her servants. Gentle and very devout she did have some influence with Catesby and Garnet probably intended her to help him (at least indirectly) to frustrate what he called ‘unlawful and a most horrible thing’.

  Although Garnet’s account shimmers with a deliberate vagueness, it is possible even so to form an outline of the conference between the two Jesuits and Robert Catesby. It was the latter’s habit to stop at White Webbs whenever he passed through Barnet, and he was seldom long away because he had a great affection for Anne. On this occasion, to his great relief, Garnet had just received a letter from Father Robert Persons and this was presented to Catesby with a simultaneous admonition on papal policy. Garnet claimed that whatever device Catesby had in his head it would not prosper if it defied the will of the Pope. Catesby said that if the Pope knew what was intended he would not hinder it since it was for the general good of the country, and the more he was pressed by Garnet the more stubbornly he resisted, declaring that he would not listen to the Pope’s will through a third party. Garnet then acknowledged the limits of his own credit with Catesby and read to him from the Persons’ letter – ‘a man everywhere respected for his wisdom and virtue’ – pressing Catesby to acquaint the Pope with any scheme before attempting it. Catesby firmly declined to do so for fear of discovery. This duel of will and wits between allies eventually ended – the stalemate observed by the silent and deeply concerned Greenway.

  What can be teased out of these reported exchanges nearly four hundred years later? Firstly, that Catesby’s replies were careful and somewhat studied. Secondly, that Garnet’s urgency, together with his warnings to Greenway and his messages by him to Catesby, meant that the Jesuit Provincial knew
the secret heart of the matter. The seal of confession forbade him to communicate this otherwise than to Greenway himself. So in reply to Persons, Father General in Rome, Garnet fudged by referring in very general terms to the danger of private treason or violence against the king, and he asked for papal directives as to what was to be done in that case. ‘I remained in the greatest perplexity that ever I was in my life, and could not sleep at nights . . . I prayed that God would dispose of all for the best and find the best means that were pleasing to Him to prevent so great a mischief.’ Words that are poignant and ironic when we consider the fate of the plotters and Garnet himself. He had slid into a terrible predicament and no doubt he was sincere in his acute distress. But years of clandestine ministry against a background of persecution had led him to countenance treasons and plots against his country and his conscience was no longer as focused and active as it might have been. Indeed, it seems his sympathy was now more stirred by the recusancy fines and more minor hardships borne by Catesby and his cluster, than by the shocking fact that they were set to murder possibly hundreds of their contemporaries, including those who happened to live in the various buildings adjacent to the House of Lords. Garnet knew all this. If he had been a man of stronger character he must have been able to frustrate Catesby’s plans for mayhem, and that without breaking his word as a priest. Garnet never identified such opportunities as arose because he lacked some of the finest moral constituents of courage. As he admitted: ‘Partly upon hope of prevention, partly that I would not betray my friend, I did not reveal the general knowledge of Mr Catesby’s intention which I had by him . . .’